The Technodrome is Krang’s mobile fortress of doom “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.” Actually, it’s also a mobile fortress of doom in most other scenarios and the ultimate war machine. However, if you’re referring to the toy then it retails for $89.90 and is more like a giant vehicle for Krang and his cronies. And since it’s the GSS now, you can probably get it for 20% off. I didn’t. Sadly. I wanted it far too much.
It’s curious why it took almost 20 years for another version of the Technodrome to come out. I mean, look at the secondary market for vintage Technodromes. It could set you back by almost $400 SGD. That’s more than 4 current generation Technodromes. It might be worth it if you’re really reminiscing about the good old 80’s.
Anyway if you’re born in the 80’s and you did well for your exams, you could ask your parents for a Technodrome back in the original cartoon era. And then lose all the itty little parts that came along with it. Isn’t life grand?
Packaging
The box is pretty evocative on first glance, since it has the Turtles battling Krang and Shredder and a Foot Soldier all over the Technodrome. It’s also pretty big and hefty, which it should be, seeing as which it’s the Technodrome!
But one thing becomes apparent after a closer look. The Technodrome doesn’t seem to have all that many features or playability. It’s touted as a playset, but it really functions more like an upsized vehicle. Then again, a real vehicle is something like the Transport Module (Mutant Module if you want to be picky), which also costs way too much to find if you’re looking for a complete version.
Also, what does the outer shell of the Techndrome look like? It seems like the entire base is hollow, but that clearly isn’t the case. It looks pretty menacing when the solid side faces you, so including that image would have been a lot more enticing too.
Unboxing the Technodrome
The actual Technodrome is much thicker than the box itself. If you’ve got any of the figures, that should also be apparent. So it comes disassembled into two major pieces, because one side of it is “hollow.”
There aren’t a lot of missiles or accessories that come with the Technodrome. That’s a little sad if you’re into firing missiles at your children, but great if you’re the sort who loses these things easily or wants to display them. Me? I’m 50-50 on the issue.
I suppose you could (spoiler) recreate the construction of the Technodrome in the movie if you like, although it doesn’t really come apart the way it’s disassembled in the box.
One thing you’ll note that is that the pieces feel really soft. It’s soft plastic that they use, which is almost rubbery. This is mainly for the outer shell. In no way does the plastic feel cheap, it’s just that it’s odd that it’s so soft. Perhaps it’s to prevent injuries, as explained later on.
The Technodrome lives!
The Technodrome can close up into a ball, of which then it has two sides – the “hollow” side, and the solid side. The solid side is pretty amazing and an intimidating force of evil, which is what you’re looking for if you were a super villain with advanced alien technology on your side.
The “hollow” side has a platform for the bad guys to stand and… gloat, I suppose? So it’s sort of like a double-decker bus in this sense. I don’t like it though. It feels incomplete, and to be honest, like they were trying to cut material costs. Then again, it seems to be intentionally designed to work this way, so I could be wrong about the material costs part.
It is grounded in some movie scenes though, so it’s not entirely without precedence. Still, I’d rather have a complete metal ball of destruction rather than this.
Another thing to note is that the base is really, really unstable. It’s not as rotatable as it seems – it can only turn to a limited extent before, well, you have to reverse and try to do some three point turning. Because it’s such a small base for such an unwieldy mass, you’ll probably topple the Technodrome a few times as you try to drive it around the house.
Good thing the outer shell is made of soft plastic then. It doesn’t hurt so much if it falls on your foot, or your dog, or your infant child that you’re terrorising with your new plaything.
It’s OK inside, but there aren’t a lot of places that the characters can stand. They can really only stand on the second storey, because the first storey is either non-existent or it’s the engine room area. It makes sense from a cost-cutting perspective, since they can just stand on the ground instead of the first floor, so you don’t need to build that in.
Also, the first storey of the original Technodrome had plenty of playability and functions, so I’m comparing it to its ancestor in a way. But, for its price point I suppose it’s not a terrible omission.
Deep into the Technodrome
So if your characters can only play at the second storey, what exactly is at the first storey? A fair bit of detail, as it would turn out. What this Technodrome lacks in playability, it tries to make up for in adding interesting details, especially to the first storey.
So there are all these cables and pipes leading to the central core of the Technodrome. It’s tough to see since you really have to flip the Technodrome over to look at it properly (something I was loathe to do since it might fall on my toe again), but it does give some idea on how the Turtles can stop the Techndrome. Hack away at those cables!
Except those cables are moulded in la.
The “hollow” part has a large platform area which can just barely fit four Turtles and Krang. However, it’s kind of unstable, so you might have trouble getting them all to stand. And there’s that balance issue, so yes, the Technodrome might tip over at the slightest provocation.
Yes, the Technodrome has guns that bad guys can man! The problem, again, is that they don’t have a very good place to stand when they do. So they’ll kind of be hanging on for dear life when they hold on to the guns. Still, if you really want to outfit the entire Technodrome with bad guys, they can stand here.
Krang’s command centre is a little weird. From all the promo pics, it’s obvious that Krang controls the Technodrome from here. However, it also has a trapdoor, so it’s a trap for… Krang? Who else would stand there? But it’s a good playable feature, so I’m not quibbling that much.
As a homage to the original Technodrome, the central part of this Technodrome is a jail cell of sorts. Or, you can put another bad guy here and have him, I don’t know, be driving the Technodrome. Or maybe they have a secret power cell here that would disable the entire fortress!
The other standable portion also features a trapdoor, but at least this one has a ladder. What’s up with the trapdoors in this place! I guess it serves as an escape hatch for the Turtles, if they need to make a quick getaway. It also (slightly) makes the lack of a first storey here forgiveable, even though I still would like a first storey here.
And yes it has a stand, which is a bit wobbly.
Krang
I like Krang. I don’t know why. Maybe because he’s a brain, so I guess he’s smart, even though his plans never succeed. Or perhaps I always envisaged he had psychic powers, even though he doesn’t. Remember how the original Technodrome had a part where you could plug the original Krang in?
It reminded me of DC’s “Panic in the Sky” saga where Brainiac plugged himself into Warworld and gained unlimited psychic power. The Turtles (who were Kai Lords, you know, the Lone Wolf type) always had to combine their ninjutsu mysticism to overcome Krang’s psychic powers to defeat him, when I played with the old Technodrome.
I wished the Krang had more features that were specially for Krang. It’s a bit more universal if it’s applicable to all figures, but a pod or something that only the Krang figure could use would have been great.
So here it is! My review of the Technodrome. I think it looks pretty good, but it lacks the features that would increase the playability of the toy. Still, an update of the Technodrome is better than no update at all!
And I’m sure you can find a better way to hatch your evil plan than Krang did in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.”
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