Swoop

Swoop made it to stores much faster than Snarl did: announced March 2024, released in October. Makes sense the flying Dinobot would be speedy! Swoop and the Dinobots drop in to destroy Devastator. Swoop is, according to the fiction, the happiest, friendliest Dinobot, and yet this toy's face is sculpted with a big, unhappy frown. He does manage to have the most distinctive head among the crew, though, thanks to the giant fin on top of it: that thing is more than half the head's total height! It's a boring design overall, just a silver face on a blocky red head, but that's the fault of 1980s toy (and TV) designers, not modern work. This robot is definitely not as pseudo-organic as the other Studio Series Dinobots: no rounded shapes or curving lines here, just big, chunky blocks. He barely even has any angled parts, making him as straight and square as if he'd been built out of Legos! Counting the spike on top of his head, he stands 8½" tall, which means there's plenty of room on the body for sculpted mechanical details, little panels and insets that don't actually mean anything physical to the toy but make the presentation better overall. You can barely find any part of him that doesn't have some sort of mechanical texture. The original Swoop toy was, like the rest of the Dinobots, grey and gold, and accented with red. For whatever unknown reason, the cartoon chose to make his body blue. On the pre-Transformers Diaclone "Dinosaur Robo" assortment, the toys that eventually became the Dinobots did have more blue on them than red... including Pteranodon, the Proto-Swoop, who was shown in all the sales material as being entirely silver with just some red for his beak. The actual Diaclone toy? Grey limbs and a blue chest. Why did the cartoon keep Swoop's Diaclone colors but change everyone else's? Since Studio Series is about trying to recapture the source material as best as possible, this toy will never pass for an upsized version of the 1985 original. Swoop moves at the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, thighs, knees, and rocker ankles. There are also joints for his wings, which technically the other Dinobots have had as well, but his are wing wings, not just flaps of kibble we call "wings" because they stick off his shoulders. He's armed with a pair of missile launchers, which were part of the classic design yet often get left out in modern incarnations; they're not actually launchers here, though they can be used as handheld weapons if you don't want to plug them into the wings, and the "missile" part can be removed and accessorized with blast effects if you have any. He also comes with two red swords: the one with the extra tube in front of the blade is his, while the other, larger one is meant for Studio Series Grimlock, who didn't get his sword. Converting Swoop is exactly as straightforward as you'd think it is: fold the hands into the forearms, split the chest, raise the dino head to cover the robot's face, raise the neck and lower the flap in front of it, fold the two halves of the chest together, put the tabs on the arms into the slots on the wings, tuck the feet away, unfold the wing tips (twice) and bring the legs up over the back. Pterodactyl! Swoop can be posed horizontally, like he's flying, or vertically, like he's perched. His neck has enough range of motion to keep him looking right in either stance, and even his little toes can be posed appropriately! Hasbro boasted that the figure was flight-stand-compatible, but what does that matter if you don't include one? It's the same problem as saying things work with the blast effects: it's just meaningless words if you don't include some in the box. Swoop can fold his wings, but the rocket launchers get in the way a bit, finding themselve pushed inward when you try to close the wings. Although the robot's arms plug into the wings, the shoulders have extra hinges that pull out slightly, so you can play like he's flapping his way to flight if you want. The dino's beak is hinged, so he'd be able to breathe fire or shoot lasers... if Hasbro had included any for him. Which they didn't. Because of course not. This is the last Studio Series Dinobot we needed - it's always a bit surprising when Hasbro successfully completes a set of anything, even if it took three years to do. It would be incredibly awesome if they got really brave and did a Studio Series Slash as if she'd always been there, but for now Swoop is the last one we needed. We may never get a set of Masterpiece Dinobots to keep Grimlock company, but these fill that niche nicely. -- 03/04/25 Would you accept a Studio Series Slash? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.