Bumblebee
(Activator; DotM)
As you'd expect from
an Activator, Bumblebee's vehicle mode is a bit squashed to fit into the
young kid-friendly nature of the line, with the back end raised up significantly,
the wheels enlarged proportionally, and the car mode not quite as long
proportionally compared to its width. The mold detailing in this mode is
also a bit sparse, though it's there when absolutely needed-- like on the
front bumper, side windows, and wheels. (The spoiler is so tiny as to be
a mere footnote in the design, however.) The paint detailing is pretty
good in this mode, though it's almost all black-- even the windows, when
a light blue or silver would've been much more appropriate. As such, the
color scheme for Bumblebee here is a bit TOO two-tone, with almost no other
colors visible beyond the orangish yellow and black. There's a bit of gold
and silver on the headlights, but those are small paint apps.
As with all Dark
of the Moon Activators, Bumblebee is simply transformed by pushing in on
the big button (in this case light blue) on the rear side of his vehicle
mode and standing him up. The front halves of his car mode separate out
to become his shoulders and arms, his head pushes up a bit, and part of
the rear windshield folds back to become mold detailing of his legs on
the front of the "stump" you stand him up on. Bumblebee takes the general
Activators robot mode design and makes it slightly more palatable than
on most of the other toys in this small subline-- as opposed to his entire
hood halves becoming his shoulder-arms, most of them stay as his shoulders
while only the outer slivers of plastic can rotate back-and-forth as his
arms (his sole points of articulation). This looks a little better, since
he has definite shoulders here, but having his hands merely molded in simplistically
on the inside of those little plastic slivers still looks pretty weird.
(That said, nothing looks as goofy as havng his lower legs merely molded
onto the inside of the panel that flips down to the bottom of this mode,
but that's a staple of the subline.) On the positive side, the mold detailing
on Bumblebee's robot parts is remarkably detailed, and quite accurate given
the subline's proportions-- there's even quite a lot of pistons, wheels,
and the like molded onto his backside. The paint detailing on his chest
could be a bit more detailed instead of just almost solely yellow, but
it's done pretty well on his legs and head (which already looks a bit "cute"
and thus didn't need to be cutsi-fied for this subline).
Activator Bumblebee
is arguably the best mold of the Activators subline-- though admittedly
that's a low bar to clear. The relatively good proportions in vehicle mode,
a decent number of paint apps, and actually seperate shoulder and arm pieces
in robot mode are what pushes him up there above his DotM Activators brethren.
If you know a kid who loves movie Bumblebee but can't do complicated transformations,
this may be a cheap little something worth looking for-- but unless you're
a completist, this is still an easy pass.
Review by Beastbot