Roddy’s vehicle mode is as close to perfect as I could hope to see. Yeah, he doesn’t have his trailer, but he’s a Deluxe, so I wasn’t expecting it. The colors are perfect and the flame decos are beautifully applied. Very sharp and nice looking. The silver on the engine, wheels and side piping really looks great. I also love that his windshield is translucent. It looks much better than if it were painted. Rodimus’ gun stores under him, between his back wheels. You can plug his flame missile in to make it look like he’s spewing fire out of his exhaust. Nice. The vehicle holds together beautifully and rolls along really well.

In robot form, Rodimus looks mighty good. His design is very close to the original G1 character and the colors are still pretty much spot on perfect. The flames on his chest are applied with precision, as is the paint on his face. The light piping is also really effective on this figure giving him nice glowy blue eyes. So, yeah he looks great, but, there are a bunch of little issues that nag me about this guy. The sculpted engine piece on his chest runs up a little too high and obscures the bottom of his face a bit. I’m not sure if this is making the head look too small, but it does seem smaller than it should be.

I also have some issues with his articulation. The head rotates. His shoulders roate, and offer a very little bit of lateral movement. I absolutely HATE his elbow joints, which are just hinged on the end and look terrible. His legs at the hips have universal movement, but the plates that hang off his hips interfere with these joints a lot. Finally, his knees and ankles are hinged. You can definitely get Rodimus into some nice poses, but a little better design would have gone a long way with improving his articulation.

I think the reason I am so picky about this figure is because it really is so close to being perfect in a lot of ways. The headsculpt is almost perfect, but it needs to be bigger. The articulation is good, but the elbow joints are an abomination. It seems like almost every up has a down. Still, he’s a fine figure and well worth picking up, even if you’re like me and aren’t a fan of the character. Afterall, Galvatron needs somebody to kick around.