Blog #667: Toy Reviews: Botcon 2014 Deluxe Dread Pirate Crew

Botcon 2014 Deluxe Dread Pirate Crew

Car

Mold: Transformers: Prime Deluxe Vehicon (Repainted, No Mold Changes, Includes Takara Micron)

Jet

Mold: Transformers: Arms Micron Deluxe Air Vehicon (Repainted, No Mold Changes)

I was really psyched for these guys until I read their tech spec.  These are absolute garbage.  First off, if you want to do an homage to a character, then do it.  Don’t pussyfoot around it by saying that they were built using stolen designs for said character.  He is Pounce or he is crap.  He is Wingspan or he is crap.  I know that sounds harsh, but they make such a big deal about their awful fiction, that they have to be responsible for what they do in it.  I mean really, their names are “The Dread Pirate Crew.”  I don’t even mind that they aren’t animals.  In fact, the toys work really well, though they should have done Fastlane and Cloudraker.  If they are smart they’ll do them for the Subscription Service 4.0, since they unbelievably aren’t doing them for 3.0.

The only major problem with the toys themselves is the Arms Micron partners.  They look like crap without even having the logos put on like they did with Frenzy.  I saw someone online who acquired an unreleased sticker sheet for them.  Really brilliant to design the stickers and not release them.  To my knowledge they don’t even have names.

Update: So, I was trying to find out if these guys have names and found that Seibertron.com was referring to them as Pillage and Plunder.  It took some searching, but I figured out where they got that, and it’s complete and total garbage.  Apparently Thunderclap and Rolling Thunder are two “Dread Pirate Crew” members and named their partners Pillage and Plunder.  The problem is that has no bearing on the toys since the names Thunderclap and Rolling Thunder DO NOT APPEAR ON THE TECH SPEC.  If that was what the Tech Spec called them, then I would be fine with taking the names from the fiction, but that is not the case.  I have revised my grade to an F- for gross stupidity.  As a side note, I got a real kick out of people in comments saying that they would be skipping these in favor of the third party toys of Pounce and Wingspan that are coming out.  I’m sure Fun Pub loved that.

Grade: F-

Botcon 2014 Merchandise & Toy Reviews

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