I'll keep this one short: Maul's the best of the bunch so far. He legitamatly hits all of the "good Transformer" points. Is alt mode is cool, his 'bot mode is well-proportioned, articulation is up to par, alt-mode kibble is kept to a minimum in 'bot mode, the head sculpt is rockin', and the deco is good. There's a catch: Just like Obi-Wan and Anakin, his otherwise ball-jointed wrists are pinned in place...and in a rather useless position too. Unlike Obi-Wan and Anakin, these wrists are rivited, not pinned. I was worried that a rivet couldn't be removed. Not to worry, just take a hammer and a short nail and bang on the "smaller" side of the rivet. It comes out much easier than the Obi-Wan pins truth be told. The one real fault of the figure is that it has no heels. It can topple back because of this. To wrap it up: Go buy this guy. He's good. Then knock out his wrist rivets.
I just opened my Maul and I think he's pretty rad. Definitely better than my only other SWTF purchase, Vader. I do wish his arms were a little bulkier though. Also they should have made the lightsaber have the ability to connect at the handles. Overall Maul is definitely looking cool on my shelf right now.
That's a kick-ass head-sculp in my book! By the way, it's kind of hard to tell in the pic lighting, but he has robotic air intake-vents under his cheeks.
Ok I got Maul too.. Not bad. I like anakin and Boba a bit better, but Maul is great.. I may get Vader again in the future. He wasn't great, but not horrible either. Still VERY iffy on Luke. X-Wing looks good, bot mode looks poor. Now if it is an excellent figure i may get him in time. Would have to be HIGHLY recommended though..
I wouldn't get Luke, if you're not satisfied with Grevious. I LOVE Grevious, and Luke is the only SWTF I have so far that I'm dissapointed with. (Though I haven't seen any Wave 2 SWTFs yet.)
i just got him but havent had the opportunity to TF him. was pleasantly surprised he was almost in scale with my action fleet collection. beautiful alt mode. if a transformer is defined by how well it hides the bot mode, darth maul is a definite winner.
Speaking of...I miiight pick this up just for the alt mode. The Action Fleet Sith Infiltrator is prohibitively expensive for what it is and, LEGO aside, this is the biggest version of this vehicle yet or that we're likely to get..unfortunately. Why Hasbro didn't make an action figure-scale Sith Infiltrator at the time, for the movie's most-hyped character, remains one of life's more annoying mysteries.
i'm surprised its almost to scale with the action fleet line. the alt mode is tight enough in that you wouldnt expect it to be a transforming toy, even at close inspection. the s foils are deployable, the landing gear retracts, the saber act as projectiles in this mode. no visible bot parts in this mode. i cant believe they only have this ship in AF, lego and micro machine version. its such a cool design. the bigger figure is the one that came with the toy. the figure can sit inside the openable cockpit. i was even more surprised when i actually liked the bot mode. certain joints prevent it from becoming truly posable, but i'm okay with it seeing as i bought it for the alt mode. the AF version is rare and expensive if this was under 50 i'd snap up the rest as impulse buy, but at 70ish, tak syok lah, especially since its carded and not boxed. kalau box display baru cun. still, as decent as the bot mode is, picked up solely for the alt mode.
Apologies in resurrecting a zombie thread, but I just got around to picking up Maul and Palpatine this afternoon. My opinions on Maul are pretty similar to Palpatine's...robot mode=ugh, vehicle mode=great. I do like Maul's headscuplt though I think it looks really cool. The engineers who designed these things with pins going through balljointed wrists, and all the random kibble literally convering the SWTFs need to be fired off the project. Immediately. What could be great, fun toys are mediocre piles of plastic. I'll still be nice and not give it lower than a C- though...
What bugs me most about Maul is the lack of retractable landing gear, and the wrists. I'm tempted to pop the rivets out to fix the wrists, though I'm not sure if I want my SWTF Maul to have big holes on his arms. For those who've done it, how does it look? Also, on a positive note, I like the backpack on the robot mode. Intentional or not, it looks as though Maul has a rocketpack!
Just picture holes where the rivets are now... I'd take a picture but 90% of my collection (including Maul) is in storage while I try to find a new house. Anyway, any ugliness added by the holes is easily offset by the ugliness you get rid of when you can finally rotate his biceps/elbows to their correct positon and not have his hands look broken (he's not bow-armed anymore). Plus you get the added awesomeness of actually getting to pose those light sabers.
