It looks pretty good, especially for a gimmick figure! I can't say it's something I care to spend money on, I'll probably wait for the Studio Series and/or cheaper gimmick figures. I imagine this will probably be pretty pricey, and I don't need the electronics. Still, it's a nice toy, I probably would have loved it when I was younger.

 

If the price is right, i may jist pick one up to "vote with my wallet" because this is the bare amount of effort id like to see put into a gimmick toy.

Also, he looks like he might be kind pf fun to transform and play with

 

Adorable. A beautiful boy. I love him.

 

hoping another toy captures the pure roundness of the design, but this is pretty slick for a gimmick toy.

 

Pretty good ! Even though it's just based off of his concept design, I'm just excited for the Studio Series figure, hoping it's more accurate.

 

I also own a TLK barricade cause he's really CHUG looking minus the head, leader TLK megatron cause he's pretty boss, Voyager prime cause I like the proportions and the TLK dragons cause dragons. I got a SS bumblebee to replace the head and a SS prime to make a nemesis out of.

 

Hasbro has been setting our expectations pretty low, so a gimmick toy with moderate articulation is blowing us away. Curious about the full extent of that backpack. Hard to tell from that one angle.

 

Wow.....I have no idea this is going to happen! He looks pretty adorable and awesome due to the fact he’s Beetlebee as a gimmick toy.

 

Every time I get that "Hasbro is letting us down" mentality I remind myself of 3 things, that these are toys for kids, still better engineered than g1 toys and at least I'm not a gijoe collector. The MP lines are for the serious collectors, some of us love the generations or movie lines but they are intended for 8-12 year olds and the various toon toys, 3 steps and dollar store toys are for for 4-8 year olds. I know they keep getting more expensive but so does everything, that's life. I also know the older CHUG lines were higher quality most of the time but that was an era of 2-3 lines of transformers, not 5 or 6.

 

Dug out some HQ pictures:

 

shell-former = shelf warmer.

 

This actually looks pretty good! It looks as though it shares engineering with The Last Knight and Studio Series Bumblebee, which is a plus in my book. If there aren't Studio Series figures for this movie, then this toy would make a fine stand in.

 

At one point in time 7 out of 10 transformers was a shellformer... the other 3 were "stand up on the rear bumber and move the arms out" formers.

 

What is a shellformer? Im still pretty new here. Like technically? Is there a percentage of altmode that has to be part of bot mode for it to not be a shell former because it looks like his whole front hood(boot) becomes his chest, front wheels become his upper arms and both his doors become his wings (clearly a design element)
Btw, not trying to be dickish to anyone who hates shell formers, just honestly confused.

 

This again, just because a new toy of one of the two main Autobots is revealed.

I mean, it's not like Windblade, Wheeljack, Ratchet, Hot Rod, Grimlock, Megatron, Shockwave, Soundwave, a contingent of four Seekers, and a new character called Shadow Striker are going to be in the new Cyberverse cartoon. It's not like we got the complete lineup of G1 Dinobots, Terrorcons, and Predacons in Generations, as well as a new Elita One, Cindersaur, or Outback. It's not like a Starscream-like bot showed up in the trailer for the Bumblebee movie.

Dude. Chill. Just because there are main characters doesn't mean there aren't also other characters.

You are correct, sir! A shell-former is a Transformer where the entire alt mode hangs off the back, and you could separate all the kibble and have a functioning robot. Prime examples include Cybertron Thunderblast, POTP Elita One and Starscream, and AOE Leader Optimus Prime.

 

Oh, I've been around long enough to see quality go up and down. As a collector, I have more than enough to buy thanks to MP's, some mainline retail stuff, and third parties. Still, we can use points of reference to judge quality. If you want to go with just G1, we certainly have come a long way. You can even jump to Armada or Energon where figures certainly were bulkier and had heavier plastic, but also lacked the articulation we generally get now and lacked a lot of the characters us old school fans loved. Or even go to the more recent Fall of Cybertron figures, which I think were a low point in terms of CHUG. So it doesn't always go down. As for costs, well, again that goes to points of references on the other things we're spending money on, but not everything went up %80 percent in the past decade. Deluxes went from $12 to $20 in the US, while losing weight and lower part counts. Leaders went up only about 10-20%, but they lost a lot in terms of size and complexity to. Anyways, Hasbro and other companies are always testing waters to see how they can maximize profits, and as fans, we have the right to say we aren't satisfied with a product and not buy it. But I really am not one to run to the hills screaming Hasbro disappointed us. I am personally loving the Studio Series and the POTP Leader Optimus is one of my favorite mainline Primes.

Sorry for the long post! The new photos, unfortunately, make that backpack look like a cape, which is too bad. Unless BB has a cape in the movie.

 

Diggin the alt mode. I take it the torso is the motor in VW mode?

 

To be fair, while Hasbro has been setting our expectations pretty low, there have been gimmick figures in the past that have had very limited articulation. An example being The Last Knight turbo changers. Another example is, as I said in my comment, the Cyberverse warrior figures have very little articulation (not to mention they look cheap). This figure, on the other hand, looks pretty decent. It actually looks like effort was put into it. I don’t know how big it is, but if it didn’t have the gimmicks in it, I think Hasbro could ALMOST pass it off for a deluxe or voyager figure.

 

You give me a deluxe of that figure/mold and you can flood the stores with them cause they'll sell.

 

It seems our greatest fears have been realized...the toys were indeed designed before bumblebee’s character model had been finalized. We can only hope that starscream did not undergo a similar fate.