TF: Prime 1st Edition Deluxe Bumblebee Review & Photos

Discussion in 'Transformers Feedback & Reviews' started by MaxGoof, Dec 5, 2011.

  1. MaxGoof

    MaxGoof Preordained Soul

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    [​IMG]

    I was going to just add a reply to the TF Prime Bumblebee Photo Review thread, but after checking the first 10 pages of reviews and using the Search function, somehow there are none! So I guess I'm making the thread myself for once! :) 

    I thought TF Prime Arcee was pretty solid, so I was hoping Bumblebee would be as good. Spoilers: He's not. As usual, the fulltext review is below, although the pretty-formatted version with a ton of pictures is available over on my blog.

    As a kid, my favorite Transformer was Bumblebee. So it always brought a smile to my face to see a new post-G1 Bumblebee toy, be it the gold-metallicized G2 Bumblebee, totally souped-up Gobots Bumblebee, or nostalgic Classics Bumblebee. But in the post-Bay movies Transformers landscape and after being inundated with an uncountable number of heavy-packed Bumblebee toys over the last few years, I thought I could die happily without ever seeing another Bumblebee toy. But that was just not to be, as a new Transformers cartoon is out, and with it I needed a new movie-inspired Bumblebee for my Autobot main roster. Unfortunately, this is one Bumblebee whose sting definitely misses the mark…

    The Right:

    I freaked out a little when I saw Arcee’s 22-step instructions, so you can imagine my reaction to seeing Bumblebee’s 28-step ones. Luckily, his transformation is almost as simple and intuitive as Arcee’s. Bumblebee’s transformation is pretty straight-forward and what we’ve come to expect for Bumblebee sports cars and car-type Transformers in general. I can transform him either way in about two minutes, but you may be faster than I am.

    The light-piping on Bumblebee really works excellently and is one of the best features of the toy. I love that Hasbro has started incorporating pupils into the light-piped eyes, as it really adds some humanity and emotion to the Transformers’ faces.

    Maybe it’s just that I’m totally burnt-out on the look of movie Camaro Bumblebee, but I really enjoy the stylized appearance of Bumblebee’s sports car alt-mode here. While not perfectly authentic to his cartoon appearance, I think the car mode is pretty darn close.

    [​IMG]

    As part of the inaugural wave of “First Edition” Transformers Prime deluxes, Bumblebee’s package has “First Edition” written in foil-etched lettering going down the side of the package. It looks fairly snazzy if you’re a packaged collector, but if not, you probably don’t care. Bumblebee also includes a generic cardboard Transformers Prime display stand. I guess it’s good enough for a freebie, but I’m not really likely to ever to set Bumblebee on this stand instead of in a diorama with other toys.

    For a weapon, Bumblebee includes one double-barreled blaster that can clip onto either of his arms. It’s simple, looks good, fits tightly and can be stored in alt-mode as part of his undercarriage. I wouldn’t have minded having an extra blaster so Bee could have one for each arm, but I won’t lose any sleep over it either.

    The Wrong:

    I voiced my disappointment in some of the missing paint detail in my Transformers Prime Arcee review, but she’s like Palisades Toys’ best-painted Muppet figure compared to Transformers Prime Bumblebee. Hasbro seriously cheaped-out on the paints applications for this toy. The paint apps are so few on top of the molded-yellow plastic to the point where you might think this a bootleg if you didn’t know better. Bumblebee’s head is supposed to be primarily yellow with black highlighting as a secondary color all around it and a dash of red, but instead his head is just yellow. He’s missing lots of black detailing on his arms, he’s missing lots of black on this legs, and he’s missing silver on his feet. Even the headlights are the wrong color, being blue instead of clear. Instead of giving us a cardboard display stand and fancy foil printing on the package that said “First Edition”, this toy would have benefited immensely from Hasbro spending a few pennies on some black paint.

    [​IMG]

    While not nearly as weak as the paints, the mold for this toy is also pretty lacking. The hood becomes Bumblebee’s chest as you’d expect, but the chest panels don’t lock into place in any usual manner for a car Transformer. Instead, there are these grey pegs that the chest panels are supposed to rest on so as to not inhibit articulation, but instead the chest is incredibly unstable and came unhooked or misaligned every time I moved him around. Making matters worse, even if the chest stayed in place, it still wouldn’t be screen-accurate. The Transformers Prime Bumblebee model has a chestpiece that looks like one solid piece, whereas the toy’s chest plates are engineered to sit at angles with a huge gap in the middle. In addition, the doors are hanging off the back of Bumblebee at the wrong angle, which looks awkward. The result of these issues is a clearly inaccurate Transformers Prime Bumblebee mold.

    Allegedly, the lower bumper parts of Bumblebee’s chest are meant to fold downward. I say “allegedly” because although I see the step in the instructions where this is intended to happen and the seams in the mold where you’re supposed to fold the pieces, no amount of force or prying I’ve placed on either side has enabled me to fold those portions downward. It’s possible that I could force them down with the jaws of life, but I’m not willing to risk shattering the toy to find out. I don’t know if these pieces worked properly or not on the NYCC Taxi Bumblebee, but they don’t work here.


    [​IMG]

    Finally, the articulation on this guy is not the best. The ball-joints on his hips are a great asset, as without them him legs movement is extremely restricted by all the car parts on his legs. In addition, the loose chest panels and shoulders make posing his upper-body a pain, and the lack of a wrist joint makes achieving a shooting pose that looks good impossible. Bumblebee has a lot of points of articulation, but the engineering of the toy doesn’t allow him to utilize this potential.

    Overall: Transformers Prime Bumblebee is far from the worst Transformers toy in recent years, but it’s certainly in a lower-echelon than the Transformers Classics and Transformers Animated lines. The paint apps are underwhelming, the mold isn’t screen-accurate enough, the toy is lacking in tightness and stability, the lower bumpers don’t work properly, and the articulation is poor and makes finding good poses for him nigh-impossible. Most damning is that he’s so floppy and unstable in robot mode that he just isn’t fun to play with. The light-piping in the head works terrific and I like the (inaccurate) look of Bumblebee’s sports car mode, but that’s about where my good will towards this guy ends. I bought Bumblebee because I need him for my Prime display of Autobots, but if you don’t want him for that same reason and aren’t a Bumblebee enthusiast, I don’t recommend him.

    GRADE: D

    [​IMG]
     
  2. kaijuguy19

    kaijuguy19 Keyblade Wielder

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    Ouch! Well I find it to be great but you've made good pints as well. So are you planning to get the remolded version too when it comes out to see if it's an improvement over the first edition?
     
  3. Mechafire

    Mechafire Shadow Broker Moderator News Staff

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    I would have really dug this guy if not for one fatal flaw: Mine has incredibly loose shoulder joints, easily making him the worst of the three TF: Prime Deluxes released so far. Glad he'll be getting a second Deluxe mold, because this one is pretty mediocre.
     
  4. MaxGoof

    MaxGoof Preordained Soul

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    Oh, absolutely. I want a better Transformers Prime Bee for my lineup. This was a flawed first attempt, but we all know Hasbro can do infinitely better.
     
  5. MaxGoof

    MaxGoof Preordained Soul

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    The shoulders on mine are super loose as well--I have a hunch they're all like that as a result of the way the toy is engineered.
     
  6. shockwave2005

    shockwave2005 Well-Known Member

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    Great review. I agree with most of it.

    While one side of my Bumblebee's chest folds down fine, it's pointless since no amount of reasonable force can be applied to make the other side fold down at all.

    It's a shame that Bumblebee is the only Prime mold I can seem to find at retail right now.
     
  7. kaijuguy19

    kaijuguy19 Keyblade Wielder

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    That's true!:thumb  They have proven time and again that they can certainly make improvements! I'm still hoping if they can make a new mold of Arcee that's more accurate to the show and has less kibble!:)  That may not happen until the later waves but a guy can dream right?:D 
     
  8. SPLIT LIP

    SPLIT LIP Be strong enough to be gentle

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    I find it endlessly amusing that you say it's not accurate enough since I can't see it being any more accurate, and the second one is even less accurate.
     
  9. Bountyan

    Bountyan Well-Known Member

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    This figure feels so un-solid and loose. The chest pieces feel like they don't go anywhere, the shoulders and overly long gorilla arms flop around, and one of the door wings on mine is loose. Not to mention there are panels on his chest that are supposed to slide down, but are too tight. I also hate how there are huge pieces of car on his shins. It just ruins the overall aesthetic that the upper body has. The second one coming out doesn't even look any better from the pictures we've seen.

    Starscream is the only figure I actually like out of these first three Prime toys. I'm probably going to like the other three preview toys a lot more though; they don't seem to have any obvious problems.
     
  10. xeno

    xeno xeno

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    Mine is solid. and the chest folds correctly and lines up with the notches. I personally like this mold a lot. But I can see where the design could be improved as well. I'd at least give him a B- or B+ if generous, but a D? This guy is super accurate and is quite posable. Yes the paint apps might be less than desired and there are some QC issues, but I feel he is pretty awesome nonetheless. Maybe I just got lucky with the one I bought. Maybe we should have a poll for overall QC on him and see how much of the community was hit with the problems you guy's got hit with?
     
  11. Roanstalker

    Roanstalker Great Baan Gaan fan

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    The shoulders on mine are fine. I like him. Not perfect but good enough.
     
  12. Shin Densetsu

    Shin Densetsu I WILL DESTROY YOU Content Contributor Veteran

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    The shoulders are loose because they lack tension and springs. They are actually akin to ratchet joints without springs. Mine were super loose but I figured something out. You have to press the upper grey arm pieces together, each time, to lock the arms in place. You can see "teeth" under the wheels that the upper arm tabs "secure" themselves to.

    Ideally there should be a spring between the teeth and underside of the wheel, to give the necessary tension in order to keep the arms tight and have the detents work the way they are supposed to.

    Instead we have to manually press the grey parts together, each time, to lock the arms in position. This is annoying.

    Pretty sad as it's an otherwise excellent sculpt.
     
  13. AndreyOfDoom

    AndreyOfDoom maximize

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    Even with this, on mine the pins are not driven far enough into the rims, which makes the shoulders miss the ratchets. Need to tap the head of the pin through the back of the shoulder to get it deeper into the wheel.
     
  14. MaxGoof

    MaxGoof Preordained Soul

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    It's nothing personal against Bumblebee. I graded him a 'D' for being 'below average'. He'd be a 6/10 on a numeric scale. The paint apps are seriously lacking, which hurts a lot on a toy that's bright yellow, in addition to my Bumblebee (and seemingly many [most?] others) having stability issues and super-loose arms. Add to that all the kibble on his legs that hurts his appearance and hinders his poseability, and the fact that the doors are angled wrong and should have been ball-jointed (ie Generations Smokescreen) and he's just not up to snuff in my opinion.

    If there were no QC/loose joints/stability issues and his problems were just missing paint apps and kibble like Arcee, then he'd be a 'B'. But the issues are there, and from many of the responses to my review, I can tell I'm not the only person whose enjoyment of this toy is greatly diminished by them.
     
  15. Roanstalker

    Roanstalker Great Baan Gaan fan

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  16. exomega255

    exomega255 Emerald Green

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  17. Roanstalker

    Roanstalker Great Baan Gaan fan

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    True enough. I at least hope that one will look better in hand.
     
  18. Skeeve

    Skeeve Well-Known Member

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    The NYCC version had some great paint apps. Glad I own that one instead.
     
  19. Shin Densetsu

    Shin Densetsu I WILL DESTROY YOU Content Contributor Veteran

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  20. TFtoycollector

    TFtoycollector Well-Known Member

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    Finally opened bumblebee and while transforming him, his left leg fell off. The problem is either the ball or the socket. any movement of the leg will cause it to pop off. Any one else have this problem, or does anyone know how to fix it. Also one of the front bumper pieces won't go down all the way.