FOC – JAZZ

Well after a long vacation week, I finally returned home and immediately opened up Fall of Cybertron Jazz:

Now as some of you know, Jazz is my all time favorite Transformer.  Sure I have a bunch of favorites, but Jazz always takes the cake.  FOC Jazz is based on his War For Cybertron (and presumably Fall of Cybertron) in game Model:

Hasbro did a really good job of creating a figure with great representation of the game model.  Of course, many, MANY people have pointed out that his legs are a bit too skinny (and his arms are a touch too long) but the way I see it: You can either pick something apart till there’s nothing left but resentment (i.e. FOC Optimus Prime, Bruticus, etc..) or appreciate the steps forward and look for the silver lining.  I fall in that second category.  But…I’ve said before, the head sculpt on a toy makes it or breaks it for me and while Jazz’s head is good and really game accurate, I just couldn’t get on board with it.  So I did a little modification:

Jazz’s visor should be blue, and while FOC Jazz’s visor IS blue when the light piping is active, in normal light it looks black and that seems a bit off to me.

The RTS Jazz head keeps the proportions the same, without making him look odd:

I love RTS Jazz.  LOVE HIM.  He is the epitome of a Transformer figure to me.  And seems I had a spare head from my Dead End project – all I really had to do was create a double ball joint (easier than it sound) and pop the RTS Jazz head on.  There is just enough black (mainly on the back in Robot mode) for the head to not look odd seems its not blue.  I also swapped pistols with RTS Jazz, but I’ll get into that later.

I popped a Repro Autobot Sigil on his chest as well:

As much as I’m biased towards anything Jazz, there are some issues with the figure – for one thing, his waist piece should be black, or grey, anything but white. He looks too “All white” without some black in there to break up the waist and the chest.  I also appreciate that Hasbro wanted the wheels in his ankles like the game model, and so had to basically mold them into the legs, but I think he could benefit from some ankle articulation.    Its just a bit unfortunate that you can still see his front tires on the chest as well, making it seem like he has six sets of tires.

One of my favorite parts of the design from the game model is how the thrusters end up on Jazz’s back – and luckily the figure does this just right!

I still really like the robot mode a lot.  If Reprolables doesn’t come out with a set to add some black/grey in there, I may consider painting the waist and adding some minor touches to spruce him up a bit.

But as much as I like the Robot mode, Car mode is where Jazz shines the brightest:

I mean…its spot on from the game.  And I think it is rather ingenious the way they created the transformation – flaws and all.  Hasbro’s trying to change things up a bit and I applaud their efforts.

Those thrusters that make robot mode awesome, are even better on car mode:

Here’s the black that makes the RTS head not so out of place.  The one thing I don’t like is weapons that pop into the roof, they seem kind of out of place and for a sport-type car like Jazz, entirely anti-aerodynamic. So that is why I swapped the pistol with RTS Jazz.  Because the old gun can fold up and fill the odd hole in the back of FOC Jazz’s car mode (albeit not perfectly) – and the FOC pistol fits under RTS Jazz’s chest:

Its never a good idea to put an original back to back with a follow up.  Obvious examples include Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, Coca-cola and Coke 2, etc – but in order to get a nice shoulder-to-shoulder size shot, here’s FOC Jazz and RTS Jazz.  Not horrible, but RTS Jazz still holds the trophy:

The Scrapmaker from Shockwave fits on his forearm too, but not perfectly:

He can also just hold it, which works better.

 

And of course, the obligatory size comparison shot with G1 ‘Bee and the rest of Wave 1:

In the end, Jazz can do no wrong by me and while this mold has its issues, he’s still my favorite of the three, despite Shockwave being the common favorite.  He tends to highlight the biggest issue with Prime, which is his size seems Jazz is as tall if not a touch taller (with the original head) than Optimus.  But that’s not Jazz’s fault…he’s just too awesome.
Tomorrow: SDCC Combaticons Part 1: Blast Off

Stay tuned!