Hey im just going to throw this out, if anyone in the US who doesnt want theres, im interested in buying

 

The way I see it Hasbro has a great planet and a so-so robot for $600, while this is a great robot and good-but-not-great planet for $200-350 (depending on what price you were able to lock in). I wish I had the money at the time to get the Haslab Unicron, but even if I did I still would have bought this one and I still think it's the better overall figure.

 

Haslab’s isn’t a non-transforming toy, in fact it’s transformation largely mirrors key scenes from the movie. That may not be a selling point for everyone, but I certainly think it’s part of the charm. Cell’s transformation scheme is very clever but has literally nothing in common with the movie, it’s why you have large orange plates and spikes in random places and a back that looks nothing like the planet seen on screen (and needs to partsform to look more accurate from the front). I think it comes down to a matter of engineering priorities and personal taste. Haslab’s focus was accuracy in planet and transformation, Cell’s was accuracy in robot mode. Neither was able to produce a second mode without considerable compromises. Good to have options for both.

Just on pricing, keep in mind Haslab is $600 for 19 lbs. of toy, not including a 10-lb stand, vs Cell’s $250-$400 for 5 lbs. of bot. Haslab is literally ~4 times as massive for about twice the price on average Granted, you can’t really quantify taste or style, and you can certainly have the opinion that Cell has superior engineering and that’s worth a premium. But I think it’s hard to argue that Cell is providing better value on it’s face (especially at the $350-$400 end of the range) when the disparity in scale here is really like a delux vs a leader class figure.

 

That's fair. It is pretty cool that its arms open up like the movie and all that. But I would be primarily displaying it in bot mode and I just don't like his bot mode at all. Plus I just couldn't justify that price.

Yeah, I definitely don't think cell is worth $400. Not by a long shot. I don't even think he's worth $300 even though that's about what I paid after adding on the express shipping. $240 is exactly what he should've cost and it's just insane that they had to almost double the price because of TFSource.

 

One step closer from ShowZStore!

 

Haslab certainly has better planet mode, but also certainly not by "a mile".

The light up maw on Cell for example.

 

That's a shitload of planet munchers.  

 

A Maw that isn’t anywhere near accurate and has to partsform to be accurate.

 

See, I find this argument to be false. Yes, the HasLab figure's arms form part of outer shell but that's about as far as the "movie accurate" transformation goes. And certainly, the movie did not have huge layers of planet on the legs or back. So, the transformation isn't really very accurate at all.
Which isn't to say that it's not a nice figure. It's just not a particularly accurate transformation, and I'm a bit sick of being told that it is.
But, as you said, good to have options.

 

Well I had a startling thought. It never occurred to me until right now that even if I was the very first to complete a payment, the express could have pushed me out of it.

here’s hoping
1) there’s enough to go around
2) I made it in the cutoff
3) the amount of express orders is minimum

 

Technically is with the legs and arms. The legs flip out in the right location, just behind the shells. The outside of the arms also folds inwards to reveal the hands, like the movie. When looking at it, it actually is somewhat accurate to the movie. More accurate than this figure anyway, not that this figure isn’t impressive and pulls a lot off with the liberties it took.

 

I counted some 20 boxes in the screenshot, and those are the visible ones.

(Each box has 4 figures.)

 

Totally. That arm portion aside, Haslab's transformation is no more accurate than Studio 1's. There's no denying that the Haslab planet mode is better than S1's, but there's no way I'd spend that much on something with only one good mode (the robot mode is, in my eyes at least, shit). S1 has a passable alt mode and an amazing robot mode at a manageable size, so it's the clear winner for me. That said, I was never going to buy the Haslab one because I hate the robot mode. That it costs more than double what S1's figure costs is just another reason. I could go for a non-transforming planet mode statue though, if a decent on is ever released.

Speaking of which, my pre-order is coming in a £265, which although more than I was expecting when it was a Zeta release is par for the curse considering we usually get a direct $ to £ price over here.

 

Oh that’s a relief!

 

Well yeah but I cant be bothered to get into the partsforming vs shellforming argument, others are going hammer and tongs at it in this thread! When the part is on, and with the included LED function, it looks fantastic.

 

i was planning to do a post about this on the Haslab thread, but happy to continue to talk about it here. It is more accurate. Let’s take a look.



The first step we see is the blue/gray shell crack along jigsaw lines and receed to reveal more orange underneath. We then get a larger look to see that shell is moving everywhere to reveal more of the yellow/orange body underneath.



Haslab can’t make the shells just disappear / get smaller, so it folds them away. If you look closely you can see some of the larger shell pieces break along a similar jigsaw pattern.



From there, the arms open up. Although at this point the ring is now misaligned, you can assume this is the planetary back given that what will be the arms still carry the equatorial spires (and are in plane with the rest of them). Haslab perfectly recapitulates this part.



When the arms open, they reveal a portion from inside the planet that extend to become the legs. There is a cool sequence I am not capturing that shows how the legs unfold to extend from this section. Haslab does not actually have this extension trick (probably because I don’t think the weight would support it), but the legs are behind the arms in the right place and then flip down.



I think everything is oriented reasonably correctly relative to the movie, which I’m not sure I fully appreciated until someone made a shellformer joke.



The right forearm moves up to reveal the hand. Note again that the orientation is correct, as we are viewing the transforming planet from the back.



Then the left forearm moves up. Both are identical to how Haslab does it.

From there, the rest of transformation is hard to digest in terms of what is going on, but the torso and head are revealed. i do think the head is positioned correctly above / behind the maw, because I believe Galvatron is on that general area when the big abs reveal happens. Hard to say for sure though.

Anyway, you can tell Haslab made the effort to mirror parts of the transformation because they are referencing these scenes in one of the first Haslab videos.

Now you can still hate the Haslab transformation and greatly prefer what Cell does with the liberties they took. That’s totally fine! But it I think it’s true that Haslab made more of an effort on this front to match the movie transformation. They don’t do everything or everything right (which would be impossible), but they do some of it. Cell doesn’t do any of it.

 

its on the way to me..... pass on 600 haslab

 

Funny cause haslab just shellforms it for the maw that is just a 5x5inch square on his back, visible 100% of the time from all angles. You have to pick...

Parts form (s1) or shell form (HL), neither one has an accurate maw without giving in one direction or the other. I will take parts forming over shell forming anyday if it means both modes look better. I would say that S1 is only 10% parts former (maw + shoulder/arm panels) vs HL which is 100% shell* former.

I think my biggest issue with HL is that for 600bucks, you get 1 good mode, for 250 S1 gives you 1 good and 1 okay mode, but i do wish it was at least constructor height or larger.

 

Pick one? I’m getting both!

I get two amazing unicrons, and no need for me to defend my purchase of either. While it is fun to discuss, I grow tired of arguments for or against figures. Both good, neither are trash. Can make anti-zetacron and anti-Hascron threads if you guys want  

 

Im getting both as well, i ment more as in 'pick your poison' type thing when it comes to engineering.

I still need to figure out how to display HL unicron in planet mode. You think my wife would notice if i removed the overhad fan, and mounted this there and just put an LED bulb in its maw?