Skipjack (ROTF)

Skipjack is a Decepticon Constructicon from the Revenge of the Fallen portion of the movie continuity family.

"Whoever says I look like Rampage next is gonna get a tread-whip to the face!"

Skipjack is a Constructicon who looks a lot like Rampage. Because of this, he can form the left leg of Devastator whenever Rampage is preoccupied in battle. Sometimes, he requires some extra help if he is low on mass and height for his combiner component mode.

Fiction

Revenge of the Fallen film

"No, I just saw you! You switched hats and called yourself a different name."
"Ohhh, y'know who does that? My brother, Dock… He's crazy."

During the climactic battle in Egypt between the Autobots, their human allies and The Fallen's Decepticons, Skipjack appeared in a quarry with the other Constructicons before merging into Devastator to attack former Sector Seven agent Seymour Simmons, Leo Spitz, Skids and Mudflap. As Devastator smashed away at the Great Pyramid of Giza after shrugging off Skids and Mudflap, Simmons called upon the United States Navy to fire upon the giant Decepticon. The USS Kidd fired her experimental rail gun, destroying Devastator. Revenge of the Fallen

Toy bios

Skipjack was present in Egypt during Operation: Firestorm. He combined with his fellow Constructicons to form the mighty Devastator, forming the left leg. Studio Series Constructicon Skipjack

Toys

Revenge of the Fallen

Main article: Rampage (ROTF)#Toys

Transformers (2010)

They say the chance of an average person finding a yellow lobster is one in 30 million. For this yellow lobster, the chances of finding him seem similar.

• Skipjack (EZ Collection, 2010)

Skipjack is a Japanese exclusive yellow redeco of Hunt for the Decepticons Legends Class Rampage. Because he is not encumbered with the need to combine, both his robot and vehicle modes are much more accurate and detailed.

His "jackhammer" mode can be achieved by connecting his legs together and flipping his cab-feet down as the tip (as per the stock photos), although he will not be able to stand up well. Meanwhile, his instructions depict a more stable biped configuration, with his legs spread out and his cab-feet folded back in their vehicle mode position as his "heels".

Studio Series

The Jerkhammer: Yellow Edition.

• Constructicon Skipjack (Voyager Class, 2020)

• Movie: Revenge of the Fallen
• Hasbro ID number: 67
• TakaraTomy ID number: SS-EX
• TakaraTomy release date: November 28, 2020
• Accessories: 2 hand blasters, base, "Pyramid Desert Battle" backdrop (2nd version)
• Known designers: Mike Booth (Hasbro), Shogo Hasui (TakaraTomy)

Studio Series "Constructicon Skipjack" is a yellow redeco of Rampage, replacing the red with yellow and darkening the grays, along with changing his eye color from orange to red.

He comes with two blasters, made from the pistons of his vehicle mode, that can be placed inside his hand, and a cardboard backdrop display depicting Operation: Firestorm. Owing to Skipjack's unique monopod design, the figure also comes with a small black plastic base to help him stand, which can be stored between his treads in vehicle mode. In combined mode, the stand plugs into Devastator's rump.

Skipjack can be combined with the other Studio Series Constructicons to form Devastator. Though Rampage was the first to use the mold, Hasbro originally intended for him to be displayed alongside Bumblebee, rather than being Devastator's leg. Skipjack's involvement in the combination had been the original intent for Devastator, but since both Skipjack and Rampage share the same design it gave fans the option to use Rampage instead if they wanted.

The first run of this release also had the same incorrectly-assembled waist from his predecessor, but the second run fixed this problem, with the figure now featuring a correctly-assembled waist. It appears like this fix was applied at the eleventh hour, since the samples depicted in both Hasbro and TakaraTomy's official stock photos still featured the incorrect assembly.

Skipjack's existence was revealed via official full-color images of Devastator, before renders of his own figure were even drawn up. The Japanese release of Skipjack was only available as a TakaraTomy Mall exclusive, the first Studio Series figure to be released this way.

Oddly enough, his hand blasters in his official render are colored incorrectly. The one on the right hand (left from the viewer's perspective) is colored black... and the one on the left hand (right from the viewer's perspective) is colored yellow. The reason for this is that Skipjack's render is mostly a straight color swap of Rampage's, with the blaster on the right hand being unchanged from Rampage's render, which simply used the same render (just mirrored) for both blasters, while the blaster on the left hand is a completely new render (for the sake of a more accurate perspective). While this is incorrect in and of itself (as both guns are displayed as black on the bulldozer render), the final toy has them in gunmetal gray plastic.

Being a redeco of Rampage, he shares the method of weapon storage that goes undocumented in the instructions that allows the hand blasters are able to tab into the two vertical slots in the bulldozers blade. This is especially useful in foot mode since it completely frees up the ankle pivot when compared to their default placement. However, as the slots are coated in the same silver paint as the rest of the blade, care should be taken when inserting the guns so as to not chip the paint. It's recommended to place the blasters so their barrels point downward in foot mode for the easiest time with storing them. Bizarrely, the pistons even being blasters isn't touched on by the instructions at all, with them always being shown plugged into the body as the vehicle mode pistons.

Like the majority of the Studio Series Constructicons, he lacks a Decepticon symbol.

• Devastator (Gift set, 2020)

• Movie: Revenge of the Fallen
• ID number: 69

This boxset contains 8 of the Studio Series Constructicons seen in the Revenge of the Fallen film. In order to keep Devastator accurate to his on-screen appearance, Skipjack is included in the set, completely omitting Rampage, as he was busy elsewhere.

This release of Skipjack features additional dirt paint applications to the sides of his vehicle mode.

The gift set first saw release in Thailand without any announcement from Hasbro, with it later being officially revealed on the October 16th Fan First Friday.

Who is Skipjack?

Name origin

"Skipjack" was originally a preliminary name for Rampage during production of Revenge of the Fallen. Similar to Demolishor's working name "Wheelbot", the "Skipjack" name was used in the credits for the actor who voiced him. However, this can be considered redundant within the scope of the film itself, as Starscream addresses Rampage by the final name in a subtitle during the film itself.

Old Devastator information

In 2009, all Devastator toys released in the Revenge of the Fallen toyline originally named the yellow bulldozer "Rampage". Even earlier publications released around the same time, such as The Movie Universe, backed this up. This seemed plausible at the time, as many of the Constructicons forming Devastator in the film had a doppelgänger or identical drone. This would often result in there being some individual Constructicons present during Operation: Firestorm while also having lookalikes that were concurrently active as part of Devastator. However, unlike most other Constructicons with lookalikes, the individual Rampage that was present fighting Bumblebee was colored red, while the one forming Devastator's leg was yellow like his earlier Deluxe Class toy.

Several pieces of original concept art for Rampage, including the piece which served as the basis for his original Deluxe Class toy, depicted the character as being colored yellow. As most of the earlier movie toys were based off of concept art so that the toys would be released around the same time as the film was screening in cinemas, it is safe to assume that, to Hasbro's knowledge at the time, the yellow bulldozer used in Devastator's combination was to be the same character they had created based on concept art.

After the film had been released, Hasbro and TakaraTomy both made efforts to rectify the yellow versus red Rampage debacle (compare FIRRIB) by releasing redecos of the earlier Deluxe Class Rampage toy in a more movie-accurate color scheme at the tail-end of the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, and then again later in the 2010 Hunt for the Decepticons toyline with both another redeco and even a brand-new Legends Class Rampage sculpt in red. By this point, no new yellow Rampages were being produced. TakaraTomy then released a yellow redeco of the Hunt for the Decepticons Legends Class Rampage sculpt in their Autobot Alliance toyline (TakaraTomy version of Hunt for the Decepticons), but rather than calling it Rampage, they used the preliminary name "Skipjack". At the time, nobody thought much of it, as redecos of movie toys into random toy-only characters with little to no fiction of any kind—pack-in or otherwise—had become pretty common as a means to get as much mileage out of a tooling as possible. However, this would all change in 2020, when Hasbro revived this mysterious, mostly forgotten-about lookalike…

New Devastator information

In 2020, the Studio Series toyline introduced an unexpected yellow bulldozer replacement—also named Skipjack—to give fans a more movie-accurate yellow leg for the toyline's version of Devastator. While this wasn't the first toy released under the name "Skipjack", it was, however, the first to imply Hasbro had made a conscious decision to retroactively separate the yellow and red Rampages. The packaging bio for Skipjack mentions that he combines with his comrades to form Devastator, completely replacing the yellow Rampage unit previously used in that place, while Rampage's bio only mentions him luring Sam Witwicky into a trap to force him to give up the Matrix of Leadership. Furthermore, the Devastator giftset (which was released later that same year) included Skipjack alongside the other components, leaving Rampage as an individual outside of the combination. As most of the Studio Series figures and bios are based heavily on what appears on-screen, this further implies that Skipjack had taken over the role of the yellow bulldozer that forms Devastator's left leg in the film.

Mike Booth, a Hasbro employee who worked on the Studio Series Devastator, went on to mention in a blog post on Hasbro Pulse's website that "in the movie, Skipjack and Rampage both have the same build or form but are colored differently, [with] Skipjack being yellow and Rampage being orange." The same post makes note that despite Rampage being the first release of the mold, Skipjack was the original intention for the combined mode in the toyline and that Studio Series Rampage was specifically made to display beside Bumblebee, though because they share the exact same engineering, one could use either in their personal Devastator.^[1]

In short, while 2020 solidified the change in naming and characterization for the yellow individual that forms Devastator's leg, it would appear that both Hasbro and TakaraTomy had taken the first steps much earlier on, back in 2010, to move away from making any more yellow Rampages to negate any confusion from fans of the film, while TakaraTomy subtly threw out an alternative replacement for Rampage that was later picked up by Hasbro. As a result of this latest information, Skipjack and Rampage appear to be a similar case to fellow Constructicons, Demolishor and Scavenger, who share the same body-type and alternate mode, but are two entirely different characters.

Notes

• The stock photography (seen above) for both EZ Collection Skipjack and Payload depicts them in shades that hew closer to orange than the yellow they came out in. Whether this was an artifact of the photographic process or an intentional plastic color-change is uncertain. Additionally, TakaraTomy's website calls the toy Rampage rather than Skipjack.
• Due to his small size, Skipjack combines with a yellow dump truck to form Devastator's leg in the film. Another yellow bulldozer forms the left hand, with Hightower as the arm.
• In the scene where all the Constructicons wait aboard the barge for Ravage and the AllSpark shard to arrive, a red bulldozer is visible in the flyover shot. But in the next scene where Ravage crash-lands into the bulldozer upon arrival, said bulldozer is suddenly recolored yellow. When the Constructicons transform into robot mode and dive into the water, the bulldozer is colored red again.
  • Therefore, Rampage (and not Skipjack) is the one present in Megatron's resurrection. Trying to distinguish how many Constructicons appeared in Revenge of the Fallen only continues to get harder with each watch.
• "Skipjack" is the common name for several species of fish, most notably the skipjack tuna. It's also the name of a type of fishing boat and a type of nuclear submarine. As such, it makes Skipjack the bulldozer have one of the most wildly non-indicative names of any Transformer.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Skipjack (スキップジャック Sukippujakku)

References