Toy Review: Skids & Mudflap

Skids & Mudflap

If there was one thing I hated more than anything about the new Transformers franchise it’s the leg-humping RC Truck. The second thing would be their apparently low IQ and their propensity toward flatulence. The Twins as portrayed in the movie come in at a close third.

Michael Bay’s humor is broad and juvenille. It’s the kind of humor that spawns Vicodin-addicted canines in casts, and largely consists of toilet humor (hence the fart jokes), sexual innuendo (hence the humping transformer), and racial stereotypes (hence the Twins). While all of these have their place - well except racial stereotypes, cause you know, there was the Holocaust, and Slavery, and all that bad shit - it is nonetheless moronic. I loved the big-robots-do-battle-and-smash-itty-bitty-people scenes but cringed at almost every joke (except that wheel one - that was classic).

This included EVERY SINGLE SCENE with the Twins. Every time they opened their mouths or popped one of those gansta poses, I could feel the hate-on rising inside my gut. I don’t care if it was intentional or not, it’s was plain stupid. It’s like Lucas’ decision to have all those Neimodians talking in the stereotypical English-speaking Chinese accents. Now my sensibilities may be tainted by the hundreds of anti-harassment training videos I have to watch, but those kind of character decisions smack of a cop out. Instead of trying to come up with a real character PERSONALITY, they just give it some cookie-cutter one.

Thankfully, one can just calldork age, discontinuity, or adaptation distillation on the whole thing and just enjoy the toys. Being a geek rocks.

Both Skids and Mudflap are reasonably good representations of their 3D CGI models, with various little parts sticking out and the general ad-hoc look of the Bayformers. Their faces look just as ugly as they do in the movie, complete with big ears, droopy/crazy eyes and gold teeth. It’s like they’re the failed result of a Cybertronian inbreeding experiment.

Their bodies are as misshapen and unsymetrical as their faces. Each has an overgrown arm with some kind of action gimmick. Skids’ right arm has a great little “SUPER-PUNCH!” feature where his fist pops out when you press a button. It’s almost as fun as the old “KUNG-FU ACTION” features on vintage toys that let you karate chop enemies (you may now flame me with “but those are cultural stereotypes, too!” posts). Mudflap’s gimmick is more mundane. It’s basically just a little spring-loaded rocket launcher. whoo. hoo.

Both of them have the included “Mech-alive” feature; when you press a button on their chest… well… they do next to nothing. Parts move. A bit. I’m sure there’s one or two kids in the world going “oooo…”

Articulation is actually very good. They share the same basic joint scheme, though their shoulder transformation varies a bit. They both still retain a great range of motion that allows them to get into positions most other Transformer toys can’t.

The fact that they are largely shellformers helps a lot. Most of their robot parts fold up and are hidden under the cars’ chassis. Because of this, they actually enjoy things like double hinge elbows and knees.

Because they are shellformers, they naturally have alot of kibble. Most of theirs is on their backs, which makes them look like hunchbacks, which is great and in keeping with their disfigured my-mom-dropped-me-and-im-special look.

Their car modes look really nice… IF you can get them back. The first time I tried to re-transform Skids, I spent an hour, literally, just trying to get all his parts to match up correctly. I’ve since concluded that his parts exist in seperate dimensions that are slightly out of synch and will never match up. Like magnets with identical electrical charges. This was a great relief since I thought I was going crazy.

Mudflap was a little easier, but since I got him about a month after Skids, it may have gained superpowers in the interim. Honestly, his design is simpler so parts match up without too much trouble. There is one thing I wonder about: what the hell are those little thingies that stick out of his chest across his shoulders? They’re just begging to be broken off.

Both are little compacts, like the kind you pack popes or clowns in. It’s only a matter of time before one of the master customizers takes a pair and makes a Runabout and Runamuck. You’ll also want to decide if you want one with a vanity plate. There was a running change on the Mudflap toy since the early runs had “Trax” printed on it (the character changes into a Chevy Trax car) and later versions had the movie accurate “Mudflap”. It’s not really that big unless you’re an idiot like me who felt the need to run around Metro Manila to score the “correct” version.

So to sum up, these are fun toys IF you can get over the Jar Jar Binks syndrome their part in the Revenge of the Fallen movie gives you AND if you can find them at a fair price. Suggested retail price is p700.00 (about $12-$14). When I was looking for Mudflap, the pair was going for p2000.00 - p2500.00 from scalpers. Specialty stores are bound to have around the same now since demand was high and supply was low at the time of release.

You could also wait for the event on August 1st at Megamall and try for an Ice Cream truck version of the pair. They’re smaller and turn into an ICE CREAM TRUCK, but at p700.00 for the pair of them, it’s a pretty good deal.

Of course, I doubt they’ll have “Decepticons suck my popsicle” printed down the side, but you can probably scratch that in with a magic marker.