My fondness of Jetfire was so connected to the toy, that when he appeared in the show I was very upset that he looked nothing like him. I had no idea why then, but I know now that when Hasbro brought the toy over, they didn’t get the license for TV. From that point on, the original Toy is mostly forgotten by Transformers fans, who have now adopted this bastardized version.

For me, it’s a love / hate thing. The toys that have been made have been good, but it’s not the same. Still, I buy them anyway, because that’s what we do. 

For the Siege line, Jetfire is a big, expensive toy, but I feel it finally does justice to this revised version of my childhood favorite. It retails for about $70, which is too high in my opinion, but I got it on sale for $40 – which is perfect. I only saw it once at retail, so I ordered it online.

Packaging

It’s a box, reasonably large. No see-through window but it has beautiful illustrations. The cardboard is very sturdy, none of that flimsy crap. Inside it’s tied down to a cardboard tray. 

Robot Mode

Jetfire is HUGE. In robot mode he stands 12″ tall, and he’s pretty sturdy. The plastic that he is constructed of is a mix of your typical ABS hard plastic, and then the rest feels like what Little Tykes toys are made of. It feels cheap, due to my association with cheap toys, but it’s really a good choice for a light and durable material. I’m just having a hard time getting my head around it. If you know what this plastic is called, let me know.

He’s very articulated, but limited in certain situations. There’s no waist joint due to the transformation. Some of the joints are overly tight with very loud clicks on each movement, but other joints have no clicks (like the hips). Why some and not others? I don’t know.

There is an ankle swivel, but it’s super hard to unclick them.

The hands have an interesting feature – when the fists are closed, there’s a hole to hold weapons, but if you open up the hand, the hole section slides away from view.

Of course what would Jetfire be without his armor. His setup includes chest armor, 2 guns (that combine into one), two armor panels, and four missiles. The 5mm port system means that there are an endless supply of combinations.

Two translucent blast effects are included, each separate into three pieces, connected via 5mm ports. This means they can be used with a variety of armament.

 

Of course, you can get creative with the 5mm ports, and you can even combine weapons with each other.

Jetfire’s weaponry and effects can be used with other Transformers as well.

Jet Mode

Jetfire shines in Jet mode. He’s massive! Transformation is not to involved, but there are a few imprecise bits with the arms and legs collapsing. Most everything has a peg or a tab for it to connect to, so nothing should feel loose or out of place.

There are three folding landing gears.

The cockpit can open when the nose is bent, and the circuitry inside can move a bit.

The armor can attach in jet mode. By default, it all gets combined into one package that goes on the back. But again, connection points are everywhere, so do what you like.

The blast effect parts become jet exhausts!

There are also little handles for other figures to grab on to. This may have happened in the cartoon episode, I can’t remember… Getting old sucks.

Overall it’s a great toy – He’s the only one of the Big size releases in the line that I have, so he’s a bit big next to the others on the shelf,  but he is beautiful.