(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the deluxe AoE Concept Camaro Bumblebee toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of deluxe AoE Concpet Camaro Bumblebee here.)

    Redecoing the Age of Extinction Bumblebee toy is especially non-sensical for the Premier Edition line, as these are supposedly aimed at the older "more discerning" collector who's more likely to, y'know, realize this is a DIFFERENT DESIGN. Especially when it's the most different design of all the Movie Bumblebee designs up to this point! Re-using a different Camaro with a very different look in robot mode compared to TLK Bumblebee's-- which is much closer to TF1-3 'Bee-- doesn't work. That said, just taking this toy by itself, it has a lot of the color changes that the other various TLK 'Bee toys do. The main yellow is still of a "cheesy" semi-orangish shade, but it's definitely closer to the yellow end of the spectrum this time around. The clear plastic is now just a tinted shade, as opposed to the light blue on the AoE version, removing a bit of color from the toy. TLK Bumblebee still has black, but it's MUCH sparser on this toy-- used on his wheels, ninja-star things, and painted on his front grill, front hood (and roof if you bought anything beyond the first batch), rear part of the side windows, rims, and the rear spoiler and license plate. This may still seem like a lot, but compared to AoE Bumblebee in robot mode in particular, the legs are just completely robbed of paint. There's also a bit of dark brownish gray plastic on some of the smaller interior connector pieces on the ankles, shoulders, and hips, but it's not a major color-- he's still mostly yellow and black. There is a decent amount of paint on the robot chest-- some dark metallic gunmetal gray on the abs, silver on the crotch and sides of the stomach, and some black on the pecs-- trying to highlight the details that are similar to the other non-AoE movie Bumblebee designs. The robot head is also coated in silver paint, with some yellow on the helmet (though not enough to be accurate) and metallic silver blue on the robot eyes. There's also some light metallic blue on the headlights, but not enough to really give 'Bee another major color beyond the yellow and black.
    No mold changes have been made to this version of Bumblebee.
    The initial "hurried redeco" of TLK Bumblebee I can't honestly recommend if you actually want TLK Bumblebee, since it's a different model. If you couldn't get a deluxe version of Concept Camaro AoE Bumblebee for a reasonable price, this makes for a nice consolation prize (even if the paint job is inferior), but otherwise skip this and get the more accurate, new mold released later.
 

Review by Beastbot

*After the first initial release, subsequent releases of this mold were "fixed" with a more accurate black paint app added to the roof. If you have a choice obviously go for the later, more painted version, all other things being equal.

Back to Transformers: The Last Knight Index