BEAST MACHINES: TOY REVIEW

Name: AIR-RAPTOR
Allegiance: Maximal
Function: Surveillance, Sharpshooter
Sub-Group: Dinobot
Beast Mode: Archaeopteryx
Price: 10 USD
Note: This toy is a recolour of Archadys.

BEAST MODE

Height: 11cm at his highest standing pose
Length: 17cm from nose to tail
Wing span: 21cm
Airraptor is a recolour of the Beast Wars Neo toy Archadys, as part of Hasbro's new "Deluxe Dinobots" line. This sub-line complements the Beast Machines line. So, how did they change Airraptor? Well, where Archadys is gold plastic, Airraptor is now bright orange. The dark green feathers are now bright green, and the light blue feather tips are now orange.
This is the one new Dinobot who comes closest to his Neo counterpart, despite being easily separable side by side. He's also not even remotely comparable
to G1 Dinobot Swoop, whom he was probably picked to match up with. Swoop was a robotic Pteranodon, and Airraptor clearly isn't. Airraptor is an archaeopteryx, which looks like a Fuzor in itself, as it has lots of bird feather, and a clearly bird-like body, but he has lots of clearly reptilian elements, including his head, which has a mouth. (*there's actually a lot of controversy surrounding the Archaeopteryx. As far as I can tell, it seems to be some kind of missing link between birds and reptiles. See footnote for more information. - Goktimus)
He has a total of 13 joints, in his jaw, 2 in the neck, 1 per wing, the tail, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. The legs make Galvatron look normal, and gives new meaning to "chicken legs". The upper legs ar every large, but his lowe legs and feet are very small. His robot legs also hang off the fronts of his upper legs, and are very visible, but not quite as bad as what Dinobot/Hardhead had, as only the feet get in the way.

Gimmick: Load the feather bombs under his wings. Each is labelled "L" and "R", and cannot be interchanged. Load them, and press the button on each wing to drop them. Part of the "aerial bombing" mentioned in the techs. This also causes the claws to shoot out, and folding them back reveals small cannons, though they don't face forward. Still, the bomb gimmick is nice.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

Make sure the wings are locked in. Fold up the lower legs, and fold the robot legs out. Rotate the torso so he faces left, with the feet forward. Fold the tail down,
open the back panel, pull the wings back, unfold the head and face it forward, pose the neck as his left arm, and close the wings.

ROBOT MODE

Height: 12cm
Width: 6cm from shoulder to shoulder
Well, it turned out better than I expected, despite the fact his wings cover his back and chest, including limiting arm movement. The face looks like a mutant Batman mask. The entire chest is silver with red and blue details, but thanks to the wings, it's hidden. The face mask is red, with a silver centre ridge and chin strap and the eyes are yellow. The right arm has an actual hand, but the elbow bends so the hand is sideways. To make up for it, he has a second elbow in the upper arm which can make the arm bend right, but is so far up, you might as well move the shoulder. The left arm is made of the beast neck and head, but works better as an arm than as a neck. The jaw does give him a useful claw. The legs are curved at the bottom, but the ankles are stiff enough to keep him from tipping over. He has 14 joints, in the neck, waist, shoulders, upper right arm, elbows, left "hand", hips, knees, and ankles.

Gimmicks: Pull put on the shield. Rotate it to bring his gun into his right hand. Rotate it back to hide the gun away. The bomb dropping doesn't work. You can also pop the right shoulder pad off it's joint to get it out of the way.

SPARK CRYSTAL LOCATION

On his chest, though covered by one of the wings. It is one of the new Dinobot insignia spark crystals, in orange plastic. Mine has an air bubble trapped in it through it's dead centre, so it looks nice despite being a mistake.

OVERALL

I really hesitated buying him, since he looked ugly in the pack, but he's better than he first seems, despite a strange beast mode. The bomb dropping is nice, and I love the gun mechanism. Now, speaking strictly to collectors in the West, Archadys and Airraptor are very similar, so you can settle for one or the other. Though if you have the extra cash, you can get Archadys and Mach Kick from hasbrocollector.com for 35 USD in a box set. Either way, whatever you want to spend, it's a nice toy, in any form.

This review was written by Kasady Voorhees.

*Footnote: I normally don't include a Beast Trivia with Beast Machines toy reviews (it's mainly something I keep strictly to Beast Wars and Animorph figures), however, due to the strange and controversial nature of the Archaeopteryx, I've made this one special exception.

The controversy surrounding the Archaeopteryx fossil is one of classification. What confounds biologists is the fossil's exhibition of both avian (bird) and reptilian features. Hence many biologists are divided over whether or not the Archaeopteryx should be classified as a bird, as a reptile, or if it truly is a missing link between the two.

The Archaeopteryx lived primarily during the Late Jurassic Age (from 190,000,000 to 54,000,000 years ago). Specimens were discovered in the Solenhofen Limestone Formation in Bavaria. The fine grained Jurassic limestone left the fossils exceptionally well preserved.

A real life Fuzor?

Archaeopteryx was reptilian in appearance. Only about the size of a large crow, it was very small. It shared some anatomical characteristics with some of the smaller bipedal dinosaurs (remember, there were just as many tiny dinosaurs as there were giant ones). The skull resembled that of a bird, possessed an expanded braincase, large eye sockets and a pronounced beak. However, unlike modern birds, the beak had well developed teeth. The head was balanced on a long, thin and most likely very flexible neck. The spinal column was very simplistic. Its long, well developed tail resembled that of the smaller dinosaurs, however, it had feathers on either side. Whereas the hind legs possessed three birdlike claws, the forelimbs retained many primitive reptilian features and had not completed their transformation into wings. It's very possible that Archaeopteryx was capable of flight, but if it was, it would not have been very efficient. The prominent keel, or sternum, which provides a place of attachment for powerful flight muscles in modern birds, was weakly developed in Archaeopteryx. This is further indication for its incapacity for sustained flight. It is mainly due to the presence of well developed, essentially modern feathers, that have convinced some scholars to classify Archaeopteryx as a bird, rather than a reptile. Their excellent insulating properties also indicate that Archaeopteryx may have been warm-blooded.

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