General Information: Images:
Text from Hasbrotoyshop.com: Gear up for an intense robot battle with this BATTLE BLADE BUMBLEBEE figure! This warrior is ready to face down his toughest opponents when you flip down his battle “mask” and make him wield his converting battle-axe accessory. Convert him to Camaro concept car vehicle mode so he can tear down the streets in hot pursuit of any fleeing adversaries! Awesome robot-to-vehicle warrior converts from robot mode to Camaro concept car vehicle mode — and back again! Ages 5 and up.
Robot Mode: I was also struck by the high level of detail on this figure. Not that previous Bumblebees didn't have good sculpting, but there was an extra effort made here to offer updetailing such as indented sections on his upper arms, tubes in the middle of his body and gears on the underside of the forearms. Most notably his head sculpt is a bit less "cute" looking in this incarnation and a bit more akin to the more gritty, realistic looking CGI model. While still round, his eyes are nowhere near as large as the other Deluxe versions and the lines of his cheeks and the shape of his jawline is much more pronounced here. He also has the details of both the regular head (including vertical lines on his mouth/voicebox) and the "Battle Mask". The reason for this is that unlike previous Deluxe scale Bumblebees that only had a "Battle Mask" head or a regular head, Battle Blade Bumblebee has both, allowing you to slide the Battle Mask down over his face. This alone should really impress upon you how the designers were trying to take this figure to another level. Head sculpt aside, I would be remiss if I did not mention other really nicely done details such as each finger's segments being sculpted on his hands, the fact that his vehicle mode grill actually breaks up into three pieces in this mode or the chain and gear details that appear on his back where the front wheels are attached. I have to admit by being wowed at the sheer level of effort put into the sculpt of this figure considering how easy it is for Hasbro to simply redeco a Bumblebee, throw it into a toy line and call it a day. Color wise this figure has everything you'd expect. The four primary plastic colors are yellow, silver blue, black and translucent blue. The yellow of course makes up most of the parts that become vehicle mode bits such as his chest and the dloors hanging off his back. Some bits of yellow are used for robot mode exclusive parts as well including his front foot piece, his shoulder armor, the "helmet" section of the head and the weapon pods on the sides of his forearms (more on those in a bit). The silver blue makes up a lot of the robot mode exclusive mechanical parts including the arms, the waist, thighs and parts of the lower leg and foot. It's also found on his face, neck and the section that connects the neck to the main body. Black is used on much smaller parts including his hands, the wheels on his legs and back and the outer heel pieces on the back of each foot. As you probably already figured, the translucent blue plastic is used for the windows of the vehicle mode and the robot eyes, but on this figure it's also used for the axe weapon built into his left arm and I have to say it really looks brilliant and striking against the darker toned colors that make up so much of his body. Paint applications on this figure are fairly minimal, but where used they work very well. Silver, yellow, black and red are all distributed throughout the robot form. Silver is found on the chest, where it paints a tiny Autobot symbol near the head. It is also used for detailing on his forearms and waist. Yellow paint is used on the chest (right in the center where the Chevrolet logo is found), the sides of the waist and to outline armor segments on the lower legs. Black paint is used on various parts of the body including the front grille on the chest and the area round the fog lights. You'll also find it used to paint the angled lines on his "Battle Mask". Red is the most sparingly used in this mode. You'll find it on his chest, painting the outline of the Chevrolet symbol. I do confess to being a little surprised that there was no Autobot symbol printed onto the crest on his head. It's a detail that's been done in other Deluxe scale Bumblebees and in a figure that is so "complete", it seems an odd detail to leave out. That said, the paint scheme and colors on this figure look fantastic overall. Bumblebee has twenty two points of articulation in this form. What I really like is that all these are functional, meaningful points of articulation. This includes ball jointed shoulders and hips as well as waist articulation. I stress that because I've noticed a trend recently where innovative transformations have led to sacrificing waist articulation on many figures so it's nice when you do see it. I was also impressed to find his open palmed hands have articulation on the thumbs! Kudos to some non-articulation related bits including the aforementioned grille being broken up into three pieces and his feet having two distinct heel pieces, which line up more in appearance with the CGI model but also offer better stability to stand the figure. Bumblebee has three primary action/battle functions in this mode which says a lot as many figures nowadays are lucky to have two. First is his aforementioned "Battle Mask". It slides down easily over the face and looks great! Next up is his famous cannon on his right arm. In the movies, his arm does a neat trick where it transforms into the cannon (something the "War for Cybertron" video game has taken on as canon for G1-esque Transformers now as well). In this version, you fold the hand in against the forearm, rotate the outer yellow armor around, the split it open and pull the cannon barrel forward, then close up the armor halves again. Effectively, you have transformed his arm into the cannon, just like the movie! It's a simple, but spectacular addition to the figure and I am both impressed and amused all at the same time. But a cannon isn't enough for ol' Bumblebee, nope. He's also armed with an axe this time! Press the silver button on his left forearm and a spring loaded axe deploys. Fold out the blade and tuck the hand back and now his arm has "transformed" into a melee weapon. I'm really happy with this not only because it adds functionality to the figure, but it also echoes some of the Generation One Autobots, who (early on in the G1 series) were shown to have specialized implements coming out of their hands. Jazz had a grappling hook, Optimus Prime had an axe, Sideswipe had piledrivers and so on. This echoes that era of Transformers so it gets nothing but praise from me! Transformation to Vehicle Mode:
Vehicle Mode:
There are some very super, subtle differences between this version of the Camaro and say, the Cannon Bumblebee iteration. Most notable are the lines where different panels meet. The Cannon Bumblebee figure had less ability to break panels apart on the front of the car into robot mode, so it looked smoother. Here yuo see the dividing lines on either side of the Chevrolet symbol. Another difference is how pronounced certain details are. On this version the air intake vent on the hood is shaped with a point towards the front instead of just being a totally horizontal front end. The openings at the top of his front wheel wells also flare out a lot more than the Cannon Bumblebee version and the indented detail on the top of the vehicle is slightly more narrow than the one on Cannon Bumblebee. As you can tell, these are very minor nitpicks and really don't change the appearance of the vehicle much overall. This mode shows off mostly yellow and translucent blue plastic. The wheels are cast in black. Black, silver and red paint is used for detailing on the figure. Of course he has his requisite black stripes (which are bit more sharply angled on this version than previous ones) and the front grille sections are painted black as well. The red is used on the Chevrolet logo in the front as well as the lights in the back. Silver is used on the sides of the wheels and the headlights, but oddly enough not on the fog lights or the "Camaro" detail on the sides. I really wish those had been painted in as they would have "completed" the look of the vehicle. Still, in the overall scheme of things, this is a very minor complaint.
Final Thoughts:
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I'm sure somewhere buried in a memo at Hasbro or Tomy is some type of suggestion that every major launch of a movie related line must have a Bumblebee figure in it somewhere. The "Revenge of the Fallen" line has already had 
