Bot Reviews: Robot Toys RT-DT01 Guardian Mecha

Look, I just really like the Bumblebee movie, ok? I know that it played it safe, and took no risks. I know that it’s got a plot that’s kind of just redoing The Iron Giant. I know whatever third complaint people have. Despite all that, the fact that I got to go to the theatre and see a normal, pleasant Transformers movie, with an actual emotional arc, one that I can point to as being representative of the Thing I Like was a big, important, memorable moment of my Transformers fandom. Plus, my wife considers it the best of all the Transformers movies, and she’s a normal person who isn’t an insane lifer fan like me, so that counts for a lot.

Naturally, that means I’m drawn to merch of the movie’s main character, in his rounded, non-threatening VW form, a design which has always had a troublesome time getting turned into a transforming figure. The original Studio Series figure was working off concept art, and so didn’t really pull it off, despite the fact that I personally still liked the results (as I talk about here). The second version, years later, got a lot closer (and is a favorite figure of mine, as I discuss here), but even it’s limited by budget, and the fact that licensing the VW altmode came with limitations on how he could transform. The Trumpeter model kit, meanwhile, (reviewed here) was nice and screen accurate, but that couldn’t transform!

Well, on the last day of TFCon, flush with cash from my sales, I saw a display model of a tiny, unofficial Third Party attempt at Bee (called “Guardian Mecha”), sitting in a glass case, looking surprisingly good, and said, oh, what the heck, let’s give him a try, he looks great. It’s from a company I’ve never heard of, too (good luck searching up Robot Toys), so this’ll be interesting. Especially since he cost me a little less than a Leader-class Transformer, so he’s got a lot to prove. 

Robot Mode

Guardian Mecha’s at a scale all to his own, which could immediately be a drawback for some people. There’s a really easy comparison to explain his size: He’s the exact same height as Kingdom Rattrap, and other slightly larger Core-Class figures.

He’s little, but he’s not miniature. I like keeping him around as a standalone desk toy, but I’ve got to admit he doesn’t immediately fit into any shelf of Generations or Studio Series I’ve got. On the other hand, G1 Bumblebee’s original figure had a funky scale, too, so he still passes the vibe check.

Sculpt-wise, this is the mode that you’re here for: A nicely screen-accurate replica of Bumblebee’s VW robot mode design.

There’s almost not much to say, it’s extremely dead-on. Sometimes, on small figures, the designers can “cheat” a little bit, given the lower “resolution” of the detail, but that wasn’t the case here. Tons of little details from the screen model are present, and he’s got the more rounded, chibified proportions of his final design, instead of the more humanized ones of the concept art so many of his official figures used. And the biggest story is when you turn him around.

Not only does he have zero backpack, but the specific details that are there (downward-facing doors, and a pair of wheels), are what’s on his onscreen character model. The fact that he’s this clean, and still transforms, is remarkable. And uptop, he’s got a pretty flawless replica of his “what if Bayverse Bee was non-threatening” headsculpt, complete with wide-eyed, well, eyes.

Nothing’s perfect, though, so let’s nitpick a bit. The closest thing to a compromise here is how messy his feet are, since they’re visibly composed of a bunch of thin, rounded panels jammed together in the rough shape of his sneakers. Additionally, the way they’re built, those feet aren’t actually attached to him at the ankles, but instead on small joints at the very back of his feet. That, and the way that his knee joints are strangely far back can make his legs look odd from some angles.

Still, it’s a small price to pay for how the rest of him looks. 

For colors, they picked a good orangey-yellow shade for him to be, along with a few different shades of shiny silver, plus some black highlights. Again, checking the film design, it’s very close. The figure’s not trying to do the weathered, rusty appearance his yellows have on the screen model, and there’s a few highlights here and there missing, but it’s way, way more detailed than any of the official releases, save for the pricey 3A stuff, probably. Little details I appreciate include a tiny bit of gold on the engine parts on his abdomen, the blue-with-white-pupils on his eyes, and the fact that his headlights are made out of clear plastic. For a moment, I wondered why they didn’t try painting the tiny Autobrand on his forehead, and then I remembered that this isn’t an official product, and they’re already tempting fate.

His build quality is where things start to get really third-party. Simply put, you wouldn’t mistake this for a HasTak figure. Guardian Mecha’s got a bit of that same fiddliness as Studio Series 86 Hot Rod, where there’s a lot of tiny little panels and pieces, and you just feel like he wouldn’t withstand rattling around in a backpack, or falling off a tall shelf. He doesn’t feel too flimsy or too fragile to handle, but he does feel like he needs to be handled with kid gloves (ironically). The other problematic thing is that his joint tolerances are all over the place. His shoulders are way looser than I’d like, same with his ankles, while his knees feel oddly tight. None of it is a critical point of failure, he holds poses just fine, it just feels less-than-ideal in your hands. 

That’s a shame, because his articulation’s really, really good, albeit unusual enough that I want to get specific. Firstly, is feet may be built strangely, but he does have proper ankle tilts. Going up, he’s got swivelling knees, ball-jointed hips, and an interesting quirk, where there’s swivels at his pelvis to move the ball joints themselves forwards and backwards, to make up for a lack of a standard thigh swivel. Going up, he’s got a mid-abdomen joint that serves as a waist swivel, and an ab crunch. His shoulders are both on ball joints (attached to his torso), and universal joints (attacked to the actual arms.) His elbows are universal, he’s got wrist swivels, and, finally, a ball-jointed head with really good up-and-down motion. It’s a bit odd in places, but it all comes together to make him extremely flexible and expressive, moreso than a mainline Transformer. It’s fun to just pose him hanging out.

For accessories, he’s got a few things going on. Firstly, in a feature that makes me think more of a static action figure, he’s got pop-off fists, which you can easily swap with splayed-open hands, to wave, rest on things, or just, generally, be expressive.

Instead of a hand, you can also pop on a gun-arm attachment.

It makes his whole weapon-arm longer than his onscreen design, but it’s a simple enough solution that I don’t mind. 

For melee weapons, he’s got not one, but two arm-blades, which can peg onto either of his forearms.

The funny thing is that they’re not actually double-blades, though I’ll certainly use them that way. Rather, one has an angled end to it, like his onscreen design, whereas the other one’s got a straighter end, like the various toys based on his concept art. Not sure why they felt the need, but I don’t mind it, and it lets me do double-blade action.

Next up, you can swap his head, though it’s a bit tricky to pull off. See, his neck actually extends, like he was ET, for the sake of his transformation.

So you’ve got to do that, before swapping heads along a ball-joint.

His other head is, of course, his masked face, and it’s just as well-rendered as his normal head, with allowances for the small scale (so, his eyes aren’t insect-segmented, just smooth).

Finally, he’s got a baffling extra accessory: A little sculpted duck, of the rubber variety (though it’s made of plastic), just cast in solid yellow.

I’ve got no idea why this is here, but it’s the right size to fit in his palm.

Maybe it’s a company mascot, or something? I’ve got nothing on this one. 

If I was going to be greedy, I’d say I’d have liked red-eyed “his memory is back, and he’s angry” headsculpts on top of all the other stuff Guardian Mecha’s got, but that’s me looking for more.

He’s got a very complete set of accessories and features, end of story.

Transformation

Whoof.  Boy, oh, boy. This was a challenge. This is a complicated transformation, and what made it even more complicated was the double-whammy of the instructions being really unhelpful (they outright skip steps), and all the online videos that I could find only showing you how to go from car to robot. Basically, I had to mostly intuit the whole thing myself.  On the other hand, I guess it’s a credit to the figure that I was still able to figure it out mostly on my own.

In terms of what’s going on, this is unlike the Studio Series transformation in basically every way. His roof’s hiding inside of his torso, and the front of the car is hiding in the feet and legs. His robot mode car-hood-torso is all fake parts, including the headlights, and the wheels on his back are also fake, but I’m impressed to find that the doors on his back do become his actual doors. That said, at the end, you’ve got to spend several minutes squeezing and maneuvering all the little bits into position, basically molding it into a car like it was made of clay, but not in a good way.

I’ve got him figured out, but it’s not a transformation I’m going to be doing too often. 

Vehicle Mode

The thing about Transformers with officially licensed alternate modes is that they come with stipulations, because the car companies get a say in how their vehicles are represented, including things like where the transformation seams are.

This means that most Studio Series figures with real vehicle modes have to prioritize those, and not the robot modes. But Guardian Mecha is an unlicensed figure with an unlicensed altmode, so this mode was allowed to not be the priority. And it shows.

Basically, this is a bunch of heavily-segmented shards in the rough shape of a VW Bug. The shape is there, but every surface is covered in transformation seams, hinges, and tiny gaps. The result is like a VW bug made of porcelain was shattered, and glued back together.

Still, it’s all shaped correctly, and a heroic effort was made to hide all the robot parts. That doesn’t quite succeed either, though, since there’s a bunch of spiky stuff around the front wheels and bumper, made from the edges of his sneakers. For scale, he’s bigger than G1 Bumblebee, but small enough to still fit comfortably in the Core-class paradigm. 

For colors, he’s mostly solid yellow, now, a lot of which seems to have been done by paint, versus plastic. He’s got silver painted headlights, dark metallic bumpers, smoky clear windows, and a black painted window on the back. While the colors are pretty nice, that yellow paint was a bad choice, because a lot of it is flaking off around transformation joints and pegs near his windows, and roof. I suppose this makes him more screen accurate, in a way.

Build Quality is..well, he holds together, and nothing comes out of place, but you pick him up, and immediately start squeezing panels, and saying, “maybe THIS time the windshield will sit flush,” but it never does. The fact that all of those thin panels are now facing outwards, and forming an unbroken shell makes him feel more fragile than his robot mode, and the chipping paint doesn’t help. 

For features, to my great surprise, his skinny little tires actually roll! I wasn’t expecting them to, but he’s got some spinning action going on. There’s no attempt at accessory storage, though, which is probably for the best. 

Overall

I personally like this little guy, but I don’t think I can earnestly recommend him. His robot mode is basically flawless, everything you could want from a Bee Movie Bumblebee, in miniature scale, and I adore it.

But that comes with a price, in the form of the tough transformation, and undeniably messy alternate mode.

It’s academically interesting to see a Real Car Transformer that’s allowed to emphasize the robot mode, and not the altmode, but in practice, that car mode, and the steps to get there aren’t great, even if I find them fascinating. 

Plus, he’s kind of expensive! Well, maybe you can find him for cheaper than what I got him for at TFCon, but not that much cheaper. 

Another angle to it is that if you’re going to just, say, leave him in robot mode, you’re better off tracking down the old Trumpeter model kit, which you can still find in some places for a fraction of the price. It’s a bit bigger than this, but still smaller than a standard Deluxe. So, while I’m having fun, I’ve got to admit that he’s ultimately not worth it. But I won’t say it too loudly, I don’t want to make him sad.