General Infovmation: Images:
*Text and images from Hasbrotoyshop.com: Recreate exciting movie scenes or stage your own living room battles with this DECEPTICON defender! Convert this fierce-looking figure from panther mode with snapping “jaw” to reentry mode – and gear up for hours of battle excitement!
Beast Mode:
Put simply, Ravage looks awesome in this form, and even better? His sculpt is very movie accurate. He has only one eye at the center of his head and like the movie version (as well as his G1 counterpart) he has two weapons mounted on him. On the G1 Ravage they were rocket launchers mounted on the sides. Here they are machine guns mounted on the top of the hips in the rear. Ravage's details aren't all just about gnashing teeth and bladed tails. He has a fair amount of other detail as well including several raised lines and armor sections on his guns, along with tubes connecting it to his main body. The area in between the panels on his back have small tech details inside of them and each arm has mechanical detail on the inside, protected on the outside by armor plates. Among my favorite details are the hinged pieces connected to his rear legs. There several smooth/curved lines lead to the hip joint looking sleek and elegant. Ravage is cast in black, translucent purple and light silver plastic. Black makes up most of the body while the light silver color is used for smaller parts such as his lower legs in the rear, the hinges his weapons are mounted on and the spikes on his back. Translucent purple is used to cast the eye and the light piping plastic piece on the top of the head. Silver, purple and metallic blue paint are used for his color details. The metallic blue paint is used to wonderful efect for solid details such as the armor plates running down the length of is back, parts of his guns and lines on his chest. Elsewhere they are used as beautifully done spray ops on his sides and rear legs. Purple paint is only used on one spot, a Decepticon symbol on the top of his back section, between the two guns. What's interesting to me about this entire color scheme is that it is not movie accurate at all. Ravage was, for the most part, silver and dark grey in the movie. However, the way I look at it, not only are these colors more aesthetically pleasing, but they simply fit the character better. On top of that, black, purple and silver are three of the iconic Decepticon colors, and using them on an iconic Decepticon only seems to make sense. It wouldn't surprise me if a movie-accurate" version of Ravage was done down the line in more gritty, silver colors with black wash, but for the first version of the Decepti-kitty, I love these colors. One of the joys of a well done beast mode is that you can get a lot of articulation. Ravage has a total of twenty six points of articulation. This includes five in each rear leg and five in the tail alone. His guns are also able to move up and down on two separate hinges. His head does not have articulation, but rather shows off an action feature. Pull back the silver tab on his back and his neck extends forward, his mouth opens and his ears retract, a classic move cats make when expressing aggression. This fits in perfectly with the character and gives you a look at his nasty looking teeth. I like action features like this that give a toy character, and this does the trick. Ravage has a simple "Mech Alive" feature you can see by rotating his lower legs out and and in. The lower legs are attached to his upper leg by a silver piece with ridges on it resembling a gear. As you turn it it looks like the gear is turning. It's a simple, but nice touch. Transfovmation to Robot Mode:
Vehicle Mode: Of course, let's be real, this is a "because we say so" mode (as many fans call them). The figure has to transform, so the designers needed to come up with something that looked better than simply a balled up mess of claws and spikes. This is a good compromise. Sure it's not a disguise in any sense of the word, but the wing and thruster portions on the sides make it clear this is his way of transporting faster and in the air. The guns mounted on the back show he still has offensive capability in this form, so kids can even imagine this being his aerial attack mode (which is neat for a Transformer that has a land-based robot/beast form). The newly revealed details are focused on the parts that swing out to the sides. On the underside you'll find thruster sculpted into his chest pieces. The top side has panels with vertical line details that swing forward at an angle. What's neat about these panels is they look a bit like solar panels on a satellite, which gives him a bit of a connection to Soundwave (who spends all of "Revenge of the Fallen" in satellite mode). The other newly revealed details are curves and wire like lines carved into the area that is covered by his rear hip panels in beast mode. The only new colors shown here are light blue, found on the solar panel portions of his wings. This is the same blue found on the rest of the figure and looks quite bright and vibrant.
Final Thoughts:
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One of the most iconic characters from Generation One is Ravage. Originally introduced as a Decepticon who transfovmed into a cassette tape, his sleek, black feline fovm became synonymous with Decepticon spies and the Decepticon communicator Soundwave. In "Revenge of the Fallen", we meet this universe's Soundwave, and in keeping with some type of cosmic symmetry, Ravage is one of his minions that he can "eject" from his chest. This deluxe scale figure represents Ravage as he appears in the movie. Ravage is packaged in his robotic beast mode, so that will be where this review starts.
