Transformers Universe: Bumblebee

Well it's better than the G1 Cartoon's Comic "I'm called Bumblebee, I always have been, and my species doesn't even know the concept or organic life in the first episode!"^note It's a plot point in the first issue they think vehicles are the dominant species. And yes, in a later issue Bumblebee tries to claim it's a codename he picked, but it'd still have to be one he picked before he had any concept of what a Bumblebee was.

Or Jazz being called Jazz millions of years before the species that would invent Jazz comes into being.

Edited by Ghilz on Sep 25th 2018 at 12:09:01 PM

Transformers seem to have a habit of renaming themselves when the obtain new forms. The characters in Beast Wars clearly renamed themselves to match their new beast modes, so it's probably a cultural thing.

Then again, we probably aren't supposed to question why some have more fanciful names like Optimus Prime.

Well Primes have been explained as being given their names through being great leaders.

Optimus was originally Orion Pax before he became Optimus Prime.

My headcanon was that their names are translations of their Cybertronian names, kind of like our own names have meanings of their own. Like, for example, "Henry" etymologically means something like "home ruler", "Matthew" means "Gift of God", "Jonas" means "Dove", e.t.c.

So I imagine names like Starscream, Barricade and Soundwave are just literal translations of their Cybertronian names. While names like "Optimus" and "Megatron" are names that have no meaning in Cybertronian and therefore are just romanicized to our language to remain as close as possible as their original pronunciation.

With Bumblebee my interpretation was that his Cybertronian name meant something like "bumble(cybertronian insect)" and due the inexistence of said insect in Earth, he switched for the closest equivalent, a bee, when he translated his name.

I actually had the same cybertronian name translation theory. I'd say it makes a lot of sense really.

Which is why I find the name Bonecrusher so weird. Transformers do not have bones. They just... don't. Depending on the continuity, they likely don't even have an endoskeleton.

Or, say, Raindance. Which is an incredibly weird name for a pacifist considering on Cybertron, rain is toxic. It would be like the pacifist GI Joe being named Tornado Summoner.

Toxic to humans but likely not robots.

Nope, toxic to robots. The Cybertronians were freaking out at humans daring to be out in rain on Earth because they're used to rain being deadly. And in fact cybertronian rain isn't harmful to humans at all either.

Edited by Larkmarn on Oct 1st 2018 at 10:08:48 AM

Maybe some Transformers renamed themselves things on Earth? Like, "Raindance" used to be "(untranslatable Cybertronian)," but they couldn't pronounce that in English, so they renamed themselves after something peaceful they knew on Earth?

Maybe, except Raindance literally has not been to Earth in any continuity.

To be fair, this is the G1 cartoon continuity. Where humans are superpowered.

Maybe we should just repeat to ourselves it's all a show and we should really just relax.

Bonecrusher I'd guess had an original name meaning something akin to "(name for bone-like structure within cybertronian bodies)crusher" that ended up mutating to "Bonecrusher".

Raindance might have taken his name from either a Cybertronian colony or a aligned planet with a non-harmful rain.

Reviews are coming in. Here's some choice bits:

Variety:

The Wrap:

IndieWire:

LA Times:

Finally, a Transformers movie with positive reception. Only took over 13 years!

Edited by ManOfSin on Dec 14th 2018 at 1:40:34 PM

The first movie actually had mixed-to-positive reception, is people keep forgetting.

Well, I guess Hasbro IS the same company that made My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Dang, those guys are so good at making something great out of something so bad!

I bet these guys could, if they got the rights, make an awesome "Teletubbies" reboot.

I'm glad that we've finally gotten a good Transformers movie.

Hell I wouldn't mind sequels based on this. Hell, use this to entirely reboot the Transformer film franchise.

Roger Ebert even said he would have given the first movie 4 stars if the final battle was more coherent.

The thing that needs to be addressed is that while it is easy to attack and blame Michael Bay, all Transformers works have struggled with executive decisions, changing characters based on the toys Hasbro wants to make. The TV shows have managing to achieve some success in Transformer fan circles (not so much outside of it) largely because in television the writers have most of the power. In movies, the producers and executives have most of the power, especially when more money is involved. The director has the most power in bigger budget television and smaller budget films. I think Bumblebee has become well received not because Bay is gone but because they made it for less than half of the Bay films, and so had that freedom to focus on smaller events with fewer characters.

Michael Bay's directoral touches were showing, though. Emphasis on the military, explosions, sex appeal, and flash over coherence.

I really need to see this badly.

I suppose if you can say one good thing about Bay, it's that if not for his movies being so bad, people wouldn't have cared enough to want proper Live Action Transformers movie.

So good job fucking things up Michael.

Honestly, I feel that the problems with the more recent TF films was because Bay had completely stopped caring about the series. Say want you want about the original three, but I always felt that, with the possible exception of the second, he was really having fun making the films (heck, he said he had something to prove with the third film), and they reflected it. By the time of the fifth though, he had completely lost all interest in the series, and was just doing it to get them over with so he could move on to projects he actually wanted to make.

It's good to see then that here, they gave the film to someone who was eager to work on the franchise.

Mild spoilers for the movie incoming, but apparently Travis Knight didn't want any input from Michael Bay on Bumblebee.

And once again, nothing of value was lost.

Considering it was the Bayformers that established the uber-badass version of Bumblebee that’s still used today, that was a wise choice.