Cliffbee.com Farsight T-20 Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Farsight T-20
Series: Movie Tie-ins
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Binoculars



BINOCULARS MODE
Height: 2.5cm Length: 6.5cm Width: 8.5cm

   A royal blue and black set of binoculars, Farsight's main body is yellow while the edges are black with grey grip on either side. He's a repaint of Longview, although the addition of a third colour (grey) is is an addition here. There's a large white stamped Autobot logo on top, facing forward. Behind this are five painted adjustment buttons, but no name tag as opn Longview. I guess it goes without saying that there's colourless plastic on the lenses at front and back. Impressively the underside doesn't have a robot detail. The underside is half blue and half grey with some black elements. The colour scheme is realistic enough, other than the faction symbol. The robot eyes on the front of Longview are gone, along with the lack of a name tag, I'd say this one is slightly more realistic.

   Farsight isn't quite life sized - in fact he's probably half the size he should be. Still, the idea works quite well and while he'd still be too small for most kids, the size is good for smaller children. You can look through the lenses - there are shafts through the toy, although there's no magnification. While the field of vision is blurry, I don't expect much of a basic toy. The buttons on top are just for show, of course, but I like the fact they were added. You can lift up the top panel, which reveals a picture of Movie Prime & Ratchet. I'm glad they updated the picture, but just as on Longview, it's upside down - very annoying that Hasbro didn't fix this. Still, it is easy enough to rotate if you have an artknife to lift it.

   While this is a fairly simple block of plastic, the details Farsight does have sell the binoculars mode well. The mould is quite novel, and part of the appeal is lost when it's a repaint, but the colours used are nice and he's a little more subtle about his true nature, so he's actually slightly better than Longview in this mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Unclip the grip at the sides, releasing the back of the toy. Pull out the back sections to form legs, rotate down. Fold out the front lenses, completing the arms. Fold the fists out from within the grip sections (lower arms). Rotate the large blue panel with the Autobot logo over onto the underside, forming his chestplate. The head will come with this plate, although you'll probably have to rotate it forward a little. Push the skidplate down (the head lifts it up), fold down his feet and you're done. A clever transformation that's complex enough at this size without being difficult.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 13cm Width: 8cm

   Again Farsight is blue and black, with a blue chest and head along with blue boots. His forearms, thighs and groin are grey while the toes, hips, fists, face and shoulder pylons are black. The Autobot logo is in the middle of his chest while there's a colourless wraparound eyevisor (think Robocop). The dark colours of his head work to conceal his eyevisor, which is a shame. The dark face holds Farsight back enough that I prefer Longview now, but I do appreciate the fact that there's a new paintmask here.

   This robot mode wouldn't be out of place amongst the Microchange line. This is the line which gave us most of the non vehicle/beast G1 toys (Megatron, Perceptor, the tapes) - but there's more than that. The bodyshape reminds me of Microchange. This aspect gives Farsight something of a G1 feel for me, although the colours are too dark for early G1. I love the layout in robot mode nonetheless. The chest is quite wide and the upper arms are the larger lenses, which protrude forming shoulder pylons. I like the shoulders, they make a nice feature but don't get in the way of anything.

   The poseability is easily better than the Microchange standard, with 20 years of toy technology to draw on. His neck and shoulders are ball jointed while the hips swing and lift out to the sides. His elbows, knees and ankles are all hinged and Longview is quite easy to stand. The fists are solid and he lacks a weapon, limiting the play value. While I wouldn't mind a weapon, I'm not that worried here since Farsight is meant to be maybe 20cm tall anyway.

   While the robot mode is simple, there's enough poseability to give him some play value and he looks really nice. The shades of G1 and scale all work in his favour. The lack of a weapon is a minor negative, and the dark colours on his head are the main thing bothering me here - Longview is a better robot as a result.

VARIATIONS

   None that I'm aware of.

OVERALL

   A fun little toy which harks back to a previous era of Transformers. Farsight's binoculars mode is well defined with some nice details, and is an improvement over Longview. His robot mode is attractive and reasonably poseable, but the G1 feel is a little weaker and the dark head counts against it. Overall, he's on par with Longview, so it comes down to preference I guess. If you have Longview, I'm not sure I'd recommend Farsight - I grabbed him because I like the shade of blue used. The mould is worthwhile in one form or another, since it's well executed and represents a welcome change from endless sports cars and fighter jets - 8/10

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