Transformers The Ark from Earthrise

 

The best looking ass in all Transformers belongs to this guy.  Admit it, if you're a fan of G1, you've spent more time than you care to admit looking at the glorious ass of the Ark as it sticks up in the air from the base of Mt St. Hillary.  A few years ago, Hasbro decided that the Ark need to become a Titan Transformer.  I've often longed for an Ark playset and so grabbed this guy.  What's he like?

Well, today I intend to reveal that very information to you.

Let's start with the box.  Because he is a Titan class figure, the box is of course bloody huge.  It's fine and has some nice artwork of Autobot Ark squashing some Decepticons.  This being the Japanese release means it has huge ass ugly black stickers covering up stuff.  On the back are some toys shots of what you get.  It's pretty nice really and I do wish I could find some nice high res versions of the box art for the Siege and onwards figures.

Autobot Ark comes packaged in vehicle mode and all you need to do is slap some wing kind of things on the side to have this big beast.

It's a great looking version of the Ark and reminds me a lot of the G1 Cartoon, as well as the Ark that you run around on in the first level of Fall of Cybertron.  My only real complaint with it like this is the battle damage/scuff mark paint on the front.  I've never been a fan of that.

There's lots of awesome sculpted details on every side and the paint seems to do the trick nicely.  What is a bit of a waste though, is the gun turrets aren't articulated.

There are essentially two cockpits/bridges on this ark.  There is one on the front which is where we all expect it to be and a kind of tower one at the back.  The one at the front is the more exciting one as it has windows, which if you peer through, you can see the sculpted bridge and some of the accessories.  

You see, this guy comes with a nice bonus buddy of Autobot Mainframe.  Originally just a one off action master, but now and actual transforming Transformer.  AAAANNNNNDDDDD the best part is, he transforms into Teletraan 1!  Holy shit, that is cool (and was a major reason for me wanting this figure), in fact if Mainframe was not included, Autobot Ark would've been an easy skip for me.

Let's check the cockpits out.

The crappy little one at the back.

Really that one isn't even scaled very well at all.  Now for the good one.

That looks pretty slick. Inside you can see the bridge.

Another accessory this guy comes with is a teeny tiny Optimus Prime, who can actually stand in various places on the bridge.  It also has a Vector Sigma looking ball thing, which IIRC, in the Earthrise (shitty) cartoon, was some kind of map.

Teeny Tiny little Optimus in there.

It's pretty god damn awesome!  What isn't awesome though is accessing the damn bridge.  One would think, you could juts lift up the roof and it'd be connected by a simple hinge right?

You idiot.

No, first you'll have to unclip these stupid side flaps, the will snap off, because they don't quite fold out as far as you need, then you need to unclip the entire front section of the ship, then you can hinge up the cockpit, and flip it all underneath.  Woo, finally I can access the bridge!

But what is that?  I do believe it is a 

BIG
AUTOBOT
ARK
HEAD.

Congratulations, to access the bridge, you pretty much half-transformed the figure!

Something like this you see.

However the bridge is pretty damn awesome!  There are little areas to slap the Teeny Tiny Optimus and also other littles dudes (some came with the Haslab Unicron for example).  There are little seats, computer banks, and even a little Teletraan 1 at the back.

I LOVE IT!

That is so god damn cool.  It's just a shame you have to disassemble the ship to do it....

The bridge is the alternate mode of Mainframe as well, so he is essentially a triple changer.  If you take him out, there is room to place a scout sized figure in the resulting hole.

You can leave Mainframe in the chest when Autobot Ark is in robot mode, so that is convenient.  While the bridge is cool, let's go check out the best Transformers arse available and the main reason many people bought it.

As you could see from the photo at the top, the Ark can be stood upright for launch.  It also has some landing legs, which work rather nicely.

There is also a little ramp that can be dropped with the press of a button.

You can store anyone in there, but it is cool to have guys look like the came out of it.

Now, the actual main event.  Them awesome looking jet boosters.  The main attraction and what we spent most of our time looking at when thinking of the Autobot base as kids.   While this one only has 4, they are BIG and beefy looking.  Autobot Ark also comes with the same flame effect parts as Sky Lynx so you can have weird blue flames firing away.  It doesn't look half bad to be honest.

It looks pretty cool,  Although as a titan class toy, it's a bit wearying swooshing this around your house.  Overall I really like the Ark mode and this is a good thing since it's the reason I bought it, and the gimmick of the entire figure. It looks great and is a nice reference to multiple Ark versions, so it will fit most set ups rather nicely.

Now, about that Robot mode...

Since we half saw it when we opened the bridge, I'll cut to the chase.

Transformation for this kind of sucks.  It doesn't really do anything interesting and the very first thing you have to do to start is to show the head.  There is no anticipation at all.  I remember seeing an interview where one of the designers for the Prime toys mentioned that the spring loaded heads being the last step is like a cool reveal for the toy.  

Ya know, they are pretty spot on.  The head finally shows that we have a robot on our hands and they are finally ready to rock and roll in robot mode.  Autobot Ark's premature head ejaculation manages to take a lot of the mystery out him.

Then the legs just unceremoniously unfold from the bottom and yer pretty much done.  You can make an imitation of the Sentinel from Xmen COTA game in flight mode if you so wish though.

The end result is a large robot that kind of resembles the Last Autobot.  His head is definitely meant to look like the Autobot Insignia.  It's certainly large as well, he has a deluxe sized voyager Shatty Rodimus and a Leader Sludge that only just come up to his knees. The orange is fine looking and since all the parts are generally viewable from the vehicle mode, no new detail is revealed.

I do really like that they kept the boosters for the shins.

He now shows up with a couple of shoulder Autobot insignias and a pretty nice looking face.  The face, being so big, manages to have excellent light piping capabilities!

He does come with articulated hands, but his fingers are set straight by default so they look a little weird.  You can make him grab dudes.  Most of his joints are pretty unhindered by sculpting as well, meaning his articulation is really good.  His also has ankle tilts, which are nice and strong.

Good kitty

Naughty Boys

A nice touch they added are these sliding panels that move with the movement of the wrist and knee.  They are pretty clever, filling the gap in robot mode, and automatically moving out of the way when transforming.

Overall the robot mode for Autobot Ark is nice and all, but nothing special.  I find that I also really dislike the way his legs are attached to his hips.  I think this may be a thing with me ever since Pointblank.  It's kind of ugly. Incidentally, this is also a big reason why I didn't get titan Omega Supreme.  So while Ark's robot mode does nothing wrong, it doesn't really do anything spectacular either. 

Now onto his accessories.

His main accessory is Mainframe, A.K.A Teletraan 1. A.k.A the Bridge.

Bridge mode. A.K.A a block

He makes a super chunky robot whose panels inhibit his articulation A LOT.  Like his elbows almost don't work without flipping a panel out of the way.  His back is also pretty ugly as well.  Oddly though he has lots of joints, that all clash with a panel or something annoying.  He actually stands a decent height with other Transformers and has some glorious light piping.  Orange wasn't Mainframe's original colours, but the looks of the head is pretty damn close and considering his personality, him being Teletraan 1 makes canonical sense.

Transforming him means making him squat and unfolding panels.  However the end result isn't bad at all.

The accessories Mainframe comes with are all pretty cool.  He doesn't have a gun, but he does come with the Golden Discs and a cool little

*explore*  *explore*

Sky spy satellite thing.  Man, I kinda wish I could've gotten Mainframe and these things alone.

The size of Teletraan 1 is, perhaps a bit small.  But don't let that worry you as he has a lot of luvverly details on him.  Yay!

It's pretty cool that finally there is an official version of Teletraan 1 to be had.  Shame it comes with a big derpy dude.

In the end, I found myself thinking the Autobot Ark is just "OK."  It's a decent robot, a great looking Ark and Mainframe with his bits is super cool, but to be honest, in regards to the Ark, I'd be cool with it being a spaceship that opens up into a playset without a robot mode.  At least that way they wouldn't have such a disappointing transformation on this guy.  

I ended up selling this guy, despite him being a pain to get a hold of here in Japan, as he was a TTmall exclusive and I don't regret selling him at all.

My final superfluous rating is:

A titan sized resounding "MEH"