Ultimately, though, we'll get what we're given... and for the toyline, that means a whole lotta Bumblebees. Toys are just starting to hit UK retail this month, well ahead of the film's Boxing Day release date... and a chance visit to The Entertainer netted me the latest in Hasbro's gimmick-laden, super-sized Bumblebee figures.
This isn't going to go well, is it?
Vehicle Mode:
I'm delighted that the new movie features Bumblebee in his original Volkswagen Beetle mode, even if I am tired of Bumblebee generally. What I'm not so delighted about is that, while this is a licensed Beetle likeness... it's all very 'lowest common denominator' in its execution. It's clear from the first glance that 95% of this vehicle shell plays no active part in the robot mode, and it's absolutely maddening to see that the entire vehicle shell is yellow plastic with the windows painted in using a super-dark metallic blue colour. This paint actually covers the window frames as well as the windows themselves, making it look rather artificial, and there's even nothing to differentiate between the windscreen and the windscreen wipers due to the blanket coverage. The way the lights are handled is equally odd: the headlights are translucent blue plastic, the indicators are unpainted, but part of the yellow plastic car shell, while the tail lights are part of the yellow plastic car shell, but painted red (seemingly the standard colour for tail lights when Hasbro can be bothered to paint them). It's worth noting that the shade of yellow used is nigh on perfect for a traditional Bumblebee - neither anaemic nor overly orange - but the plastic itself is so thin in some places that it almost appears translucent. Despite this, it feels sturdy and flexible enough to stand up to extensive play.
None of the incidental details, such as door handles or the light fittings, are painted but at least the bumpers are molded in a different colour of plastic. Awkwardly, they - and the single side mirror - are molded in grey rubber which, on mine, was warped straight out of the box - the front bumper connects well enough, but the rear bumper appears to be skewed on the right hand side. Wise though it may have been as a safety precaution, the end result is a little sub-par. One might also think that, with rubber already involved in the construction of this figure, the tyres might be rubber... but, no, the entire wheels are solid grey plastic with the tyres painted black. The hubcaps do all feature the VW logo, but the plastic used - while slightly pearlescent - feels a little too dull or dark.
Aside from a few panels that don't quite tab togther perfectly, the Beetle sculpt looks really good... and I know this - more than many other upcoming toys - is very much a gimmicky child's toy not a collector's peice, but when I see this level of attention to detail in the sculpt, I can't help but be disappointed by the lack of detail paintwork and the opaque, painted windows.
The gimmick technically functions in vehicle mode - there's a large wheel on the underside of the vehicle which actually prevents the car from rolling freely because it's geared to operate the electronics - but there's a huge and, I think, blatantly obvious flaw in its execution. Bumblebee's headlights are translucent plastic, sure... but the LEDs that operate them remain on the underside of the vehicle, and therefore completely useless in vehicle mode. Just to clarify, it's not that the lights don't operate in vehicle mode - they do, they're just hidden above the robot's arms on the underside of the vehicle. Quite why they weren't mounted behind the translucent plastic, with wires leading back into the body, is completely beyond me, and an additional reason for this will become apparent in robot mode. While the box claims a total of 25 sounds, vehicle mode seems only to have four or five, ranging from engine start to a 'power down' effect, with revving and 'boost' effects in between, depending on what the gimmick wheel is doing. The sounds are a little tinny, but that's nothing unusual. I guess they're all decent enough, and likely to keep kids entertained if that's the sort of thing they're into.
Robot Mode:
Power Charge Bumblebee stands about 25.5cm/10" tall in robot mode - quite large by today's standard, but pretty much on a par with Hasbro's previous electronic extravaganzas. There's clearly a design law involved in electronic Bumblebees, that the upper body has to be made to a completely different set of proportions to everything else. The legs and arms seem to be made to approximately the same scale, but the central body section seems too wide at the groin, let alone at the shoulders where the car's front wings end up. The front wings of the car seem to push the shoulders out too far, making the overall figure look quite squat. He starts to look a little better if you spread his feet apart, but they're molded to stand with his legs straight, and there's no ankle tilt, so he ends up standing on the inner edges of his largely hollow feet.
We've only seen brief glimpses of the new, 1980s Bumblebee to be featured in the upcoming movie, but one obvious difference between what we've seen and this toy is the increased prominence of his door wings. They seem to be a fixture of the modern Bumblebee toys - putting him more in line with the likes of G1 Prowl, Jazz, etc. - but they're nowhere to be seen in the trailer. Naturally, there's a large backpack made up of the car's bonnet, windscreen and the bulk of the roof, but it folds up quite tidily, and the wings actually end up on top of it. It all seems rather wasteful, but it'd probably take a Third Party company, with one of their miracle-working designers, to create a VW Beetle that transforms more efficiently into a convincing version of the new movie's CGI character. For me, the biggest problem with the backpack is that the slightest nudge seems to activate the transformation sound.
One of my most frequent gripes about TransFormers toys is the use of inappropriate plastic colours. This can be anything from the use of black plastic to represent silver/metallic parts, or the bizarre brown and beige shades that creep into far too many toys and, sadly, Power Charge Bumblebee suffers very much from the latter. The entire torso, as well as the elbow and knee joints, are molded in a weird brown plastic, and the upper arms are actually painted to match. It's a hideous colour and, while it could be argued that it represents a dirty/rusty robot, it looks awful on a toy this size. Making matters worse, the yellow paint used on the head, the hips and the right forearm is a poor match to the plastic colour, and doesn't look fully opaque in places. Granted, the silver paint used on the shins is an equally bad match to the metallic grey plastic of the feet, thighs and forearms, but that's less conspicuous as it still looks metallic and, in any case, that difference is not entirely inaccurate to the look of the CGI.
As mentioned, the packaging claims this toy features 25 sounds, and I'm tempted to quibble that... But I suspect that what I consider to be "a sound emitted by this toy" is actually considered by Hasbro to be a combination of up to three individual sounds - for example, rolling the car will play an ignition sound, followed by purring engine, followed by 'power down', or a boost/whoosh, followed by purring engine, followed by 'power down' whether it's rolled backward or forward. To me, that's two sounds... but each soundbite could be considered to be three sounds. Whether that makes six or just four for vehicle mode (the engine purr and power down effects sound indentical to my ears), I'm not certain. Transformation sounds - forward and back - are triggered by moving the bonnet/roof section into/out of a certain position, making two more. In robot mode, spinning the barrel can initiate one of several bursts of music, some accompanied by bursts of static or a "whoo!", there's a sort of record-scratching sound followed by a honk, or static and canned laughter, and all effects seem to be rounded off with the 'power down' sound... again, I have to assume that the "25 sounds" figure has been reached by counting the components rather than the full soundbite emitted each time the gimmick is activated, and I've found that one soundbite is accessed far more often/easily than any of the others. The lights, meanwhile, can fade in and out, blink from one side to the other, or flicker along with the sound effects. Deploying the battlemask has no appreciable effect on the sound effects.
This version of Bumblebee doesn't come with any accessories or additional weapons - no replacement right arm with a cannon instead of a hand - but he does have what's described as a 'Stinger Sword' embedded in is left forearm. It slides in and out smoothly via a tab, and extends about 2cm/just under 1" beyond his fist, but it doesn't look like something that would be especially effective in a fight with another robot. Whether it turns out of have some sort of taser effect in the movie, we'll just have to wait and see... but it looks more Assassin's Creed than TransFormers. Both fists do feature the standard 5mm grip, so he can hold weapons from other figures, but anything short of a Dark of the Moon Mechtech weapon is liable to look too small in his hands.
The head sculpt - like that of any live action movie Bumblebee - is an aquired taste. This one is certainly more deliberately cute than the Camaro version from the previous films, and it seems as though this sculpt is more accurate to the CGI than were the earliest Bumblebee toys from the first movies. It seems proportionally wider or fatter, with the eyes lower down, and a flatter jawline, but it's nice and detailed. Deploying the battlemask is accomplished by pulling his ears forward - not the most intuitive option, and actually quite difficult for adult fingers, given how low down they are. I really like the battlemask, but it makes me think of AoE Stinger, or TF Animated Wasp/Waspinator. It possibly harks back to the proper G1 (pre-cartoon accurate redesign) Bumblebee face, but there's a somewhat sinister look to it. Bizarrely - especially considering this is an electronically-enhanced toy - the eyes are light-piped rather than lit by LEDs, but the light piping works quite well whether the mask is deployed or not. It's another strange decision, but I can't say it doesn't work well.
It should come as no surprise that Power Charge Bumblebee doesn't really transform in the traditional sense - it's more a case of rearranging the vehicle shell around a robot that basically just lies down. The arms fold in front of the chest once the vehicle's front wings are swung into position, but the closest this figure has to a proper transformation is in the lower legs, where the shin swings forward, the shell unwraps from the calves, the feet open out and then the whole lot rotates around the wheel until they're in a position to peg together to form the rear of the vehicle. I don't think the gimmick or the electronics have had undue or excessive impact on his simplicity as the central core isn't that big - certainly compared to older electronic figures - and it's very rare than any TransFormers toy's central core does much anyway. Where the vehicle tabs together, it does so quite securely, but some parts just don't seem to line up properly, leading to some noticeable gaps. In particular, at the back end it's actually quite difficult to peg together the two halves of car shell attached to the legs and, on mine at least, the left side wheel well is left with a large gap despite everything nearby seemingly tabbing in quite well.
For a figure of this size, intended for younger users, Power Charge Bumblebee is pretty well articulated in terms of the number and position of joints. The problem really is that most of the articulation joints are very stiff, while some of the transformation joints are not. The biggest problems on mine are the shoulders, which are far stiffer than the transformation joints inside the wheel wells and, since the latter don't peg into anything in robot mode, the arm tries to swing out on the transformation joint instead of the actual shoulder joint, and this could lead to breakage. Holding the wheel in place while moving the arm helps but, while the elbow joint is just right (perhaps a little loose if he was expected to hold any accessories), the rotation joint just above the elbow is also really tight. Conversely, while the hip joints are nice and tight, both knee joints on mine are seriously loose, so getting him to stand is quite a balancing act. That said, he can stand on one leg and even do a high kick with a bit of fiddling, so it's not as bad as some other figures of this scale. Even when standing on the edges of his feet, his footprint is rather more solid than the likes of Battle Ops Bumblebee and, once standing, he's not inclined to sag over time.
I cannot emphasise enough that this is clearly designed to be enjoyed by young kids (6+ according to the box) - it's big, chunky and noisy (I actually removed the battery from mine very quickly because the transformation sound effect is ridiculously easy to trigger accidentally, and all of the sounds could be described as "annoyingly and intrusively loud"), with a fun sound/movement gimmick that's really only let down by poor positioning of the lights and the somewhat random/imprecise way the sounds are activated. On a related note, I'd argue that the location of the on/off switch is ill-considered - it's on the robot's backside, essentially meaning it's utterly inaccessible in vehicle mode. Given the tech detailing on the torso, I think it would have been easy to disguise it in a more accessible place, either on the front or the side of the body. One minor point, but nevertheless something I find quite impressive and very much in this toy's favour, is that Power Charge Bumblebee requires only one AA battery. Bear in mind that electronic toys back in G1 tended to require a 9v brick, and more recent figures, like the Leader class figures from Revenge of the Fallen, required two AA batteries for features that were no more impressive or complicated, so this figure will be cheaper to keep going in the long run.
This toy is really not for me... I bought it on a whim, because I wanted to see first-hand what a larger, electronic gimmick TransFormers toy would be like in 2018, as I think the last one I bought was Dark of the Moon's Leader class Ironhide. This is something of an improvement on that, but possibly not as good as Battle Ops Bumblebee and, to be honest, I don't understand the thinking behind the gimmick. Maybe it's because I've only recently played around with my old ROM the Spaceknight toy, but the barrel in the chest, while reasonably appropriate for vehicle mode, seems out of place in robot mode, and I'd have preferred to be able to access sounds in a less random, or at least a more controlled fashion. I do wish a bit more effort had gone into his transformation, particularly at this size, because I doubt all these flimsy, fussy panels would be appreciated a lot of kids. I'm also bothered by the misalignment of the lights embedded in the body and the car's translucent blue plastic headlights - it's almost as if the chest was supposed to collapse inward by about half a centimetre each side, but that step was removed from the final product. There's also the simple fact that the barrel in the chest, which operates the gimmick, takes the place of a more CGI-accurate VW Beetle bonnet chest. Maybe it would have looked better had it been cast in yellow plastic rather than translucent blue (it's not as if there's another light inside it!), or even if some of the surrounding brown plastic had been painted yellow... but it just doesn't look 'right' to me.
Overall, it's not a bad toy by any means... it just feels as though the gimmick has been shoehorned in without proper consideration. For the right age group - one can only assume they're not as fed up of Bumblebee as bitter old collectors like myself - it's probably going to be great fun... but, to me, it's another super-basic toy that's been upscaled to accommodate electronics that the TransFormers brand just doesn't need.
No comments:
Post a Comment