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Scrapper

Transformers ROTF
by yo go re

The desert sands quake as Constructicon Scrapper combines with his comrades to form Constructicon Devastator.

You know why that bio doesn't say anything? Because the Transformers movies barely even give any personalities to the main 'bots, they're certainly not going to do it with the supporting characters who mainly exist to fill in the backgrounds. Sure, we could look at Scrapper's G1 counterpart, who was a modest engineer with a mean streak, but as far as the movie was concerned, he was just a target for the Air Force to bomb.

Scrapper may not have a personality, but he is a great-looking robot. Granted, when your competition is Mixmaster or Rampage, that's not saying a whole lot, but this is right up there with Long Haul when it comes to good design. He's tall and skinny, a unique bodytype among the Constructicons, and has lots of fun mechanical designs: see, for instance, the exhaust pipes on his choulders, or the pistons on his knees. The altmode wheels all end up on his legs, and both his hands are unusual: the right is a big flat claw of some sort, while the left has five curved fingers that pinch together like a whisk (it's supposed to be a flail on a chain, but this toy doesn't have that feature).

Like many of his compatriots, Scrapper's head is strange. His neck sticks forward out of his body, rather than upward, so the head attaches like an animal's rather than a human being's. The head is also broad and flat, like a lizard's or snake's. The eyes are even set closer to the chin than the brow. It's mounted on a balljoint which is itself on a side-to-side hinge. He's got most of the regular articulation you'd expect in the arms and legs, but his design leaves his legs bent, so he's permanently squatting.

To convert Scrapper, open the chest and fold the neck inside. Hinge the connector peg up, then move the cab out of the way so you can swing the arms together behind his back and then fold them between the legs.

In order to properly transform those legs, you have to unfold the feet, then one at a time bend the wheel to the inside, swing the lower leg past it, and return it to its original position. To finish up, simply plug the parts of the shovel together.

Scrapper's altmode is a front end loader - or, more accurately, this is a front end loader, so they named him Scrapper. As cool as the robot looks, the altmode really doesn't look like the movie. Like, the proportions seem better suited for the Robots in Disguise Build Team, rather than a real-world piece of construction equipment: it's low and blocky and has tons of visible robot kibble. What the heck! Plus, because of the way the front scoop is connected, it can only move at one point (which is still better than zero).

The Studio Series Constructicons do what any Combiner is supposed to be able to do: combine. So Scrapper not only changes from a robot into a construction vehicle, he also changes into a piece of the big Devastator. It's not a complicated conversion - basically just turning the robot's feet upside down so Devvy can have fingers - but there are a few back-and-forth steps involved to keep things looking neat.

As a toy, Scrapper clearly favors the robot mode over any others, but luckily for us, it's a very nice robot. And his ability to become part of Devastator is more important than his ability to look like a real vehicle.

Rampage | Scrapmetal | Long Haul | Hightower | Mixmaster | Scavenger | Scrapper | Overload

-- 05/19/20


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