The current trend with Transformers seems to be themes for their exclusive releases, called "capsules." Like, all those G2 repaints Walmart had as the "Toxitron Collection" were one capsule, Amazon's "Pre-Cybertronian War" sets were another capsule, "Velocitron Speedia 500" was a third... you get the idea. Walmart's "capsule" for Legacy United was the "Star Raider Collection," an update of Thundertron's space-pirate group. A few of the figures in the collection were existing members of the crew, but many were new - including Filch.
There's a new Decepticon preying on Crown City, and it's
up to Team Bumblebee to put an end to her pickpocketing.
Hasbro no longer seems to employ copywriters, because Capitalism is a brain disease and the only cure is justly going Luigi on CEOs*, so that text is the promo copy for the one - one! - episode where this character has ever appeared. She was the villain of the week in the 2015 Robots in Disguise episode "Collect 'Em All," was used as a secondary villain in a RiD storybook, and that was it. Not the most expected choice for this year's Walmart-exclusive theme, but not unwelcome, either.
Filch only appeared in robot mode for about four seconds in the episode, and mpst of that was off-screen anyway. Our only official look at her robot mode came from a game card and a Facebook post, but that's enough to say that even though this is a repaint, it does the character justice. Her head has a crown that sweeps back like bird feathers and a crest that suggets a beak.
Below the neck, this figure is the same molds as
the 2021 Kingdom Airazor, which is fine - they both turn into birds, they both have feathers on their arms and claws on their feet, and even if Filch isn't supposed to have a bird head in the middle of her chest (n.b. the bit above about the thing on her robot head clearly meant to become the bird's beak), the shape it creates on the toy is similar to what her cartoon model was designed with. Besides, she'd hardly be the only Transformer who underwent some reformatting when jumping to the Legacy universe. Not even the only RiD 2015 character!
One thing that Airazor had that Filch doesn't is weapons: Airazor used missiles in Beast Wars, so the toy got those as well.
However, in an effort to make this "untooned" version of Filch look as much like the show as possible, the wings have been retooled, giving us straight, angular "feathers" and making the distal segment of the wings removable, so you can attach them to her arms like they were in the show. Okay, that's a pretty neat inclusion! Articulation is pretty standard stuff for a modern Transformer (head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, waist, hips, thighs, knees, ankles), but she also has a flip-up crotchplate that serves no purpose in either mode or while converting.
To change Filch to her preferred mode, open her back, raise the torso up, flip the robot and bird heads around, close the back, unfold the wings (after moving the pieces from her arms), tuck her hands into her abdominal gap, turn the shins around, turn the waist around, rotate the legs up, bend the knees to bring the feet together, bend the bird-shins out, tuck the knees in, and plug the tail into place.
Filch has a really great purple and indigo colorscheme, something we really don't see enough of. Properly unfurled,
the wings have a 9" span, but there are several swivels and hinges that could increase or decrease depending on how you pose her. The birdd's head can move around a bit, and her beak is hinged so she can open it to exclaim "SHINY!" when she sees something she wants to steal.
As an exclusive repaint, Filch turned out way better than expected. Sure, some of the choices aren't exactly true to the source material, but when starting with a different character's design? This is great stuff! It took until very late in the year for her to show up at Walmart, but I'm glad she did get there eventually, and I'm glad I got her right away.
-- 03/18/25
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