I prefer that mold as Wheeljack; the stockiness just doesn't work well for Tracks to me; but highly evokes the G1 Wheeljack toy being a complete chonker. Though I do agree that it's a better Tracks then the Kingdom one.
I prefer that mold as Wheeljack; the stockiness just doesn't work well for Tracks to me; but highly evokes the G1 Wheeljack toy being a complete chonker. Though I do agree that it's a better Tracks then the Kingdom one.
I dislike how fiddly the mold is. The wings, shoulder wheels, missiles and backpack are really easy to knock out of alignment and should really have locked in somehow.
Each Tracks mold steps just a little closer to being a good one. Maybe in three or four more iterations.
Earthrise leaned into toy decos. Wheeljack, Cliffjumper, Hoist, Trailbreaker, Prime... they weren't really toy specific decos but they leaned that way over flat sunbow decos.
Even ER Sunstreaker, who wasn't particularly toyetic in his deco, seems that way compared to this multi-pack option.
Tracks really deserves a great toy, too. I don't really care about the character per se, but such a great vehicle mode, deco, and MASK deployment features, it really should be a knockout figure playwise.
Is Kingdom Tracks really that bad? It looks okay in pictures.
IIRC the legs don’t lock securely so they tend to detransform and overly tight tolerances for clear plastic parts.
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Tracks is secretly the 4th Omnibot. He was too fabulous for undercover work, so he acts as the decoy while they do the real secret agent stuff.
It looks great in both modes, but getting from one to the next is borderline terrifying.
The leg transformation is not intuitive, and there are a few low key scary moments involving massaging clear plastic sections of the body into place.
Part of why it would've been a decent move to just line him up in the "minimal redeco and just replace clear with opaque" subline. Just run the mold again with some color/paint changes rather than spend anything on a new mold.
Between the opportunity to tweak the leg panels (or just get luckier with tolerances) and the fact that like the entire rear car shell is clear plastic?
I'd argue he needed the treatment more than Trailbreaker.
Between the opportunity to tweak the leg panels (or just get luckier with tolerances) and the fact that like the entire rear car shell is clear plastic?
I'd argue he needed the treatment more than Trailbreaker.
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I think that's a perfect summation actually. All the problems come in when it's time to actually handle the thing.
Pictures can expose (or downplay) the awkward hollowness of the torso, but the real iffy experience is in transforming the thing back and forth and then trying to pose it.
If anyone was the poster boy for "Just do the original toy, but with articulation" it was Tracks.
It's pretty stunning that they did THREE reasonably distinct roof-chest/hood-leg bots competently (Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, Runamuck) and then decided to go in this... direction with Tracks. So much of the design didn't need to be as complicated as they made it.
Yeah, I am firmly in the camp that would love to have a redo of Tracks. I transformed him a grand total of one time, then left him in flying car mode for all eternity. It doesn't look great in this mode, which is a shame, because I always thought it was one of Tracks' best features. But it's just that his arms are chillin' by his sides, and half of the vehicle's side is "missing", due to the empty cavity where the arms should be in car mode.
I want to like Kingdom Tracks but he gets in his own way too much to be enjoyable, and the end result is not terribly aesthetically pleasing. In another 8 or 10 years, maybe his card will be pulled for an update. For now though, Kingdom Tracks will remain in his doofy little flying car mode, never to be handled until he is put away or sold.
I want to like Kingdom Tracks but he gets in his own way too much to be enjoyable, and the end result is not terribly aesthetically pleasing. In another 8 or 10 years, maybe his card will be pulled for an update. For now though, Kingdom Tracks will remain in his doofy little flying car mode, never to be handled until he is put away or sold.
Also the fact that if we want a Loud Petal, he'd also be the same mold.
Tracks definitely has room for significant improvement that isn't just "he needs to be incrementally more G1," but as that phrasing implies I'm kind of third-pass-at-a-G1-guy'd out at the moment. So if for some reason Hasbro consults me on what figures to make then I guess we'll be waiting a while.