Review: #34
Name: Bumblebee
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Autobot
Line: Dark of the Moon
Year of Release: 2011
Size Class: Legion (Wave 1)
Variations: although a new mold for DOTM, already repainted a few times in various exclusives and as an action set.
VEHICLE MODE:
Third movie, and third revision of the Concept Camaro (well, I guess it is in production now as the fifth generation Chevrolet Camaro). This time, Bumblebee sports a spoiler, and a different design for the racing stripes (now going over the roof and they are wider apart than before).
Unlike the previous version, Bumblebee doesn't have anything that sticks out of the bottom causing it to drag, I'm happy to say, this guy rolls very smoothly. All the windows are painted, which is great, even with the cost cutting, they haven't lacked out on paint.
I can't tell which mold is better in vehicle mode, as both of them have their flaws, and both of them fall down flat when viewed from the behind. In this case, in order to achieve an improved look and function of the feet in robot mode, we got two gaps at the back, and although some details are there (molded exhaust pipes, Chevy logo and the license plate), the gaps detract from all this. It doesn't help that there is no paint to distinguish anything and there are no tail lights.
Picking him up, you will immediately feel that he is small, really small, to the point where I noticed it straight away. Comparing him to the previous version, I can see that it is a small size overall, it's thinner, shorter, and less height, generally, less plastic used (I haven't resorted as to going so far as to weighing him yet). Even when compared to RtS Prowl, who was a pretty small toy in it's own right, Bumblebee feels even smaller, such a sad fact...
Viewing the underside, you kinda see the same basic overall placement of parts, so people might hesitate twice before buying one if they have the previous mold. I think this is a good cheap third movie version of Bumblebee to get, especially, if like me, I wanted all three versions of the Camaro but can't justify getting the larger versions. I can't say whether this is better than the previous mold or not, but it's a good Legion sized vehicle.
TRANSFORMATION:
The transformation basically takes the transformation from the previous ROTF version and changes it to give some improvements to robot mode. I guess you do get the sense of getting ripped off, but then again, how many ways can you engineer a Legion's transformation? I do feel it's tad bit more fragile, especially with the thumb, mine already has a stress mark and over time, I can see the thumb snapping. It's not as fun to transform as the ROTF mode, and not as fast, it's a bit more fiddly and a few extra pegs to secure the vehicle mode, but not a bad transformation.
ROBOT MODE:
At first glance, the robot mode looks immediately better than it's predecessor. In particular, he doesn't have the wheels awkwardly placed on the outside of his hands. His right hand is molded into his blaster, I would have personally preferred two hands, as it's too flat and from any other angle it doesn't look like anything.
The wheels on his shoulders look great, and his feet are really awesome, quite screen accurate in fact. Even from the behind, he looks quite good, the only thing they can improve the accuracy here is if they could give joints to the windows so he can have the proper 'wings'.
The head sculpt is not as nice this time around, I think the previous version had captured the design perfectly while this one seems a bit too cutesy and baby-ish. I think the huge eyes painted in baby blue does it more disservice than anything else.
Again he feels really small in robot mode, and he is clearly shorter than any other Legends I have. A bit disappointment in that aspect. I do like how the chest now sits a lot closer to his body, it helps out the look a lot, and his thighs are not overly long.
Again, although looking similar, DOTM Bumblebee is a relatively different toy. His left hand is designed to hold weapons that comes from the Cyberverse line, although I have doubts about this due to the thin plastic of the thumb, it seems that if the pegs are just marginally too big, it'll snap Bumblebee's thumb off like a twig.
Bumblebee is at least quite poseable, with the addition of knee and feet joints. Overall though, he is quite limited in his movements, due to the parts get into the way of each other, especially the shoulders, despite how it looks, they have really limited spread, and same with the knee hinges, you can only bend them back a little bit before it hits the car roof behind. In this aspect, the free range movement of the ROTF mold is more fun.
OVERALL:
In theory, this is superior to the ROTF mold in every way, from the rolling in car mold, to the added accuracy and poseability in robot mode. In reality, I find myself having a lot more fun with the ROTF mold, from the larger size to the transformation. I guess you would only get this guy if you particularly like Bumblebee, or you don't have any other versions, or, like me, the only reason was that he was cheap.
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Seibertron.com has a huge gallery of this guy which provides some great shots of this toy.
Credit: the pictures and text are all my original work, but I've linked a few pages to TFwiki.net and Wikipedia
Finally, this page has the links to all the other reviews I have done, if you care to have a look.