Sideswipe

Height: 13.5cm head height in Robot Mode, 14cm long in Vehicle Mode

Articulation: points total: ball-joint neck; 4 points each arm: double-jointed shoulder, double-jointed elbow; 4 points each leg- double-jointed hip, hinged knee, swivel ankle.

Colors: Molded gray, dark gray, transparent blue, and black. Painted silver.

Accessories: None.

Release Data: Released May 30th, 2009 at an MSRP of $11.99.

Author: RAC

(more...)


Sideswipe was built to fight. He is sleek, fast, and single-minded in battle, focusing on his enemy with absolute attention. His blades are a shining blur in the air as he leaps through the air, twisting to avoid enemy fire. Converting from vehicle to robot at blinding speed, he uses every trick in the book to get close to his opponent, and put his powerful swords to work.

Sideswipe's appearance in the movie won't tell you much about him that this bio doesn't. Matter of fact, the bio encapsulates his spotlight scene in the movie, which is pretty impressive. It comes at the very beginning, and then he barely even speaks another line for the next two and a half hours. This allows us to get more time with the infamous Autobot Twins.

Yay.


Vehicle Mode

Sideswipe is a silver Corvette Stingray concept car. As I mentioned previously, I like concept cars. This one doesn't do anything revolutionary designwise, not like the truck that Cybetrtron Optimus Prime is based on, but it's pretty slick all the same. I somehow doubt the real-life version has the pretty deep-blue windows, though. The split rear window, along with the basic shape of the car, apparently date back to the original Stingray in 1963. The small, wedge-shaped rear-view mirrors are made of soft plastic, since otherwise they'd just snap right off. There's a series of small, stylized Stingray logos on the rear and sides of the car, and so tiny are the ones on the sides that I thought they were just a rough spot, or a spot where the toy's pieces had been cut from a sprue. While that's not the case there are some molding lines on the rear fenders- they wouldn't show up half this bad if Sideswipe weren't so very shiny.

Toywise, it has a significant number of seams for transformation, but it doesn't look like it was hit with a hammer either- the majority of the seams flow well, and don't contradict the contours of the design. (Poor Universe Ironhide and Ratchet are going to be my example of how not to design a transformation for a long time to come.) It doesn't roll smoothly, and on a closer look I see the front driver-side wheel not turning at all. The culprit seems to be the frame for the wheel/foot, which hangs a bit too low for its own good. The sportscar seemingly has four exhaust pipes, which extend a small bit. But there's no way to lock them into either position, so they flop around a lot. (The whole piece is also hinged for some reason- the instructions and package don't show them facing forward for Robot Mode, but the hinge is clearly there for a reason. So I've been folding it down for Robot Mode anyway.)


Transformation

I am getting so old. I can't even work a Deluxe Transformer without resorting to the instructions anymore! And to make matters worse, the instructions aren't helpful at all. It's downright tricky to figure out where the lower torso plugs in under the hood, even staring at the tiny picture, and unless you have the hood panels moved out of the way properly, it doesn't want to do it. Worse yet, it likes to pop back out of place if anything pulls it forward slightly. Using the instructions as a kind of hint book and the package photo as a guide, I puzzled out how you're supposed to fold the hood panels behind his back. A lot of this is trickier than it needs to be, and the arms mounting the hood pieces like to pop off sometimes themselves.


Robot Mode

We've probably said enough about the movie design style and our feelings on it by now, but Sideswipe is one of the slicker examples. The head manages not to look skeletal or insectoid, which is nice. With its facemask and prominent chin, it's more Gundamesque than anything else. Turn the chin and the center part of the silver crest red, and it'd be perfect. Matter of fact, the tail end of the car even gives him chest vents. And the hood pieces behind his shoulder look much like Hyaku Shiki's binders! From there down he gets a bit more typically movieish, with reverse-joint legs, wheel feet, and a pair of soft-plastic pistons that move as you move the hips. I'm pretty sure that these are supposed to be the primary connection point between the torso and leg in the original design, as the ball-joints for the legs are made of clear plastic to be as unobtrusive as possible. I just hope they're not brittle.

Meanwhile, there's the problem of the feet: Sideswipe's one major scene in the movie shows him skating around to shear up some Decepticons, and his feet are clearly designed for this. Hasbro just did one of these without any standing trouble, but Sideswipe's wheels are lower to the ground than Blurr's, so it creates some balance problems. Matter of fact, Hasbro added toes for the Deluxe figure. They're not as useful as they should be, though, as the wheel still touches the ground before they do, and so Sideswipe is always rocking back on his heels a bit. In addition, there's a hinge on the heel piece, but it's not really a good idea to fold it in. The instructions are ambiguous about small details like these, so I only realized they're supposed to remain straight halfway through the photo shoot.

The head has unrestricted swivel, and tilts pretty well in all directions. The shoulders are remarkable for being covered by a giant fender: swivel isn't blocked at all, and the arms can swing nearly 90 degrees out to the side. I'm impressed- I was expecting more difficulty from this. The double-hinge elbows are good too, not quite able to double over, but they manage a tight 45-degree bend. No waist; I would've liked to have one, but it might've interfered with the transformation, I don't know.

The hips are nearly good enough to manage a split, but only because the fairly shallow side-to-side movement is aided by the hinged ball joints used in transformation. This is also handy for adjusting Sideswipe's center of gravity and counteracting his feet to some degree. On the other hand, the faux-pistons do block the hips from moving forward past a certain point, so you have to slide the hip joint down to get the leg to move further forward. The knees work okay, but it's a bit hard to judge them since the lower legs are jointed like a cat's, which means the ankles are never aligned with the thighs. His "Mech Alive" gimmick is a pair of clear blue kneecap pieces that slide back and forth to give the impression of  mechanical pieces that move like tendons and muscles. At this scale, the effect doesn't really come off that well, but it doesn't hurt anything either. The feet are adjustable, and adjusting them is likely to be the only way you'll get him to stand at all. I've also opened the feet back up on occasion and angled the halves to give him a bit more support. It's a bit uglier than the normal configuration, but he's got to be able to stand.

Sideswipe's only weapons are integrated into his arms: the lower sidepanels of the Stingray swing around to become forearm-mounted swords. The pieces are geared, so you only have to move one half. I like them as weapons, particularly as weapons you can't possibly lose. I'm already seeing 2007 Transformers show up on eBay and flea markets without key body parts like legs, let alone accessories. He can manuver with the blades pretty well, but they do make the lack of upper-arm swivels a bit more noticeable. You can manage some decent poses as he is, but that extra bit of range would help a lot. If they make a Sideswipe with a waist and forearm swivels later on- and maybe better feet -I'd likely have no complaints about the toy.


Closing Remarks

This is my first ROTF figure that actually appears in the film, and he's got some serious good points. Sideswipe is decent. He's tough to transform, especially at first, and his feet are tricky. But he's pretty good looking, and I like how his weapons have been handled. One of his only lines in the movie was "Damn, I'm Good." Well, who am I to argue?

-RAC