Ramjet

Height: 14.5cm to top of cone (robot mode).

Articulation: 13 total points: Swivel neck; universal joint shoulders; hinge elbows; ball-joint hips; hinge knees; knee swivels.

Colors: Molded white, grey, smokey-clear cockpit canopy; Painted white, grey, gold, red, blue-grey.

Accessories: Missile launchers x2

Release Data: Released early 2007 at a suggested retail price of US$9.99.

Gallery: 11 images.

Author: ExVee



Classics is really kind of interesting. For instance, there's really not any full-out bad toy in the line. The closest in my reckoning is the MUCH more G1-styled Ultimate Battle Optimus Prime, and that's just a matter of a lacking vehicle mode. ...okay, maybe some of the Mini-Cons that can't even stand up, but we'll overlook that right now. But no, even the Starscream mold, generally regarded as the weakest of the line, can be improved to be at least average with just the smallest bit of reworking. Ramjet here is the proof, showing that there's a lot that can be done with this body just by moving the wings!


Vehicle Mode

As much as Starscream may not be really an F-15, Ramjet is even less so. Having an almost entirely different tail end (the changes being wholly in the wings) and a reshaped nose, it really doesn't conform to any sort of real jet, or even concept jet. Though, somehow I want to say that the wing design makes it look almost like it's trying to be some combination of European designs around a semi-F-15 fuselage. But then, I'm no expert on aircraft. Anyway, as a jet the toy is of course little more than a static display piece, but it's at least nice looking. Though from a toy standpoint, I think the vehicle colors are kind of on the drab side. Needs something a little brighter so as to look appealing in the store. Anyway, all the nice structural illusions are a bit wrecked when you look at the underside, since there's the great big open space where the cockpit fits in robot mode. Oh, right... there's also Ramjet's *fully visible face* on the bottom of the nosecone. As far as moving parts, in this mode it's limited entirely to the fold-out landing gear.


Robot Mode

(Just make sure you fold the landing gear back in to form the entirely pointless chest-turbines)  In robot mode, the differences from Starscream are much less pronounced. Two major differences exist. First, the head is of course an all new piece with an excellently sculpted face set into the jet's nosecone. Now, I personally would have preferred a slightly different style of conehead, where as with the G1 version you have the option to fold the cone away leaving the normal head. Starscream can already sort of do something like that, but doing that with Starscream you end up with something more like an Armada Thrust Conehead, rather than the G1 style. It's also more the dunce cap look than the bullet-head thing. It's worth noting that the shape of the new head still prevents much in the way of turning the head, since you get very little distance before one of the shoulder intake deals gets in the way of Ramjet's extremely oval-shaped head. The other change is the really important one. The wings now sit on the legs, rather than the back. This solves the major issue with Starscream where the arm-mounted missile launchers would knock the wings out of place when any attempt was made to pose the arms. This simple change really frees up the toy's movements, and in my estimation is about the best thing they could have done while remolding the Starscream body. On the other hand, as drab as the jet mode looked, the robot mode has it worse. From the front, the only actual color you can see is the dull gold bits here and there. All the rest is white and shades of grey. Definitely a bit on the boring side. Though at this stage it's unlikely to happen outside of a convention or maybe store exclusive, I'd like to see this remold recolored at least once as one of the more colorful remaining conehead characters.


Accessories


Ramjet only comes with a pair of missile launchers. The launchers themselves are unchanged as compared to Starscream's, but the missiles have been replaced with thicker versions that are closer in appearance to the bombs that came with the G1 Ramjet toy. No difference in performance.



Closing Remarks

When you get right down to it, very little is really changed off of Starscream. But the changes that have been made are all-so-important, and especially make the jet mode look like an entirely different design. The robot mode has become more playable thanks to those same changes, and there's almost no flaws to be found from the moderate reworking. It's a great package! Excellent!

-ExVee, 3/9/2007