General Information: Images:
Among the first series of "First Edition" Autobots is Cliffjumper. For those who haven't seen the show, you'll probably want to skip this paragraph to avoid spoilers. There was much to do about this character as it's been a while since Cliffjumper was featured on a Transformers show, and on top of that he was voiced by celebrity actor/wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Everyone thought he would be a major player in the series - only to have him get killed and resurrected as a "Terrorcon". So, let's not focus on that shall we? Honestly, it cheeses me off a bit and I prefer to focus on the coolness of this figure.
Packaging: The back features photography of the toy itself and shows what else is available. Contained inside the packaging is a cardboard stand that looks like a cliffside with Autobot and Decepticon logos. This also mirrors promotional images from "Transformers Prime" that showed key characters standing on a cliff. This is certainly some dark but striking looking packaging. Vehicle Mode: Being a rather smooth and sleek looking vehicle, there isn't a ton of complex machinery sculpted into the body of the vehicle. Instead, it is mostly smooth panels with some nicely sculpted details on critical portions of the vehicle including the hubcaps, the rear of the vehicle, an Autobot symbol on the left side and Cliffjumper's distinctive "horn" that is mounted right at the front of the vehicle. Enhancing the look of power to the vehicle are two exhaust pipes on either side of the vehicle angling upward near the rear wheel well. This is in addition to the two dual exhaust pipes sculpted in the back of the vehicle. Good thing Cliffjumper runs on Energon and not gas! Functionally, Cliffjumper rolls on four wheels and that's it. I point this out because while I dig the use of weaponry a la Mech Tech Transformers, it's also nice to have Transformers that are sometimes just pure "vehicle to robot" toys and Cliffjumper represents that. Of course, he looks cool while he's at it! Transformation to Robot Mode:
Robot Mode: I must confess to being extremely impressed by Cliffjumper's fidelity to his CGI model (bulk aside). His head sculpt has the "horned helmet" look, as if he were wearing something right out an ancient empire. His chest as the "split" down the middle with the waist panel and headlights forming a piece that wraps around it. His arms are actually pretty bulky, being made up of most of the rear of the vehicle, and that's really the bulk I think that's needed to convey his power. The designers even tried to simulate the hooked elements on his shoulder by making the trunk panels pointed at an angle. His hip and thigh sections are designed very closely to the CGI model with the hip area having two vertical sections with rows of horizontal lines in them while his thighs have a rounded shape. His lower legs aren't quite as accurate being more rectangular than round in shape, but the designers did manage to get his feet sculpted with the same design as his animated counterpart, albeit in a smaller size proportionally speaking. A couple of smaller design touches are found on the torso section on either side of his neck as well as the panels behind his split chest panels. Each of these feature mechanical details such as tubes or machinery and I love touches like this that suggest "more than meets the eye" (oh yes I did) in robot mode. In this mode Cliffjumper still shows off plenty of red plastic, but black and silver parts also show up as well. They mostly make up joins such as his shoulder joints or elbow joints, but what they do is help break up the potential monotony of just having red over and over again. I'm especially happy that soft silver plastic is used for the horns on his head in this mode, allowing them to look just as sharp here as they look on the animation model. A bit of translucent blue plastic is used here, not just on his chest but also for light piping on the eyes. There aren't a lot of paint applications in this mode, but he really doesn't need them since the CGI model isn't exactly choc full of different colors. The few decos that are there definitely add something to the visual appeal of the figure including the curved parts of his forearms being painted black and his face being painted silver. Overall, the deco on this figure looks great and it closely resembles the CGI model to boot. Cliffjumper has nineteen points of articulation in robot mode. This includes six points of articulation on each arm. Technically if you swing back the sections with the headlights on them you could also use his waist articulation. By now you may be wondering just where his weapons are, and for that we look at the forearms. Each forearm has a panel on it formed from the rear wheel wells of the vehicle mode. Swing those panels up and the push the fists in and a triple barreled weapon will swing out in its place. Snap the wheel well panel back in place and now the arm has "transformed" into a weapon! While many people nowadays may see arms transforming into weapons as something to be associated with the movie universe, but Transformers have been converting their hands into weapons since the days of G1, and it's nice to see such a tradition continued in "Prime". While his arms can transform into weapons, Cliffjumper's fists are designed to be able to hold standard 5mm peg weapons such as Energon weapons or Mech Tech weapons.
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"Transformers Prime" debuted in 2011 as the first fully CGI animated Transformers television show in years. While other shows had blended traditional animation and CGI, this as the first to harken back to the days of "Beast Wars" and "Beast Machines". This show introduced a storyline heavily influenced by the live action movies, and thus the designs of the characters had very "movie like" sensibilities to them.
