That's largely the way I see it. I don't hate the toy exactly (though I may have said so in a few other threads.   ) but it seems like a poor Classics toy and poor Grimlock IMO, with unstable shoulders and poor weaponry. The Henkei version just adds more chrome that make it look more knockoffish than G1-ish to me. The robot head sculpt is excellent though.

It's not a popular mold either, but I prefer the Energon Grimlock mold. It's squat with it's own flaws (and no weapons at all), but I like the more G1-esque transform, the stocky build in both modes, and that the dino claws end up on the forearms pointing forward Wolverine-style. It feels like a toy incarnation of Grim's personality to me. I've gone so far as to kitbash the Classics robot head onto the Energon body, for best of both worlds.

Animated Grimlock is looking pretty excellent to me as well, though I'm not a fan of the steam-shovel robot jaw he's sporting.

 

not the place for an OT discussion on dino bird relationships but i cant help myself for another post....

dinos are part of the subset of animals called reptiles and birds are nested within the subset of dinosaurs (specifically the theropods) so birds are reptiles as such but still nested within the dinos. your first point could be true but evidence suggests they descended from dinos specifically, your other point about archaeopteryx being around with the dinosaurs is true but does not mean that birds didnt derive from a group of dinos.

importantly archaeopteryx was around at the time of other more typical dinos but thats fine because archaeopteryx isnt necessarily the ancestor of birds but is a 'sister' group as such, even if modern birds were direct descendents of archaeopteryx that still wouldnt be a problem. archaeopteryx descended from earlier dinosaurs but the more typical looking dinos were still around too, its equivalent to your cousins being alive around you even though you arent actually descended from them.

Archaeopteryx is one of many, many feathered theropod dinos found. the mistake I think you (and many people) are making is thinking that this happened dino>archaeopteryx>birds.

During the late jurassic there would have been whole cohorts (probably 1000's of species) of therapods (including archaeopterx), some feathered, some barely feathered, some small, some huge, a small group of them managed to survive the big extinction and are still alive as modern birds.

The big misconception is a notion of an evolutionary ladder, ie dino>archaeo>bird, it just isnt like that, its more a branching bush, take a horizontal slice across the branches and you intersect many, many species occuring at the same time, in the late jurassic you would have found archaopteryx plus a whole myriad of other truly incredible bird like dinos variously related to each other, and of course the actual ancestor of birds, all the other branch ends terminated way back unfortunately, but hey we still got grimlock!

 

incepticon.

a good point, 'over design' is a common flaw, i feel thats what happened to the movie figures/characters.

 

Classics Grimmy is pretty nice I like him. I dont recall but will they make any other Dinos so Grimlock has some one to lead?

 

I thought Grimlock was awesome when he first came out. My opinion on him has cooled a bit since then but I still think he's pretty decent.

 

Nothings been said about any more Dinos unfortunately. My personal wet dream is all five of the Dinobots to be released in the Classics/ Universe line at some point.

 

The closest thing we have to a lead is something Hasbro said last year when questioned if there would be any more Classics Dinobots. They basically said that if they made any more of them, that they would be the two not in Animated. In this case that would be Snarl and Sludge, though they are apparently using the Snarl name for the Animated "Slag", so any future Classics Snarl could have the potential to get a different name, as to prevent any confusion. I'd love for all 4 of the others to get Classics, but I'm not going to be holding my breath any time soon for any of them.

 

I'd be happy enough if we got 2 other Dinobots for him to command, and if they were Sludge and Snarl (regardless of what name they might give him), I'd be very, very happy.

 

I ordered one.

 

I'm pretty excited for all these Henkei figures. The only Classics figure I have is Bumblebee.

Aside from the head being his feet, I don't really have a problem with how Grimlock looks.

 

This pretty much sums it up nicely. He just isn't satisfying in either mode the same way, say Jetfire was as both an homage, original design, and a fun Transformer.

 

He's the only Classic I have that isn't displayed on my shelf, and that's mainly due to the shoulder pegs not fitting issue. I can't stand it when toys are made incorrectly, and even though I've already bought the figure, I refuse to support shoddy builds by displayng them.

I tried to get used to it, tried to play around with the figure even, but that, on top of the articulation problems, really makes it a hassle of a toy.

It doesn't help that I have some misdirected anger problems at him because I chose him over Rodimus when I was deciding which Classics to buy.

 

The mold's not bad, I've just never been fond of the character.

 

I like the Classics Grimlock but I think it is the weakest of the Classics line. Probably Classics being the best of any line I have seen in my opinion has something to do with it too.

Edit: Also I wish they had given him a real sword.