by karellan » Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:56 am
He's basically an autobot version of Frenzy from the first movie. Small spy bot with weird gangly-looking hands and such. Frenzy was a decepticon, so of course he's going to look like a demonic bug with saws and machine guns all over, but since Wheelie's an autobot it makes sense that he's a little softer and more goofy than evil (so the WALL-E look fits pretty well). He's probably comic relief just like Frenzy was in the first movie.
When it comes to stuff like this, you can't really think of it in terms of toy design. Michael Bay is going to come at it from the perspective of the movie first and the toys second, regardless of how involved Hasbro is in the process.
That's why Frenzy was such a big part of the first movie even though all the toy versions of him totally suck. He was designed as a movie character first and the toys were kind of thrown together afterward, because seriously, you can take one look at Frenzy in the movie and you just KNOW he wasn't designed with a toy in mind.