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Aaron1rodimus' Review: Prime RID Bumblebee

Name: Bumblebee
Faction: Autobot
Function: Scout/Pegwarmer
Series: Prime RID
Size Class: Deluxe
Release: 2012

Bio: Bumblebee is a warrior and Scout who serves as part of the elite squad commanded by Optimus Prime. Together with his human friend Raf, he stands as Earths first line of defense against the evil Decepticons. *Beep beep beep honk beep*

Bumblebee, Team Prime's Scout, Kid Appeal Character, and Badass. Beeps, likes to box when he's not shooting, and isn't scared to tell Megatron he has horrible breath. Enough about the character, lets get to why we're here, the toy! First things first, which is the Elephant in this review: Bumblebee was the most notorious Pegwarmer of 2012. In my area, there were never less than 6 available in every store every time I went all year, and usually it was more than 6, while toys I actually wanted, like Arcee and especially the Vehicon, were non-existent. However, I'm not going to hold over-packing against the toy, because its still a good toy, and since Bumblebee was a main cast member, you're going to need one for your Prime collection.

Vehicle Mode: Bumblebee is an Urbana 500, a fictional muscle car in Primes universe. Paint detailing is faithful to the TV show, except the parts they left out, namely the rims, taillights, fog lights, exhaust pipes, and a gray square on each side thats part of the arm assembly. Despite the missing details, he does have a lot of paint, it's just that most of it went to cover the transclearant roof and doors. Thankfully, while the paint and plastic are not a perfect match, they're close enough that it shouldn't bother you. The Vehicle Mode has a fair bit of sculpted detail in it. He rolls well on both my desk and hobby table, and he only has one 5mm mounting port, in the engine block. HasTak could have gone a lot uglier with the ports, thankfully they didn't. A satisfying car all things considered.

Robot Mode: Bumblebee's Robot Mode is close to the show, although not 100% accurate. The biggest problems, such as they are, are the doors aren't positioned and angled behind the head properly, the head has a Vampire Collar behind it, his feet have Car Kibble around them, and there are big holes where his ankles are supposed to be. The ankle holes are easily fixed, simply tilt his ankle joints forward a little to cover the holes, and readjust his legs accordingly. Yes, you're left with holes behind his ankles now, but how often are you looking there? As for the other problems, while they might have been able to fix the door wings in engineering, for whatever reason they didn't, and it could be worse, at least they don't interfere with arm articulation. A hinge could easily have been included to fix the Vampire Collar, no excuses there. Unless you're a modder, you're just going to have to ignore these things. If you are a modder, go to town. Articulation is good, Bumblebee has ball jointed hips, hip swivels, knee joints, elbow joints, shoulder rotation, and the head is on a ball joint, so he should be able to pull off any pose you want without much fuss. As for detailing, the biggest missing details are yellow on his inner forearms, and black underneath his kneecaps, neither of which is enough to worry about. As for accessories, he comes with 2 forearm mounted blasters. These are in a flat gray, where in the cartoon there a cream or white with tiny blue detailing. Again, this is not something to raise a fuss over. The hands can hold 5mm weapons, and the blasters have extra ports on them, allowing you to add more weapons if you care to. Bumblebee is a good toy, and worth having in your collection.

Marks out of 10 for the following:
Durability: 10 - His ball joints, and the ports in his arms may loosen over time and with play, like all Transformers toys. His roof paint could be damaged if he's dropped or falls down. Otherwise, he should last until his plastic disintegrates.
Transformation Design: 10 – Easy and simple, you probably won't need instructions. His auto-morph does most of the work. Just know that the roof is supposed to be pegged into the bottom of his spine, this is the most common mistake made with this mold.
Price: 2 – Bumblebee was the most common toy of 2012, and everybody should own one by now. Don't pay more than US $12 for him, even when factoring in shipping. Hes a good toy, but should NEVER command a high price.
Articulation: 10 – Bumblebee should be able to pull off any pose you want, no sweat.
Fun: 10- Easy and fun to transform, poses well, and has 2 blasters like hes supposed to.
Overall: 10 – This is a tricky score to give. This toy is widely hated, due to being the most commonly seen toy, at the expense of the much more desirable Vehicon, Arcee, Knock Out, whichever-toy-you-wanted-but-didn't-get-who-wasn't-Breakdown. However, he really is a good toy on his own merits, and the only reason not to own one is if you have a FE Bumblebee. I don't, but I'm perfectly happy with this version, particularly since the FE only came with one Blaster. Come on, he supposed to have 2! As for the cartoon, while Bumblebee got his share of character development and episodes, that was all he got, his share. He didn't hog the spotlight from the other cast members, which is something to be thankful for. The Prime series could have easily been Bayformers again, and nobody wants that, do they? This toy should not be hated on just because it prevented easy acquisition of other wanted toys. Its not Bumblebees fault, its the fault of Hasbro and the major retailers, Wal*Mart, Target, and Toys*R*Us. They seem to have fixed the problem this year; while there are 3 Deluxe Bumblebees coming, they aren't warming pegs in my area, Starscream, Bulkhead, and Ripclaw are, and thats a marked improvement over last year. Go buy this Bumblebee.
 
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