Animated Blurr

Series: Animated
Allegiance: Autobot
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2008

Eat my dust, Decepticons!
Blurr never stops moving. It's a habit he's gained over centuries of working as an undercover agent for the Autobot Elite Guard. Constant mobility is the best way to avoid detection by Decepticon agents. He is used to remaining in vehicle mode for months or years at a time - as long as it takes to complete his mission, learn what he needs to know, and escape. Unfortunately, because he spends so much time alone, he's not really used to talking so others can understand him.

Robot Mode: Blurr's basic design bears some similarities to that of Lockdown. Their transformations aren't identical, but both convert nearly the entire length of their respective vehicle modes into leg, securing them a spot among the tallest Deluxe figures of all time. Blurr is very tall and lean, a runner's figure (which fits the character to a T of course). The design and color applications of his body also suggest a track suit of some kind, further enhancing his runner's look. Even his head is aerodynamically shaped, including the fin on top. The only parts of him that don't quite fit that look are his pointy shoulders, but they look pretty cool regardless.

Blurr is a very posable figure, only the shoulder movement is the slightest bit restricted because of the shoulders' bulkiness. His tiny little feet give him a surprisingly stable stance, so dynamic poses aren't much of a problem with him. For a weapon Blurr carries a transparent blue chainsaw, which flips out from the hood of his car mode, which doubles as a shield here. The shield-saw-combo can be fastened to his arm or be stored on his back when he doesn't need it. And while I wouldn't have needed a homage to that strange shield thing that G1 Blurr carried around with him, I think this is solved rather nicely here.

So the bottom line is: A very nice, very lean, very cool looking robot mode. No complaints here at all.

Alternate Modes: Whereas the original Blurr transformed into a kind of futuristic hover-car thing, Animated Blurr becomes a very sleek blue sports car. Still looks very futuristic, but considering that Animated is set at least a few decades in our future, that's fine with me. Despite the fact that there are very few car parts visible on Blurr's robot mode, everything fits together very nicely into a car that shows no trace of the robot hidden inside... until you look at it from the back, that is.

The car's rear end is open and you see the back of the robot's head there. This is pretty much the toy's only major flaw. An additional panel or something to round out the rear of the car would have been very welcome. No other complaints about the car mode, though. A very sleek, cool-looking vehicle. With one more panel out back it'd have been flawless.

Remarks: As another Generation 1 homage in the fantastic Animated series Blurr was on Earth as an undercover agent, tasked with sniffing out the Decepticons. After a misunderstanding with Bumblebee he joined the other Earth-based Autobots for the big season finale battle in "A Bridge too Close" and was swept up in the space bridge. When he finally made his way back to Cybertron he unfortunately reported directly to his superior Longarm, who was really a Decepticon undercover agent. Longarm aka Shockwave trapped Blurr in a trash compactor. Did Blurr survive being crushed into a tiny little cube? Some concept arts and comments by Animated's creators suggest he did, but in the series he was sadly never seen again.

As a toy Blurr is a near-perfect translation of the character we saw on TV. I have nothing to complain about when it comes to the robot mode, but sadly the car mode is missing a piece in my mind. It's not a major flaw and doesn't ruin the toy or anything, but it is a bit of a disappointment in an otherwise flawless figure. Still, since I'm more robot-mode-oriented and it's "just" the back of the car mode, I'll only lower the rating very slightly.

Rating: A-