Cybertronian Bumblebee

Height: 14cm tall in Robot Mode, 10cm long in Vehicle Mode.

Articulation: 22 points in all- ball-joint head; 6 points each arm: double joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, double-joint elbow, ball-joint wrist; swivel waist; 4 points each leg: universal joint hips, thigh swivel, hinge knee.

Colors: Molded gold, black, and transparent red. Painted black, bright red, gold, silver, and light blue (eyes).

Accessory: Pistol.

Release Data: Released the final week of June 2010 at an MSRP of $11.99.

Author: RAC

(more...)

Before he was the silent warrior he is today, Bumblebee was a nonstop chatterbox, charged with carrying the most vital Autobot communications. He was a fearless infiltrator of enemy lines who stuck to the shadows and faded into the background despite his bright yellow armor. His spirit was unbreakable and his friendly humor was invaluable during the first dark days of the war.

Yes, G1 Bumblebee is the epitome of silence and stealth. He is Snake Eyes, except a version of Snake Eyes who is a Volkswagen in his spare time. I'm sure there's plenty that can and has been said about Hasbro's "Let's mash everything together" approach for Transformers this year and since 1) it's mainly a branding exercise with no bearing on anything and 2) discussions and arguments about canon drive me up the wall, let's talk about the figure instead!


Robot Mode

Ah, the age-old problem: Bumblebee is supposed to be one of the smaller Autobots, yet since there is no Generations Scout or Voyager assortment, he and Optimus are about the same size. If anything, Bumblebee's a mite taller. The way this was dealt with was to make their proportions radically different- Bumblebee has a larger head and a broader body than Optimus so he "reads" as more squat. Put them side-by-side though, and you're reminded that you're probably a fool for caring about scale in a Transformers line in the first place. (After all, a VW Bug was not as tiny compared to a cop car or a minivan as G1 Bumblebee was to Prowl or Ironhide.) The one problem with this squatty build is that the addition of his backpack rounds out his silhouette considerably. Add long, spindly arms and legs on top (and bottom) of that, and suddenly you've got Humpty Dumpty.

Despite looking kind of ovoid, Bumblebee's design doesn't look bad. The red Tronlike highlights on the WFC Autobots work better on a figure that isn't already red- pity that with the addition of Cliffjumper that'll be only a third of the WFC Autobot toys. On closer examination, Bumblebee doesn't seem to be any more on-model than the Classics head- in fact it takes cues from the Classics head that don't exist on the animation design. But somehow the proportions of the helmet and the lack of a big yellow chin just make this Bumblebee's head look better to me than the Classics, which was not bad to begin with.

The head swivels fine and tilts forward marvelously thanks to the transformation joint. The panel that the head is mounted to is loose, and likes to try and fold the head into the torso when you adjust it. Where Prime had decent legs, Bumblebee has decent arms. Shoulders are ball-joints on hinges, and while you can get a little bit of range and expression out of that it's largely accidental, I think. The shoulder gets full rotation as long as you adjust the arm to clear the backpack, and lifts out to the side a full 90 degrees.  There's a forearm swivel, and the elbow bends into a tight U. The wrists are just swivels, and I don't like the angle. Angled wrists and forearms have bugged me for a long time- I'd like Gundam and Patlabor's Yutaka Izubuchi's output a lot more if not for this quirk. The hands themselves look nice. While not as versatile as Darkmount's wonderful hands, they show a move towards that hand design, with a more natural but unarticulated hand that still holds standard 5mm pegs. Bumblebee also has a pair of flip-out energy blades sort-of hidden under the fenders on his forearm. Only "sort-of" because the tips peek out around his elbows. They click very firmly into four different positions, finally locking straight-ahead and aligned with the forearm. Flip-out weapons like these should always have some way of locking into place thusly- nice!

Unlike a lot of recent Transformers, Bumblebee has a waist. It can technically turn 360 degrees, but most poses are going to have the hips getting into an argument with the backpack kibble. The hip joint itself gets a fair range except for that interference as well. The transformation joint in the leg is really annoying- it's made to bend the thigh in the middle, and the end result is a thigh that's unstable and noodly. There's even a frame piece on top whose sole job seems to be to look neat- I wish it could've been used to stabilize the Robot Mode leg instead. There's a thigh swivel, which is useful. The knee is a single joint with a 90 degree range. Good enough, and I'm glad there's no double-jointing here as it would probably make the leg more unstable. The nature of the foot and how it transforms means there's pretty much no functional ankle.


Transformation

It's a little harder to get lost in the middle the way you can with all the intricate folding of WFC Prime. But even so, that doesn't excuse, explain or forgive the fact that Bumblebee is one of the worst Shellformers I've ever transformed. He's one of those figures where you reach a step where the interlocking panels do not interlock, and you say "To hell with this! I'll just brute-force it." Which also won't work. At one point in the process of transforming him for this review- which took 25 minutes -a leg popped off and I said to myself "Oh good! Maybe the toy is broken and I won't have to finish the review." But much to my regret, the thigh swivel slid right back onto the peg it'd come loose from. Damn.

I guess it might be overstating it to say he's the worst Shellformer of all- there's still Nemesis Prime/Big Convoy, and it's not like it's super-beneficial to go pulling parts off to get the job done like with Universe Prowl or an Alternator. (True Story! Alternators Grimlock sits in a bin in pieces- I spent half an hour failing to get him to Robot Mode, and another fifteen minutes failing to get him back into Vehicle Mode.) But 20-some minutes to get the innards of a Deluxe arranged? It's absurd. The big holdup seems to be the disposal of the feet: if they are misaligned even a little bit, the back end of the car as formed by the backpack will not lock down properly. As it is, I can't find a way to put all this together without leaving an ugly gap in the roof of the car.

See, this is why simple transformations and blocky Transformers are good! There are only so many ways squares will fit together, and you'll pretty much know if you have it wrong. I'm very happy to say that, at least in the Generations line so far, this style of transformation seems to be going out of vogue.


Vehicle Mode

Now the end result, I like! Imagine that Syd Mead designed the new Volkswagen Beetle, or maybe that there was a compact car in the Tron computer world that was based on the lightcycle. That's pretty much what we've got here, and it's very sleek and attractive. And it rolls well enough across a smooth surface. I just wish I could get the panels fully aligned properly- that ugly gap in the roof is just enough to misalign the red stripes down the windows. On top of which, that panel that the head sits on? The one that doesn't lock down in Robot Mode? It doesn't lock down very well here either, and it's even touchier here. Also, the red stripes are slightly different thicknesses on the backpack-shell and the rest of the body, and come off as dimmer because they're painted on transparent smoke-colored plastic instead of black like the rest of the toy. And why? There's no internal detail to be seen there. Do we really need to see Bumblebee's folded-up shoulders at the cost of mismatched deco?


Accessory

Just a pistol, but a pretty nice two-tone pistol that somehow reminds me of Darkwing Duck's gas gun. It fits in Bumblebee's hands securely, even though you'd think it wouldn't from the position of the fingers. It just doesn't look natural at all with a weapon in it- but neither did big square fists technically, so what the hey. When not in use it stows in the backpack-shell, in a position where it sometimes fights with the feet while you're transforming him. Argh.


Closing Remarks

I kind of like him. I want to like him more than I do. His proportions are odd but he doesn't look bad in either mode, and the design of his Vehicle Mode is pretty spiffy. But getting him to Vehicle Mode is so much of a hassle that once I've got the Vehicle Mode photography done he will likely never go into that mode again. The frustration of that transformation will, I think, have to put Bumblebee at an objective rating of Good. If you're pro-Alternator kick that up one notch to Very Good, if you're anti-Alternator knock it down to Could Have Been Better. But let me tell you: I'm awfully glad the rest of the new-mold Generations figures so far have been a lot less frustrating.

-RAC