Titanfall 2: Sarah and MOB-1316

You'd think if any Titan was going to be on #TeamUterus, it'd be this one. MOB-1316 is the same model of Titan as BT-7274 (a Vanguard-Class), so don't be too surprised if McFarlane Toys decides to do a repaint of their hunk of ass. But why wait, when you can get the POP! version now? Like the rest of the Titans, MOB is a goodie. There's something about the Titanfall aesthetic that seems uniquely suited to translating to POP! form. It's not just that they're robots, because it's not like the Transformers ones look this good. Maybe it's because they don't have heads or normal eyes? Seems reasonable. The suit does look like a fairly believable mech, thanks to the small details in its design. It's one thing to have a robot's arm just emerge from a blocky torso, it's entirely another to put a rotator cuff there with inset connectors and sculpt cartoony pistons and hinges. All the joints look like they could really move, though none of them do. There are also lots of little bits that give the bot personality. Look at the pads on the knees and elbows, to help protect the suit if it tips over (or to provide a stable base in case someone wants to use it for sniping), or the rungs on the left leg that would give a pilot an easier time climbing in. There are heavy weapons pods on the shoulders, creating a brutish, powerful look, and the center of the back has three rocket boosters, since the "fall" in "Titanfall" is literal - they get dropped onto the battlefield from the sky. The paint is nice. The internal workings of the Titan are a silvery grey, while the outer shell is a brick red. The Titan is never named in the game, but "MOB-1316" is printed on the right leg. The cameras that act as its eyes are bright blue, really standing out against the base color of the mech and making it easy to understand the way it "sees": one big optical unit in the drum on the center, two on the right shoulder, and a final one in the ball on top of the left shoulder. The glue used to stick the pieces together seems to have dusted over a little bit, so you may have to wipe "fog" off the toy when you get it. The decoration on the chest is a Prowler, a large predator from the planet Leviathan. That's the same thing that's on McFarlane's BT, but the tampo is clearer here than it was there. Go figure. Also better on Funko's toy than on McFarlane's? The articulation. Yes, we already said that this figure doesn't move at all, but it does still have two hinges, and they make all the difference. The major complaint about the McFarlane Toys Titan was that, despite all the promises to the contrary, the cockpit did not open and the pilot did not fit inside. Funko actually understands what fans want, so MOB's cockpit opens up. It's two pieces that split in the front, one moving up and the other dropping down, and though there's no detailing inside the cockpit itself, there's padding or something on the inside of the doors. And yes, the set includes a pilot, Sarah Briggs. Like Blisk, Sarah was originally just a narrator in the first game, but has graduated to actual appearances for the sequel. As a child, Commander Briggs lost several family members to incidents in which the IMC displaced Frontier citizens by force. As a result, she vowed to take revenge on the IMC, refusing to rest until the enemy is wiped from the Frontier. For a crazy future sci-fi game, the name "Sarah" (with or without an H) is pretty mundane. I knew a Sarah from kindergarten on, dated a Sarah in high school, dated a Sarah in college, dated a Sarah after college, am best friends with a Sarah now... and none of those are the same person. Clearly the idea is to make the characters identifiable even to those of us who are still living here in the past (from the game's point of view), but wouldn't it be more realistic if she were to have some weird future name? Maybe something her mother read in a book as a teenager, the way the world's worst parents are naming their kids Renesmee or Khaleesi today? Shtevynne Brendyll Jacobethula Sturley Stembleburgis Sarah is completely unrecognizable to anyone who's played the game. The 2" tall figure's look is pretty cool, with a red jacket, tan scarf, and a white helmet with four blue eye slits and a red X painted on one cheek, but it comes from a piece of concept art, not the actual game renders. So this immobile little lump might as well be any generic soldier for all you know, but hey, at least she fits inside the Titan perfectly! That's not sarcasm, it's exactly what we want from a Titanfall toy. Any Titanfall toy. Todd. There is a BT-7274 POP!, since it and MOB-1316 share the same mold, I only really needed one of them. And since Sarah and her brick-red monster were cooler than Brian Thwaitechouphs and his green one, she was the one to get. -- 06/18/17

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