Robots In Disguise Skywarp

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Skyquake87
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Robots In Disguise Skywarp

Post by Skyquake87 »

Name: Skywarp
Allegiance: Decepticon
Size Class: Warrior Class

Where there's a new Starscream toy, you're never more than five minutes from a Seeker repaint (or seven). They're like buses. Really expensive buses. Robots In Disguise turned out to be a bit of G1-fest in it's latter days, bringing in some old-school characters to try and lure some fanboy dollar. It's definitely worked, as I now own a Skywarp. Well done Hasbro, well done.

Skywarp here is basically unchanged from the original 1984 character. He's a warrior with teleporting powers and not much else going on, aside from that ever fabulous choice of colours, here popping super-hard thanks to some brighter shades of yellow and purple against all that black.

Robot mode: This looks like the old Animated design refined to make it work it three dimensions. It's got that same sort of stylized swoosh and angular limbs, but here they look less clumsy and awkward. He really is quite a tidy piece of work, looking very athletic with some style choices culled from across time; '70s flared trousers and '80s shoulder pads, capped off with a flouncy wing cape. Head always looks a bit odd to me and quite flat looking, like it's been stretched out of shape a bit. He gets to wield the usual forearm mounted cannons, but they don't really look like much, being just pretty rectangular slabs with the only definition coming from all the honeycombing. He can also wield them as pistols, which is pretty cool.

Alternate Mode: In jet mode, Skywarp is incredibly sleek looking. Robo-junk is kept to a minimum, so he doesn't look too boxy from underneath. The colours look glorious in this mode and a lot that comes from the bright yellow cockpit, which is really nicely painted. The overall look of the jet is nice and sharp, and I love the back to front wings. Always a design choice on a jet I like, giving Skywarp lots of manoeuvrability more fitting for someone who can teleport all over the place.

Marks out of ten for the following:

Transformation design: The transformation is pretty complex and I always forget how it goes. It's really well thought out, with the designer working hard to keep robot kibble to a minimum. I appreciate that, as well as the figure not feeling small for a jet in this size class. There's a bit of a 'cheat' for the robot chest to give the signature chest cockpit - the back portion of the cockpit carries over to the robot mode and the rest just gets hidden on his back. This is great work! 9/10

Articulation: Standard fare for an RID deluxe. For a line aimed at kids and which encourage play over all else, it's what you need. So long as the head can turn and the arms and legs have knees and elbows, you've got what you need. Anything else is showing off. 8/10

Durability: Skywarp feels nice and solid. He feels very light, as there's not much too him, but the plastics feel good and strong. Which is as well, as he's quite an arrangement of scaffolding in the guts of his transformation. You could break him, but you'd have to be trying. 8/10

Fun: Skywarp is a fun figure, but the transformation always catches me out so his fun factor is mitigated by trying to figure out how the legs work. Again. 7/10

Value/ Price: £14.99. Feels about right. The value's certainly there in terms of the engineering and paint job. He seems a bit small, owing to his lithe build, but I think the pricing on Transformers is moving away from size class and becoming more of a price point, so the value ultimately falls on whether the figure appeals to you. Skywarp did to me, so job done. 8/10

Overall: Skywarp's a bit of a nobody in the world of RID. I'm puzzled the figure exists. Well, I'm not. We all know he's an easy cash grab for Hasbro, being an easy repaint of whatever Starscream toy is about. With toy sales depending heavily on tie-in media appearances, you do wonder if Hasbro will continue to pad out the ranks of kid-appeal shows like this in the long run. It seems a bit foolhardy, given how badly a lot of these RID Deluxes have shelf-warmed. The cartoony aesthetic is hardly likely to appeal to their hardcore collector demographic either, save for those more open to new styles and designs. For me, he's a pretty toy and I like the liveliness of the line, so he's been a worthy purchase. It's just a shame Deluxes are all she wrote for decent larger toys in RID. 8/10
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Tantrum
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Re: Robots In Disguise Skywarp

Post by Tantrum »

Nice review (as always), but I've got a couple questions.

From the pics, it looks like yellow portion of the robot chest becomes the rear of the actual cockpit. But, in Transformation design, you describe this as a faux cockpit, which indicates two distinct cockpits. If I'm right about the pics, maybe describe this as a partial cockpit instead of a faux cockpit.

You said there's minimal robo-junk so the jet looks good from underneath. Can you add a photo of that angle? I was always put off this mold by the shoulder pads under the wings seeming to ruin any attempt at aerodynamics, and am curious how the underside actually looks.

The pic of the bot's back does a good job of showing what you mean by minimal kibble. Seeing the (front portion of the) cockpit under that black section shows a more involved transformation than I was expecting. I still don't want this toy, but I am more impressed with it having read this review.

I'm now realizing that with all the Seekers I own, I don't think I own any with swept forward wings. Maybe an Animated Activator KO I got at a dollar store.
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Skyquake87
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Re: Robots In Disguise Skywarp

Post by Skyquake87 »

Do you know what, I'm wrong about the cockpit! It's the back section of it that ends up on the robot mode chest. I've corrected that. See, it's such a fiddle it gets me foxed! In a good way. I'll see about getting a picture of the jet mode's underneaths. Thanks, Tantrum :)
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