If people can see through the illusion of quality why do they bother to care about diecast? Nostalgia > everything?

Zeta Toys make good looking """combiners""" everything else is average or below average. Even the CW figures are more complex than some of their so called combiners.

Not for everyone, not for me at least.

Engineering for me! That also means the appropriate material for the task!

 

Rubber tires are subject to degradation and I could honestly do without them. The lack of rubber tires on the carbots was the best decision they made, IMO. And diecast is incredibly overrated. IMO, it should only be used strategically to help balance a figure, like with MPM3 and MP Soundwave.

 

The vehicle mode would almost work if it wasn't for the gappy panel separations,
but his robot mode is a complete disaster from his puffy head to his kibble filled feet.
His shoulders are straight up offensive to me in their complete and utter lack of any detailing. They're just black cubes!
(and saying they're that way because it's going for fidelity on a cheaply-animated cartoon really doesn't appease me)

When i look at Black Arachnia and the recent MPM reveals and then look at this... where have they gone so, so wrong with the G1 MP line?
heck, the Armada Prime revealed is 10x the "masterpiece" this guy looks like.

 

Says who?

Proof?

How do you know this exactly?

 

Well it looks like the right color. That goes a long way. Never bought the orange MP-21.

But me? I love the toy-based battle mask look for Bumblebee. Always has been my preference. So..... MP-45+ down the road maybe? A more toy-based yellow version? Just the extra head somehow? Will that exist at some point?? I'll have to wait to find out. No battle mask, no sale.

 

Ditto! I mean, I've probably sounded very negative about it, but there are positives and I'm sure in hand it will be a cool little figure. I like the alt mode, I like the idea of a toon accurate bot mode, heck I even like the idea of sitting Spike inside. I just don't think all three were doable without huge compromises. That's fundamental to the engineering and nothing's going to change that.

BUT with a different head (and if this thread is anything to go by, 3rd parties will have an easy market there) and if those feet can either be mistransformed or replaced like the vanbro hips that will just leave the backpack. Which is something I can overlook.

 

Awesome photos.

Yeah looking closely, it does appear to be a bit of an illusion. I previously thought there was what I was calling "waist crunch," but it appears there's not. I think the illusion is partly down to the lower backpack being slightly moved outward to facilitate waist rotation, combined with the hips and knees being bent.

On a side note re: the ongoing disagreements over the figure... I'd just like to say, while I personally love him, I wish more people's critiques of him were like @Booster Gold @ambitron @Sam @OptimusTimelord et al's (not trying to leave anyone out - plenty of great commentary from a lot of people.) I've always loved their commentary on figures, because they carefully and civilly quantify what their criticisms are, and most importantly, don't engage in the sort of passive aggressive sniping that a lot of people seem to.

Which is why despite my liberal use of the Ignore function, those are the people I don't place on it. I wish more people could disagree in that format.

For myself, I love this figure. He's not perfect. I'm not big on the heel spurs. The backpack literally doesn't bother me at all though (yes MP-21's was cleaner, but neither is animation accurate.) MP-21's compromises were backpack (even if cleaner,) forearms, and lack of toon accuracy. 45's compromises are backpack, heels, and just general clutter. (And price, but I personally maintain the rise in cost isn't arbitrary and that there are reasons for it I can justify. That's just my take on it, though.)

I'm not getting rid of MP-21. He's going into my Beetle collection with my G1 Bee reissue, vintage G1 Goldbug (with all the paint and decals decayed off of him lol,) Studio Series Bee, and Go Bots Bug Byte.   Someday I'll photograph all of them together in a famous pose and write "The Beetles" in the Beatles album font on the image.   (I blame Herbie the love bug for this obsession.)

 

If this was an MP reveal thread from 2-3 years ago, I'd have been excited to hear a figure was going to benefit from some additional refinement. Now I'm worrying that MP-44 might end up worse for it.

 

looks like they have been implementing them already the panels under the head looked more even/tidy in the wonderfest pictures , would be good if they changed that area so it was more covered or less panel like i think it would make so much difference to the figure

 

Well said   Speaking personally this is a hobby and it's meant to be enjoyable. I don't get the need to be nasty or argumentative. And hopefully even my negative observations are justifiable. I want this line to be great, and if something is disappointing or could be better I think it's beneficial to discuss it.

True story, first movie I ever saw at the cinema was The Love Bug! (it wasn't the original release, I'm old but not that old!).

 

My thoughts after a very fun and exciting weekend doing winter sports which I clearly suck at. I workout quite regularly, and I feel that I squatted a semi truck.


Bee is a bit of a letdown. TT has spoiled me big time since they went in the new direction. I expected Bee to be perfect (I get that nothing is ever perfect, but to me, it all was) but it is sadly not the home run I was expecting.

The backpack is not ideal. But not a deal-breaker for me. Sacrifices are expected with a toy this small, I mean where the hell is everything going to go? Disappear? I don't think we're quite there yet in toy engineering. I just think it was not as nicely executed as I had hoped.... it simply looks like an afterthought, so to say. Even compressed properly, the sides look bad. I sure hope some 3P company offers some side covers of some sort, I wouldn't mind that to be frank.

The feet are the biggest culprit. Period. It is a next level of bad. I have been checking the pictures and there is no way they are miss-transformed. That is what we're getting. man, I know it is a mini-bot, I know they're trying to hide the wheel on a tiny figure, but shit. I feel stupid trying to express this because I'm of the mentality that if I don't know how to do something, I better STFU. I'm not a toy designer, I'm not an engineer. I can not make a better Bumblebee. But this is TT we're talking about here. Hopefully we'll get some insight on Bee's development on that monthly magazine. I just have a hard time believing that an open door gimmick could have such trade of, and most importantly, that TT went with it for the sake of it.

Love how he looks from the front, it is everything I wanted. I'm sure the face is going to look better in hand, the current one doesn't bug me. The articulation, the chest, overall proportions are killer and a definitive upgrade from 21.

That alt mode is lovely. Even knowing that it is mostly (or not?) contained in the backpack, I find it unreal that all that robot fits inside that chibi cuteness.

No company is perfect, they all have missteps. No, I'm not naive enough to believe that the line is doomed or that Kobayashi should be fired and the line should go back to what it was. That is not how shit works.

I'm still waiting for official pics, hell, I know @Gamerlingual said that they mentioned that the mold is final, and I have no reason to doubt that. But hopefully they can still tweak something here and there. If not, it is what it is.

TT has been giving me what I have always wanted and never failed me thus far (MP-09/05 are a different story) so this is still a day one (or day three, with AJP  ) purchase from me.

Bring it.

 

With the retooling of BW Meg, MP-44 and Hound, I do have hope TT is listening and caring in some way.

 

I’m not sure about everyone else but I need to see these things in either motion or in-hand. The pictures are cool and all but it’ll never beat a 3-D representation. I’m warming up to his face as well and that’s my only issue with him. I’m not blind to the fact that he has joints and parts all over the place but as one that takes apart and builds a lot of things, I can understand TT’s approach with Bee.

This is not a safe MP design at all. Nor was MP-44 a safe design. Beast Wars isn’t a safe design. The whole reason TT received a Life Long Design award was for pushing the boundaries of safe. Bee’s very ambition cause they went full toon here and had two work with two modes that never matched to begin with and the complicated transformation to connect B to the color Yellow. The bottom line for me and only me is this, TT are experts at what they do. Reality needs to set in that they know what they are doing and didn’t design Bee during a bathroom break. It’s cool that people don’t like it and don’t want to buy it, I’ll debate on buying two but it’s not amateur hour at Takara.

 

Hey, has anyone considered that Takara might actually include an alt neutral face without scribe lines? Or maybe with a later figure like hound? I mean I'm sure they had debates when trying to finalize BEE 2.0. Do we have planes that are too soft because of the head scale and limitations of mold at that size or do we scribe lines to make it read more clearly at that scale?

There has to be a preproduction version of the face without scribe lines.

A similar case is MP Magnus with the regular eyes and then goggle eyes coming with Delta Magnus. I bet they had a similar debate internally but made the call to go with regular eyes.

 

Well, if I’m honest, this guy looks frickin awesome in bot mode.

But that Alt mode is an abhorrent Frankenstein mess that sets a worrying precedent for this line, IMHO

 

I've been looking for screws or a rod that can be removed on the heel window. I might actually try to remove it, if Bee can still stand without the heel spur. Just to cleanup the feet a little.

I hope a third party can create a replacement face with planes vs. scribe lines or of course Takara might have one already.

Also, I hope for a foot filler like the forearm filler that was made for MP21

 

im not sure if someone already suggested this or already made a figure, but a 3P company should make a separate bot and alt mode for bumblebee..everything has to be perfect, articulation, sculpt and all..for nostalgia and toon accuracy's sake..

 

I wonder about the scribed lines myself. Considering the size of mp21's face and comparing it to Inferno's or Sunstreaker's I can't see much of a difference in size. SS's in particular have very hard edges on the planes.

 

I never had an issue with the previous Bee MP. I never even thought about how off the head was.

Oh well, this will be the most reluctant MP V2 (or +) that I'll get.

 

Thanks for the link, that was interesting to sift through. The MP line was still pretty young at that point and the 3P MP scene hadn't blown up yet. Maybe more options as well as having invested thousands of dollars has made us more critical. Or maybe we're a little burned out by this very expensive "gotta catch 'em all" idea that seemed like the dream at the time, but is maybe not living up to those halcyon expectations. That last one is certainly part of it for me.

I was excited for MP-21 and I'm less excited for MP-45. But, I still mostly like it and I'm hoping it means Cliffjumper is coming. I found my comment in that old thread about how Cliffjumper as a real car seemed wrong to me, and I still feel that way. I don't know how the choro-q cars will look next to the real mp cars, but I know I want a chibi Cliffjumper.

So yeah, I'm okay with this. Excited? Not as much as I used to be, but I don't think that has anything to do with the faults of this mold. I haven't felt 2014 levels of enthusiasm for a while.