Name: Rattrap
Series: Beast Wars
Allegiance: Maximal
Function: Spy
Alternate Mode: Rat
RAT MODE
Height: 5cm Length: 16.5cm Width: 5cm
A plump grey rat with brown paint on his back and a brown tail, Rattrap has pink feet, yellow eyes and pointy white teeth protruding from the sides of his mouth. The grey and brown is pretty much what you'd expect of a rat, so while Rattrap has a rather bland colour scheme, I'm not about to bag it. The brown fades to the base grey - his butt is brown, his neck grey.
The tail is a solid brown plastic and has wrinkles as real rats' tails do. It's an s-shape, the only joint is at it's base so it's stuck in this s-shape. There's both attention to detail and some shortcomings in this mode. The lower jaw is basically a hole in his head. You don't see it from above, but they could have potentially put a lower jaw on the joint which his head is attached to. The teeth are a nice touch, even if they're way too sharp for a scavenger's teeth - they're predator teeth. I guess this makes him look more ferocious.
I do like the moulding detail a lot. Rattrap has moulded hair all over the grey bits - and whisker holes on his snout. The feet have moulded digits and the tail has wrinkles as mentioned previously. OK, so they skimped on a lower jaw - probably for cost reasons, but the moulding more than makes up for it for me.
Probably the only real gripe I have with this mode is the seams along the side and various holes on his back and legs. All these are for transformation joints, and the holes could probably been avoided without this costing much more to manufacture. Despite this he's one of the best of the early Beast Wars basics, some of which had marginal beast modes.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Pull the tail up and he pretty much auto-transforms, which is part of the gimmick in the first wave of BW basics. The head folds down to form the robot chest, the sides (complete with rat feet) fold out to the sides. The robot legs swing down into place automatically, too. All that's left is to unclip the arms, remove his gun halves from the side panels, assemble the gun and place it in either hand.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 10.5cm Width: 8.5cm
Again predominantly grey, with brown thighs and upper arms, as well as gears behind his shoulders. His gun is also brown and the rat feet sticking out the sides are pink. His shins, ankles, hands and exposed "brain" are painted silver. His eyes are red, he has a very mechanical looking lower jaw, which is grey, the base colour of his head.
No, you didn't read that wrong - Rattrap has an exposed brain - or at least a silver brain-like section on top of his head. It's a little strange, although I can deal with it, I know some find it a bad feature. Had it been pink I'd have hated it, but silver on a grey head is suitably mechanical for me. For me, the gears and mesh-like "brain" help enhance the mechanical look of Rattrap's robot mode (there's also the jaw I mentioned previously), and there's a great contrast with the fur detail of his rat mode which makes that a very organic mode. The only organic part of this mode is the rat's head on his chest (and the stuff on his back).
The backpack, which is about 80% of the rat mode, is quite big and does cause Rattrap some stability problems, not helped by small feet and no heelspurs. This backpack is a pretty big piece of kibble, but it looks decent at least.
Rattrap's quite poseable, his knees, hips, neck, elbows and shoulders are all ball joints. Most of this is useful, although his head is limited by the shoulder blades around it formed from the rat head. There's also some restriction on posing his legs since he's not completely stable, but the backpack does allow for a third leg of sorts in some poses. All things considered, it's very good poseability for a basic.
As you can probably tell, I really like the aesthetic in this mode. The colours work well, the mechanical bits are cool, and it's also worth mentioning he's got a pretty cool gun. While the backpack causes some issues the poseability is good overall.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of, although Packrat is a recolour of Rattrap.
OVERALL
The colours work well in both modes, the attention to detail and aesthetics are great (assuming you like the "brain"). The auto-transform can really be either good or bad depending on perspective - it takes away most of the challenge (although he's a basic anyway) but does mean he transforms as quickly as in the show. He's very poseable and also very show accurate. Rattrap's got some flaws, but this is both a character and a mould worth picking up if you're a Beast Wars fan - 8/10
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