Video summary
This video serves as a heartfelt tribute to the late voice actor Peter Cullen, honoring his legacy as the original Optimus Prime. Following Cullen's passing, the creator decided to pivot from their planned review of a new figure to showcase the 2006 Transformers Classics Optimus Prime instead. This specific toy holds deep personal significance for the reviewer, who purchased it in 2006 at a Toys "R" Us in Roanoke, Virginia, making it one of the few figures that survived the major product line changes in 2012. The review aims to celebrate this classic reimagining of the G1 character while supporting charitable causes suggested in Cullen's obituary.
The examination of the figure begins with its vehicle mode, which features a modernized truck design with rounded edges and translucent windows that reveal interior details like seats and a steering wheel. While the reviewer appreciates the red, white, and blue color scheme and the unique smoke stacks, they note some drawbacks such as unpainted gray plastic on the grill and bumper, along with feet that extend too far in the back. When compared to the original Generation 1 Optimus Prime, the Classics version is slightly larger but maintains the iconic look and rolls smoothly. The transformation process is detailed step-by-step, involving the removal of pegs for the smoke stacks and wind vane, folding down flaps, and rotating various body parts to achieve the robot stance, though the reviewer admits to missing a few steps initially due to not transforming the figure in years.
In robot mode, the Optimus Prime features excellent head sculpting with light-piped eyes and new paint applications on the shoulders and forearms, although it lacks a visible Autobot insignia on its chest. The articulation is robust for a 2007 release, allowing full rotation of the head and arms, along with bending knees and waist movement. A standout feature highlighted in the review is the weapon system; the wind vane transforms into a large cannon, while the smoke stacks fold down to create a double-barreled rifle that the reviewer prefers over the other option. The figure also offers versatile display configurations, allowing the weapons to be stored on the back or mounted as shoulder cannons, providing multiple aesthetic options for collectors.
Ultimately, despite minor flaws like "arm kibble" (excess plastic on the arms) and protruding toes in vehicle mode, the 2006 Classics Optimus Prime is praised as a fantastic addition to any collection. The reviewer concludes that the figure's ability to transform its parts into functional weaponry makes up for its imperfections, resulting in a cool and stylized sci-fi look. The video ends with a call to action for viewers to engage with the channel and a final quote from Peter Cullen encouraging fans to keep growing and living, leaving the audience with a sense of gratitude and nostalgia for the enduring legacy of Transformers.
Read the full video transcript
Peter Cullen's obituary came out today,
and in it they asked instead of flowers
or gifts that we consider donating to
the Make-A-Wish or Gary Sinise
Foundation. Me being a military veteran,
I will be donating to the Gary Sinise
Foundation in Peter's honor. So, I will
put a link to that in the description of
this video, and all the proceeds from
this video will go there as well. So,
this video here is dedicated to Peter
Cullen, our Optimus Prime. May he rest
in peace.
This video is sponsored by toyhax.com.
Toyhax is your one-stop shop for
reproduction decals for vintage G1
Transformers and upgrade decals for your
modern bots.
Toyhax, making Transformers look amazing
since 1999.
So, originally I had planned for my
weekend video to be the brand new Age of
the Primes Swindle that I just got in.
But after Peter Cullen's passing this
week, I actually had a subscriber reach
out to me and comment that I ought to
review an Optimus Prime figure in his
honor. So, I'm looking over my shelf
trying to decide which one I want to
film or which one I haven't filmed yet.
And I decided on 2006
Transformers Classics Optimus Prime.
Now, the Classics line came out to kind
of bridge the gap waiting for the
Transformers movie to show up because
from what I understand, the movie was
supposed to originally been released
earlier, you know, bringing the movie
figures to the market, but they decided
to bump it up to July instead. Hasbro
needed to put something out to fill out
the shelves, so they came up with the
Classics line, which was reimagining of
some Generation 1 characters. And one of
them we got was Optimus Prime. And I
remember when I found him, it was a Toys
"R" Us in Roanoke, Virginia. I was there
with my wife, one of her friends. They
were across the road at some
HomeGoods-style
store. I went into Toys "R" Us, found
this guy, so excited to see Optimus
Prime as a truck, bought him. And when I
went back to the HomeGoods or wherever,
and you know, met up with the wife and
her friend, she looked at me and goes,
"Who'd you buy that Transformer for?"
And I'm like, "Me."
>> [laughter]
>> And this is the one I bought in 2006.
He survived the 2012 purge. So, I am
proud to show him off to you guys in
honor of Peter Cullen,
our Optimus Prime.
>> They call me Feat [music] Prime,
showing what's new,
Transformers reviews [music] with a
heartfelt view.
>> Now, we'll start things off by taking a
look at Optimus Prime's vehicle mode
first, which is a very modernized take
on his cab. Um when I first saw Prime in
the store back in the day, I was like,
"Man, that is one weird-looking truck."
But you know, it works. It maintains
Optimus Prime's color scheme with the
red, white, and blue. And I I dig it. I
mean, it's it's different, but it's
cool. It's got a big wind vane here on
the top, rounded edges. I do like the
translucent windows. You can actually
look through those and see seats and a
little steering wheel right there. Check
that out. With these modern figures
we're getting anymore with the
translucent windows, you look in, all
you're seeing is robot junk and pieces
and parts, but I like what they did
[music]
right there. That's awesome. He does
have pretty decent paint applications.
We got some silver up here on the wind
vane, silver around the headlights,
which are painted yellow, and then we
got some silver stripes.
>> [music]
>> A little bit yellow here on the back.
Wheels look pretty good. They are pinned
in. We have silver rims and black tires,
which are plastic. There's no rubber on
this guy at all. The grill and bumper
are unpainted gray plastic.
>> [music]
>> About the only complaint I have with
this vehicle mode is here on the back
where the feet [music] stick out so far.
I wish they could have folded over or
maybe folded back all the way, but
um that just does not look good. But
other than that, vehicle mode, [music]
like I said, it's not too bad. I do dig
the smoke stacks. They have a unique
look to them, and we'll see why later
on. So, let's bring in G1 Optimus Prime
for a comparison. So, we have the
classic [music] with the classic. So,
you can see classic Prime is a little
bit bigger than G1,
but it still maintains Prime's look. And
he rolls really good. Check it out. Just
zips right across the table here. So,
all in all, not bad. It's different, but
not bad. So, let's go ahead and get
Prime transformed into his vehicle mode.
First thing we'll do is remove the smoke
stacks. They actually
peg in. You got these little pegs
sticking out right there. If you can
focus in on that,
that go in those holes, and then you're
going to pull off the wind vane.
So, you do have a little bit of parts
forming as you can see because Optimus
Prime's head is right there. So, if
you're missing this section, truck mode,
you're going to have Prime's head
popping out. Then, you [music] got these
flaps here on the side. Fold these down
and around the back tires,
just like so.
Then, right here beside the grill, get
your thumbnail in and you're going to
pop out these panels. They peg in right
here on the side the windows and right
there at the grill. [music]
Go ahead and
separate the legs.
Bring the legs
down.
Just like so.
Now,
you'll take the panels, flip all the way
out.
And then you're going to take the arms
and bring those around.
Bring this out. You can actually hear
some ratchets.
More so on this arm. Hear that?
Love that sound.
Go ahead and rotate the shoulders. We
got this blue section facing forward.
Take this piece right here, bring that
back.
Bring Prime's head out.
And you're going to fold this back in
and over.
Just like so. Well, there you go.
Now, we're going to take the cab or the
wheels
and you're going to bring the wheels up.
Just like that. And now take his body,
upper body where the windows are, and
rotate this around. Got some more
ratchets right there.
What is that catching on? It's got It's
catching right there on the wheel.
There you go. Bring it up and around.
Just like so. Take this flap here.
Bring this up
and over.
Just like that.
Let's go ahead and get that camera
adjusted.
Now from here, let's go ahead and flip
the feet
down. I mean everything will flip down
at once. You got the heels for all to
pop out as well. Separate the feet. Take
the arms and you're going to bend the
arms backwards like so. Making sure
these yellow sections are facing up.
Take the fists.
Fold those back.
And now you're going to take this panel
fold it up over the arm and this little
red section is going to kind of fit in
this little molded area.
Bring that up and around
and then fold the panel
around and back.
Same thing on the other side. Bring this
up
over, fit that in, bring the panel
down and around.
Up and there we have Classics Optimus
Prime in his robot mode.
Hey, hold the video for a second. This
is me from the future while editing
this. I realized I forgot to flip up
Prime's knee pieces right here. So,
flipping those up now. He does have some
knees with some yellow paint
applications. So, my bad. I haven't
transformed this figure in years. Uh I
apologize. Now, back to the video.
Oh, then of course, as you can see right
off the bat, the biggest complaint with
this Prime is those panels hanging off
the arms. It's like that was just an
afterthought. Hey, what are we going to
do with these arm panels? I don't know.
This will this will work. They won't
complain.
Yeah, we did. I mean, that that just
looks bad. I wish they could have done
something with those arm panels. But
other than that, this is not a bad
looking Optimus Prime. Bringing him in
for a closer look. Check out that head
sculpt. Looks great. He does have light
piped eyes. Let me bring in a light
right there.
So, you can see it.
I love me some light piping. He's got
these Optimus Prime blue eyes.
New paint applications include the paint
on the shoulders, paint on the forearms.
[music]
We got some yellow right there on the
waist and the crotch. There is a toy
hacks decal right there off I I him a
belt because like I said earlier, he has
no Autobot insignia, which really makes
no sense. Articulation for this Prime is
the head can look left and right, can do
a complete 360.
Arms can do a complete 360 as well.
We've got an elbow bend, we've got an
elbow rotation, no wrist rotation, there
is waist rotation. Legs go forward, they
go back, they go out, they go in. And
there is a knee bend. No ankle tilt, but
the toes can point.
So, not bad articulation for a figure
from 2007.
Uh I dig it. I really like him. I guess
we've got some paint applications right
here with the new silver underneath the
chest. And is that painted? Yeah, that's
painted right there for the faux grill
on his stomach. So now, let's bring in
those pieces I just popped off. We've
got the wind vane, which actually
transforms into a big cannon. You can
get him get this transformed, you're
going to fold it in half. And once you
do that, you're going to bring this
front section around and flip out this
barrel.
And there you go, you got this really
big-looking
cannon. I guess it's not big-looking,
it's big. It's It's kind of cool. I like
how the wind vane can transform into a
weapon. Go ahead and plug that in his
hand like so. So, there you you got
that. It's not very It's not as iconic
as Prime's ion rifle, but it still
works. A great look use of those extra
pieces, which brings me to the smoke
stacks. And this is my favorite uh
weapon. Take the smoke stacks, you're
going to fold these sections down here
on the back, and then just fold the
smoke stacks in half,
forming this awesome-looking
double-barreled rifle. [music] Yeah, how
cool is this? So, let's get this in
Prime's hand as well.
I like how it looks like there's a clip
right there.
Fold that in or fold that in. Peg that
in. And there we go. We've got Classics
Optimus Prime all armed and ready for
battle. And looking pretty badass. Now,
I'll be honest, I prefer this gun to
that gun. I'm I'm not sure why. I think
this just looks more stylized and sci-fi
looking. So, for my display,
I just have my Prime
wielding this one
cuz I just think that looks so cool.
[music]
Now, if you decide to display your Prime
like this, you can just transform this
back
to its original form, the wind vane.
You can actually just peg it onto his
back
right there. He's got a hole.
Just peg that in. So, you got
weapon storage or spare part storage,
however you want to call it. Now,
another feature you can do is you can
take this weapon,
transform it back to the smoke stacks.
And if you look right here on the back
of the wind vane, you've got these
holes. Match those up to the pegs that
are now on the underside of this weapon.
Let me see if I can do it while Prime's
attached. Sometimes I have a hard time
matching those up.
Okay, so you got the guns on here.
You can actually flip these forward. So,
it's like Prime has a shoulder cannon.
>> [music]
>> So, there's another option for you. Now,
if you don't like that, you can actually
take the wind vane off,
turn it around like so,
peg this in
upside down.
Once again, these holes are
off-centered.
So, you have to kind of get one peg in.
Mhm. And then when you move the handle
on the gun,
it kind of shifts the peg around. All
right, so we got [music] that look going
on. You can peg this in like so.
And it kind of gives him a newer look
with the barrels of the gun sticking up
over his shoulder,
maybe as the smoke stacks now.
But yeah, there's multiple looks you can
give this Prime. An awesome awesome
figure.
And now for some quick size comparisons,
here is 2006 Transformers Classics
Optimus Prime
with Generation 1 Optimus Prime,
>> [music]
>> Earthrise Optimus Prime,
and Studio Series 86 Optimus Prime.
The 2006 Transformers Classics Optimus
Prime is a great Optimus Prime figure.
He's not without his faults. He does
have that horrible arm kibble. The toes
stick out way too far in truck mode.
There's no visible Autobot insignia. And
some people may complain about the parts
forming, but I do like the fact that the
parts at least transform into weaponry.
I think that's really cool. Though I do
like the smoke stack weapon a lot better
than the wind vane.
But other than that, this is still a
great looking Optimus Prime, and he's
going to look fantastic on your Optimus
Prime shelf. So what do you guys think
of the 2006 Classics Optimus Prime? Let
me know in the comments below. Now guys,
if you enjoyed the video, don't forget
to like, don't forget to subscribe, and
don't forget to click that bell icon
to get notified when I upload new
videos. Also, if you're in any position
to help out the channel, I do offer
channel memberships, and I have to give
a huge shout out and thank you to all my
current channel members because it's
your support that helps keep this
channel going.
Now, before I sign off, I'm going to
leave you with some words of wisdom by
the great Peter Cullen when he called me
on my birthday.
>> Keep on farting, keep on growing, keep
on eating, keep on living.
>> Once again, guys, this is Patriot Prime
signing out. Hollar!
>> They call me Patriot Prime
>> [music]
>> showing what's new, Transformers reviews
with a heartfelt view.
Adding stickers bringing life to dreams.
[music]
In this small town, nothing's as it
seems.
>> [music]