Review – Transformers Quintesson Scientist

“The extent of the Quintessons’ involvement in the creation of the Transformer race is still largely a matter of conjecture. Certainly these cruel machinist intellects influenced the Transformers’ early development, and perhaps even attacked and colonized Cybertron at one or more times in its past.”
— from Transformers: The Ultimate Guide

Ever since completing the review of the Quintesson Prosecutor I’ve been looking online for a Quintesson Judge. Well, I’m still trying to find my own copy of Impossible Toys’ Quintesson Judge but, in the mean time, I managed to find a great deal on the Quintesson Scientist, one of five Quintesson toys that Impossible Toys has created (though #5 hasn’t been released yet). This page at www.tfwiki.net goes into detail on the different types of Quintessons, including the scientist, of which the page says:

“Scientists are somewhat similar to the Prosecutors in construction, though they feature more bulbous heads and bearded, somewhat-more-human faces. “

Looking at the image below, taken from the episode Forever is a Long Time Coming, it appears that the designers at Impossible Toys modeled the toy on the scientist named Inquirata. Maybe Impossible Toys will create another Quintesson Scientist since there are multiple designs; Mara-Al-Utha, for example, would make a great toy.

The Quintesson Scientist Toy

Slightly shorter than the Quintesson Prosecutor toy, the Quintesson Scientist, unfortunately, isn’t as much fun to play with as the Prosecutor is. Yes, the Scientist is every much as durable and professionally-manufactured as the Prosecutor but — and this is what limits the toy’s play value — the Scientist has zero articulation and is more statue than he is action figure.

The plastic “column of pure energy” that the Scientist sits on is from the exact same mold as the Prosecutor, which makes perfect sense and is completely acceptable, and as with the Prosecutor the Scientist includes a battery-operated light. Unfortunately, the light is pretty weak (Gina suspects that the battery needs replaced) but the light does shine not only out of the toy’s base (illuminating the clear plastic stand) but also the figure’s eyes. For a garage operation, Impossible Toys has some great features for their toys (they’ve got lighting down perfect).

The Scientist appears to be made of the same type of plastic as the Prosecutor, while the attached tentacles are made of the same rubbery material as the Prosecutor . . . and the two toys look great together, even if the Scientist is actually much too large and isn’t quite to scale with most of my other Transformers toys. As was pointed out at Ted’s Toy Room Weblog:

“They may not be licensed Transformers product, but they suffer from the same problems that plague all legitimate Transformer toys — they’re not to scale with each other. While the Quintesson Judge character seems designed in scale with the classic movie toy line (most notably the Sharkticon), the Scientist was clearly produced at a much larger scale, making it appear about three times larger than it should next to the Judge.”

The absolute best part of the Quintesson Scientist has to be the sculpting. If you compare the photos of the toy to the screen capture above, you can see that the toy closely follows the animated version, even down to the details and paint colors. Hell, the paint’s also excellent, better than some Star Wars figures I’ve picked up lately.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, despite the articulation issue, the Quintesson Scientist is excellent. If the toy’s arms moved — or, better yet, each tentacle moved independently of the others — it would be almost perfect. As it is, it makes a great addition to the shelf but it doesn’t have much actual value as a toy.

Transformers fans, especially fans of the animated movie and season three of the cartoon series, should take a look at either the Prosecutor or the Scientist toys. At the moment, if I had to choose between the two, I’d have to say that the Prosecutor is the better of the two toys.

Philip Reed still wants a Quintesson Judge. He almost had one on eBay but the auction was ended early by the seller. No fair!