Toku Toy Box: Power Rangers Lightning Collection Time Force Red Ranger Gallery

"This keeps getting better!"

Travelling back in time from the year 3000 the wanted criminal Ransik sought to control the Earth before his enemies at Time Force ever even existed. Having disposed with the Red Ranger of his time, Alex Drake, Ransik had ensured his enemies could no longer Morph despite following him to the past. Luckily for Time Force though, Alex's ancestor Wes Collins was willing to step up and ensure that the future came to pass. With the DNA locks on their Chronomorphers broken, the Time Force Rangers could access their powers again! Joining these heroes from the future, Wes Collins is the Time Force Red Ranger!

Packaging
As we are all pretty familiar with the line by now, I'm sure I probably don't need to go through my usual list of reasons why it's awesome. Hasbro was keen to make sure these appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. And they also really pop thanks in no small part to some wonderful box art, lovingly crafted by artist Tom Whalen aka @strongstufftom on twitter. His artwork is breathtaking, and makes these figure's feel like just a bit more of a passion project from the folks at Hasbro.

Main Figure
Most of the time it's a bit hard for me to tell some of the more basic ranger molds apart, strip away the extra bits like armor boot cuffs and such and they all function in generally the same manner. So in that regard this mold feels very familiar to me, reminding me of many other releases. But specifically I do know that the Time Force Red Ranger shares the same mold as the SPD Omega Ranger.

The entire body is red plastic, broken up only by the boot cuffs, gauntlets, and paint apps on the torso. Like more or less any ranger in this line, Time Force Red features full rotating rocker ankles as well as a clicking swivel joint for them to go back and forth. Above this is the shin swivel, allowing you to rotate that portion of the leg 360 degrees below the knee, right at the boot cuff. Then we get a very playful double jointed knee which lets you fully bend the leg back in on itself. This is great but there's also a 360 thigh swivel as well as full hips with back/forth and outward motion. All of these cuts are executed in the standard Lightning Collection styling, doing their best to not be obtrusive to this design.

Time Force Red features around his waist the unique Time Force emblem and belt. A little soft on the details, and crooked, but this does an admirable job of getting the point across as to what it is. The rest of the torso is totally standard stuff for the line. The lower half has a satisfying but extremely tight ratchet ab joint, while the upper body sits on a ball joint. The combination of the two gives you quite a bit to work with when posing. The chest and back feature that classic Time Force arrow design. I love that bit about the suits, for whatever reason it sticks out in my mind as the most identifiable thing about them, largely because they are so basic. Which is not even remotely a bad thing. In this case however I wish the paint apps had been a little more crisp as there are a number of inconsistently covered areas.

The arms hit the sweet spot with that classic butterfly style shoulder joint. As you angle the shoulder back, the body slides out to fill the gap and vice versa. The white plastic of this joint is ever so slightly not the same color as the paint used on the chest. There's a full 360 rotating bicep swivel, double jointed elbows, and the same peg style hands as the rest of the line. But, in the same manner as his mold mate SPD Omega they can't really rest against the figure's torso naturally and instead angle outward somewhat. I really hope Hasbro implements a better set of arms at some point in the line. The left arm of course features the Chrono Morpher. Unlike other recent LC releases with wrist changers, this one is mostly if not perfectly painted. Perhaps my only issue is that the morpher seems a bit small set into the gauntlet. And on that note I wish the gauntles were painted a bit better, mine in particular are very uneven.

This brings us to Time Force Red's helmet, which has a strong presence on this figure, and a strong drawback. Whether it's a flaw in neck's design or the depth of the helmet, it sits too low on the neck. It covers the neck hinge so fully that angling the helmet back and forth won't give you much range to play with at all. In action poses he's unable to look very up very far at all. So either the ball joint plug in the head is set too deep into the helmet, or the neck itself is too short. But either way it feels limited.

Accessories

1 - Unmasked Wes Collins head. A head sculpt based on the likeness of actor Jason Faunt. I know it's not perfect but I think it's a pretty serviceable sculpt. It's decently expressive, pretty lifelike, and looks good on the suited body. I only take issue with how tight the ball joint is, making it really hard to plug onto the neck.

1 - Chrono Blaster. Though sparsely detailed this little blaster is a pretty great scale representation of the actual prop. I find that it sits just a little bit awkwardly in Red's hand, but with some adjustments its fine.

2 - Chrono Sabers. Each of the 5 core Time Rangers has a pair of these color coded to match them and each pair is capable of connecting end to end to form a double length sword. Another accessory I really like. I appreciate that these are appropriately cast in clear plastic and not a solid color as I expected.

1 - Saber effect part. A long electrical energy effect, this piece slots down over one of the Chronosabers or any other similarly sized sword like weapon. This is one of my favorite effect parts as well.

2 - additional hands. This gives you one hand on each side to hold either of the included weapons, though the left hand isn't the best for hold either of the saber. You also get one closed right fist, but oddly only a thumbs up alternate left. This is an awesome hand to have with any figure, but I wonder if it would have been smarter to include a regular closed fist. As is though, the thumbs up reminded me that Timeranger & Kamen Rider Kuuga were the Superhero Time Block from2000-2001. So double thumbs up!

I know this is reaching. I get it. But I would have adored this release had it included some SPD parts to recreate the suit as it was seen in Time Force. But all things considered this figure came with a ton of accessories already. I'd be more than happy to buy this mold again though if it were ever released with the SPD logos and say a battle damaged head as Officer Tate. I think it's an easy to do repaint or even slight remold and would be a great deep cut for the line.

Final Thoughts
The Lightning Collection Time Force Red Ranger is another serviceable entry in the line, even with a couple minor flaws. I'm eager to get the rest of the team, in particular though Quantum Ranger. But your guess is as good as mine as to when one of these other 5 Time Force Rangers will even wind up in the line. It's been quite the year for the Lightning Collection. Going into 2021, I hope we see the line grow even more.

Part 2

Excellent photo shoot as always, Time Force was my first series when i was young, and so this figure is a really special release for me. The helmet looks crisp, as does the suit itself, however, my copy suffered from the decal alignment issue on the helmet, so its a bit skewed. Still a great figure tho, and the accessories are tops, especially the combining chrono sabers. It's also nice that for once, a release has a painted wrist morpher.

Side Note: how did you do the red light effect? And what stand do you use for these photos? It fits their thicker-than- figuarts build perfectly, better than tamashii stands.

"Time For Time Force". Chrono Saber Red ready. Wesley Collins one of the best Red Rangers in the building.

The only LC figure I own right now because I love Timeforce/Time Ranger. To me this is a fantastic figure. The amount and range of accessories definitely makes you feel you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck. Personal gripes are I wish the thumbs hand was replaced with a flat palm to recreate the roll call pose, and the aforementioned limited neck peg is disappointing. Cherry on top would’ve been to also get the giant cannon

This really makes me wish Hasbro did themed waves so we could complete teams, because this is one set I absolutely would love to have

I actually do use Tamashii Stages. All authentic Bandai. The hands I use with my stages though come from the Tamashii Act Wresting and Cloth Myth stages. Designed to hold thicker and wider figures. Works like a dream on lightning collection.

I wish they did themed waves too, but then again, too much of the same and some less popular seasons could cause mass shelf warming. It makes sense to give variety each wave, keeps people trying to complete teams attached to the line for a while, and giving the masses a spectrum of new figures to pick up.

Our resident 3D printer, DesignInCase, has actually designed a canon for red. It is huge, and in hindsight, makes sense why something that big wasn't included in a $20 figure.

For the flat palm, i believ you can take a flat karate chop hand thats white, paint it red, and Voila! Saluting hand!

Im also working on 3d printed alternate hands for figures that don't have them, so maybe until i get some results or someone else whips them up, the above solution is a decent stand-in, so to speak.

I thought they were either Hasbro stands or a different brand because of those very clips. They are much wider and less curved than the ones normally sold by bandai or with figuarts.

Are the one for Saint Sieya sold seperately? Or do you have to buy the myth stage or wrestling sets?

I always enjoyed Time Force, it really felt like OR was really hitting it's stride story telling wise, even if it did copy and paste a.m.e of those story elements from Timeranger. So it's good that they got this release right, mostly based on the review.

I feel that, instead of the generic lightning, a better effect part would be a translucent clock backdrop to perform one of the time beat attacks.

I know it would likely require a stand to do, but still...