Legacy Evolution Voyager Leo Prime Behind The Scenes

This may be a bit of a back-handed compliment, but given Hasbro's obsessive cost-cutting I'm honestly surprised he has his guns at all, let alone all of them. Not all BW characters were so lucky.

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I'm not comparing these guns, proportionally to the original's overly long missiles. These new ones are pea shooters. They could have been just a bit thicker and slightly longer. That's it, just a bit.

If they were larger they wouldn’t hide inside the mane and back panel. They’re just fine.

Optimus needs his obviously-compensating-for-something-ly-large rifle. Leo is just fine with his pistol.  

Oniconvoy

The guns are smaller because the figure is smaller and because they don’t need to have child-safe-long missiles hanging out of them. The claws are smaller because the legs actually have articulation. Both were good choices and are net positives.

I'm not comparing these guns, proportionally to the original's overly long missiles. These new ones are pea shooters. They could have been just a bit thicker and slightly longer. That's it, just a bit.

Nate98

Honestly loosing the spinning mane and firing missiles on Lio Convoy isn't that big of a deal, most generations figures in the last 5-10 years don't have that kind of gimmick anymore and honestly it's probably for the best.

While they were cool for the time It means a cleaner figure, less stuff to loose or break and at this stage I don't know why people are so surprised when they're ommited from an updated figure. We still have these gimmicks in lines like Earthspark, the movie toys and Cyberverse.

Also funny you bring up Legacy Transmetal 2 Megatron as it's an utter banger and a really fun figure that honestly in my opinion looks better and is more fun to handle than the original figure.

I wouldn't call it a downgrade, more like streamlining the figure or ommitting stuff that isn't a part of how modern generations works. The new figure still has so many vast improvements, looks better and has better articulation etc.

Rakzo

Lio Convoy's rotating mane was one of the most stupid gimmicks from the BW era, it didn't serve any purpose whatsoever and actually hindered a lot of the articulation from the toys that used it, I'm glad that the Legacy figure got rid of it to prioritize more important aspects. I mean, I can understand Inferno having it since it works like a thruster and fortunately his Legacy toy still keeps it but I can live quite happily with Lio Convoy dropping that gimmick (In fact I would say that Kingdom Dinobot not having his rotating shield is a much bigger issue).

And Legacy TM2 Megatron surpasses the original in every conceivable way which admitedly is pretty easy to do considering that the original toy was the weakest of the BW Megatron figures.

ScorponokIsHere

yeah, and gave him other, better stuff in their places, such as Not Sucking

Making the claws and guns smaller is not streamlining anything and definitely "sucks". A Big Convoy would absolutely suffer from the same thing. And being better than the original TM2 Megatron doesn't mean much when the execution dropped the ball on several important aspects, like the proportions, the awful face sculpt, the dragon neck and forcing the robot chest to use the beast dragon claws to mimic that detail, complicating the chest and making it appear wider than it needed to.

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I don't think they could really do Big Convoy justice. He'd have to be Leader class due to his pure mass and his huge gun. And they'd probably still dumb him down or simplify him like they did with Lio Convoy. His anime reissue works great though.

View attachment 29791048

Dumbed down or not, Legacy Leo Prime is my favorite version of the character so far. If given a leader class budget, I’m positive the current designers can create a pretty amazing Big Convoy. Voyager class budget would be a different story though…

SPLIT LIP

Would it, though? I always saw beast kibble, especially heads, on BW characters to be equivalent to decorative flourishes. They could have any expression, it doesn't matter, because it's not actually the head of that mode. It's like if you had a suit of knight's armour with a snarling lion's face on it, it's just a piece of decoration. Rattrap had snarling, cartoon sharp teethed rat head halves on his shoulders and it was fine.

They didn't even have to make it snarling, just not so droopy and flat. Do something like this:

View attachment 29791410

See that idea works for some characters and isn't always common, Rattrap is more of an exception. But with Lio Convoy, his head lion head in robot mode was always neutral on his shoulder so it would make sense the legacy figure would follow suit.

Even then as many have shown here, the lion head is fine, hell it's actually good and looks realistic but the lack of paint around the eyes and constantly exposed canines are what seems to throw it off for some.

Nate98

If they made the lion face look angry and snarling, it'll look weird in robot mode when it's on his arm and meant to be neutral

Would it, though? I always saw beast kibble, especially heads, on BW characters to be equivalent to decorative flourishes. They could have any expression, it doesn't matter, because it's not actually the head of that mode. It's like if you had a suit of knight's armour with a snarling lion's face on it, it's just a piece of decoration. Rattrap had snarling, cartoon sharp teethed rat head halves on his shoulders and it was fine.

They didn't even have to make it snarling, just not so droopy and flat. Do something like this:

View attachment 29791410

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They got rid of his spinning mane, spring loaded fore arm and firing missiles. Nothing I mind losing personally, but they are gone. His claws and all his guns are pretty shrimpy in comparison too.

But they added flipping the robot hands to hide into the forearm, rotating the inner torso for a clean beast belly, flipping the tail between beast and anime appearance, splitting the bot chest to better tuck out of the way, and obviously all of the modern articulation.

Legacy Leo Prime is much more complicated, and successful, engineering that the original BWII version. It’s not even close.

Rodimus_Prime

I wonder if a third party will create a lion head that's closely represents the BW2 Lion head in that picture.

C'monnnn DNA.  

Novaburnhilde

Especially when the artwork on the box makes his lion mode look so bad-ass.

Then you get him out of the box and transform him only to be met with the face of what a vegan lion would probably look like.

I feel like it's a case of finding a balance and honestly they did a fine job IMO.

If they made the lion face look angry and snarling, it'll look weird in robot mode when it's on his arm and meant to be neutral and you're limited to him just being angry. Whereas you could just pose Lio Convoy in beast mode and open its mouth to give the affect he's angry. It's nothing new as most of the Beast Wars characters in generations and from Kingdom onwards have all had neutral faces in beast mode.

It's a good lion mode but the exposed canines and lack of pupils in the eyes are honestly the only issues with the lion face because it's still a damn fine Lio Convoy and probably the best we've gotten.