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For years fans have been clamoring for a revival of G1.  New toys and modern technology fused with designs and characters of the past.  Sure, occasionally Hasbro will release some sort or repaint of homage type figure, but deep down inside we all know that it’s not really the same thing.

After years of bitching, fan finally get what they want.  Hasbro has listened!  It certainly has nothing to do with the movie DVD being released on DVD and Hasbro needing a filler line between the previous TV series and the movie.  It’s only coincidence that almost every figure in the first wave is a relatively major player in the movie, including the seemingly random choice to include Astrotrain.

And so the first in this series of reviews covers the one toy everyone wanted the most.  The one that people are going crazy for.  Bumblebee.  Unfortunately Volkswagen no longer wants their toys associated with the violence of giant killer robots.  So the newest Bumblebee is a generic riced up compact car instead.  It actually fits the character pretty well.  It also means his alt mode has an excuse to be slightly smaller than your average toy.  Bumblebee was always known as one of the smaller Autobots, and the new line made sure to keep that point in place.  It’s a nice touch on the designers part. 

Unfortunately the Classics line doesn’t have the basic price point so to keep people from feeling ripped off by Bumblebee’s small size, they included a Jet Ski on a trailer.  It’s appropriate because Bumblebee’s old alt mode could be considered “kind of beachy” but at the same time it’s pretty useless.  It’s not even a Minicon.  Instead it transforms into a weird ugly jetpack for Bumblebee to wear in robot mode.  Personally I’d have preferred the inclusion of a gun of some sort.  Or making the Jet Ski into a Minicon (call it Spike maybe?)

Transformation is considerably more complex than the old Bumblebee but still shares many of its elements.  The only real tricky part is to notice the trailer hitch folds up.  This allows the body to fit together much more securely.  The final result is Bumblebee with no doubt from the head to the chest to the car front as the feet design. 

Poseability is about what you’d expect from a modern transformer.  Well, scratch that a bit.  Recent transformers have actually been really flakey on joints.  Poseability is what you might expect from say, a Beast Era transformer.  That is to say, he’s full of unrestricted ball joints.  Real ball and sockets, not universal hinges.  I see the ball joint misrepresented too much in many reviews.  He can make pretty much any pose you’d want a transforming robot ricecar to make.

The best part, no gimmicks.  Ok, he has the jetpack but there isn’t any hard points or keys or combines with any other Autobot gimmick here.  He’s just a straight up figure.  This is the true root of Transformers, because Transformation in itself IS a gimmick.

Pretty much the only true complaint I have with this guy are his proportions and size.  Bumblebee has a very large size and stocky arms.  This works really well for Bumblebee and looks really nice.  But put him next to any other Transformer, especially the slightly undersized Rodimus from the same line and he actually looks really out of place.  His head is like 4 times larger than Rodimus’ and it shows.  If this had been a basic figure and 25% smaller he’s probably be perfect, but as it stands he comes off as out of scale.

Still, it’s a solid figure in every other aspect and certainly worth a purchase.