Personally, part of why I dig Staks and the Scale Robo cars is that they look like very functional robots, almost like weird future construction vehicles. You can look at is a more functional real robot style cockpit in place of a head, which is fun on one level, or you could look at as a cute big-eyed robot. There's a couple of ways to interpret this head. While the figure has the same strange faceless "windshields for eyes" head design as the Scale Robo DX cars, it's different when the head is a chunk of a semi-truck. Whether or not you are willing the shell out for the European release is basically a matter of how much you care about longer smokestacks and a unique box. While I'm sure it's much cheaper to just get the American Staks solo, I really think the Staks Transport giftset is worth the extra money because it adds so much to the truck mode's appearance. As far as the colors go, Staks works a lot better with the trailer than without. The blue trailer actually goes well with the orange, providing a calming counterbalance. If you hate orange and are just an adult collector looking for a display piece, you may find the Japanese Big Trailer Robo's reddish hue the better choice, but be prepared to pay a premium. Orange was always my favorite color and as a child that was part of this toy's appeal. Staks is a bright orange semi truck which is kind of garish but I have honestly seen trucks out on the road in these colors so it's not necessarily unrealistic. You can see here my second Staks, the one that actually survived my childhood. The cab part was identical and had black plastic both times. I had both at once and regular Staks became my sister's toy. Don't believe it if someone tries to tell you the regular Staks always had blue and the Transport always had black or vice versa because when I was a kid I got Staks first and then broke it only to have it replaced by Staks Transport. The Japanese release of Big Trailer Robo was a darker reddish color with blue and white stickers while the American Staks release is orange with yellow stickers and came with either black feet and back coloring or blue foot and back coloring. Big Trailer Robo has the strange faceless head made up of the upper part of the truck cab and is largely plastic except that, oh yeah, his legs are gigantic slabs of unpainted metal. The other Big Machine Robo toys are largely plastic and the Scale Robo DX toys are largely diecast metal with bizarre faceless heads that are mostly just chunks of car. Big Trailer Robo also cost more than the rest of the Big Machine Robo toys due no doubt to the trailer it sports. Big Trailer Robo is not really based on this toy at all. The 600 series Trailer Robo (Road Ranger) is a flat nosed truck like Optimus Prime, if Optimus Prime were a flatbed. Big Trailer Robo (Staks) ended up being the unusual one. Big Apache Robo (Warpath) and Big Shuttle Robo (Spay-C) were based on 600 series vehicles but completely redesigned. The first two Big Machine Robo toys were pretty much just Bike Robo (Cy-Kill) and Eagle Robo (Leader-1) from the 600 series blown up to a larger size. The rest of the Super GoBots (ignoring the mostly crappy western exclusives) hail from a different series known as Big Machine Robo. You're probably more familiar with them as Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus of the Transformers, or the subject of this review, Staks Transport, GoBot extraordinaire. So it's really no shock that Takara released Battle Convoy and Powered Convoy in their Diaclone line, or that Bandai released Big Trailer Robo in their Machine Robo. And remember, in the '70s and early '80s, pop culture had a serious love of truckers thanks to Smokey and the Bandit and the like. As you can imagine, this inspired many ridiculous tales of the open road. Then he would hitchhike home and pocket the plane fare. As a young man in the late '60s and early '70s before getting married, my dad used to drive semi trucks from Michigan to California for my great uncle's trucking company. My dad used to take me to Selfridge Air Base to see air shows, so that explains the airplanes, but that's not what we're talking about here. When I was a little kid around 3 or 4, I loved three things: trucks, jets, and robots.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |