Dave's RotF Rant: Human Alliance Skids/Arcee/Mikaela
Dave Van Domelen
Autobot Skids and Arcee with Mikaela Banes
Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/HA3
I have been told that the HA cases are just two to a case, so
shortpacking is more of an "on average" phenomenon. The three waves have
been Bumblebee alone, Bumblebee and Sideswipe, then Bumblebee and Skids, and
after that was a case with Sideswipe and Skids. So, what's shortpacked in
your area depends a lot on which cases they ordered, and how many Bumblebees
they have left over from the first three. :) At the time I finished this
review (late November 2009), Skids was finally starting to saturate the
shelves in some places.
CAPSULE
Autobot Skids and Arcee with Mikaela Banes: Finally, a Skids that
doesn't suck. Oh, the vehicle mode has ground clearance issues, it's a
shellformer in many ways, and the robot mode has kibble issues, but compared
to every other version it's just dandy. Arcee would be a very bad Scout or a
very good Legends, and makes for a decent accessory. Mildly recommended, but
better than any other Skids version out there. $29.96 at Walmart.
RANT
Packaging: Same as Bumblebee's in general, but of course with photos of
the two new main characters on front and sides (no Arcee photo). I'm not
sure about the background scenery, but I think it's the neighborhood of the
deli where they meet ex-Agent Simmons.
The photos on the back show robot mode with Mikaela riding the right arm
missile launcher (loads of innuendo here), plus an inset of her in the
backpack operating a flip-out rotary cannon. In the lower left are photos of
Arcee in robot mode and Arcee in motorcycle mode riding Arcee.
The callouts on the back are "Human ally rides on arm or shoulder!"
"Human ally rides on motorcycle!" "Launching missile!" "Deployable
machinegun!" and the usual "Human allies ride inside (additional figures sold
separately)!" The cosell on the bottom of mine is Sam and Bumblebee, it's
possible that later versions have Epps and Sideswipe instead.
As you'll notice later, Arcee doesn't get mentioned in the bio note, or
even named on the back panel. Her name is with Mikaela's on the side, but as
others have pointed out, this isn't really like any other Arcee we've seen.
Not that they seem to care about consistency, no two Arcee toys are
consistent, nor any two Chromias, at this point (the Legends one looks to be
more or less like the Deluxe Arcee, though). This appears to be the
motorcycle Mikaela's riding at the very end of the movie.
The Mech Alive bit has been dropped from the packaging. The double-
sided instructions slide around loose in the bottom of the box. Skids is one
side, Arcee and the human attachment stuff for Skids are on the other.
AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT SKIDS
Altmode: Chevy Beat Concept
Licensor: GM
Previous Name Use: Alternators ("Skids" alone G1), RotF
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Kid Sidekick
Motto: "Hey, yer handth are cold!"
AUTOBOT SKIDS likes to think of himself as pretty capable, but the fact
is Mikaela is a better driver than he is. With her behind the wheel, and him
squeezing every last bit of power out of his engine, even the fastest, most
powerful DECEPTICONS have trouble keeping up.
STR 4 INT 6 SPD 7 END 4 RNK 2 COUR 8 FRB 5 SKL 3 Avg 4.875
Mikaela's driving is not reflected in the techspecs, which are the same
as every other version of Skids. I'd bump his effective speed to 8 and skill
to 5 from the "Headmaster" effect she provides.
Packaging: In vehicle mode with both doors open, two twist ties hold him
onto a tilted blister tray. The ties go all the way through the bottom,
making him easy to get out. His missile is rubberbanded to the launcher on
the underside, rather than being left loaded. (There's no other storage for
the missile in vehicle mode, but it's possible to get the missile into the
launcher without transforming the car.)
Vehicle Mode: Yet another iteration of the bright green Chevy Beat smart
car. 5.5" (14cm) long, so not a lot bigger than the Deluxe version, but it
*is* roughly to scale with the other Human Alliance cars (about 1:26, maybe
1:27) unlike the Deluxe which is out of scale with Deluxe Bumblebee or
Sideswipe.
Most of the body shell is bright green plastic with a slightmetalflake
inclusion, but the (non-opening) hood and the struts under the doors are
black plastic with a gloss finish. The wires are matte black plastic. The
windows are all separate pieces of clear light blue plastic, the only
opaque-painted clear window parts are the door window struts. The taillights
are also clear light blue, but the headlights are clear colorless (the turn
signal section of the headlights is clear blue, but it's a darker clear blue
than the windows and may be a case of clear paint). Inside, the dash and
seats are bright green, the steering wheel is brownish gray. There's lots of
robot bits inside, including the spinal strut (brownish gray), but they still
took the time to make the missile launcher trigger look like the arm rest on
the island between seats. The floorboards are the robot forearms.
Most of the paint is some variety of black. Matte for the window trim
(front and sides only, no trim on the back), front and rear grilles and the
rear fender border. The last bit is odd, given that the border continues
onto a piece of gloss black plastic...gloss paint would have worked better.
The skidmark patterns on the sides are gloss black, and it's possible the
hood is painted gloss black over black plastic. The wheel rims, foglamps,
much of the interior of the headlights and some trim around the front grilles
is silver paint. The front Chevy logo is gold with silver trim, the rear one
is unpainted. The license plate has "SKIDS" in black but no background
color. The centers of the headlights are light blue, and there's red dots on
the outsides of the taillights. There's no paint on the vehicle interior.
Even right out of the box, transformed by people who supposedly knew
where things were supposed to go (due to having a jig or something to mount
things on), it's panel-poppy and you have to do some massaging to get any
ground clearance.
The doors open and the seats fold down, plus the steering wheel turns.
The driver's seat has a proper seatback pattern, but the passenger seat is
kinda weird on the back to accomodate the design of the forearm it becomes.
Transformation: As seems to be the trend for Human Alliance cars, much
of the vehicle shell just peels up and turns into a backpack. There's even a
little hook on the front end that's only there to help it hold onto the back
end when you twist the halves of the top around to make the backpack. The
rear wheel pieces turn into the legs, with several intuitive and smooth panel
folds (with good pegging in both directions) to make for better feet.
Getting the torso connected requires bending a number of pretty stiff joints
with Excessive Force, but once you realize it's supposed to go that far it's
not too difficult. When you fold the right arm into shape, you have to
remove the missile first. There's a slot in the seat where the missile fits,
but it can't just slide into place while in the launcher.
Going back to vehicle mode is a little tricky, but much easier than the
Deluxe, in part because there's more pegs to keep everything in the right
places and the higher price point simply results in better quality. You do
need to remember to flip up the steering wheel early on, though, or it's very
hard to deploy...but that's a pretty standard Alternators-style issue.
Robot Mode: Like Sideswipe, it's pretty movie-accurate if you ignore the
huge backpack (and the chairs on the arms). He has door-wings if you want,
but I prefer to fold them back to act as side armor for the backpack
compartment. There's a mod floating around that lets you swing the doors
down, but I don't think it's worth the effort.
A mere 5.25" (13.5cm) tall at the head (flipping up a rotary cannon from
the backpack adds a centimeter or so), his shortness is appropriate compared
to the other Human Alliance figures. A lot of gray gets thrown into the mix
in this mode.
I think there may actually be two different bright green plastics here,
with the car shell pieces being more of a rigid plastic while all the
internal green plastic being a more flexible type. Under bright light,
they're all the same color, but the softer stuff looks a little darker under
poor lighting. Maybe it's just a thickness of plastic issue. The softer
green plastic is used on the lower half of the upper arms, the knees and area
on either side of the knees, the seats on the arms and the "spats" of the toe
pieces. The collar area under the hood is gloss black plastic, and there's
two epaulet bits of gloss black that flip up on either side of the head.
There's four kinds of gray plastic in this toy. Gray 1 is a light
silvery color, gray 2 is slightly darker and warmer silvery gray, gray 3 is
medium cool gray, and gray 4 is a sort of dark bronze gray, close to what
Games Workshop paints call "tin bitz" but not as shiny. Gray 1 is used on
the missile, launcher trigger, part of the upper arms anf a few semi-visible
bits. Gray 2 is found on the forearms, pelvis, upper thighs, shins and
various semi-visible bits in the upper arms, lower legs and torso. The head
is also gray 2, with light blue lightpiping. Gray 3 is on the launcher,
right hand fingers and thumb (the right palm is part of the right forearm
piece), left hand, toes, abdomen, inner shoulder bits and the six-barrelled
rotary cannon that flips up behind the head. Gray 4 is used for the
handlebars of the arm launcher, the cravat, the internal spine and many joint
pieces around the shoulders.
A faintly metallic greebn paint is used on the head and pelvis. The
fake grille molded into the chest has silver trim and a silver Autobot symbol
printed below it. His right buck tooth is painted gold, but they resisted
the urge to slap more random gold onto the head. Otherwise, all the paint is
from vehicle mode.
The head is on a swivel at the top and a hinge that folds back a bit at
the bottom. The waist turns, but only a little before the backpack hits the
thighs. There's a lot of hinges and swivels around the shoulders, although
the wheels on the shoulders can impede motion a bit. There's an upper arm
swivel on each arm, and hinge elbows. The left hand has a hinged wrist,
although it's only to let you get the seat into position...with the seat
pegged to the back of the forearm, that joint is frozen. On the right hand,
the thumb is has a swivel and the fingers are hinged as a chunk. The hips
are universal joints. At mid-thigh each leg has a slight sideways hinge for
transformation. The knees are double hinges, and there's a swivel below each
knee. The heel panels can swing sideways to better lay flat against the
surface, and the fronts of the toes can swivel for a similar effect. The
ankle hinge is really just for transformation, it doesn't add meaningful
articulation. A lot of panels have hinges to swing them into more movie-
accurate positions, such as little bits on the shoulderpads.
As far as weapons go, there's a firing missile launcher on the right
forearm, and a non-firing rotary cannon that flips out of the backpack.
Interestingly, the way Mikaela sits on the launcher, she can trigger it by
squeezing her legs together. I leave the innuendo as an exercise to the
reader.
Human Attachment: Two pegs at the bottom of the backpack so a figure can
stand securely in there and operate the flip-up rotary cannon. There's a
chair on each forearm, and the right arm also has handles that flip up from
the cannon to let the figure act as a gunner. Both palms have pegs as well.
Getting her onto the backpack pegs is a pain, though, since the area is
so well protected. You have to open up a door and have smaller fingers than
mine to do it without the use of a needlenose pliers. Don't even try putting
both feet on pegs unless you're willing to use tools.
Mikaela's hands can just barely get onto the grips of the rotary cannon
mounted behind Skids's head. The grips on the arm cannon work a little
better, although her hands being positioned at 45 degrees mean she grips
nothing well.
Mikaela Banes: Held into the package with the same sort of folded shell
as Epps, with her right arm raised as if holding Skids's door open. She's
58mm tall, putting her pretty much at the 1:27 scale if we assume she's 5'6"
tall (which seems to be her official height) and wearing 1" heels on her
motorcycle boots. Her hair is molded to part around the hole in her back,
and her hands are at a 45 degree angle so they can sort of hold vertical pegs
or horizontal pegs.
Mikaela's wearing a pink strapless top, open white jacket and white
leather pants with brown motorcycle boots. Her head is made of an uncolored
blah plastic that's entirely painted over. Her torso is rigid white plastic,
slightly translucent and matte, while her limbs are glossy white plastic.
Her hinges are also white plastic. Her hair, eyebrows, belt and boots are
raw umber, her face, upper chest and forearms are a reasonably good
approximation of her real fleshtone. Her top is a dark pink. Her lips are
red, eyes are white with black pupils and eyelashes.
Peg neck and waist (the joint is at mid-abdomen), peg-and-swivel
universal joints on shoulders, hips and knees (swivel is above the knee).
The waist joint has some wiggle room, but it's really just a swivel.
AUTOBOT: ARCEE
Altmode: Motorcycle
Licensor: None
Previous Name Use: Energon, Movie1 (two different characters), Robot Heroes
G1, RotF (TF:A toy coming)
Previous Mold Use: None
Gimmick: None
Function: Bodyguard
Motto: "Don't be such a baby, Skids."
No separate bio or techspecs. Assuming it's the same character as the
Deluxe, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Deluxe4 has that info.
Because Skids is so much smaller than Bumblebee or Sideswipe, it'd have
been hard to sell just Skids and Mikaela for the same price. The Deluxes
could simply let the scale slide so that the toys were about the same weight
of plastic, but trying to keep all of these to scale with the figures meant a
smaller Skids. They could have included some extra humans to make up the
difference, but I have to wonder if they were explicitly inspired by
Diaclone's version of G1 Skids, which had a little fold-up scooter to put in
the trunk. Of course, once the idea was brought in, they could keep it up,
and Mudflap will come with another motorcycle.
Now, one problem is that while there's a certain amount of inconsistency
in the toy interpretations of the cycle sisters, the vaguely Nightbird-like
face on this one doesn't seem to match any of them. The left arm is pretty
clearly Chromia's, however, maybe this is supposed to be the red redeco of
Chromia that has been called Flareup or Elita-1 in various places.
It should be noted that this toy is not as big or elaborate as a Scout,
but is definitely above the level of a Legend.
Packaging: In robot mode, left arm raised at a weird angle, held into a
blister tray by two twist-ties. However, you have to remove the blister from
the tray before you can get at the ties, they don't go all the way through.
Robot Mode: A twisted wheelfoot, but not as deformed as some of the
other versions, due to the simplicity of the mold. Mostly red, black and
gunmetal, she has one wheel up behind the back of her head and the other
forms her foot (with a modified front fender underneath it for stability).
3.5" (9cm) tall at the top of the head, 4" (10cm) at the top of the wheel
behind her head. Most of the seat section and exhaust pipes of the
motorcycle ends up as the left forearm, leading to asymmetry and some
problems with balance. She doesn't have legs per se, but you can sort of see
how her lower body splits into a thigh chunk and lower legs, as if she's
wearing a dress that gathers in around the knees. The head is reminiscent of
Nightbird's ninja cowl, although if you look closer there's plenty of
Bayformer details, it's not a simple facemask.
The head, torso, thigh chunk and left forearm are bright red plastic.
The windshield of the motorcycle mode is on the front of the thigh piece, and
is made of clear pale pink plastic, also used on the headlights (it looks to
be a single piece, actually). All of the right arm, the oddly bent upper
left arm, the wheels and the motorcycle handlebars are gloss black plastic.
The neck, the forks for both wheels, the fender-base piece, the left elbow
and a pair of struts connecting the torso to the thighs are gunmetal plastic.
The exhaust pipes on the left forearm are painted gunmetal in a pretty
good match to the plastic of that color. There's no paint on the license
plate segment of the left forearm piece, though. The cheeks are painted
gunmetal as well, with silver paint on the eyes, eyebrows and a forehead
jewel. A silver Autobot symbol is printed at the front of the windshield.
There's no paint on the wheel rims or the seat, and both areas could use
some. Also, she lacks the Cybertronian glyphs that decorate the other cycle
girls.
The neck is a ball joint at the top and a forward-back hinge at its
base, and there's a decent range of motion despite blocking bits around the
shoulders. The shoulders are ball joints attached to the wheel fork...if you
move the rear wheel up and down, the arms raise and lower in a sort of cheap
Mech Alive gimmick. :) The right arm has a single hinge elbow that bends
inward. The left arm it a bit weird, it has a fused 90 degree angle about
where the elbow is on the right arm, but that makes the entire red chunk into
a giant hand, rather than a giant forearm. The joint between red and black
pieces is a universal hinge/swivel. Pretty much anything but "hold the gun
across the front of the body or tight against the side" results in the toy
being unable to stay standing, unfortunately. The waist can sort of bend
forward and back a bit on transformation struts. There's a knee-like joint
between the thigh chunk and the forks, and the fender base piece is also
hinged, so you there's some (mostly useless) articulation in the leg. Most
of the better-looking leg positions require external support for her to
stand. The gap between fender and wheelfoot is pretty narrow, you can't just
shove a toothpick in there for support (with something heavy on the other end
of the toothpick), you'd need something like a large needle or two.
An aside for people thinking of taking Arcee apart to aid in
repainting. The wheels look like they're held in by simple screws, but this
isn't quite the case. You pretty much have to take Arcee apart completely to
get the front (foot) wheel out, but the rear (back of head) wheel can be
removed pretty easily.
She can sort of stand in Skids's backpack, but her "skirt" is too wide
to fit all the way in.
You can swing the rear wheel onto the stomach, but the kickstand
prevents it from going all the way down to the small of the back where I
think it might look better. I doubt the kickstand was ever intended to move
out of the way, though.
There's a little tab on the fender/foot that keeps it from presenting a
nice flat edge in the event you want to try putting it behind the wheel.
Given that this tab doesn't seem to lock into anything in vehicle mode,
filing it off might be a good idea.
Mikaela can cling to Arcee's back in this mode. Her feet go into holes
in the back of the thigh chunk, her head goes behind Arcee's head and under
the wheel.
Transformation: Pretty straightforward for the most part, but the one
place where it gets less obvious is also not shown in the instructions
particularly well. The smaller arm has a peg on the heel of the palm that
needs to plug into a slot under the seat. If you don't put the tab in place
properly, the arm will get in the way and keep the rear wheel from rising up
as far as it's supposed to.
There's a tab where the seat connects to the gastank, but it requires a
LOT of Excessive Force to get the tab into the slot. You might want to take
a small file (a nailfile would probably work) and make the tab a little
narrower rather than forcing it.
Vehicle Mode: At 3.75" (9cm) long with a wheelbase of 6cm, it's
somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:24 scale, a little big compared to Skids
but not so much that it stands out...until you put Mikaela on it, and she
looks like a child by comparison. The scale difference seems small, but the
Mikaela figure would have to be about a centimeter taller to be in scale with
Arcee (at which point she wouldn't fit inside Skids).
The front fender looks like it's supposed to connect up higher under the
headlights, but falls short, as if there was a second hinge intended but
later removed to save money (given the loss of finger joints on Jetpower
Optimus Prime, this seems plausible). However, I find the whole thing looks
better if you just swing the fender down to use as a support underneath the
front wheel.
The gunmetal waist struts are molded to blend in with the sides of the
motorcycle, so it's possible there was an initial plan to have them either be
the same color plastic or to use paint to match it up.
The robot arms really don't hide in any meaningful way, they just stick
out the sides, with the loose forearm trying to find a place to tuck away
above the rear wheel. If you don't want to use the front fender as a
support, you can pull the arm out to do the job and just display the vehicle
with the left side facing out.
On the rear left strut there's a peg that seems to serve no purpose.
Maybe the mini versions of the cycle sisters are designed to combine? It's
too thick to connect to a human figure, but if it's meant for combination,
then the redeco of this mold (presumably becoming a leg) would have to put
the peg on the other side. Of course, a complete mirror-flop remold would
certainly be interesting.
The instructions show Mikaela seated in more of a "Harley Davidson" pose
with her feet slightly ahead of her knees, but the figure stays on better in
a traditional street racer riding pose. In both cases, though, it looks like
a Hobbit riding a motorcycle.
Fanmode: http://www.dvandom.com/images/roboriderarcee.JPG - A sort of
Robo-Rider which is mainly just laying the robot mode down and rearranging
the arms and head, but her main transformation isn't too much more involved
than that. :)
Overall: If this were sold separately as a Scout, I'd pillory it for
cheapness. But there's really no way to sell something at this level as a
Legends class, where it would be pretty darned good. As an accessory,
though, it's pretty good. It shows significant cases of cost-cutting, and
even a single additional joint in the left arm would improve things a lot for
robot mode, but it's not too bad. It does look weird with Mikaela riding it,
though.
Set Overall: It's a good Skids, although it looks like we'll never get a
great Skids. And it's a better Arcee than the Deluxe, although again that's
not really saying much. All in all, it's an okay set, falling short of
potential in a lot of places but never too far short.
Dave Van Domelen, hopes the mini-cycles do combine somehow.