Twins (ROTF)

This article is about a particular pair of Transformer twins. For Transformer twins in general, see Twin.

The Twins are a couple of redneck-lookin' 'bots from the live-action film continuity family.

I grabbed me a chair and said "Watch 'im, folks, 'cause he's a thoroughly dangerous man!"

When a spark splits into two separate sparks, the resulting two Cybertronians are considered twins, with an incredibly close bond. One such division yielded Skids and Mudflap, a pair of doofy-looking, hyperactive chatterboxes who refer to themselves simply as the Twins.

The inseparable pair spends more time fighting with each other than paying attention to anything going on around them. They like to think they're hardcore, but when their guard drops, it turns out they're basically a couple of robot rednecks. Still, they can hold their own in a fight, and they are eager to show Optimus Prime just how skilled they are. Whether this will end up getting them killed is another question, though they have had some extremely close calls before.

Each twin can transform into smaller separate vehicles or combine for a single, more durable alternate mode. Upon first arriving on Earth, the twins took the form of a beat-up old ice cream truck, but later scanned a couple of slick new Chevy cars for disguises.

Fiction

See Skids (ROTF)#Fiction; Mudflap (ROTF)#Fiction

Toys

See also Skids (ROTF)#Toys; Mudflap (ROTF)#Toys

Revenge of the Fallen

I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for asparagus!

• Autobot Skids And Mudflap (Deluxe Class, 2009)
  • TakaraTomy ID number: RA-20

This two-pack of the twin Autobot brothers can combine into a single, old-fashioned ice cream truck. The vehicle splits in half right down the middle of its chassis (similar to how it does in the film) to create the two small robot forms. Other than the transformation, the toy features no gimmicks.

Mudflap's heels are too thick for his feet to fold up properly in vehicle mode, though this can be fixed by trimming them. Also, this toy may be the first Transformer to feature the typeface Comic Sans, which is used to write "MADE FRESH FOR YOU" across both front wheel hubs. But that's on Skids's half, so Mudflap is partly absolved here.

Both Skids and Mudflap have sculpted rust detailing all over the Ice cream tuck, but for some reason, they are not painted.

Amusingly, the ice cream truck accommodates Human Alliance human figures really well.

• Shanghai Showdown (Multi-pack, 2010)

The twins in this set have additional decals for you to put on and painted rust and "Caution Children" for the ice cream truck mode. They come with a redecoed version of Demolishor.

Transformers (2010)

Calling it 'Slow and Ungainly Goofball Battle' just didn't have the same ring to it.

• High-Speed Spy Battle (Multi-pack, 2010)

This Target-exclusive two pack (or three pack, depending on how you count) features a redecoed Sideways and the ice-cream truck mode of Mudflap and Skids, which replaces most of the robot mode white plastic on the originals with a rusty brown, adds even more rusty paint applications than the earlier "Shanghai Showdown" version and omits the comic-sans "Made fresh for you" on the front wheel wells of the truck.

Merchandise

Robot Heroes

• Shanghai Shootout (Multi-pack, 2010)

Shanghai Shootout replicates the opening action scene from Revenge of the Fallen, featuring figurines of Skids and Mudflap in their combined ice cream truck mode, Sideways (vehicle mode), Optimus Prime, Demolishor, and Sideswipe (vehicle mode). Demolishor is a slightly-oversized figure and the centerpiece of the box set.

• More information on Robots Heroes ice cream truck Skids and Mudflap at TFU.info

Controversy

From watching Revenge of the Fallen, it should be pretty obvious that the depiction of the Twins is rooted in racist stereotypes of African-Americans. Their illiteracy in Cyberglyphics is framed as "never learnin' to read", they speak in an overall stereotypical manner and are generally shown to be not very clever and quick to violence. Furthermore, compared to the other Autobots (and even fellow black-coded movie Autobot Jazz), their designs are visibly more hunched and ugly, with disfigured faces and a gold buck tooth on Skids. One later attempt to "smooth over" the problem would reveal that the pair act the way they do due to them being brain damaged, which only exacerbates the issue.

What's unclear is where exactly this imagery originated from: writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman claimed to have been following Michael Bay’s lead on the character, while Bay stated that it came from a piece of improv by actors Tom Kenny and Reno Wilson. Though Kenny, who is white, declined to comment when interviewed, Wilson, who is black, stated that they had been given direction to play the twins as "wannabe gangster types". This was supposed to play off the fact that, as alien robots who had learned human language and culture from the internet, they could not be black, with Wilson likening them to white rappers like Kevin Federline. What this means for Jazz, as well as the other characters Wilson has played, is unknown. Whatever the intent, nobody involved seems to want to be tied to the issue. Orci and Kurtzman have attempted to distance themselves from the characters, stating that the stereotypes weren't in their script. For whatever reason, the Revenge of the Fallen novel, written by Alan Dean Foster and based on Orci and Kurtzman’s screenplay, only depicts Skids as the film-accurate slang-talker, while Mudflap speaks like any other Autobot, albeit with a thick lisp. Meanwhile, Simon Furman's Revenge of the Fallen material has both of the twins using less slang; presumably, Furman likely did not wish to try his hand at "street".

Whatever the intended direction for the characters, the "wannabe gangster" shtick doesn't come across in the finished project. Robert Epps, the only prominent black human character in the film, is never shown having anything to say about them, for example. Ultimately, the Twins' portrayal was rightfully deemed pretty disgusting, and the resultant public backlash was likely what led the studio to quietly drop the pair partway into the filming of Dark of the Moon. While their intended role in the film survived into that film's novelization and comic book adaptation, the Twins are thankfully not present in any future movie stories, and are indeed conspicuous by their absence in the cross-film Studio Series toyline.

Around fifteen years after the film's release, the twins were referenced in a not-so-subtle way on Prime Video's The Boys television series.

Notes

Oh, so that explains it. They left the Smart one out of the film.

• While we have given this article the simple title of Twins, there is no real solid subgroup name for the duo. Initial concept art and the IDW adaptation of Revenge of the Fallen refers to them as The Twins, while a person on a loudspeaker at the NEST headquarters in the film refers to them as the Autobot Twins. Other than that, the majority of their appearances both on-screen and in other media just refers to them as twins (with no capital letter), so whether or not they are considered a subgroup in the final product like initial concepts suggested, or just simple twin brothers, is uncertain.
• The ice cream truck is apparently based on a heavily customized 1930s Chevrolet truck. Ben Procter apparently lifted the color scheme and deco for his early concept design for the ice cream truck directly off a photo of an Australian ice cream truck that had been added to the Wikipedia article for "ice cream van" in February 2006, down to identical placement and design of the fonts and graphics. The details were later slightly tweaked for the final design that can be seen in the movie... but only very slightly so.
• One of the decals on the ice cream truck's side that was created specifically for the movie reads " suck my popsicle." Classy. The toy does not have this decal. (Because, you know, for kids...)
• In the brief scenes that the twins appear in robot mode while still in their ice cream truck-kibbled robot forms, both have four wheels present due to the redressing of their individual car-based robot CGI models. The wheels are considerably wider than the ones present on the ice cream truck too.
  • Also, in the scanning scene, Skids is very briefly seen changing from the full ice cream truck into a fetal positioned robot in a literal flash of light. This is most likely due to the pair having very little screentime in those forms meaning proper transformations weren't animated. Him being the full truck however can definitely be considered an error.
  • Speaking of transformations not being animated, the pair both proceed to curl up into a ball and turn into their new forms with the same burst of light, just as Skids did in his transformation mere seconds ago.
• The Twins' final alternate modes in the film, the Chevrolet Beat (Skids) and Chevrolet Trax (Mudflap), were designed by General Motors as small car concept vehicles. At one point in the film's pre-production, another small car, the Mercedes-Benz Smart, was evidently considered as an option for a film character; concept art of a "third twin" based on it appears in various sections of the Revenge DVD special features, always in close proximity to concept art of Skids and Mudflap. Whether it was meant to be a third character related to Skids and Mudflap or if it was supposed to be used in place of one of them is unknown. What is known is that Hasbro has had great difficultly in the past trying to get likeness licenses from German automakers, which is probably why the vehicle/character was dropped.
• The toymakers seem to be a bit confused about the roles of The Twins in their final battle; it's Mudflap who blasts his way through Devastator's mouth and Skids who uses a grappling hook to haul his twin out of it, but this is reversed in the Fast Action Battler and Human Alliance toys, which give Skids the large arm-cannon and Mudflap the grapple. The Deluxe class toys get it right, though.
• The Twins made a coloring cameo in IDW Publishing's Last Stand of the Wreckers #1 and cameos as Devisens in Windblade vol. 2 #6 and Optimus Prime #9.