The Twins: Skids and Mudflap
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:40 pm
It just felt...'right' to start reviewing the two together, as opposed to seperately. So that's what I'm gonna do.
For those who still can't get it right: Skids is the green one. Mudflap is the orange one.
Vehicle Modes:
I'm gonna start with a disclaimer: I don't like the deco on these vehicles. That's not to say that I immediately dislike the deco on the figures themselves--I just don't like the way these cars look. Skids' random black hood is incredibly annoying, to me, as are the black bits on Mudflap's bumpers. It's the same problem I have with the way Sideways' vehicle mode is decoed, even if his toy doesn't look like that--and to a lesser extent, this problem dates back to the '07 movie Decepticon Jolt figure, or even as far back as Blue Bluestreak. (Although in Bluestreak's case, he usually makes that deco work.)
That said, these altmodes pretty decently capture the likeness of the vehicle decos. They look like little minivan-SUV-whatever-the-hell-these-are. And Skids' black streak patterns on the door 'do' look kind of cool. But if anyone fails here, it's Mudflap. To start with, he's got really visible screws in the back windows. It doesn't bother 'me' all that much, because that kind of thing usually doesn't bother me--I acknowledge that these are toys and, occasionally, sacrifices must be made, but I can't say I'm doing my job as a reviewer if I don't point it out.
Mudflap's other suck point is his missile. Unlike Skids, Mudflap has a traditional missile launcher on his arm, and it has...a missile, surprise! And it *does* have storage. But it's really sucky storage. You basically just throw it underneath the car and slide it into the place it goes--it's not unlike how a lot of Universe figures like Ironhide and Prowl stored their guns. The problem here is that there's a big chunk of missile stick hanging out the back, no matter which way you do it, and it just looks bad. No effort made to camoflague it. Bad dog, Hasbro, no biscuit.
One last thing: Mudflap apparently has a variant out. The first release has a red license plate with "TRAX" in black letters--the kind of vehicle Mudflap turns into. I can't say for sure if this is accurate to the movie or not. The newer variant has a black license plate with "MUDFLAP" in red letters. For what it's worth, I got the old variant.
"Okay, now watch the transformation:"
I don't like to explain out a transformation sequence, especially step by step, because I feel like...somehow it's spoilery. And also, describing how parts shift and move around one another is probably one of the hardest things to describe. (Tied is action sequences.) But there's some things I feel like I need to talk about in this one.
Being twins, Skids and Mudflap transform pretty similarly. They both have their feet tucked under the hood with their arms towards the back of the car, both involve a large portion rotating around a single swivel joint in the back, both have hideously fiddly backpacks, and both have waists that don't like to move properly. That's where the similarities end--Skids' arms are connected right to his body while Mudflap's are connected to the backpack. Both involve different methods of fiddling with back kibble and leg kibble--even though the back kibble on both is extremely similar.
With both figures, you'll probably be able to quickly piece together something that easily resembles a robot mode, with proper arms and legs and a head and a chest--but the details will still need to be worked out. The backpacks are 'endlessly' fiddly and even after owning them for a week, I'm still not sure if I'm doing them right. And I don't *care* because they can at least be worked into something that's not too horribly inhabilitating or ugly-looking. I wish the windshields would fold up more into the back portions, but I can't seem to do that.
So, who's the winner? Skids, again. As I said, Mudflap's arms are connected to his backpack. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, but he also has horribly fiddly shouldery doorwings, and these will often rub up against the wheels that form the inside edge of his arms. On top of this, the only connection point on the backpack is the missile storage slot, which hooks rather unsatisfyingly to a tab behind Mudflap's head. Skids has a similar issue--the only point his backpack connects to his body is a similar tab and slot, *but* because Skids' arms are attached to his body and not his backpack, it's not as much of an issue. There's a lot more wiggle room there.
Robot Mode:
I'll get it out of the way now. Their heads! At this point, we've known what the Twins would look like for months, so you either like the heads they have, or you've at least gotten used to them. They are, without a doubt, probably what will keep most people away from the figures. With more normal-looking heads, they might have been real hit characters, but as-is I don't think they're going to win a lot of people over. Mudflap's entire head actually is built like it's a pair of binoculars, and I'd like it a lot more if it were straighter.
Now's a good time to mention--there's a Skids variant out. One apparently has the teeth painted wrong or not at all, it's unclear to me, but the other has them properly painted--his right tooth (our left) is gold while the left (our right) is silver. I ended up with this one, purely by chance, since I didn't know about the variant when I bought mine.
Again, being twins, they're very similar. They both have one huge arm and a regular-looking one--on opposite sides, no less. Mudflap's got a missile launcher that rises slightly when you move his wrist. It's honestly a cruddy gimmick, and it's not that impressive at all. Probably Mech Alive, I didn't look to check. Skids has a giant Fist Of Doom (although it's actually no bigger than Mudflap's) that launches and stops, like the tail stinger on Scorponok from the first movie line. I get why Hasbro would stop it from shooting the whole way--from the looks of things, it's definitely not long enough to work as its own projectile without breaking safety standards. But the idea of Skids shooting his fist out entirely brings to mind images of 60s super robots like Mazinger Z, or the original Lion Voltron's shooting lion head fists, or even the (neutered?) fist-shooting gimmicks of guys like Trailbreaker, Grapple and Devastator.
Oh, and when you pop out the fist, a little gun flips out. It's not that cool.
They also both have an odd gimmick where pushing their chest makes their head bob downwards. I think it's supposed to be Mech Alive, but all it reminds me of is the Pillsbury Doughboy. It's not 'intrusive,' certainly, but I can't help but think the budget that went to *that* couldn't have been better spent on something like splitting fingers for Demolishor or Sideways' abandoned arm gimmick (gimmicks?).
So. Who's the better robot? Mudflap's got an armgun, and guns are cool, but Skids' idea of Punchy Flying Robot Fist entertains me more than it should. (I'm honestly thinking about taking his arm apart to see if it's possible.) Plus, Mudflap has those cruddy shoulder wings that I mentioned earlier, which have the potential to literally knock the robot apart if you mess with them too much. Skids is much more solid in that department.
Overall?
Here's the thing. Did you like the Twins in the movie? I did. That's part of why I got them--I had a feeling I'd probably like them, and even if I didn't, the toys looked interesting enough that they could probably redeem them. So I liked the Twins enough to buy them. Both of them. And even though Skids is technically the better toy...They compliment each other. They look good in a pair. I honestly can't imagine seeing one of them without the other next to him. But, if you're hell-bent on only buying one, get Skids. He 'is' the better individual toy.
For those who still can't get it right: Skids is the green one. Mudflap is the orange one.
Vehicle Modes:
I'm gonna start with a disclaimer: I don't like the deco on these vehicles. That's not to say that I immediately dislike the deco on the figures themselves--I just don't like the way these cars look. Skids' random black hood is incredibly annoying, to me, as are the black bits on Mudflap's bumpers. It's the same problem I have with the way Sideways' vehicle mode is decoed, even if his toy doesn't look like that--and to a lesser extent, this problem dates back to the '07 movie Decepticon Jolt figure, or even as far back as Blue Bluestreak. (Although in Bluestreak's case, he usually makes that deco work.)
That said, these altmodes pretty decently capture the likeness of the vehicle decos. They look like little minivan-SUV-whatever-the-hell-these-are. And Skids' black streak patterns on the door 'do' look kind of cool. But if anyone fails here, it's Mudflap. To start with, he's got really visible screws in the back windows. It doesn't bother 'me' all that much, because that kind of thing usually doesn't bother me--I acknowledge that these are toys and, occasionally, sacrifices must be made, but I can't say I'm doing my job as a reviewer if I don't point it out.
Mudflap's other suck point is his missile. Unlike Skids, Mudflap has a traditional missile launcher on his arm, and it has...a missile, surprise! And it *does* have storage. But it's really sucky storage. You basically just throw it underneath the car and slide it into the place it goes--it's not unlike how a lot of Universe figures like Ironhide and Prowl stored their guns. The problem here is that there's a big chunk of missile stick hanging out the back, no matter which way you do it, and it just looks bad. No effort made to camoflague it. Bad dog, Hasbro, no biscuit.
One last thing: Mudflap apparently has a variant out. The first release has a red license plate with "TRAX" in black letters--the kind of vehicle Mudflap turns into. I can't say for sure if this is accurate to the movie or not. The newer variant has a black license plate with "MUDFLAP" in red letters. For what it's worth, I got the old variant.
"Okay, now watch the transformation:"
I don't like to explain out a transformation sequence, especially step by step, because I feel like...somehow it's spoilery. And also, describing how parts shift and move around one another is probably one of the hardest things to describe. (Tied is action sequences.) But there's some things I feel like I need to talk about in this one.
Being twins, Skids and Mudflap transform pretty similarly. They both have their feet tucked under the hood with their arms towards the back of the car, both involve a large portion rotating around a single swivel joint in the back, both have hideously fiddly backpacks, and both have waists that don't like to move properly. That's where the similarities end--Skids' arms are connected right to his body while Mudflap's are connected to the backpack. Both involve different methods of fiddling with back kibble and leg kibble--even though the back kibble on both is extremely similar.
With both figures, you'll probably be able to quickly piece together something that easily resembles a robot mode, with proper arms and legs and a head and a chest--but the details will still need to be worked out. The backpacks are 'endlessly' fiddly and even after owning them for a week, I'm still not sure if I'm doing them right. And I don't *care* because they can at least be worked into something that's not too horribly inhabilitating or ugly-looking. I wish the windshields would fold up more into the back portions, but I can't seem to do that.
So, who's the winner? Skids, again. As I said, Mudflap's arms are connected to his backpack. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, but he also has horribly fiddly shouldery doorwings, and these will often rub up against the wheels that form the inside edge of his arms. On top of this, the only connection point on the backpack is the missile storage slot, which hooks rather unsatisfyingly to a tab behind Mudflap's head. Skids has a similar issue--the only point his backpack connects to his body is a similar tab and slot, *but* because Skids' arms are attached to his body and not his backpack, it's not as much of an issue. There's a lot more wiggle room there.
Robot Mode:
I'll get it out of the way now. Their heads! At this point, we've known what the Twins would look like for months, so you either like the heads they have, or you've at least gotten used to them. They are, without a doubt, probably what will keep most people away from the figures. With more normal-looking heads, they might have been real hit characters, but as-is I don't think they're going to win a lot of people over. Mudflap's entire head actually is built like it's a pair of binoculars, and I'd like it a lot more if it were straighter.
Now's a good time to mention--there's a Skids variant out. One apparently has the teeth painted wrong or not at all, it's unclear to me, but the other has them properly painted--his right tooth (our left) is gold while the left (our right) is silver. I ended up with this one, purely by chance, since I didn't know about the variant when I bought mine.
Again, being twins, they're very similar. They both have one huge arm and a regular-looking one--on opposite sides, no less. Mudflap's got a missile launcher that rises slightly when you move his wrist. It's honestly a cruddy gimmick, and it's not that impressive at all. Probably Mech Alive, I didn't look to check. Skids has a giant Fist Of Doom (although it's actually no bigger than Mudflap's) that launches and stops, like the tail stinger on Scorponok from the first movie line. I get why Hasbro would stop it from shooting the whole way--from the looks of things, it's definitely not long enough to work as its own projectile without breaking safety standards. But the idea of Skids shooting his fist out entirely brings to mind images of 60s super robots like Mazinger Z, or the original Lion Voltron's shooting lion head fists, or even the (neutered?) fist-shooting gimmicks of guys like Trailbreaker, Grapple and Devastator.
Oh, and when you pop out the fist, a little gun flips out. It's not that cool.
They also both have an odd gimmick where pushing their chest makes their head bob downwards. I think it's supposed to be Mech Alive, but all it reminds me of is the Pillsbury Doughboy. It's not 'intrusive,' certainly, but I can't help but think the budget that went to *that* couldn't have been better spent on something like splitting fingers for Demolishor or Sideways' abandoned arm gimmick (gimmicks?).
So. Who's the better robot? Mudflap's got an armgun, and guns are cool, but Skids' idea of Punchy Flying Robot Fist entertains me more than it should. (I'm honestly thinking about taking his arm apart to see if it's possible.) Plus, Mudflap has those cruddy shoulder wings that I mentioned earlier, which have the potential to literally knock the robot apart if you mess with them too much. Skids is much more solid in that department.
Overall?
Here's the thing. Did you like the Twins in the movie? I did. That's part of why I got them--I had a feeling I'd probably like them, and even if I didn't, the toys looked interesting enough that they could probably redeem them. So I liked the Twins enough to buy them. Both of them. And even though Skids is technically the better toy...They compliment each other. They look good in a pair. I honestly can't imagine seeing one of them without the other next to him. But, if you're hell-bent on only buying one, get Skids. He 'is' the better individual toy.