Toy Wizards Review: Transformers R.E.D. Bumblebee

I mentioned in my review for R.E.D. Coronation Starscream that while he wasn’t perfect, for his price point he wasn’t bad either. Much the same can be said for our little or not so little friend Bumblebee here. We’ll get to his scale issues and the bad about this figure a little later, but for now we’ll focus on the positive.

Bumblebee, much like Starscream, is an improvement over wave 1 of the R.E.D. line in that the molding is better, with an undeniably G1 head sculpt that is unmistakably Bumblebee with proper amounts of yellow and black throughout the figure. While his paint looks good and is clean throughout the figure (minus some added scuffing on various parts of his body), Bumblebee feels a little cheaper and much like the first wave of figures, has this weird blobular texture and feel to him. Bumblebee does come with a nice set of accessories, the best of which is his blaster, as well as an alternate set of hands, two different blast effects, and an energon cube which looks like an energon cube alright, but to be honest just feels a little blase for me in its overall look.

Now, onto the negatives. Much like Coronation Starscream, Bumblebee’s joints are a little more loose than I would’ve liked, although unlike Prime and Soundwave, there is no struggle with getting Bumblebee’s blaster into his weapon holding hand, it pops in easily with no fiddling or fighting.

The biggest drawback for this figure has to be the scale, or rather the lack thereof. While Bumblebee is slightly shorter than Starscream, he is far too big in comparison to Prime and Soundwave from the initial wave. He not only towers over Soundwave, he’s bigger as far as sheer mass is concerned and he’s slightly taller than Optimus, leading me to think this Bumblebee could just take the Matrix of Leadership from Prime if he ever felt the need.

I’m not sure what Hasbro is thinking with this R.E.D. line if all of the figures are going to be roughly the same 6″ across various waves. For my sensibilities, if I want non-transforming Transformers that are all the same height, I’ll just pick up some ReAction figures from Super 7. I can only imagine if we get a R.E.D. Jetfire or Omega Supreme and they’re comparable in size to the rest of the figures. It’s like it’s the 80’s all over again. Scale? Who has time for scale?

I’m a little torn on how to grade Bumblebee here. He’s always been a fan favorite. He looks good and while I don’t regret picking him up, I’m also not as geeked for him as I think I was hoping I’d be. Much like all of the R.E.D figures that now adorn my shelves, ultimately…they’re ok.

I give R.E.D. Bumblebee 3/5 energon cubes.