What are your guys' thoughts on this figure? What went wrong? What went right? What could've made the mold better?
Pro: They tried to make it look like a cheetah Con: The gimmick The weapon The robot feet The transformation It came off as a half-baked toy to me.
The beast mode's very good - the bot mode's a disaster. The short arms and backpack are my main gripes, but there were design and aesthetic choices I don't like. I don't like the weapons, I'd have preferred a gun, and instead of a homage of one particular iteration the designers decided to make him an amalgam of all the character models, and the result is something of an ugly Frankenstein's monster. I prefer all the Beast Wars deluxes and the Beast Machines Mega over him.
I just got this for the first time. I remember skipping it in the stores 10 years ago. I paid $5 shipped. I overpaid, and regret it greatly.
I ended up modding mine so I don't fully remember how it used to work, but weren't his arms stuck at a slight elbow bend because of the shoulder panels that kept them from straightening out farther?
Is a flawed figure without a doubt. It has an obtrusive and mostly lackluster gimmick that hurts a lot of its look. That being said, I consider it an improvement over the original. I recently got the first Cheetor mould (in the form of Takara's Tigatron) and I was pretty underwhelmed. The beast form doesn't look like anything at all with bad proportions and a gun that sticks from his chest while the robot mode is restricted by some of its details like the ones in the thighs that hinder leg articulation, the crotch piece that always look awkward and a beast head that covers most of his face and simply doesn't look good in any pose. I was surprised that I actually liked the original Rhinox much better than this one since I thought it was going to be the opposite. The Universe/Henkei version on the other hand, has a pretty good looking Cheetah mode and that makes it much better than the first mould already. The robot mode is a bit more awkward looking but I still see it as an improvement because the extra kibble and details don't hurt articulation as much as one would think at first. What I like the most about it is how flexible it actually is. Sure, the tail weapon is lame but I do dig the shurikens and you can even use the beast kibble on his arms to form weapons that look way better than the tail. Is not an ideal update but I was pleasently surprised by it. I actually like it much better than Universe/Henkei Dinobot who sadly had more flaws than I was expecting. I would recommend getting the Henkei version which is the best.
After seeing the thrilling 30 Rattrap, Waspinator and Rhinox, the old Universe Dinobot and Cheetor molds are utterly failing at capturing the likeness and the design of the figures from any source of media. Cheetor is far worse than Dinobot, but both suffer from the too realistic approach of the beast modes. Granted the thrilling 30 figures managed to do realistic beast modes just fine, but whatever the Universe design team were told to do they couldn't capture the realistic beast modes with proper robot modes for the characters like the newer attempts were. Dinobot's beast mode is too 'realistic' and looks nothing like the actual Raptor show model, his robot mode captures his likeness a bit better, but suffers from the poorly designed work done with the weapon. That tail weapon of his is a huge chunk of plastic that makes the figure look worse. Considering he rarely used his tail shield at all, I would have preferred if they made it smaller and not tied in completely to his actual transformation. Cheetor however is just terrible. His beast mode hind legs have no panels or hidden robot mode feet, so he basically stands up on his hind legs and that's it. His upper body is too big compared to the teeny waist they gave him and his arsenal is utterly a travesty. Not accurate to any incarnation of the figure (since when did Cheetor use throwing stars and a club tail?), and his facial sculpt was awful. Look at Masterpiece Cheetor. Masterpiece Cheetor is designed with love and care, he is the Mainframe Model given life, and matches up quite nicely with the original toy. There are cheats of course, but he's the ultimate season one interpretation of Cheetor. Granted Masterpiece is a different budget from main line deluxes, but if Rattrap, Waspinator and Rhinox can get decent updates in a main line, what the hell is the excuse for Universe Cheetor and Dinobot? In short, while I applaud what was attempted 8 years ago, I no longer feel those figures are worth owning as an updated Beast Wars collection. And am eagerly looking forward to seeing how Masterpiece gives us the entire cast (hopefully) in a much better vein.
This. ^ It's not a great figure, but I like it a lot better than the original figure. My main problem with the origjnal figure is that its much to bulky in both robot mode and beast mode to represent Cheetor in my eyes. It's a great mold for Tigatron though. If not for its backpack the Universe figure would be rather sleek and fast looking much like Cheetor should be presented, and it can pull off some cool poses. My biggest gripes with the figure is that he doesn't have a gun, and I hate how his feet look in robot mode. Beast mode is great, though it could use a few more spots. Thankfully though MP Cheetor is coming to restore balance to the universe.
I think the Universe and Beast Wars figures are equally flawed. The Universe version fixed everything that was wrong with the Beast Wars original... but broke everything that wasn't. I'm always conflicted when trying to pick one to display. But one day soon I'll have the MP and it won't matter anymore
