Bumblebee Gets Camaro Makeover for ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’
The year 2007 gave us the beginning of a new Transformers movie franchise, starring CGI, Michael Bay’s explosions, Megan Fox’s slightly parted lips, and the Chevy Camaro. The lattermost star was a slightly-tarnished 1977 Camaro, and was the revamped version of Bumblebee, a smaller autobot originally portrayed back in the ’80s cartoon as a VW Beetle.
However, it is pretty quickly revealed that this wasn’t that big of a deal, as Bumblebee just kind of scans a new Camaro on the way past, and bam—a brand-spanking-new, shining, yellow-and-black Camaro.
Bumblebee has apparently taken a liking to American metal, as he only appears as Camaros from then on, just updating for each film. And, since the last Transformers film came out in 2014 and the Camro received a redesign for 2016, the new film will feature a new, improved Bumblebee.
Behold the new face of the B-Man:
Fun fact: Michael Bay tweeted this photo at the wrong “general motors” on Twitter
Image: Michael Bay via Twitter
So, I have seen some mixed responses to the custom Camaro, with some saying that this ought to boost Camaro sales and that they love the new look, and some reacting with annoyance that Bumblebee is still a Camaro rather than the Beetle he began as. And, of course, there is Autoblog’s Jeremy Korzeniewski, who is not a fan, writing, “As far as we’re concerned, a bare Camaro would be much better than the awful mess of wings, splitters, baubles, and bolt-ons affixed to the TF5 version of the poor yellow coupe.”
Ouch.
I do have to say, though, with the blacked-out grille bar, the new Bumblebee Camaro does have a “face” to it that is more like Bumblebee’s robot face.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that this was what they were going for—after all, Bumblebee’s CGI face isn’t made up of smooth, flowing lines, it is a face-like shape made up of most harsh angles with a black sort of mesh as the “mouth,” below which is yellow pieces offset by black.
Of course that won’t appease the Bumblebee Beetle purists or those that dislike the new Camaro’s aggressive face, but at least you can see where they are coming from, from a design standpoint.
News Sources: GM Authority, Autoblog
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