Courtesy of Hellscream, today's subject is the
Cybertron figure,
Starscream. Starscream, released in the ginormous
SUPREME size class, is a shining example of a toy that was released in a size class that didn't really seem to fit the character or just didn't make sense. In the U.S., we did not receive the Voyager-sized Starscream that was released in
Galaxy Force, having to instead settle for the later recolor that was available as part of
Toys 'R' Us exclusive alongside an unchanged Vector Prime. Scale has always been a topic of discussion amongst the Transformers community, but some Transformer figures just really seem like they should have been either smaller or larger than the toys we actually got. For example, from
Beast Machines, we had
Nightscream released as Ultra class figure, depsite not being that large a figure on the television program, but we also had
Silverbolt, who ended up being a puny basic even though he was a fairly decent-sized bot on the show. Beast Machines was not the only offender, however, as the Movie 2007 figure
Blackout, billed as the largest Decepticon at the time, only received a Voyager class toy, whereas
Bonecrusher was released only as a deluxe (a fact that he absolutely hated). Animated
Roll Out Command Prime is another toy that many felt was incorrectly-sized - he was simply too large, too expensive, and not very complex for the price. None, however, can compare to the extravagance of the oversized monstrosity that was Beast Machines
Cheetor. Billed as a figure that was the size of a house cat packed with awesome features, Cheetor just failed on many levels - who cares if he's big, is it a fun toy? And the answer to that, according to many, was, unfortunately, a big fat "no" - too many half-hearted gimmicks, stability issues, too pricey, and so-forth were all major gripes at the time he was released. So, I guess the answer to that age-old question "Does size matter?", at least when it comes to Transformers, the answer seems to be a resounding "yes".
