Dave's Transformers Studio Series Ran: Core Wave 4

Laserbeack (pink Bumblebee)
Decepticon Rumble (Blue) (cassette tape)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Core4

So, Laserbeak is a predeco of Core Bumblebee, and yes the "(Blue)" is
really part of Rumble's name here. Still no sign of Spike in stores here,
and it doesn't look good enough for me to want to pay reseller markup.

CAPSULES

$8.49 at Target, around $12 at Walmart. I got 'em at Target.

Laserbeak: It's got some weird proportioning and stability issues, but
it is at least a new mold and not purely a scaled up 2011-era Legion class
toy. Mostly worth getting for the novelty of having a toy of That One
Scene's version of Laserbeak, though. Mildly recommended.

Decepticon Rumble (Blue): The main flaw of this toy is that it's a
single Micromaster for two-pack prices. It's a decent new mold for a
Siege-compatible cassette bot, but even with the added pounders it feels
undersized for the price class. Mildly recommended (recommended if you don't
care about price at all).

RANTS

Packaging: The same as previous Studio Core figures, with movie-style
art and renders on Laserbeak and cartoon-style on Rumble. They continue to
not have assortment numbers on these packages. The transformation steps are
not listed on the card back, and there's no bio note or official scene name.

DECEPTICON: LASERBEAK
Assortment: F3144
Altmode: Chevy 2011 Concept Camaro
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Dark of the Moon
Scene: "Tea Party"

Packaging: Five plastic ties secure the robot to the backdrop, and one
more holds the weapon in the lower left. There's a couple of small holes in
the backdrop to accomodate pegs on the backs of the door-wings.
The backdrop is of a sunroom with child-sized table and chairs next to a
day bed or couch, with the partially open patio doors in the background.
This was a really short scene in the movie, in which Laserbeak in the form of
a child-sized pink version of Bumblebee is having a tea party with the
daughter of a character that the Decepticons are keeping under their thumb, a
not terribly subtle threat. (This isn't the first toy of Laserbeak's BB
form, a Japanese movie festival exclusive pink redeco of the MechTech
Bumblebee came out in 2017.)
The renders on the box are pink reshades of the RotF Bumblebee art,
rather than the DotM art. The back of the box has the GM (or "gm" in the new
logo) official licensed merch sticker, with a QR code that lead's to the
General Motors website.

Robot Mode: A somewhat stumpy pink DotM Bumblebee, in a bit darker pink
than seen in the movie, almost a magenta. The forearms are pretty short, and
it feels like the thighs should be able to extend a bit but they don't. And
while I can accept the "L1" and "R1" assembly sprue labels on the backs of
the door wings (they're on the BACK, after all), the upper arms have "L2" and
"R2" molded into the outer faces, which makes it look like Laserbeak got
tats. He's a Star Wars fan, maybe...R2 4 LYF. Because they didn't have
another joint to devote to getting the center of the hood out of the way, it
just sticks up behind Laserbeak's head with weird almost organic patterns
molded into it.
3.25" (8cm) tall at the head, a little taller at the top of the hood
chunk behind the head. A mix of dark pink, silver/silvery gray, and black or
black-ish. A silvery light gray plastic is used for the forearms, the
spine/pelvis piece, the shoulder roots, and the shins. Everything else is a
slightly metalswirled dark pink verging on magenta, and that includes the
wheels (which are painted over). It's a nice color, even if it's a bit
dark. Kinda "innermost Energon" colored.
The wheels and the hood stripes on the top of the chest are painted
gloss black, while the windows on the door wings are more of a very dark
sparkly gray, similar to the "obsidian" paint I bought recently. The grilles
on the chest are also painted obsidian, although either a thinner layer or
done over silver, because it looks a little lighter. It looks okay in this
mode, but in vehicle mode the lack of contrast between gloss black and
obsidian is a problem. The robot face is painted silver with red eyes, while
most of the arm cannon (everything but the 3mm peg and rectangular vehicle
mode storage peg) is painted a duller silver also found on the headlights.
It's possible it's the same paint, just applied differently to the face.
There's no Decepticon symbols anywhere, although that's fairly normal for
Bayformers. Maybe get the tiny Micromaster sized ones from Toyhax and put
them over the L2 and R2 on the arms. There IS an Autobot symbol, very tiny
and almost invisible against the pink plastic, on the forehead. So, they
didn't even bother changing the paint masking at all from the planned
Bumblebee, I guess?
The neck is a ball joint with the socket on the spine side. No waist
joint, not that the roof slab hanging down in back would let the waist turn
much anyway. Ball joint shoulders, elbows, and hips. The knees are rather
stiff hinges, with the shins and calves (car rear fenders) bending
independently. If you want, you can bend just the calves back for
aesthetics, but the shins will then have to bend abck into the calves, and it
doesn't really help with the buttcape blocking things. The shins and calves
have a default angular separation in this mode, but collapse the rest of the
way together in car mode. The ankles are fairly stiff hinges as well, and
the wings are on snap-in hinges. While there are heel spurs, they're not
long enough and the figure has to lean forwards a little to be stable (even
if you have the arm with the gun straight out in front).
The hands can hold short 3mm pegs, but the bottoms of the open hands are
closed down to 2mm holes. There's 2mm posts on the backs of the wings that
go into the undersides of the hands in vehicle mode (or I suppose could be
used to let Titan Masters hitch a ride). There's a nonstandard rectangular
socket in the back plate (roof).
Laserbeak's cannon looks like what Bayblebee's forearm turns into, but
it's held as a gun rather than covering up the hand in a cowling like many
"arm transforms" guns do on toys. It's a piece of pink plastic mostly
painted dull silver, with various sizes and shapes of barrels. The main
barrel has a shallow 5mm socket that will hold some types of Fire Blast (not
included). There's a 3mm peg grip in back, and a rectangular tab on the
bottom that goes into the roof slot. It's not a very secure fit, though, I'd
recommend not storing the gun there in robot mode.

Transformation: A bit of a hassle in places, because a lot of the
transformation joints on mine were quite stiff, and things had to be shoved
into just the right spots. The feet collapsing into the lower legs required
a bit more force than I expected, and getting the stubby forearms lined up
just right so that the pegs on the doors could go into the hands was
challenging. The backpack shell has a joint on the butt that exists just so
that the chest can be folded up without the door hinges getting blocked by
the arms. I will say that it's a lot easier the second time, once you've
gotten the order of steps figured out.
In either direction, the head can only go through the hood gap when the
hood is above the head, in or close to its vehicle mode position. The head
will cheerfully pop out of its socket if you try to force it at the wrong
point.
Going back to robot mode, I could not find any way to get the chest to
lock into position, not even a tab on the roof shell that goes into the spine
to stabilize that.

Vehicle Mode: So, a pink Concept Camaro with black paint, for the most
part. The windows and the stripes are very slightly different shades as
noted above, but at first glance the windows just sort of blend together with
the stripes. The panel gaps, at least on mine, don't close up all the way.
3.5" (9cm) long, putting it around the 1:50 scale, bigger than a Hot
Wheels car. All of the visible plastic is pink in this mode, with gloss
black paint on the hood stripes (simple stripes, no secondary flanking pin
stripes) and roof stripes, and the wheels are dipped in gloss black. The
windows are almost all painted obsidian, only the little triangle windows on
the rear sides are left unpainted. The grille is also painted obsidian, but
perhaps over silver or in a thinner coat so it looks lighter. The headlights
are dull silver and the Chevy logo on the grille is gold. No paint on the
molded details in back.
It rolls poorly with almost no actual clearance, since the front wheels
are attached to disks that are barely smaller than the wheels. The only
connection point in this mode is a rectangular slot on the roof for holding
the arm cannon by its secondary tab.

Overall: The robot mode doesn't hold together in the chest as well as
I'd like, and the articulation is often blocked by excessive panels, but it's
not just a scaled up Legion class and that counts for something. I probably
would have passed on it if it were yellow, though, and will almost definitely
skip the inevitable redeco into Bumblebee. As an artifact of one of the
odder bits of the Bayformers movies, though, it's worth picking up.