TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

Robot Mode:

Alternate Mode:

Additional Image:

Box Art:

Blackjack's review: Elita One

Name: Elita One
Function: promoting fembots
Alt Mode: Motorcycle
Series: TF Movie

As the first of the female TRANSFORMERS robots, ELITA-ONE gets a lot of attention, and loves every minute of it. It isn't just her incredible handling, or her fast idle that gets the attention either. She's a cunning fighter, and one of the best marksmen among the AUTOBOTS, able to blast Scraplets off a DECEPTICON at more than four miles. At short range, she's just as effective, generating an attraction field that can cause unshielded robots to overheat almost instantly.

Okay... I had some money to burn, and I saw this cool-looking motorbike. The name is Elita-1, the girlfriend of Optimus Prime. I wasn't a fan of fembots, but I bought her anyway. From what I gather, Elita-1 is a repaint of Energon Arcee, and the mold has been used for the first Arcee toy (Target exclusive) in the Movie toyline. The deluxe Arcee was then released in three (!) different paintjobs. Back to Elita-1: She first appeared in a season two G1 episode, The Search For Alpha Trion, and has been featured in some other fiction since. Elita now returns as a motorbike, and let's see her...

Elita One has never been released as an official toy other than convention exclusives repaints. She has appeared various times in Generation One reboots, from the G1 animated series, TF Universe, Dreamwave and her two-panel cameo in IDW's Megatron Origin.

Alternate Mode
Elita-1 is packaged in the motorcycle mode, so I'll start with it. It looks sturdy, and can roll on the floor. However, the back wheel, which splits in two during transformation, often gets loose and may affect her movement. Elita is coloured reddish-brown with some silver, black and gold for the details.

Elita's four-part crossbow weapon (now molded in opaque black) splits and forms some sort of exhausts attached to her sides. The missile still can be fired though. Her Energon Star (also coloured black) is still there, but since it is black now it doesn't affect the appearance much.

Elita-1 displays great, and has a better alternate mode than some of the Scouts class figures (Booster x10 comes to mind). She is also a great display piece, and attracts attention. (I display her in this mode beside Ratchet and Armorhide) Oh, if you remove the black parts that make the crossbow, pull out her high heels to make her stand better. It's how I made her stand for the photograph.

Robot Mode
Transforming Elita is easy enough. She stands as tall as the scout figures, and looks powerful and feminine at the same time. Her (obviously too large) crossbow can only be mounted in one way on her poorly-moulded hand, but it looks cool (not as good as Deluxe Arcee but never mind).

Elita-1's back wheels form some sort of shoulder armour, and can be folded down if you don't like kibble. Elita has high heels, which actually doesn't affect her stability too much. Appearance-wise, though, Elita makes a better display piece in vehicle mode than an action figure. (although the front of her cycle mode hangs down her butt, doing nothing...) Her legs are articulated, but the same cannot be said for the hands.

The point I'll stress is her hands. Her fists fold out of her wrists, and are nothing but a piece of plastic on ball joint with the fingers molded in. Not even a circular holey-hand! Oh well, what do you expect from a Scouts class figure? Moving on...

Crossbow
...And the crossbow: it is impressive. Her two exhausts combine together to form a crossbow, and can fire a missile. The best thing about this crossbow? Read the instructions: "Energon Weapon can be held by other transformers." Even if you don't like fembots, the crossbow is still a nice addition. You can mount the crossbow, which is too large for her, on Bumblebee or Jazz, with which it is more to scale. I haven't tried it on all my figures though.

Transformation: 4/10 Easy enough, but not too easy.
Durability: 7/10 Surprisingly survived a couple of bad falls.
Price: 7/10 Not bad...
Fun: 8.5/10 Depends if you like fembots, but the crossbow is very fun.
Overall: 8/10 I recommend getting her, but only if you missed the original Energon or the Movie Arcee (like me). She has a non-pink paint job (Yes!), an interactive crossbow (More yes!) and a motorcycle (Yes!). Get her, even if only for the crossbow.