Cheetor (Studios Series/Voyager)

While the prior Cheetor toys from Rise of the Beasts have been more in line with his classic design, the Studio Series release has our favorite cool cat in his new movie looks. Like I've said before, Cheetor is one of my favorite Transformers characters. It's going to be hard to be impartial with this one, and to be honest, I love this toy. I'm going to gush. This is a good, solid, figure and great representation of Cheetor's movie appearance. He's a Voyager class figure. That seems a little large for a character who's normally in the Deluxe range, but it's nice having this larger toy. The Maximals size up to regular Transformers in the movies, so it's not too odd. Not to mention, with his movie looks...it just fits. I can't believe I'm comparing this with toys like Clench or Stalker... but the larger size feels super appropriate here.

Cheetor turns into a cheetah of course. As with the case with the other movie beast warriors, it's a techno organic cheetah. If I were to compare it with anything, this Cheetor looks like a cross between his Transmetal and Beast Machines design with a dose of late Euro G1/G2. It's a mix of design cues that somehow just works. If I had any complaints, I wish the yellow was a little more varied. Cheetor is a somewhat metallic Dijon mustard that works, but I'd have preferred something different. The colors are a little darker than normal because movie, but I feel like there was other dark yellows that would have worked better. It's not a deal breaker at all, just a slight nit pick. 

Transformation is a breeze, and kinda works exactly how you'd expect. I do really appreciate the fact that his weapon doesn't form from the beast mode tail. Tail weapons are pretty standard for beast type toys, so it's really refreshing then they're not. Cheetor's spear splits in half and can be held as a whole or in halves. It also mounts on his back in both modes. That's not a big feature or anything... but I feel like that really adds to his look. Since his arms are made from the cheetahs front legs, the claws can either fold out of the way, or over the hand as a melee weapon. For some reason this reminds me of the claw gimmick from Supreme Cheetor. Not his most popular figure, but hey... this one is much better!