Sentinel Prime

Height: 15cm (robot mode); 13.6cm x 6cm x 7.6cm (Vehicle Mode length, width, and height)

Articulation: 13 points total - Ball jointed neck; 3 joints each arm: Shoulder hinge, ratcheted shoulder swivel, hinge elbow; 3 joints each leg: Ball joint hip, mid-thigh swivel, hinge knee.

Colors: Molded metalflake blue, orange, grey, black, translucent black; Painted grey, light blue, dark blue, metallic blue, black, red, yellow.

Accessories: Shield, lance.

Release Data: Released third quarter 2008 at a suggested retail price of US$9.99

Gallery: 18 images.

Author: ExVee



Graduate of the same class as Optimus Prime at the Autobot Academy, Sentinel Prime is commander of a squad of the best the Autobots have to offer - the Elite Guard. Though he is a powerful warrior and a cunning leader, he is also obsessed with following rules to the absolute letter. He is unbending in his interpretation of procedure, and dislikes the way Optimus Prime and his crew improvise. If he had his way, that whole group would be sent back to Basic Programming.

The design history of Animated is a pretty interesting thing to read about, with openly admitted influences and references to other past productions. Except Gurren Lagann. None of the original design work was influenced by Gurren Lagann, that's just an internet myth!

Anyway, one case in particular is the design of Sentinel Prime. He's the Tick. Yes, you could have figured that out yourself, but it's WHY he's The Tick that's important. Sentinel Prime is voiced by the same dude what voiced Tick in the cartoon series. When the character designer learned about this, he intentionally set out to make Sentinel resemble Tick as much as he possibly could without getting anyone sued. Every visual element you think resembled Tick? Yeah, that's on purpose. Damn if I don't just love Derrick Wyatt. It's even influencing Sentinel's dialog to a limited extent. "Energon-y Goodness" indeed!

...

SPOOOOOON!

(sorry, couldn't help it)

That being said, Sentinel is a colossal jerk. Personality couldn't be further removed from Tick. Sentinel is that really obnoxious guy you know who was just so totally sure he was more awesome than anybody you'd ever meet. To prove this point, said guy probably drove a massive truck that was in no way at all compensating for anything else, oh no. And guess what? Sentinel transforms into a stupid big truck with a snowplow attachment. Because when a big truck just isn't enough. Yes, Pompous Gas-Bag Sentinel Prime is every self-absorbed, deluded jerk stereotype all rolled into one shiny blue package. How can we go wrong?



Vehicle Mode


As noted, Sentinel transforms into a (small scale) large pickup truck. Heck, this guy is an Extended Cab version, even. He's got the extended suspension and monster truck tires that make sure he's just that little bit taller than all the other ridiculously large trucks on the road. To top it off, he's even got tinted windows, which may be out of place since then you can't see him in the truck and see how much more awesome than you he is. Hey, even better! There's a split spoiler on top of the truck's tailgate, because the thing is so fast and aerodynamic that it needs a spoiler to keep the wheels firmly on the road! The tailgate is really more of an implied thing. Sure, there's panel lines and a handle molded in, but just a simple examination of the structure will show that there is no useful bed to this truck. No, that was sacrificed to accommodate the killer suspension and oversized wheels. There's also a great big rack of lights attached to the back of the cab which hang over the back edge of the roof.

About the only thing that's missing here to make the image complete is a perfectly polished, stainless steel in-bed toolbox that has all of nothing in it because dude is way too cool to actually do any kind of manual labor himself. Oh dear no.

The vehicle mode is actually really solid. Of course you can never ever look at it from underneath, or else you'll see that jerk Sentinel's head peeking out at you from a majorly not-hidden spot right behind the plow. To be fair though, aside from the head and obvious robot chest being visible from the underside, there's not a lot of readily identifiable robot elements to the vehicle mode. To just come up and look at it nothing of the transformation is at all obvious, and I do appreciate that. Sadly as the cartoon effectively proved, Sentinel's vehicle mode is hardly an adequate disguise. In media Sentinel is a really huge truck, and even if he weren't all the special bits I so lovingly pointed out in the earlier paragraph draw attention like nothing else. Good job, Mr. Elite Guard!

(oh, and there's that fancy Autobot Elite Guard insignia on the hood, but nobody ever seems to notice those in vehicle mode anyway.)


Transformation

Surprisingly unintuitive: The windshield and ONLY the windshield is a separate piece from the roof of the truck. You have to pull back the roof of the truck first, which lets you pull out the legs, and that makes it easy to swing the arms out. In practice the transformation is, fast, fairly elegant, and really intuitive. The only stumbling point is that it's not immediately obvious without the instructions that you need to start with the roof.


Robot Mode

As usual, I'm quite impressed when they can take a square, boxy vehicle mode and turn it into a robot mode with very few right angles or parallel lines. It's some feat of engineering to turn a box into something with mostly rounded edges.

So, there's little mistaking the Tickness of Sentinel Prime here. If he had a goofy grin instead of the scowl, it'd be unmistakable. Sadly there are some weaknesses to the robot mode.

The arms lack any swivel joints. There's stiff ratchets at the shoulders, combined with hinge joints for outward motion, but everything below that shoulder ratchet is a simple hinge joint, one of which is just a transformation hinge and actually bends the arm the wrong way in robot mode. So basically Sentinel only has a simple shoulder joint and a single elbow hinge. Kind of a let down compared to some of the other awesome articulation we get. Added to that is the plow halves that sit in front of the shoulders, partly obscuring the space between the wheels at the ends of either shoulder. For whatever limitation the jointing in the arm delivers, the plows compound it by blocking a big part of the upper arm movement, and looking goofy if you maneuver the arms around the edges of the plow. It's just kind of a losing bet either way you go.

There's no swivel or anything for the waist. While the hips are ball joints (of a pretty good stiffness, too) the only swivel in the legs is a restricted one mid-thigh, followed by another simple, single hinge joint for the knees. Now, the knee joints can bend pretty tightly together, and if you open up the back of the lower legs they can almost bend double. But lacking ankle joints you have a limited range to work with these joints before the toy just wants to fall over. He sure can do a pretty good Dreamwave-squat, though!

The head is ball jointed, but is restricted for anything but swiveling range. On the other hand, the head is easily removed and reattached just in case you want to re-enact scenes from that one episode. As has been happening with some frequency, Sentinel's head appears to have been designed for lightpiping, but has it disabled both with seemingly opaque plastic and the eyes being painted over.

To talk style, Sentinel largely pulls off the visual style of the series, with the big chest detailed in such a way as to look like an impossibly contorted version of his vehicle mode front end. Actually, this only really fails in the lower legs, which are the blockiest parts of the robot mode with the more stylized intended shapes of the legs as sculpted details. I suppose it was either that or have the entire front end and passenger compartment of the truck hanging off Sentinel's back. Gotta say, I'm more okay with what we have that a giant vehicle mode backpack.

Thankfully despite carrying out the typical proportions, Sentinel manages to not be fatally short. As a Deluxe he is of at least average height, and adequately scaled with Battle Begins Optimus Prime or Cybertron Mode Prime.


Accessories

-Shield and Lance

I'm going to cover these together since they're kind of meant to work together. While either piece can be used separately, the shield's handle is designed in such a way that the lance can slide into it and both weapons can be held or stored together.

Judging from the package photos, the original intent was to mold these pieces out of clear blue plastic and paint over the handes and some other bits. This is consistent with the show's portrayal of these weapons as glowing when in use. Instead, possibly as a result of mold layouts the weapons are entirely opaque plastic. The parts that would have been clear are instead painted in a very light blue. Not nearly as effective in conveying the glowing, energized concept.

Since Sentinel lacks any special articulation in the arms or hands, he can really only hold the lance as if the just club somebody over the head. The shield's use is not especially impacted by this element, though there's no real point to positioning it to the side of an arm as a shield would typically be used.

When put together, the shield and lance can store in vehicle mode. And by "store" I really mean that they peg into the back of the light bar and just sit there on top of the vehicle mode. Still, compared to some storage failures in Animated, it's a good try.



Closing Remarks

In truth, this toy is mostly fun for the thought of the character it represents, as well as the blatant and admitted Tick influences. The transformation is pretty neat and flows naturally once you get it started, which is something I really like.

But what it really comes down to is that this toy has design limits that seem out of place for a modern Transformer. I can't pin down any one reason for the lack of articulation. On the other hand, if all you want is jerkwad-bot Sentinel to stand there and look smugly superior to disapprovingly at someone, you're all set!

Sentinel may not be the greatest toy, especially compared to some of his wavemates, but I enjoy him. Whether you will probably depends on how much the background stuff matters to you. For just a good, solid toy, there are better options available.

Objective overall rating: Could Have Been Better

(and yes, the Headmaster accessory from Leader Bulkhead can fit on Sentinel.)

-ExVee, 11/26/2008