 This episode of HCC 788 brought to you in part by the Dicast Enterprise. Join us each week as we discuss the sexual proclivities of Commander William T. Riker. The bravado comedy of Lieutenant War. And the adorable monkey shines up one Wesley the Sweater Crusher. Or maybe we'll just talk about the Golden Girls. Or hairstyles. Or cartoons. That's equally likely. We also like G.I. Joe. There, we tied that in nicely. Well done everyone on that. By all our play sets and toys. Cobra Commander 788 here. Back to your so great cop here. Hello G.I. Joe. I'll SWATERIZE IT! I'm excited! Ready. Ready. Ready. Silence kill. Hello everybody, good to Cobra Commander 788 here. It's time for another Battle Force 2000 review. And we are almost done with Battle Force 2000 Month. Can you believe we've made it this far? We have two more to go including this one. And for this review we are looking at the Eliminator four wheel drive vehicle. And the driver sold separately blocker. All of the Battle Force 2000 vehicle drivers were sold separately from the vehicles that were intended to drive. But we are reviewing them together. And all of the first wave of Battle Force 2000 vehicles had a special gimmick. You could remove pieces from them and then reassemble them to form the future fortress. With each of these Battle Force 2000 reviews we are adding a piece to the future fortress. So this time we will see how the Eliminator contributes to the fortress. Also with each of these Battle Force 2000 reviews we have a special guest. Joe Fan 82 will provide a preview of the upcoming Joe Con Exclusive Battle Force 2000 figures. Hey guys, stay tuned after HCC reviews the vintage blocker. Because I'll be looking at the modern version we'll be seeing at Joe Con this year. Thank you Joe Fan 82. Don't forget to check out his YouTube channel if you haven't already. Joe Fan 82 has been so helpful with these previews. I wonder if he could educate us about other things. Joe Fan, what would you say are the geopolitical implications of Britain's interest in the Rock of Gibraltar? Hey guys, stay tuned after HCC reviews the vintage blocker. Because I'll be looking at the modern version we'll be seeing at Joe Con this year. Fascinating. Another question for you. Do you really think the existence of the Higgs Boson was confirmed by the large Hadron Collider in 2013? Hey guys, stay tuned after HCC reviews the vintage blocker. Because I'll be looking at the modern version we'll be seeing at Joe Con this year. Ha ha, Will Wonders Never Cease. Let's go ahead and look at the toy. HCC 788 presents the Eliminator and Blocker. This is the 1987 Battle Force 2000 Eliminator four-wheel drive and the driver blocker. This vehicle and the driver were sold separately and they were available in 1987 and 1988 and were discontinued for the year 1989. Blocker was never sold with the Eliminator. All Battle Force 2000 figures were sold as carded figures, not packaged with their vehicles. In 1987 Blocker was sold as a single carded figure. In 1988 he was available in a two-pack with his Battle Force 2000 teammate Maverick. As you can see we have two figures here. That means we will be looking at a variant. Hasbro was clearly hoping Battle Force 2000 would have legs. They were expecting it to last beyond this first wave. There were a couple later Battle Force 2000 items released in 1989 after the first wave had been discontinued. In 1988 Destro's Iron Grenadiers were released with the Battle Force 2000 logo on the packaging. But Battle Force 2000 never faced off against the Iron Grenadiers in G.I. Joe Media. It's probably just as well. The Iron Grenadiers were elite troops. They were not Cobra cannon fodder. I don't think Battle Force 2000 would have fared well against them. We're going to look at the Eliminator now so we're going to set Blocker aside and look at him later. The Eliminator is Battle Force 2000's general purpose vehicle. It is in the same category as the vamp, the awe striker and the desert fox. Although it is slightly larger than the vamp and the awe striker, it's closer in size to the desert fox. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Eliminator starting here in front. We have this push bar. It is in black plastic and it does extend out pretty far. Then we have these little green guns and the blueprints call these deflector sound deflector pivoting laser guns. And I think the description is kind of funny because it uses the word deflector twice. They are green and they do pivot a little bit. On the starboard side of the vehicle we have what the blueprints call forward looking infrared or FLIR radar detected laser cannon. And they got something right. Forward looking infrared or FLIR is a real thing. It is a thermographic camera that sees infrared radiation. They're often used to help pilots navigate through night and fog. It is black. It does pivot a little bit more than 180 degrees. But it's really only useful for targets straight ahead or on the starboard side of the vehicle. It doesn't pivot around far enough to hit targets approaching from the port side. Next we have this roll cage in black plastic. It looks like it is hinged here in the front so you ought to be able to pop this up and swing it forward. But apparently not. Mine is firmly fixed in the body of the vehicle. Just bend the action figures knees and wedge him through the bars and into the driver's seat. You can place his hands on the control sticks but they don't go all the way on. They just kind of rest on the sticks. But he is fully seated in the driver's seat and that gets to my problems with the roll cage. The driver has no protection at all. He's totally exposed to enemy fire. There's hardly any point in having an armored vehicle at all. And the driver's head sticks out above the roll cage. So if the vehicle rolls, the cage would give him no protection at all. It misses the point of even having a roll cage. Now let's get to the wheels and the wheels are a major feature and a major problem with this vehicle. They are plastic wheels with a hubcap design that's similar to what we have seen on the dominator and the marauder. But these are in blue and both the front and the back wheels turn. They ratchet in a right, a center and a left position and that's not bad. But the problem is the connections where the axles connect to the body of the vehicle are extremely weak and prone to breakage. And that has happened on my back wheels. So the back wheels no longer ratchet. They just kind of swing freely and that is a major problem. Because now the vehicle will not roll properly. The back wheels do not want to stay straight. This is an unfortunate case of inadequate engineering. When you turn the wheels, it puts quite a bit of pressure on those posts and the posts are too weak and they break. And if you have a broken post, the wheels don't align properly which reduces the functionality of the vehicle. This fire control station has a seat. It has a computer screen with a sticker. And it has a control stick here with some other instruments. The figure sits in straight legged and you can put the figure's hand on the control stick. The computer screen has a keyboard on it but it's impossible for the figure to use unless he can type with his feet. There is a stairway to the fire control station and I like that. There's a foot peg on the bottom step. Moving toward the rear of the vehicle, we have the main armament. We have this big green gun which the blueprints call a remote operated dual 20mm repeating auto load cannons. It is big and green. It can elevate and it can pivot all the way around on the turret. There are a couple foot pegs on the turret so you can place an action figure on there and usually that's a pretty cool thing. However, the gun itself only comes up about to the action figure's thigh level so it doesn't look like the figure would be operating the gun from that position. Finally, in the back we have a universal GI Joe tow hook. This entire back section with the fire control center and the gun turret are removable but I wanted to take one last look at the vehicle with that piece on because I do think it works quite well. It follows the lines of the vehicle perfectly so I think the eliminator looks good with that piece on. To remove that piece, just lift up to reveal another set of weapons underneath. The blueprints call this a removable tactical ground station and we will look more at this later but let's finish looking at the main vehicle. Removing the ground station reveals a lot. First of all, we still have that stairway but we have another foot peg on the top step. Swinging the vehicle around to the other side we have two additional foot pegs and a removable engine cover with some engine detail. We also have the lock unlock detail that we have seen on all other Battleforce 2000 vehicles. Most importantly we have this hidden missile rack. It lies flat in this recessed trench that runs down the center of the vehicle and it swings up on a couple hinged supports. You can swing this missile rack up and it holds in this about a 45 degree angle and you can see there is some additional molded detail under the missile rack so that's nice. The missile rack has six removable missiles. They are all the same. They peg in on a very shallow peg which means it can be a little bit difficult to get on and off. Unless I am missing something, the blueprints do not have a name for these missiles. They are just small generic green missiles. I like the idea of this missile rack more than I like the execution. I like the idea of this pop-up hidden weapon. I think an enemy would be surprised to find this vehicle has six hidden missiles on it. However, the way this is set up, the blast from the front missiles will hit the ones in the back. Now let's look at the removable tactical ground station. We've already seen what's on it. It has a seat and a control panel and a pivoting turret. But in order for it to work as a ground station, you have to pop out these four little feet. There is one on each corner and once you have those popped out, it will sit flat on the ground. That really is all there is to it. There is no other transformation. It just pops feet out so it will work as a unit separate from the main vehicle. This is also the eliminator's contribution to the future fortress. Now let's look at how the eliminator fits with the future fortress. We have already assembled the pieces from the dominator, the vector, the skysweeper and the marauder. Now the blueprints suggest that you place the eliminator's piece in this position and it just rests right there. Once again, it does not connect to anything. It simply rests near the other parts of the fortress. It must have been at this point when kids really caught on to the fact that they were being conned with this future fortress gimmick. There's only one piece to go and only one position for it. If you're disappointed at this point, it's very unlikely the fortress will redeem itself. Now let's look at Blocker. Blocker may take his name from American football offensive linemen, which are also sometimes called blockers. I have the full card back for Blocker, so let's take a brief look at that. We have the Battleforce 2000 logo and the GI Joe logo. We have a price sticker for Murphy's. This figure was $3.99 and frankly, I think that's a little steep. Unfortunately, a lot of the paper is ripped off the front here. But we have this artwork for Blocker and Blocker is firing his laser. But oddly, it seems he's not looking in this direction that he's firing. Slipping the card around to the other side, we have the cross cell and a partition for Battleforce 2000 here. We have our flag point and Blocker's file card. We will look at that later. Let's look at Blocker's accessory. He came with what the card contents called an XL-13 light refraction submachine laser. It is in silver plastic and it has a big loop. Submachine laser makes no sense, but it's not a bad looking accessory. There are worse Battleforce 2000 weapons. Let's look at the articulation on Blocker. He had the articulation that was standard by 1987. So he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees and he had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. The figure could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Blocker starting with his head. And on his head he has this non-removable helmet or hat. It is in dark gray with an orange camouflage pattern. And this looks like it's supposed to be a hat. It looks like the top of his head is covered in cloth. And I got to be honest, I thought originally this was a helmet, but it seems a little less cool as a hat. The face sculpt is adequate. I don't mind that at all. Here's where we have the variant. Some blocker figures have a clear visor attached to his hat. Other blocker figures do not. That visor can be removed with some effort, but I don't think it was intended to be removed. There's another odd variation that went along with this visor. The figures that had the visor also had a red paint application on the left wrist that was gray on the non-visor variant. I don't know which of these was released first, but I suspect it was the version with the visor because the extra piece and the paint application would have increased the cost of the figure. So I can see those features being cut for cost. On his chest he has nicely sculpted armor. He has what looks like canisters attached to silver shoulder straps. And I do like this look for Blocker. This ridged armor pattern reminds me of the Baroness, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. On his arms he has gray sleeves, and on his right arm he has an orange band. He has orange bracing over gray gloves. Now this orange color isn't too bad. It's kind of muted. It's not a bright orange. On his waist he has a belt that is unpainted. A spot of silver paint might have been nice there. He has more of that orange camouflage pattern. On his legs he has gray trousers and that same dark gray color. And he has more of that orange camouflage pattern. He has large pockets on his thighs. You would expect these to obstruct the figure when he is in the vehicle, but they don't really. He has gray boots with orange shin guards. And on the right side he has a silver knife. Odd placement for that knife right in the middle of his shin. This gray and orange camouflage pattern may seem strange to you, but that's because you may not know that in the future lots of things will be gray and orange. In the far distant future, all the way in the year 2000, plant life will change to this gray and orange color due to global warming. So Blocker will blend right in. Right, Joe Van? Hey guys, stay tuned after HCC reviews the vintage Blocker because I'll be looking at the modern version we'll be seeing at Joe Con this year. Truer words have never been spoken. Let's take a look at Blocker's file card. It has his faction as Battle Force 2000 and GI Joe and a portrait of Blocker here. It says his codename is Blocker and he is the Eliminator Driver. His file name is David B. McCarthy. His primary military specialty is Mechanized Recon. His secondary military specialty is Special Services. Special Services refers to the entertainment branch of the armed forces. His birthplace is Boston, Massachusetts. He is a New Englander. In the case that the file card was not written by Larry Hama, the writer of the GI Joe comic book, because Hasbro employees liked to make all of their characters New Englanders because Hasbro headquarters is located in Rhode Island. However, this file card does seem to have Larry Hama's fingerprints on it. His grade is E5 Sergeant. This top paragraph says Blocker drove a taxi in Boston for three years. After seven armed robberies, three backseat bursts and one near fatal plunge through a collapsing roadway, he decided it was safer to drive something armor-plated with the ability to shoot back. I'm not 100% certain what this collapsing roadway is a reference to. It may be a reference to an accident on the Tobin Bridge in Boston, where a gravel truck crashed into a support, collapsing the upper deck and killing the driver. But that was in 1973 and Blocker was unlikely to be a taxi driver at that time. There was a collapse on the so-called Big Dig, that was in 2009, long after this file card was written. It doesn't paint a very good picture of Boston, but this card was written by a New Yorker, so there may have been some rivalry there. He is qualified to drive every wheeled vehicle in the Army inventory and was the test driver for half a dozen prototype vehicles at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. As noted on Knockdown's file card, Aberdeen Proving Ground is a U.S. Army Ordnance Testing Facility in Aberdeen, Maryland. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, I have seen him go over into a complete role at high speed, recover and keep on going. He takes on the slalom minimally at 85 miles per hour and doesn't tip nary a cone. The skid pad, don't even ask. All that and he does it with vehicles built to military specs. Amazing! So he drives really fast. We get the same idea from a lot of other GI Joe vehicle driver file cards. He doesn't have any description of his special services specialty. I would have expected that. Now I'll turn it over to Joe Fan 82 for a preview of the modern blocker figure. Thanks, HCC. Here is the new blocker and he's ready to go hunting. He's got the dark brown uniform from the original figure with a red-orange camo pattern. And he's ready to go hunting with some rabbits with his hunting hat, which is not removable. In addition to the new head sculpt, he comes with a removable vest, tactical shotgun, and his original XL-13 laser weapon. This looks like a pretty decent attempt at updating and modernizing the original design. Personally, I would have preferred to see the uniform and camo color more closely match the rest of the team. But that's how the vintage figure looked, which is what they're going with here. That's it for this preview of modern blocker. Back to you, HCC. Helpful as always, Joe Fan 82. If you've liked these previews, he does this kind of thing all the time on his own channel, so check out Joe Fan 82 on YouTube. Let's talk about blocker and the eliminator's appearances in GI Joe Media. Battle Force 2000 did not appear in the cartoon series. They were only animated for commercials. The Sunbow era of the animated series ended with the 1987 GI Joe animated movie. Battle Force 2000 came out late in 1987, so they missed out on that. I have looked through the Battle Force 2000 commercials, and they did not see blocker, so blocker may not have been animated even for the commercials. Blocker did appear in the GI Joe comic book series whenever the rest of the Battle Force 2000 team appeared. He didn't have any noteworthy solo story arcs. Of course, the character died, along with most of the Battle Force 2000 team in issue number 113. Looking at the eliminator and blocker overall, the figure and the vehicle are evenly matched in that they are both slightly above average and not quite top tier. The eliminator is a good general purpose vehicle and Battle Force 2000 needed one. I like the versatility. The hidden missile rack is not a bad idea, but it could have been executed better. You basically have a bunch of missiles that are all lined up on a flat surface. I just feel like something more could have been done there. The driver is exposed in a tiny roll cage, and since his head pops up above the roll cage, it provides no protection at all. And that's really the case with a lot of these Battle Force 2000 vehicles. You have armored vehicles that do nothing to protect the driver. My biggest problem with the eliminator is the front and rear axles. The connection points are way too weak. I have a couple eliminators, and they are both broken in the same place. A piece that was going to have that much pressure put on it should have been engineered better. I like blocker, not as much as Dodger, but I would say blocker is probably my second favorite Battle Force 2000 figure. I think in a previous video he was my favorite, but after looking at Dodger more closely, I have reconsidered that. A blocker is still okay though. I like the colors on blocker. I can even tolerate the orange. It's not a bright orange, so I can live with it. And I think I prefer the variant of blocker with the visor, because it makes his hat look a little more like a helmet. For all of Battle Force 2000's fault, I will give it one thing. It was one of the few GI Joe sub teams that was all new. And that's why it's surprising that Battle Force 2000 wasn't more popular. Tiger Force is remembered more fondly than Battle Force 2000, and all Tiger Force did was repaint and reissue old toys. But Tiger Force reissued toys that kids liked. I mean, we liked the original vehicles and figures, so I guess we didn't mind getting reissued. But the all new Battle Force 2000 did not succeed. But I think this goes to show that no matter how much marketing effort is put into something, if the kids don't like it, they're not going to buy it. That was my review of the Eliminator and Blocker. One more review for Battle Force 2000 Month. It is coming up on Sunday. Thank you again, Joefan82 for imparting to us your wisdom. Only one more to go, my friend. One more to go. Just a reminder, after Battle Force 2000 Month, I am taking a week off. There will not be a new review the following week. But the week after that, I am coming back with a new Returns Choice review, so watch for that. Please like this video on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, share this video, like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, support the channel on Patreon, and check out HCC788.com Thank you for sticking with me for Battle Force 2000 Month. One more to go. I will see you in just a few days. To protect America, a top secret team creates the battle vehicles of the future. We're in real trouble here, Hawk! Call it in! Battle Force 2000! Battle Force 2000! Secret Force of G.I. Joe! They're splitting in two! And reforming! Battle Force 2000! They can take on any pose of G.I. Joe! Well, Battle Force 2000 finally defeated...