Death's Head
29-08-11, 09:50 AM
The things that turn up at discount shops are suprising. With the amount of Skids, Mudflap, Ironhide and Ratchet toys that have cluttered up UK toy shelves (and their attendant repaints), it was a bit of a shock to see shelf loads of ROTF Bumblebee figures. At least it was until you saw why. It seemed the initial ‘preview’ Bumblebee toy and Canon Bumblebee from the 2009 ROTF range shipped in cases by themselves. That’s a lot of Bumblebees! Sales of the toy probably not helped by the awkward way in which Bumblebee has been packaged, all hunched over waving his right arm in a sort of Hitler salute. Nothing says ‘buy me’ more than a toy that looks like its broken.
Out of the pack, Bumblebee is an impressive figure (once you straighten him out, anyway). He’s got a good range of motion with movement at the neck, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips and knees. He’s nicely detailed and sculpted and looks pretty bad ass with that massive canon arm. There are a few flaws and areas which could have used improvement. On his shoulders are two small yellow pieces of I don’t know what, it’s either armour or supposed to represent some car parts, but whatever they are, they are just clipped into place on his shoulders and they fall off all the time. I have resorted to super glue to stick them firmly in place as there’s no reason why these shouldn’t have been fixed like this during assembly in the factory (sorry, under paid long hour working Chinese labourers, but it’s just not good enough!). The other part that could have used some improvement is probably apparent form the hunched over way in which he’s packed. The upper torso and waist/ legs are two separate parts that are attached diagonally on a dumbbell-like ball joint. Kind of like two continental plates that rub against each other, this means the figure cannot properly be stretched out straight, or lock into place on this joint as he feels like he should do. It’s not a big problem, but it does make the toy feel like it’s not fitting together properly which is odd. The final area I would have liked to have seen improved is the shoulder blades. Those wheels on his shoulders look like they could have folded a little flatter against his back which would have given him a slightly more screen accurate appearance and cut down on a very odd looking arrangement of parts in this area. Again, not a deal breaker, but if an extra joint had been worked in here I think the shoulders would have looked a lot better as they would be not stuck out on an angle to his body so much. One other thing that’s probably worth mentioning is Bumblebee’s head sculpt. I don’t know why, but until I owned this toy, it had never really crossed my mind that Bumblebee’s head is basically a skull with a wig on. On screen, his wig is all scuffed and scraped, so it works for him as a look. However, on these clean and bright plastics he just looks like a very old lady. Even more so with those eerie follow-you-around-the-room beady blue eyes staring out at you, it’s a really creepy look and makes him look more like Norman Bates’ mother than an Autobot warrior. Overall though, it’s a really great piece of work and an impressive realisation of his CGI model.
Transforming Bumblebee to his Camaro mode is lots of fun too. The figure is riddled with ‘automorph’ technology in his legs and chest, so he pretty much glides into his vehicle mode. There’s enough parts for you to do yourself too, particularly getting the arms and head sorted out for the vehicle mode so you don’t feel in anyway cheated by this corner cutting gimmick. I’m not really much of a fan of the automorph gimmick, but then its outing in the 2007 movie line was deeply unimpressive, particularly on the initial ’74 Camaro Bumblebee figure where it was easily broken and on the likes of Blackout felt like it was working against an intuitive Transformation sequence. Here, it seems to work great. However, I’m still not convinced by its overall durability in the hands of children, but then if a clumsy oaf like me can handle Bumblebee without breaking him then perhaps children could too. I’m sure parents were probably pleased this was a figure that wouldn’t need any assistance from them too. The vehicle mode is excellent. I really like Bumblebee’s alt mode. It’s both boxy and muscular and yet quite streamlined and modern looking. It’s a nice mix of old and new design principles without turning into the sleek sort of nonsense that Sideswipe got lumbered with.
I can’t really tell you how impressed I am with this figure of Bumblebee. Its spot on and lots of fun. A brilliantly engineered toy with bags of detailing, some excellent articulation and an excellent realisation of the character that is streets ahead of the 2007 figures and some of the later deluxe versions of the character that cropped up during the ROTF line and beyond. From what I’ve seen looking around, this is probably the best deluxe class version of Bumblebee and is well worth picking up.
483484
Out of the pack, Bumblebee is an impressive figure (once you straighten him out, anyway). He’s got a good range of motion with movement at the neck, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips and knees. He’s nicely detailed and sculpted and looks pretty bad ass with that massive canon arm. There are a few flaws and areas which could have used improvement. On his shoulders are two small yellow pieces of I don’t know what, it’s either armour or supposed to represent some car parts, but whatever they are, they are just clipped into place on his shoulders and they fall off all the time. I have resorted to super glue to stick them firmly in place as there’s no reason why these shouldn’t have been fixed like this during assembly in the factory (sorry, under paid long hour working Chinese labourers, but it’s just not good enough!). The other part that could have used some improvement is probably apparent form the hunched over way in which he’s packed. The upper torso and waist/ legs are two separate parts that are attached diagonally on a dumbbell-like ball joint. Kind of like two continental plates that rub against each other, this means the figure cannot properly be stretched out straight, or lock into place on this joint as he feels like he should do. It’s not a big problem, but it does make the toy feel like it’s not fitting together properly which is odd. The final area I would have liked to have seen improved is the shoulder blades. Those wheels on his shoulders look like they could have folded a little flatter against his back which would have given him a slightly more screen accurate appearance and cut down on a very odd looking arrangement of parts in this area. Again, not a deal breaker, but if an extra joint had been worked in here I think the shoulders would have looked a lot better as they would be not stuck out on an angle to his body so much. One other thing that’s probably worth mentioning is Bumblebee’s head sculpt. I don’t know why, but until I owned this toy, it had never really crossed my mind that Bumblebee’s head is basically a skull with a wig on. On screen, his wig is all scuffed and scraped, so it works for him as a look. However, on these clean and bright plastics he just looks like a very old lady. Even more so with those eerie follow-you-around-the-room beady blue eyes staring out at you, it’s a really creepy look and makes him look more like Norman Bates’ mother than an Autobot warrior. Overall though, it’s a really great piece of work and an impressive realisation of his CGI model.
Transforming Bumblebee to his Camaro mode is lots of fun too. The figure is riddled with ‘automorph’ technology in his legs and chest, so he pretty much glides into his vehicle mode. There’s enough parts for you to do yourself too, particularly getting the arms and head sorted out for the vehicle mode so you don’t feel in anyway cheated by this corner cutting gimmick. I’m not really much of a fan of the automorph gimmick, but then its outing in the 2007 movie line was deeply unimpressive, particularly on the initial ’74 Camaro Bumblebee figure where it was easily broken and on the likes of Blackout felt like it was working against an intuitive Transformation sequence. Here, it seems to work great. However, I’m still not convinced by its overall durability in the hands of children, but then if a clumsy oaf like me can handle Bumblebee without breaking him then perhaps children could too. I’m sure parents were probably pleased this was a figure that wouldn’t need any assistance from them too. The vehicle mode is excellent. I really like Bumblebee’s alt mode. It’s both boxy and muscular and yet quite streamlined and modern looking. It’s a nice mix of old and new design principles without turning into the sleek sort of nonsense that Sideswipe got lumbered with.
I can’t really tell you how impressed I am with this figure of Bumblebee. Its spot on and lots of fun. A brilliantly engineered toy with bags of detailing, some excellent articulation and an excellent realisation of the character that is streets ahead of the 2007 figures and some of the later deluxe versions of the character that cropped up during the ROTF line and beyond. From what I’ve seen looking around, this is probably the best deluxe class version of Bumblebee and is well worth picking up.
483484