Rise of the Beasts Optimus Primal (Battle Master)

Prelude: We had Targetmasters in 1987, we got Battle Masters in 2018, and finally in 2023 we got the Beast Battle Masters for the Rise of the Beasts movie. Take your own pick whether they are the actual Maximal characters from the movie in a new form or just small drones created in their image, but they transform from beasts to weapons. Here is Optimus Primal, a cute little ape that becomes a big gun. Just roll with it and let’s say go!

Beast Mode: The Beast Battle Masters don’t have robot modes, so we start with the beast mode. Unsurprisingly Optimus Primal is still an ape. A rather small ape, to be precise, designed to stand on all fours. The arms are big and long, the legs are pretty short, but all four limbs are balljointed, so the little guy has a decent amount of articulation. No knees or elbows, of course, but he can turns his head, too.

Primal can stand upright, too, but that causes him to look up all the time. Also, when looking at him from the side, you can look right through his torso. So if you do want to keep him in this mode, leave him as an ape on all fours. Bottom line: a nice beast mode for the size, but not the main attraction of this figure.

Weapon Mode: A rather simple transformation turns Optimus Primal’s ape mode into a big gun. The gun barrel consists of the combined arms of the ape, the ape’s belly flips up as a scope, the ape’s legs are under the barrel like a magazine, and a 5mm handle flips out from the ape’s back. Primal’s head is on the back of the gun now.

The gun looks pretty cool and looks awesome in the hands of Studio Series Optimus Primal, which is why I bought two of him to give the big ape to little apes to fire. Of course you can still see that it’s really an ape, at least from certain angles, but I still like the look. Very nice ape arms.

Remarks: The Beast Battle Masters from Rise of the Beasts have zero media presence. Sure, most of them represent characters we did see in the movie, but they never transformed into weapon modes on screen. Hence why I have decided to create my own head canon for them. Seeing as the Maximals’ beast modes are unnaturally large, they created smaller drones in their own image, so they could scout the areas closer to human settlements without causing a ruckus. And they added weapon modes to those little drones, just for the heck of it. That’s my version, at least.

Much like the Battle Masters in Siege, the Beast Battle Masters are really just extras to be used by larger figures, but Optimus Primal does a pretty good job as a gun. Like I said above, I bought two of him (on sale) to use with my Studio Series Primal, who can wield them in both robot and ape mode and look cool doing it. So bottom line: nice little extra if you’ve got a bigger Primal figure (or some other bot of similar color and design) to give him to.

Rating: B