Also, I really, genuinely hate that what now appears to be the final RotF toy in my collection is the first Bumblebee from that line, and techically just a minimally altered re-release of the Camaro Concept toy from the first movie's range. There's almost a poetic irony to it, considering it'd forgotten I even had this thing...
So, let's get it over and done with...
Vehicle Mode:
There's something strangely familiar about this vehicle mode... which should come as no surprise considering the minimal cosmetic differences between the 2007 movie's Camaro Concept vehicle and the updated vehicle used on the second movie. The entire front of the vehicle has been remodelled to match the new car, but pretty much everything else appears to be the same. The paint job is also virtually identical, with such luxuries as painted tail lights and exhaust pipes, black paint on the main and lower front grille, silver paint in all the headlights and, where the original had a silver-painted Chevrolet logo on the front, this one has it simply outlined in red. I also think the yellow plastic and paint are a slightly warmer shade than was used on the original toy... But, then, I don't think any two movie Bumblebee toys have ever used the same shades of yellow, despite the car in the movie retaining much the same paint job... One would think that makes it easier to colour-match, but I guess Hasbro wanted to ensure people could tell the difference at a glance?
There are signs that aspects of the mold are showing their age, such as the rear windscreen sections, which are still sprung for partial Automorph, but no longer properly align in vehicle mode. The new front sections also don't seem to align perfectly, or at least require a bit more 'finessing' into alignment than I remember being the case with the original. Also, the roof never quite wants to sit flush at the back, but that could be down the the problem with the rear windscreen halves as much as it is due to the absence of any real clips on those parts...
I guess, in some ways, this is a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and the similarity between this toy and the one from the original movie's toyline is largely down the fault of the movie and its intimate financial ties with GM, but the lack of obvious changes to the shell of the vehicle doesn't bode well for robot mode...
This version of Bumblebee doesn't come with a separate weapon accessory, as this was Hasbro's first attempt at integrating his arm cannon into the main toy. Part of the new weapon and its missile occupy the same space between Bumblebee's legs in this mode, and the sockets for the original toy's weapon accessory remain. Leaving the missile in place can be problematic, though, as it butts up against the inside of the rear bumper, putting stress on the weapon's transformation joint and frequently causing the end to pop off.
Robot Mode:
To be fair, the concept of "if it ain't broke..." applies equally well to Bumblebee's robot mode as it does his vehicle mode... but there were huge flaws in the original toy that have not been corrected here. The inner robot frame is essentially identical, even down to the Automorph gimmick within the chest, and the large roof panels hanging off his forearms and looking quite ugly. By the time this figure came out, the original movie toy mold had already been used for at least seven different releases, including repaints and multi-packs, only a couple of which had featured remolded parts (being the battlemasked variants)... And the upgrades to this version are truly minimal.
To go along with the (possibly) warmer yellow, Bumblebee's robot parts are now cast in a metallic grey plastic rather than black, so some of the mechanical detailing in more easily visible. The paint applications have been cut back a touch - no yellow on his waist armour anymore, but the numberplate and metallic blue around the groin remain. The feet, bizarrely, have yellow paint on the 'toes' rather than grey (to match the plastic) or black (per the original toy).
The integrated weapon comprises a completely new right forearm - though even that is largely the same as the original, but with a long channel cut through it - with a new part representing the fully-deployed blaster tagged onto the end. This leaves the forearm looking way longer than it should, but the weapon part does at least look good. Its sculpt is very detailed and appears to be quite CGI-accurate, and they've cleverly used parts of the weapon - the sort of 'laser sight' thing on the top of the barrel - as the spring-loaded launcher's trigger, rather than having a large and incongruous tab sticking out somewhere.
As mentioned, the missile sits in a channel cut into the forearm but, considering the catch for the trigger is quite near the front of the blaster, it really didn't need such a long tail. The reason for its presence is likely the 'safety concerns', since it's marginally less easy to swallow accidentally, or to get irretrievably jammed into a kid's ear/nose with so long a tail. Even stranger, though, was that the missile was too long for the channel in the forearm, and I had to lop the end off to make it fit... So it's almost as if the size of the missile had dictated the size of the weapon and the extent of the alterations to the forearm, which doesn't seem like a sensible way of doing it. Also, the missile's sculpt seems unfinished - as if it was molded from a 'skeleton' blast effect, constructed out of pieces of styrene sheet glued together and awaiting some additional sculpting to round it out... As it stands, the whole missile has a broadly cross-shaped cross-section, and doesn't even look like a decent blast effect from the sides.
Considering how terrible the head sculpt was on the original movie's toys, it was great to see such an improved head on this version - pretty much the only significant improvement here. It's good... but still not quite right - missing some of the finer facial details, but that may be partially down to what looks like an overgenerous application of gunmetal paint over his entire mug. The eyes are picked out in what looks suspiciously like AllSpark Blue but, due to the strange decision to add pupils to the paintwork, mine is a little googly-eyed - one looking slightly up, the other slightly down. The rest of the head is bare of paintwork, so the fronts of his 'ears' and the roots of his antennae are yellow rather than metallic so, while this is certainly an improvement, it's still not that great.
This figure's transformation is functionally indentical to the original movie Concept Camaro toy, with the only difference being how his weapon is handled. Rather than being a separate accessory to be pegged in between his legs, it's connected to the forearm, but rotates away from it to nestle between the robot's legs in vehicle mode. It's not even necessary to remove the missile, but the rotation joint is very prone to popping apart, particularly right at that moment when you're trying to fit his legs around it in vehicle mode (pro tip: remove the missile).
Similarly, articulation is identical bar the right arm, which only loses the basic articulation of a hand in favour of accommodating a spring-loaded weapon. It's all generally quite good, just lacking the upper thigh rotation of later figures and with the the original toy's issues regarding the roof sections on the forearms clashing with the door wings, and generally getting in the way whilst being ugly and inaccurate to the CGI.
This is one of those toys which, viewed in retrospect, seems utterly pointless. It's so marginally different from the original toy it feels as though Hasbro had originally intended to simply re-release that with the new Camaro's bodywork, but then decided to throw in a new head (for the sake of accuracy) and replace the clumsy blaster/blade accessory with an integrated weapon just for a tiny bit of extra value for money and an excuse for punters to bother shelling out for another Deluxe class Bumblebee toy. These upgrades feel minimal and cheap, adding little of any substance to the toy's play value, without significantly improving its screen accuracy.
The fact that it was followed just a year later by the Battle Blade version - still pretty much the best Deluxe class Bumblebee figure ever released - suggests an even more cynical reason for its release. With the improved version likely still in development, Hasbro simply wanted to ensure they had a Deluxe class Bumblebee toy available ASAP, and this was their solution.
At the time, with the out movie in cinemas, I'm sure the improvements seemed more significant and, of course, one always wants to have the best and most accurate representation of a character currently available... but, in hindsight, it should have been obvious, even then, that Hasbro would keep pumping out Bumblebee figures, so the first of the RotF toyline should have been an easy pass.
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