Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen Cannon Research Blog

I got this for my bff boy turning 5 years old. He told me that Bumblebee was his favorite Transformer. Well, I definitely think that it was the hit of the party. All the kids wanted to play with it. The noise that the cannon makes when it transforms and when it shoots is very cool. Kids can figure out how to use it without much direction. My three year old knew exactly what to do with it, and he does not even know who the Tranformers are yet really.

Back when I was a kid, I LOVED my collection of Transformers. Truth be told, many of them are probably still squirreled away somewhere in my mom’s basement (she has a problem getting rid of stuff…). After seeing the first movie, I was determined to start collecting the new series. Unfortunately, with four kids of my own, a rather hefty pricetag on the new models, and mediocre reviews on them, I thought twice. But when I saw this one when I was walking through my local discount store the other day (and for slightly less than it’s being sold here), I just had to have it.

While the new models aren’t the heavy duty diet cast metal I remember from childhood, this Bumblebee seems to be rather solidly built (and, let’s face it, those older models were probably covered in lead-based paint!). I like how the two modes have snap-in parts to keep the robot in robot mode and the car in car mode without them falling apart. I’ll admit, I had to look at the instructions to get the transformation complete, but I still got in on the first try.

While this won’t be subjected to the rigors of daily play, I’m very happy with it. The detail on both modes is impressive and the robot looks very much like the one in the movie. Autobots… let’s roll!

Cannon Bumblebee is a new toy from the movie Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF), with a feature that as far as I remember, doesn’t appear in this movie.
I remember Bumblebee using arm mounted missile launchers in the FIRST movie: During the battle of Mission City he rode on a tow truck driven by Mikaela and he used the cannons to shoot Decepticon Brawl (or “Devastator”, as it liked to call itself).
Of course, it makes sense that Bumblebee keeps his cannons after the battle, but I don’t remember seeing him using them this time around… and sadly there’s no ‘07 concept Camaro toy with these shoulder cannons either.

Now on to the toy:

PROS:
- Completely new mold… at least from the hips up:
The robot’s legs and feet are the very same mold that we already know form all the Deluxe toy versions from the first movie and also the ROTF Preview Deluxe version (the one that has the arm cannon molded instead of a hand).
The new hips feature double jointed ball joints (if that makes sense) to hold the legs, which allows for more dinamic poses, but also make Bumblebee taller than all the other Deluxe BBs by about 3mm.
- Better accuracy:
The head is very accurate and a VAST improvement over ANY Deluxe BB toy from the first movie. It may be the same head sculpt used by the recent ROTF Preview Deluxe BB toy, but I don’t have that one to compare.
And then there’s the arms, which finally got fixed and don’t have a piece of the roof attached to them. Great improvement here too, plus we now get a moveable thumb.
- Better plastic and build:
The new toys are made of a softer plastic than the old movie ones. This is good, because the automorph feature on his feet feels less fragile than the old toys. As a whole, the toy feels very sturdy, so it’ll last quite some time.
- More detail:
The ribs and back of the robot end up as the dashboard and seats when you transform the toy to car mode. This great detail. It’s like icing on the cake, because all the new sculpted parts also have quite good detailing.
- Better articulation & poseability:
Notably in the head and arms. The head sits higher, allowing more movement. The arms have more clearance at the shoulders and the elbow joint works better because there’s no interference from the roof piece as in the old toy.

CONS (not that there are many):
- No swivel hip anymore. Actually, old BB had a ball joint between the hip and the chest. This toy doesn’t have it, because the chest and hip transformation is completely different. Poseability has been compromised here, and BB has his chest and hip pointing always in the same direction. The body looks too bulky to me.
- Strudier plastic in the windows means that the blue windows are NOT transparent anymore… more like “translucent”. This is a shame because the nice detail of the seats and dash that I mentioned earlier just can’t be seen from the outside (unless you open the doors).
- New transformation gave us better arms, but now the chest of the robot (which is the fron of the car) doesn’t sepparate in three pieces, as it did in the old toy and in the movie.
- Moving the windshield up or down in the transformation process is very tricky. It seems some plastic scratching and paint rubbing will happen very soon.

Overall, the pros far outweigh all of the cons for this toy. It’s a GREAT improvement over all the previous Deluxe sized Bumblebees in terms of movie-likeness and durability and I’m sure kids and adult collectors will appreciate it for this.
However, I believe kids will have a hard time transforming this one, and may enjoy the older molds better (for example ROTF Preview Deluxe BB, or any of the old movie versions).