Animated Cheetor. Shmexy to the maxx!!

Regular readers of my blog (I thank you ) will know how much I love the Animated series of Transformers, so I think it is only fair to put a fan-boy-alert in this review.  Animated Cheetor here is a recolour of my favourite figure of the line.  He is Blurr with a new head and I love the Blurr mould the most.


This Cheetor is from the Transformers Collectors Club and was only available to club members.  They needed to be pre-ordered and sold out on the pre-orders.  The figure is deluxe sized and a remould of Blurr with a new head and new colours.  What I really like about this recolour is that if it were changed into any character, Cheetor would be most appropriate.

Cheetor
Function: Law enforcement.
“Go on. Run!  That’s when the fun begins!!”
Cheetor loves the thrill of the chase.  When his turbo sensors lock on to the tail lights of a fleeing Decepticon, he pushes his accelerator to the floor,  He can get a little too focused on his games of cat-and-mouse.  When his optics lock in on the perp, his surroundings fade into a blur as he races in pursuit.  Neither street signs, traffic flow, nor even that unfortunate ‘bot caught crossing his path matter to him during his dash.

• Strength       -6
• Intelligence   -5
• Speed          -10
• Endurance    -8
• Rank            -6
• Courage       -9
• Firepower     -7
• Skill             -7

It comes in a standard TFCC box with very sturdy cardboard and firmly cuddled by a lot of foam.  The vehicle doesn’t quite sit in the middle if the box, so part of the foam is cut out.

I do like the background they gave the picture, it has a little picture of his ‘Cybertron Police Defence Command’ badge which is a nice touch!  He comes from the “Transtech Precinct”

One thing that really annoyed me was the tech specs situation.  Like the Animated figures from the Botcon set, Cheetor’s are G1 looking and therefore quite long.  Sadly too long for the box.  They are shoved underneath the foam and squished down, resulting in a bent corner or two. Considering how these are an “Adult Collectible” as stated on the side of the box, one would think that some other way of tech-spec storage would be thought of.  Still, I am not surprised as it just reinforces the amateur aspects of the club.

Again, he has properly named instructions.

His vehicle mode is a straight recolour of Blurr’s. It has been tastefully spotted to keep the Cheetor theme, after all, this character is the Animated version of the Beast Wars one albeit based on the canned Transtech series which was meant to follow Beast Machines.  It works pretty well I think, the sleek model of the vehicle and the yellow and the black spots look good together.  As you can see the spots aren’t all over the vehicle, which I think is good, because otherwise they would be too overwhelming. 

There is an orange painted bit on the window at the back in the left picture.  I was wondering what this was all about, thinking perhaps it is for the robot mode.  But it isn’t, it is just a strange orange added on.  It appears to be the same as his chest colour, but it doesn’t match up at all and just sticks out on the car.  It’s nothing too noticeable, but it does seem a bit random.

I love the back wheels.  They have a hole in them and a sort of brake pad at the top.  So incredibly futuristic, kind of like the light cycles from Tron  The back lights are nice and pointy too.  The only real flaw with the vehicle mode is the large gap when looking at it from the back, which Blurr had as well.

The robot bits are noticeable underneath.

What I really love about this recolour is they have added the ‘features’ of the cheetah to the car.  The original had green eyes, and here we have green headlights.




On the rear, the part of his cowl for his head can be seen as a type of ‘tail’ as well.  On Blurr, this part forms and aerial of sorts and sticks up quite a bit more.

His weapon is still the same, a rather lame energy saw, which personally I don’t think is all that appropriate for Blurr nor Cheetor, but it does mean he keeps his G1 shield (well Blurr does).  It just pops out with a press of the Autobot insignia.  I do like the green bumper it gives the front of the car though.

Damn, I juts love the vehicle mode so much.  So sleek and fast, low to the ground.  Beautiful!

One final thing, I thought about a bit later, the door mirrors form ‘ears’ of a type for the vehicle mode as well.  Such brilliant use of the mould, almost like they had planned to re-use it…  Or am I just reading too much into it?  Aaaarrrr Animated, cancelled before your time…

Robot mode is also pretty damn cool!  Again, like the vehicle mode, the robot is sleek and fast looking.  Very lanky and manages to get quite a lot of height making him stand head and shoulders above the other deluxes.



He is the same height as my voyager sized Lugnut I see.  Lockdown was supposed to stand as tall as voyager.  I will have to compare one day.

His face is a new sculpt.  Sadly it doesn’t look quite as cool as the picture, as it is missing some black and the jaw looks kind of funky.  But it does look better in the flesh/plastic than I thought it would after seeing photos of it online.

Again, they have done well with the spots on robot mode, so there are enough to pull the theme off, without over-riding the figure.  Oh and his chainsaw is too big if you ask me, but it can be stored on his back, without making him bulky.

Close up spotty pics.  I dig the waist and chest paint a lot!  The green down the side of the ribs is pretty nice and subtle enough to be noticeable, without offensive.

Nice big Autobot symbol on his chest too.  Underneath you can see the raised bit where Blurr’s Elite Guard symbol would sit.  His long legs sit upon ball mounted toes and heels and his ankles twist, allowing great stability and poses easily.  The balance of this figure is pretty good too!




I even managed to get him to run like Sonic the Hedgehog, which was how Blurr ran back to Cybertron from somewhere after getting stuck to those Decepticon clones and running along the rings of that planet.  Just goes to show how awesome Blurr is, running across the galaxy to report on the traitor.  Anyway, I manages to replicate that run in a pose and was pretty impressed how it looks.

If you attached the saw to his back and have it pop out, it can be a green light-blur, he is running THAT fast!!!!


Man, I love this figure!  In Blurr form or Cheetor form it is a complete winner!  The reuse of this mould to make Cheetor is brilliant as it fits perfectly and the only real bummer is the head of the toy doesn’t quite fit the head of the drawings, but the rest of it is spot on.  Perhaps a bit of gundam marker to add the black will improve it.  I will have to see how game I am feeling at the time.  The matte plastic means it will fit in perfectly with all the other Hasbro Animated figures.  Perhaps not so well with the Takara ones, since they are a bit shiny, but hey,since I have a few Takara and all Hasbro, it’ll do me fine. 

If you love Animated like I do, then Cheetor here is a worthy addition to your collection, if you like Animated, then I suggest you track down a Blurr as I suspect that Cheetor here will be pretty expensive for a deluxe figure.  They are both good fun toys and look awesome.  I am just glad I made the effort to order this guy for myself as I think it is totally FABULOUS!