Frankly, I got bored of that after Battle Blade Bumblebee, released eight years ago, simply because that still represents the pinnacle of Deluxe class engineering on a movie toy - not just a Bumblebee toy - as far as I'm concerned. Sure, I bought two movie Bumblebees from the Age of Extinction line, but they were at least based on different cars. I also had a Dark of the Moon version (Nitro Bumblebee) given to me as a gift, but I refused to buy any of the repaints and minor tweaks, and this will carry over to Studio Series: I bought the very first, because it's an improvement on the original '76 Camaro Bumblebee toy, and have no intention of buying any of the others...
...Except this one, which looked interesting because vehicle mode is almost a homage to G1 Goldbug, while robot mode is simply a more impressive-looking repaint of the SS VW Beetle Bumblebee for his eponymous live action outing. It's not exactly a limited edition, and clearly not as much of an exclusive as it's supposed to be, but the combination of a special paint job and a couple of G1 cassette-bots was more than enough to encourage me to (temporarily) lift the self-imposed Bumblebee embargo on my collection.
Annoyingly, though, I preordered this set in September, when it was supposed to ship in October, and then found him available at the Hasbro booth at the MCM London Comic Con at the end of October (probably cheaper there, too). He eventually arrived in the post last weekend, more than a little overdue (not least because of Royal Mail's 48-hour service taking closer to 72 hours)... so let's take a look at him.
Packaging:
Hasbro's special 'event' packaging has improved immeasurably over the last few years. From the nondescript black box of Titans Return Arcee to the simple but eyecatching display box of Prime Wars Punch-Counterpunch and now to this... Essentially designed to look like an audio cassette in a cardboard slipcase, it's probably the best work their packaging design team in recent memory, and a far cry from the jumbled mess of the Age of Extinction line.
The slipcase is a little flimsy and, while it's been designed to look weathered, with scuffs and cracks included in the printed design, and irregular cutouts on the edges to simulate tears, the finish on the card seems to be an absolute magnet for actual scuffing. The image on the front is a sort of cel-shaded interpretation of Bumblebee, but it almost appears to have been based on the toy rather than the CGI from the movie - he's quite lanky and broad-chested rather than being small and comparatively chubby. It's a decent bit of artwork, but they've somehow managed to make the head and face look even uglier than the CGI, and the boombox he's holding is a little bit out of proportion compared to the car parts. The back features a faded image of a beachside road (possibly taken from the movie), with a graffiti-style Bumblebee logo beneath the TransFormers brand header, a stained, creased "I love the 80s" sticker/panel with the traditional heart replaced by an Autobot insignia, and a pun-tastic track listing for the two sides of the 'tape' contained within. The trademark, branding details and disclaimers (including my personal favourite "Product does not include music.") are printed in several languages on a sticker applied to the bottom quarter of the back of the box, and a small white sticker has been applied to the front, next to the age recommendation (8+). I'm not quite curious enough to see what's underneath either of these, as I suspect removing them would damage the slipcase.
The 'cassette' inside is a presentation box all on its own, with a large window across the top on the front and back showing off the small, gold Deluxe class VW Beetle toy inside. Across the middle, below the window on both faces, is a 'hand-written' label of the package's name, and a small cutout on the front reveals a flap-down compartment containing the two G1-style cassettes, their accessories, and those of the Bumblebee figure - the wrist blade, arm cannon and battle mask. The print on the box is styled after traditional audio cassettes, with a label showing the figure's Studio Series number as the tape's index number, and there's even a bit on the bottom designed to look like the open section where the tape is read as it moves between spools. Obviously, there's no space for the spools themselves to be depicted in the design (though if they'd made the windows smaller and moved the label, they could have included something close), but it's still a really well-designed box...
...Until you try to open it, that is.
The problem is that the Bumblebee toy is contained in an arrangement of cardboard that is the full height of the box, and the compartment containing the cassette-bots and accessories is set within that. Simply opening the compartment isn't enough to allow the main cardboard framework to come out, the runners on the compartment have to be removed from their slots, and it's really difficult to get them back in. You don't have to destroy the box to open it, but it'll certainly never be in its original condition again. This seems really daft, as the main toy could easily have been fastened into a separate framework, allowing the rest of the box to stay in as close to pristine condition as possible. Alternatively, putting the cassette-bots into an entirely separate cardboard drawer would have had the same effect.
Deluxe class Bumblebee
Vehicle Mode:
Back in Generation 1, Bumblebee was rebuilt and given a swanky gold paintjob, earning him the new name 'Goldbug'. Despite this version of Studio Series VW Beetle Bumblebee being gold, it's not really a Goldbug homage, just a premium repaint of the standard yellow Studio Series figure. It actually looks pretty gorgeous, despite the use of a very cool gold, which ends up looking almost green in some lighting conditions. It's a nice, consistent coating, and the paint has even been applied to the window frames on the sides. The headlights are unpainted translucent plastic, but the side and rear indicators have been painted in, albeit using one solid colour for each, and with no silver trim. The bumpers and wheels are molded in a slightly metallic grey plastic, with the tyres painted black, and it's good to see all the odd little details that make up the Beetle have been replicated quite accurately on this size of vehicle - it's nowhere near the level of the Masterpiece figure, but even that wasn't perfect. Probably the strangest thing is the silver stripe down the centre of the bonnet - it's far wider than it needs to be, coating not just the thin metallic trim, but the entire raised central strip all the way down to the handle just behind the bumper... but, strangely, not the WV badge just in front of the windscreen. Aside from this, there's a black strip running down each side with a cute little bumblebee design on the bottom of the doors.
The standard version of this figure attracted a lot of criticism due to its small size - being generous and measuring from the tips of his exhaust pipes to the very tip of his front bumper, this version of Bumblebee measures only 11.5cm (about 4.5"), a hair under 4.5cm (about 1.7") at his widest and barely over 4cm (about 1.6") high. By my reckoning, however, he's been made slightly larger than he should be comparing the vehicle mode size to that of the remade '76 Camaro figure... something in the region of 6-8% larger according to my extremely rough calculations. Yes, it's a small vehicle mode, and desperately small for a Deluxe class vehicle, even in this day and age, but the Beetle was a comparatively small car... and if Studio Series took its vehicle mode scales at all seriously, he'd be quite a bit smaller.
It could be argued that a smaller main toy should come with more accessories to make it more worthy of the current Deluxe class pricepoint (a feat Hasbro attempted with Sqweeks in the toyline for The Last Knight), but the standard version is only packaged with a battlemask, a wrist blade and a replacement forearm to represent his arm cannon and, cassette-bots aside, this version has nothing new to justify a price tag about three times that. All of his accessories can be stowed, with varying degrees of success, about the vehicle mode - the mask attaches under the front bumper, the cannon roughly in the middle of the underside of the vehicle, and the blade to either forearm. The blade can actually be left attached during transformation, but it does make the arm a bit more fiddly to manoeuvre. The main problem with the way it stows is that it barely leaves the vehicle any ground clearance.
Overall, the vehicle mode is remarkably similar to the Masterpiece, particularly in the way the bonnet, windscreen and roof are all connected by hinges and can be difficult to fit properly around the lines of the side windows. The rear windscreen is also hinged to the roof, and there's a noticeable gap between the end of its section and the rearmost section of the car shell, but that's about the worst seam on the vehicle mode. Being a licensed model, it's accurate to the real-life vehicle and, as I said when writing about the Masterpiece version, it's good to see Bumblebee looking more like his old G1 self... even if there are undoubtedly cynical reasons behind Volkswagen's decision to approve the licensing deal.
Robot Mode:
Given that I picked up the Masterpiece version about a month before this one arrived, and wasn't entirely blown away by that, it's not surprise to see this simpler, Deluxe class take on the character is nowhere near as good, even with his bling-tastic paint job. The proportions are further off the CGI, with the narrow waist further emphasised on this figure by the headlight sections seeming larger and giving him a much broader chest. The central panel on the chest is just as flat as on the Masterpiece, too, so the only visible improvement on the upper body is that the headlight sections are actually tilted very slightly. The narrow waist gives way to thighs that look even larger in comparison, and the legs are definitely lankier - both proportionally longer and less bulky. The feet look about right, but the amount of car shell just hanging off his back is heinous.
I know it's more difficult to match the look of ultra-detailed CGI from the movies but surely, with 35 years of history and engineering improvements behind the brand, they could have found some way to minimise the backpack, even on a Deluxe. I'd settle for less CGI accuracy if it meant the transformation actually used more of the vehicle shell... or just, y'know, Hasbro actually exercising some creative control to ensure turning the CGI into toys is more feasible. Let's face it, though, when you have figures like Stinger, which feature a truly novel way if hiding the windscreen in the middle of the body, having the bonnet, windscreen and two sections of roof folded up as a backpack, flanked by the entire sides of the car folded up and splayed out as wings just seems lazy.
I get that the wings are the result of the toy being based on early CGI, and I think the way they've been handled is actually not that bad... though they are extremely floppy on mine, and the number of times I had to re-take a photo because they'd shifted got very silly very quickly... Which is why I gave up, and just left them wherever they were for several shots.
For me, I think the weirdest aspect of the toy is the arms - even though they seem to be about the right length (possibly even slightly too long given that his hands end up right by his knees), they seem short and stubby against his upper body, and extremely short compared to his legs... Almost as if they're intended for a completely different toy. I also find that the hands are ridiculously easy to detach accidentally - they certainly can't be used for leverage during transformation... or when posing, even... But at least they pop back on just as easily.
In terms of paintwork, there honestly seems to be little to justify the price tag. Silver paint has been applied to the arms and legs (both front and back on the upper arms, forearms and thighs, plus on the shin plates) while the torso is largely bare plastic. The gold plastic used for the limbs is a decent match to the paint used on the car shell, and the grey plastic is admittedly metallic or pearlised, and not too far off the look of the silver paint... but there should be a lot more paintwork here. I'm assuming they've used quite a bright silver because the rest of him is supposed to be gold, but some of the detailing, particularly on the torso, could have been given a black wash, while the outsides of the shoulders and hips, not to mention the areas around the hip joints and the rims of his feet, should not have been left as bare plastic. The latter are actually painted on the standard version so, on this version, that particular omission is downright negligent. The gold - both the paint and the plastic - seems far less impressive in robot mode, possibly because of the lack of contrast between it and the silver paint and/or metallic-ish grey plastic. Then again, when stood next to any yellow Bumblebee figure, the gold just looks too cool and, as mentioned before, almost looks green at times.
The forearm cannon functions in much the same way as the one included with the first Studio Series Bumblebee - the forearm detaches just below the elbow and the gun plugs into its place - but is an entirely new sculpt, reflecting the six-barrelled gun that grows out of the palm of his hand in the new movie. Compared to the Masterpiece version, the sculpt isn't as clear on how it relates to his hand and, to be honest, the paintwork - minimal as it is - doesn't help. Most of the inside face of his forearm, up to and including his thumb, has been painted black, while the six barrels surrounding the actual gunbarrel have been painted silver at the tips and his fingers are unpainted. It seems comparatively small, and the change in colour of the inner forearm from grey/silver to black is more than a little jarring. I'm not entirely clear on how either 'spare' arm is supposed to stow in robot mode when not in use, but there is a tab on his backside which fits the sockets on either arm. Using it with either attachment is a little disturbing, though - he either has a gun or a hand hanging down between his legs. Alternatively, the instructions point out that there are a couple of tabs on the underside of the windscreen, but - on mine, at least - don't seem to fit as snugly. The forearm blade is pretty much just a scaled-down version of the Masterpiece figure's equivalent accessory, but with a slightly less intricate paint job and not quite so detailed a sculpt on the blade. Stowing this when not in use is even more awkward, not least because the instructions say nothing on the subject. Supposedly, it can be laid across the two windscreen tabs using the channel down the middle of the blade but, obviously, that means the 'spare' arm can no longer go there.
Like the Masterpiece, the head sculpt is sort of a squished-up, cutesified version of the original movie's CGI, and looks wider than it is tall. The sculpt seems reasonably accurate, but by some quirk, it appears to have a piggy snout with super-deep nostrils. The face is painted with the same silver that's used around the body, with the weirdly buggy eyes picked out in the usual Allspark Blue. Compared to the Studio Series '76 Camaro Bumblebee head sculpt, this one looks eerily like a skeletal cat, particularly with its larger, more prominent antennae. Similar to the Masterpiece, there's a separate battlemask piece, but this one is a whole new 'face' for the head, rather than an additional piece that goes over the standard face. Due to some weird tolerance issue, the mask doesn't fit particularly well, leaves a large seam on the top of the head and, on mine, at least, is more prone to popping off. The only paint on the mask is on the eyepieces and, while the standard face has a tiny Autobot insignia stamped on the small raised panel on the forehead, the same panel is unmarked on the battlemask, even though it's supposed to be the same panel.
Transformation is certainly simpler than the Masterpiece version, but a lot of it also feels less secure, and possibly overly ambitious for a Deluxe this small. For vehicle mode, the car's side panels, in particular, only peg in to the robot's hips, then the bonnet/windscreen/roof series of panels tab into the side windows from the top. It's not exactly elegant, and the side panels seem to pop out rather too easily. Also, I find the front parts of the front wheelwells don't quite line up with the part the wheels are connected to, but seem to want to spring back into their robot mode positions. Getting the robot's arms tabbed in for vehicle mode is problematic as there's so little room to manoeuvre - the side panels, including the front wheels, seem to have to be in place before the arms go in, as otherwise the arms are fighting against the door hinges. Going from vehicle mode to robot mode, I often find the face plate pops off, though I can't see why - I can only assume it's the headlight panels getting caught on his antennae. Easily the worst aspect is the mass of vehicle shell folded up on his back, and the extent to which it has to fold up and in to his back - it really has to be forced up into its proper resting position and squeezed in between the door hinges, but feels too delicate to force, being partly made up of transparent plastic with metal pins through rather small protrusions. I'm glad of the metal pins because it means his backpack doesn't fall apart like the one on the original SS Bumblebee... but if it does fall apart, it'll be because one of those hinges broke.
Articulation is about average for a contemporary Deluxe toy. It's almost a downside, these days, that articulation has pretty much already hit a peak and sort of plateaued there. He has all the joints you'd expect, but there are a couple of hitches: the backpack - particularly the vehicle's front wheels sticking out behind his shoulders - hinders his arms' ability to swing backward, and the large chunks of the car's rear end on the backs of his lower legs slightly reduces the range of his knee bend. The head isn't as mobile as I'd like, being on a ball joint whose range is reduced to little more than simple rotation regardless of which faceplate is attached. There's also the oddity that is his thigh swivel: it's there, but the main thigh piece has been sculpted in such a ways as to minimise it to the point where I don't see why they even bothered. They may as well have saved on the parts count and had his hips connect directly to his thighs instead of through an additional, almost redundant joint. On the upside, the transformation joints on the ankle greatly improve the range of his feet, and the 90° of dedicated ankle tilt means he tends to be very stable in his poses... provided the backpack is counterbalanced by his stance.
G1-style Cassettes
Zauru:
After the original Microchange-derived cassettes, the newly created molds got a bit more ambitious and a lot less convincing. I have a sneaking suspicion that mold degradation has played a part in the fact that Zauru's alternate mode never feels perfectly flush, but the large gaps around the head, tail and feet are clearly the result of poor design. Also, the fact that his head is permanently on show on both sides, and that there are no stickers on his legs or tail, really scuppers any hopes he might have had of being a remotely convicing cassette.
His robot mode - described on TFWiki as being an Apatosaurus (the sauropod formerly known as Brontosaurus) - has a dumpy body, hinged in the middle, with a long neck and tail. Useful articulation is limited to the neck and tail. The legs are articulated only at the hip/shoulder and sculpted in such a way as to make them most effective for a standing stance. He can just about balance with the legs positioned in a walking stance, but it takes some effort... not least because the joints are very stiff and, on mine, the front legs are so tightly fitted they're effectively joined. The joint in the body is only intended for use in creating the combined form of the two tapes, but it does work reasonably well as an articulation joint... however, he's not an ambiturner... he can't turn left.
Molded in dark blue plastic for the most part, his joints are black plastic and his legs black-painted die cast metal. Naturally, the majority of the sculpted detail is on his lefthand side, and is the typcial, fairly minimal G1 panel lining and implied joints. He looks pretty good but, as with the likes of Slugfest, his diminutive stature means he's hardly the most imposing dinobot out there.
He's packaged with a pair of beautifully chromed guns - completing the G1 homage - that plug into the spools above his hips. One of mine is a very tight fit, while the other is annoyingly loose, but they look fantastic, if not entirely suited to the robot.
Uriad:
This is where the bonus, G1-homaging accessories get a bit weird because, while Zauru - like Bumblebee - is an Autobot, Uriad ('cleverly' reversing the name 'Dairu' from the alternate Studio Series boxed set release) is a Decepticon... who nevertheless combines with Zauru. While his cassette mode is nice and stable, it's not especially convincing due to a case of visible head sydrome even more egregious that than of Zauru, with his angled snout leading to a peculiar shape in one corner.
Like Zauru, he features cassette stickers on one side but, unlike the Autobot, one of them is a very small strip on a very awkward hinged part... and it only took a single transformation to start mangling it. The stickers are actually remarkably well-applied, too, so it's really disappointing to see one of them get damaged so easily. Given that the Encore cassettes had tampographed designs rather than stickers, I wish Hasbro had taken that approach here - if only with Zauru. Even the G1 stickers, wonkily applied as they invariably were on the cassette-bots back in the 80s, didn't start to peel quite this quickly.
Uriad is molded largely in translucent purple plastic, and I've taken to calling him "the Ribena Raptor" (despite TFWiki's bewildering insistence that he's an Iguanodon). The plastic is so dark that it's not instantly apparent it's translucent except in very strong light, and any kind of translucent plastic frankly seems like an odd choice. As with Zauru, some of his joints are black plastic, while his arms, thighs and feet are black-painted die cast metal. Due to the way he transforms, the parts his arms and legs are mounted on tend to be a little floppy. You're essentially stuck with the choice of improving his standing stability by widening his stance, or leaving his legs and arms together for slightly improved structural stability.
He's easily the more poseable of the two, with hip, knee and ankle joints (the latter slightly less useful as the plastic part is designed to be perpendicular to the foot in robot mode), as well as shoulder joints for his stubby arms. The neck and tail are perhaps less well articulated but, given that these were recreated from molds about 30 years old, they're pretty effective.
His weapons are also chromed and, just like Zauru's, somehow don't seem quite right for his form. Initially, I thought the weapons had been transposed in the instructions, but swapping them didn't improve matters in the least - both sets are just really weird. Uriad's guns actually look as if they were originally designed to be hand-held by a completely different figure, but then the 5mm pegs were chopped from the underside and reapplied to allow side-mounting above his hips. They can be attached above his shoulders, but they don't look much better there.
Funny thing: If you look up the packaging art for the original Dairu/Dile, it looks absolutely nothing like the toy. It wasn't unusual for G1 art to take some liberties, but Dairu/Dile's is clearly an entirely different species, and appears to have been based on an entirely different toy.
It's also a little odd that the robot designated as the Autobot has red eyes, while the Decepticon's are blue... Perhaps a holdover from the pair packaged with the gold '76 Camaro Bumblebee..?
Combined Mode:
While the original iterations of these molds were both Autobots, this - unnamed - gestalt of Zauru (the legs) plus Uriad (the upper body) is a cross-faction combiner... and somehow that feels like a mistake... or perhaps a cynical ploy on Hasbro's part. No doubt the assumption was that people would buy both Volume 1 and 2, thus allowing them to create an Autobot combiner made up of Dairu and Zauru, and a Decepticon version from Uriad and Uruaz... but, as we've already established, that ain't gonna happen with me.
On the strength of this fella, I'm not even going to try to hunt down the other two cassettes on their own via the secondary market... There are some G1 toys that are still cool, and then there's this jumbled mess of an alleged gestalt. The legs are actually reasonably well handled, with the exception of the assembly error that has the 'toe' pieces fitted to the wrong legs (a problem which cannot easily be remedied as these things are riveted together, not screwed). There's a knee joint, though it's unlikely that it would be much use even of the 'toes' were correctly fitted. There's almost hip articulation, too... but only inasmuch as his legs can be angled outward, rather than lifted up in any direction. The upper body is an absolute disaster. Viewed from the front or back, it looks almost passable... from the side, he looks like he's posing like Donald Duck, with his chest puffed out and his arse pushed right back. There's shoulder articulation, certainly... but all his arms can do is swing out to the sides on two separate joints. He can shrug like a champ, he can throw his arms up in celebration (or, more likely, surrender)... and that's about it. And, while the legs show off their sculpted detail on each side (the cassette labels being concealed between the legs), the upper body shows only a little of the detail, and much of it is obfuscated by the translucent plastic.
The weapons aren't a particularly good addition in this mode either. Zauru's guns plug into his hips and look ridiculous, Uriad's look semi-decent as over-the-shoulder cannons, but they just accentuate the bizarre offset between the front of his chest, his arms and his head.
And that head... is easily one of the daftest I have ever seen. It's painted onto a thin sliver of plastic that forms part of Uriad's tail, and looks like a super-stylised and very angular interpretation of Megatron's head from the G1 cartoon... minus most of the detail. It's basically just a load of angular silver panels with two triangular red eyes slapped across the middle. Even in the mid-80s, I don't think this would have been impressive.
Studio Series as a toyline feels very hit-and-miss, and this special package is no exception. Some of the toys released in the line use molds which have been previously used in other movie lines, and it really shows... but then, even the molds unique to this line are very variable - from the impressive and innovative, like Blackout and Stinger, to the obvious partial retreads like Crowbar, '76 Camaro Bumblebee... and, sadly, VW Beetle Bumblebee. In many ways, it's little more than a reshelling of the older Camaro Bumblebees with only a couple of significant modifications to fit it into the Beetle framework.
That being the case, I'm in two minds about this set. On the one hand, I'm glad I didn't shell out £20-odd for the standard version of SS Beetle-Bee... but, on the other hand, I paid out essentially three times that for an OK repaint and two outdated toys, one of which has turned out to be misassembled. However I look at it, the maths is well and truly off. Did I pay £30 for the Bumblebee figure in gold paint/plastic and then £15 each for the cassettes? Was it £40 for a 'premium' Deluxe class figure and £10 each for the cassettes? Either way, the set feels about £20 too dear for what it actually contains. I wish I'd checked to see the asking price on the Hasbro stand at the October MCM London Comic Con... but then I could have been in a situation where I might have bought it at the show, only to find my preorder arriving only days later, not giving me the opportunity to cancel. Obviously, as it transpired, that wouldn't have been the case, and I believe I would have been able to cancel... but I suspect I still would have been a little frustrated by this set, even if it was being sold for only £40 (and it probably wasn't that cheap).
To be perfectly honest, I do quite like the SS Beetle-Bee mold, despite its floppy parts and fiddly transformation. It's clearly not a patch on the Masterpiece - which, itself, was flawed - but it doesn't feel like it deserves to be part of the Studio Series.
Oddly, the faction symbols applied to the two cassettes appear designed to replicate the heat-sensitive 'rubsign' stickers applied to G1 toys from 1985 onward but, rather than functioning like those - with the symbol being invisible as standard, and turning from red, to green, to blue as it got warmer - it simply goes from almost-but-not-quite invisible to dull-and-not-especially-visible brown.
It's difficult to say who this set is aimed at... Die-hard G1 fans still have mixed feelings about the cinematic transformers, but might appreciate the cassettes... though there's such a dichotomy evident in the engineering that, for me, makes the set really disappointing. The misassembly of Zauru and the paintwork omissions on Bumblebee lower the tone even further, so I wouldn't really recommend this set, except perhaps to those who want to own all the cassette-bots ever produced. It's rather sad, considering the amount of care and effort that clearly went into the package, and the way it links into the movie quite cleverly... but, really, there's nothing here to warrant the price I paid, and nothing really 'must have' about the package.
No comments:
Post a Comment