Cliffbee.com G2 Jazz Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Jazz
Series: Generation 2
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Special Operations Agent
Alternate Mode: Porsche 926



PORSCHE MODE
Height: 4cm Length: 12cm Width: 5cm

   Very similar to the Original, the changes are largely sticker changes. Jazz's car mode is predominantly white, with blue musical note shaped stickers on his hood, roof & doors instead of the blue stripes of the original. And he's now #1, not #4. His name and "Autobot" are now visible in various locations, so he's more conspicuous. There's rubber tyres and chromed wheels, a front grill (a recessed sticker) and painted blue headlights on the front as well as a red bumper (again, painted). He has a G1 Autobot sticker on the hood.

   The front of the car and the rear section (excluding spoiler and windows) are painted die-cast metal. The windows are transparent, although he has his side windows down - there are gaps there instead of clear plastic. The doors open, although they reveal robot torso bits rather than a proper cabin. You can sort of see the Diaclone cockpit, it's nothing more than a depression inside the cabin just behind the windshield. There's a hole in his roof to attach his neon-coloured missile launcher. Although I don't know why you'd want to - it ruins the look totally. Still, it covers up the hole, which is the only car-mode mould change from the original.

   A very realistic car for the size, with nice attention to detail in a lot of places and lots of die-cast metal, the colour scheme & stickers add to the overall look and it's show-accurate to boot. The only drawback is that since he has no axles, his wheels roll in slightly different directions so he wont roll very far when pushed.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Pull the rear of the car back, swing it down and split the sides to form the lower legs. Fold up the silver panels to form the feet. Open the doors wide and fold down the front of the car. Reach under the hood and split his arms apart, then fold them out to the sides. Next fold/slide the front of the car up and back to form the chest, and the slide back the windshield and fold it down to become reveal his head. Position his arms and fists, and give him his weapons (missile launcher & gun).

ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm Width: 8cm

   Despite the sticker changes, Jazz's robot mode is still pretty close to the original, and still fairly show accurate. The white's prevalent on the forearms, sides of the feet, thighs & chest. He's got chromed silver & feet, with black head (silver face), shoulders, hands and lower legs. There are stickers on the groin and kneecaps. Basically he's black & white with silver highlights, it's a very nice colour scheme. Oh yes, he has wheels as shoulderpads.

   Jazz's not very poseable by today's standards but he has two joints on each shoulder, with elbow and wrist joints on each arm - which was for the Diaclone toys well above average. The arms are very poseable for G1 period, also by early G2 standards, although the year after this toy was released was when G2 started producing ball & socket jointed toys.

   The stickers in this mode are a combination of stickers the original shared (mainly the robot mode-only stuff) and the G2 musical ones. There's a note on his chest, but otherwise most of those visible are the same as the G1 version's. The feet have small notches on either side of the panels removed, when compared to the original.

   It's a _very_ nice looking robot also, thanks in part to the detail, but that not the only reason. The transform works in the robot mode's favour, since you have the front of a Porsche as the basis of the robot chest - this is a feature lost on many later G1 toys (take Nightbeat or Siren for example - sports cars whose robot modes pretty much don't use the car mode bits). The colour scheme, which I've already mentioned, works well. He retains the original chromed gun, but loses the shoulder missile launcher and is burdened with his giant neon launcher instead.

VARIATIONS

   A slight retooling of G1 Jazz, with a sticker change. The retooling of the feet has been carried over into the recent G1 reissues of Jazz.

OVERALL

   Whilst not as nice as the original, this is still essentially the same toy. The stickers are a change for the worse but they're not horrible. Essentially, his only real downside is the missile launcher. He retains the delicacy of the original - the windshield has a tendency to break - and the heavy reliance on die-cast metal in car mode means that paint scratches can really wreck this mode. Having said that it's pretty durable paint, so it's not a big problem. I'd recommend the original first, but as G2 redecos go this is a nice job - 8/10

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