Human Alliance Bumblebee Review
I ran out of light/time today, so Robot mode section will be in the coming days!
Click thumbnails to enlarge.
Fans of Movie Bumblebee are really spoilt for choice - If you didn't get your fill from the multitude of toys last time, the new ROTF toyline seems as though it'll have at least the same amount of choices again. While the deluxe class (Preview and Cannon) Bumblebee's are remolds to varying degrees of the original Movie Bumblebee, this Human Alliance toy is 100% new.
Vehicle Mode
Human Alliance Bumblebee is very realistic in his vehicle mode. The toy is virtually seamless thanks to the mostly yellow plastic, and also kibble-less - only at the back can you see Bumblebee's toes extending out the rear. This is a minor annoyance if only because it seems like it could have been fixed with relative ease. On the sides beneath the doors, you can see his missiles stowed away - the visibility an acceptable trade off for the ability to stow. The underside of the car doesn't hinder rolling at all.
The colour of plastic, and paint application is superb. Thankfully, there is no mismatched yellow paint - only small parts of the transparent pieces are painted, and they're a good match. The yellow is a very faithful cadmium, while the top has redone black stripes compared to last time, and a silver fuel cap. At the front, his headlights are painted silver, which contrasts well with the black grills, while the badge is outlined with a red. At the back, the badge is now a silver, along with the exhausts, and the tailights have been done in red. There is also a number plate with lettering that is very sharp. On either side of the car, the raised Camaro text is painted silver, along with the door handle and wheel rims. At least on my sample, there is no smudging or mistaken paint applications, and overall i'm very impressed with it.
The car has several features similar to Alternator/Binaltech toys. It has nice transparent (turquoise) windows throughout, doors that can open and seats inside. What's missing? Turning Rubber tyres, transparent head/tail lights, the ability to open the boot or hood (a shame, the Mikaela toy that will come with Human Alliance Skids could have used it well!). The interior has a steering wheel that can turn, and a basic attempt at the dashboard and centre console - but not to the level of detail seen in ALT/BT. Particularly the colour choices could be seen as disappointing - the steering wheel is yellow, the driver seat is a mix of yellow and grey, while the passenger seat is only yellow.
The toy measures 17.5cm long, 7.5cm wide, and 5.5cm tall. It seems to be in a scale close to ALT/BT. In the comparison with ROTF Leader Prime, to my eye it looks to be close in scale with him as well; maybe a bit larger than it should be.
Overall, the vehicle mode is very impressive, with the only real fault being the toes visible at the back.
The included Sam figure is wearing a black top, dark blue pants and black sneakers. His head and face is painted without error, but isn't particularly convincing as Shia. At this size i'm not sure what type of realism to expect mind you.
He can sit inside the car with a little bit of a squeeze. I'd say the yellow for the seats is to make Sam clearly visible when he's inside, so i'm ok with the colour choice. While in the car, He can place arms on the wheel or beside. It looks a bit stiff (crash test dummy style), but it's nice to finally have a driver (as someone who always wondered what those compartments were on my G1 Dinobots)
The Sam figure is decently articulated for it's size. He measures 6cm tall. His head can rotate 360 degrees, and tilt just a touch. His arms can rotate 360 degrees and come in and out of his body. The chest can tilt forward or back about 15 degrees. His legs are jointed at the top and knees - the top can rotate 360 degrees and goes forward a bit more than it goes back. The knees can only go back, not quite to 90 degrees.
Transformation
The transformation is all new compared to the deluxe toy. The leg secton is somewhat similar, but they rotate at the knees now, leaving the wheels on the insides of his legs, and the tail lights on his knees. The arms have the seats attached, much like Alternity Convoy, and in fact the chest piece attaches to the torso similarly as well. Since the arms no longer have roof pieces - the roof is now on his back like most ALT/BT's. It's not a particularly difficult transformation even the first time. The only quibble i have is the chest/front of car. These pieces are pulled outwards and angled, rather than slid upwards like on the deluxe - and are attached to powerful springs. The slightest knock will send them back to 'car' mode, which can get annoying when you're posing. I think it could have been avoided with a better notch to lock their position, since it just relies on clasping the front grille.
Robot Mode
Robot mode stands about 19cm tall, and is bulkier in appearance than ALT/BT robot modes, despite the vehicle mode being a touch smaller. Like vehicle mode, scalewise he seems a bit bigger than he should be when compared with Leader Prime. The paint job is again very good. The base yellow plastic is joined with a dark grey variety that seems to have a minor speckle to it, if you're looking hard enough. All the lighter grey regions are painted silver, a welcome change indeed!
The detailing is quite nice - particularly the chest and groin panels look quite movie accurate - but they're missing the springs visible on the deluxe. The arms and legs are also quite intricate. A nice detail is visible when you flip up the knee guards - the inside is moulded similar to the movie model.
The left arm has an articulated hand - which can rotate at the wrist, swivel on the thumb, and swivel the 3 remaining fingers. The right arm is a missile launching cannon. Both arms have the seats as kibble - they don't fold down as nicely as Alternity Convoy unfortunately. The arms can be rotated below the shoulders to show the seats on top - a nice touch here being that the arms never appear upside down, since the cannon works both ways, and the hand can rotate into correct position. Once rotated however, Bumblebee can no longer make a 90 degree angle with his arms - but Sam can now sit on either of the seats. On the cannon arm, there is not much for him to interact with; on the hand arm, the back of the seat can fold forward over his shoulders and resembles a double-barrelled cannon (I forgot to take a photo of this). Both arms also have a non-launching missile holding section that can flip up and around the arms. Bumblebee can also hold Sam directly in his hand thanks to a peg. (no photo again, sorry). The arms can be raised quite a lot at the shoulder joint and also swing completely out to the sides.
His legs can achieve some good poses thanks mainly to his double jointed knees. While his feet have large heelspurs to aid balancing, they can not swivel side to side to sit flush with the ground when his legs are at an angle - but this doesn't present a problem since the weight distribution is generally good.
Sam can also be attached to a platform mounted on the underside of the car roof - just enough to have him poking his head out from Bumblebee's shoulder. While there, a shoulder cannon that previously formed part of the dashboard can fold out, and you can attach Sam's hands so he appears to be firing it. Behind Bumblebee's head is another cannon, although the angle has it pointing right towards the back of his head - ouch!
On to the head - in my opinion one of the highlights of the figure. There has been a lot of searching for the perfect Bumblebee head since the first movie - you can see on my old deluxe i touched him up with some silver, but it's still not very accurate. I lost track of all the other changes each time the mold was released - but the latest deluxes are closer, but sport strange looking pupils. This head is pretty much a perfect representation of the movie model - and on top of that, also sports a slideable battle mask. The light piping works very well, the Autobot logo is clear, and the dark grey is nicely offset with silver paint in all the right places, with no overspray. The head turns 360 degrees, but whilst it's on a ball joint, it is so small it can barely move up and down. That said, the panel the head rests on can tilt up and down due to transformation.
I would have liked the feet to have yellow shins - and i'm not sure if i prefer the wheels on the outside rather than inside of his legs, but on the whole this is a very good looking, accurate, poseable and playable portrayal.
Overall
Fans of movie Bumblebee should definitely be picking this guy up. Apart from the frustrating chest springs, this is about as close to a perfect Bumblebee figure as you can get - It's accurate in both modes, and has some great posing and playability options thanks to the Sam figure.
I paid $50, but that was at Toyworld, so who knows what the retail price really is! I consider that a good price though - the toy is comparable to Universe Ultra's in size, has a more detailed transformation, to a more complex robot mode, with better detailing and paint job - plus includes the Sam figure. Let's hope the rest of the Human Alliance toys can live up to this one!
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