Retrobots Revisited: Gobots shuttle and sub

 

I needed to keep things short today, and I decided to cove a new acquisition and one very old one.  This week, I got an online order of a Gobot, and not a cheap Arco bot with the name slapped on. This also means I finally have to put my money where my mouth is with the usual trash talk about Transformers. I will freely admit that, while I am and remain critical of the mystique attached to Transformers in particular, the Gobots certainly have their own problems. Here's pics of my guys with a few more bots, including the knockoff croc bot and mystery red guy, plus the Marx Evil Space Guy.

For the featured bots, there are two Gobots more or less intact. The first is a space shuttle I picked up as a kid, and don't recall ever playing with; he has a terrible name I won't repeat. The second is a submarine called Dive Dive, which I received just this week. I don't believe I ever owned this guy, but I'm sure I saw him at least once. Also in the lineup are the Transformers hovercraft bot and a Convertors peacock. I was ready to include the bird in the lineup, but very quickly concluded he simply isn't functional. As we shall see that's saying something. Here's some pics of the alt modes.

Unfortunately, both bots are in bad shape. The shuttle guy is so loose he can't really stand fully upright on his own. For most of the pics, I finally stuck a Lego piece (okay capsule toy generic Lego) through a pair of open slots to keep the upper legs from sliding back down. It should be all too clear that he was all kinds of not great to begin with. If you ever had to sort out Gobots from their Transformers counterparts, the best rule of thumb is that the former look subtly undynamic, almost stoic. In many ways, this guy is a Gobot's Gobot, with all their relative good points, especially a simple, sturdy design, plus all the weird and awkward in spades. Here's one more pic of him pre-intervention.

With all that in mind, I'm at a loss to explain the sub bot. He looks good from the waist up, complete with a cool anthropomorphic head, but the lower half is absolutely horrible. The legs are supposed to slide out and swivel, but the right leg repeatedly slipped right off its track, while the left has an equal and opposite tendency to get stuck. On top of that, I actually broke off a piece on the right hip. It will more or less stay on, and I'm sure I will be able to glue it back, but it's still a very bad sign. Clearly, this was unusually complicated for a Gobot, but there's no payoff in improved articulation; in fact, the legs of bot bots are immobile apart from the transformation. By comparison, even the Arco pistol bot can do a decent kick. I quickly decided it was better to keep the lower half untransformed, which gives him sort of a "merman" look. Here's a couple closeups.

Despite all these problems, I still must point out that the bots still aren't that bad. Note especially how they compare with the Transformer, which is even simpler and less articulated, and a bit shorter to boot. One more thing worth attention is that, while these are all fairly small, the choice of alt modes implies a much larger scale. The hover craft would not be less than 30 feet, certainly taller than Optimus Prime. The space shuttle would be over a hundred feet long, though the proportions are shot to hell already. Then the submarine would be truly colossal, easily 200 to 300 feet, big enough to kick Optimus into orbit. But these aren't things kids would ever be bothered by, even if we had thought about it. Imagination was its own scale, and that's why we loved them.