The Energon Pub

william-james88 wrote:

carytheone wrote: That and all the official pics getting pulled form all the big fan sites seems a little suspicious.

There is no conspiracy theory, the oficial iamges havent been officially released yet online, end of story.

I assumed as much and never said conspiracy, I was merely questioning the motives along with the angles being used/presented. Big companies seem to like to control the info trickle and spin.

The back and feet look a bit messy, but otherwise he seems like an inprovement to me, especially from the front. Chest/tummy normal-sized, better proportioned arms and legs, no boat-shoes and a good-looking head.

wilcosu35 wrote:The back and feet look a bit messy, but otherwise he seems like an improvement to me, especially from the front. Chest/tummy normal-sized, better proportioned arms and legs, no boat-shoes and a good-looking head.

So other than the torso (sans chest) and the feet, he looks good is what you're saying?

carytheone wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

carytheone wrote: That and all the official pics getting pulled form all the big fan sites seems a little suspicious.

There is no conspiracy theory, the oficial iamges havent been officially released yet online, end of story.

I assumed as much and never said conspiracy, I was merely questioning the motives along with the angles being used/presented. Big companies seem to like to control the info trickle and spin.

They totally do, just a case of department A telling department B that it was ok to show thing X, but department C said wait hey wait that shouldn't have gone out yet and we were nice about it

I wish it meant the toy was being reworked!

£95? Jesus Christ, no thanks.

GrangerPerry wrote:I Autobot NY.. cartoon accurate my butt

The real "I ❤ NY" is a trademarked logo. Takara probably didn't want to get into trouble. Same with Ratchet's red crosses.

Agreed and honestly the mold is growing on me. I must say the first in hand images were mistransformed because the additional back flap seems to clip in under the backpack in these recent stock images. But one thing to consider is the previous Bumblebee was licensed under strict negotiations with the impossible to work with Volkswagen and this new one is not. So the least we could be paying premium for would be a licensed I <3 NY plate if cartoon accuracy is the real standard

GrangerPerry wrote:Agreed and honestly the mold is growing on me. I must say the first in hand images were mistransformed because the additional back flap seems to clip in under the backpack in these recent stock images. But one thing to consider is the previous Bumblebee was licensed under strict negotiations with the impossible to work with Volkswagen and this new one is not. So the least we could be paying premium for would be a licensed I <3 NY plate if cartoon accuracy is the real standard

Who said MP-45 Bumblebee isn't a licensed Volkswagen product?

You know...it's not quite as bad as it seemed at first blush. These new stock photos make MP-45 look a little bit better. Honestly, the backpack isn't any worse than that of MP-21. Both stick out a fair bit. You might argue that MP-21 looks "cleaner" directly from the back (the both look messy from the side), but MP-45 just has an additional piece of the hood that doesn't really look out of place, given where everything else ends up, and neither design compromise is really all that accurate to the character model anyway. The fact that this gives MP-45 an Autobot "tramp stamp" is kind of amusing.

The feet on MP-45 are still inelegant, to say the least. The heels don't look quite as bad as in the first photos from Wonderfest, but they are obviously still a garbage dump for window kibble that couldn't hide elsewhere. What really irks me is how bad the insides of the feet look. MP-21 did a nice job of covering those up with the door panels for the most part, but MP-45 doesn't even try to hide that mess of plastic origami. I think Takara might have been better off trying to engineer the feet the same way as on MP-21 and just concentrating on working in the faux shrunken torso for robot mode instead of doing the whole transformation almost entirely from scratch.

I could be wrong but I really don’t see Takara paying Volkswagen a license if they don’t have to because from a legal point of view a license is required to use the exact dimensions of a vehicle for example Lamborghini wouldn’t sign off on using their likeness unless the mold was as close as possible to their original design. For Sunstreaker Takara wanted the alt mode cartoon accurate but was required to include the patent accurate mode just to sign off on the licensed product remember the original scans of sunstreaker had a yellow spoiler im sure Takara had to beg for Lamborghini to allow the chrome spoiler in its final release. Now Bee is based on the super deformed non licensed g1 toy and it doesn’t have a Volkswagen logo anywhere on the body so I would be so surprised if it was licensed!

The evidence that this would be a licenced product is the fact that the recent G1 toy reissue is licensed now, so it stands to reason that this will follow the same precedent

ZeroWolf wrote:The evidence that this would be a licenced product is the fact that the recent G1 toy reissue is licensed now, so it stands to reason that this will follow the same precedent

I'd consider that a bit of a formality, really, The Bumblebee Movie had realistic Beetles, thus it required its use. It's more like "Not an exact match, but we have a license, show it as a sign of goodwill."

I guess we'll see when the box is revealed if it bears the logo or not

ZeroWolf wrote:I guess we'll see when the box is revealed if it bears the logo or not

Or when G1 Cliffjumper is reissued

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I guess we'll see when the box is revealed if it bears the logo or not

Or when G1 Cliffjumper is reissued

I'll do ya one better.

carytheone wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I guess we'll see when the box is revealed if it bears the logo or not

Or when G1 Cliffjumper is reissued

I'll do ya one better.

VDubbing it.jpg

Well played, my good man

We have the official images for MP-45 Bumblebee from the Amazon Japan listing that just came online.
For those wondering, here is the breakdown of costs if you were to import it yourself to North Aerica:
Items: ￥ 9,862
Shipping & Handling: ￥ 1,200

There will also be a Hasbro release and the only difference between Hasbro's release and Takara's would be a black slip cover for eglish writing (which you can see here). In Canada, that release will be available exclusively at EB Games for $159.99.The images show us the few accessories this toy comes with. Fellow Seibertronian made a nice comparison to the previous MP Bumblebee release which you can see here.

Enjoy!

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

carytheone wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I guess we'll see when the box is revealed if it bears the logo or not

Or when G1 Cliffjumper is reissued

I'll do ya one better.

VDubbing it.jpg

Well played, my good man

The one's hidden in plain sight will always get ya

if it was a snake, it would've bit ya

Those Amazon photos make the backpack look less horrible than before, even if I still dislike the feet, but that price still make me baulk. £95 is an awful lot to drop on one toy that is only okay at best.

carytheone wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I guess we'll see when the box is revealed if it bears the logo or not

Or when G1 Cliffjumper is reissued

I'll do ya one better.

VDubbing it.jpg

Well caught Cary I would tip my hat to you... If I was wearing one.

Not my pic, but funny.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:The evidence that this would be a licenced product is the fact that the recent G1 toy reissue is licensed now, so it stands to reason that this will follow the same precedent

I'd consider that a bit of a formality, really, The Bumblebee Movie had realistic Beetles, thus it required its use. It's more like "Not an exact match, but we have a license, show it as a sign of goodwill."

I'm fairly certain that's what the brand team told me when I asked about the Volkswagen logo on the G1 Bumblebee package last year at SDCC.

You know what, if this new Bee came with the head Seibertron drew when he was 8 (the one in his profile pic) I would be WAAAAAY more into this figure.

and, @ the pic Sabrblade posted...

Seibertron wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:The evidence that this would be a licenced product is the fact that the recent G1 toy reissue is licensed now, so it stands to reason that this will follow the same precedent

I'd consider that a bit of a formality, really, The Bumblebee Movie had realistic Beetles, thus it required its use. It's more like "Not an exact match, but we have a license, show it as a sign of goodwill."

I'm fairly certain that's what the brand team told me when I asked about the Volkswagen logo on the G1 Bumblebee package last year at SDCC.

Isn't one of the main requirements for a properly licensed toy having the brand logo on it? That goes all the way back to RiD 2001 Side Burn.

Cobotron wrote:You know what, if this new Bee came with the head Seibertron drew when he was 8 (the one in his profile pic) I would be WAAAAAY more into this figure.

You guys have to stop planting bad ideas in my head.


The high res version was no longer available for me to copy from