Transformers Universe: Bumblebee

It doesn't even seem to be a Take That! at Bay. He just had his idea for it and went with it.

But still, I agree that nothing of value of lost.

Whelp.

It just gets better because Bumblebee is Certified FRESH at 93%!

^note  Keep sucking it, Michael Bay!

Eh, I think the Michael Bay hate-train has become a bit too old, especially since he still has an executive producer credit on this film. Even so though, it's nice to see someone who actually cares about the film he is making get a shot at the series, as it paid of apparently.

Maybe now Bay can finally put the series behind him and move on to the projects he actually cares about.

It’s not like Bay is signgularly responsible for how awful the last movies are.

It was a team effort, e.i. nearly all the people who worked on the movies fucking sucked at it.

But nobody cares about those dudes. It's all on Mike.

But yeah, I agree that I'm done with hating him.

Same here. Last I want to be is someone like Mark Kermode, who absolutely despises the very soil Bay walks on and will only be happy once he dies.

Seriously, like I know Bay is a heavily flawed director, but he is certainly not deserving of being called the worst one ever, at least imo.

Uwe Boll beats him out I believe.

Hell, I recall a commercial where Bay actually made fun of himself.

He still did some shitty movies though, so lets continue to hate him.

Saw it last night. Lots of fun and heart. My only complaint was in how Bumblebee was dumb enough to explore the house, leading to the energon jolt that brought the Decepticons and John Cena right to him

Edited by Zarius on Dec 21st 2018 at 10:01:47 AM

If there's anyone who can compete with Bay on his own turf of visual style and flair (out-Bayheming Bay) while bringing better things to the table as well, I'll be all ears.

After seeing the film, it still came with a number of narrative problems but just stylistically was definitely in the right direction. It has little to do with the change in directors, but just in shrinking the cast and scale of events to keep things personal. The scenes of Cybertron felt like the video game War For Cybertron, which is good but not great because it was mostly just action and exposition rather than any world building. The G1-esque Cybertron character designs were also jarring at times compared to the modern designs, needless nostalgia.

The movie functionally had no second act, and so most of the middle was whimsical goofiness that doesn't really amount to anything. There was also some weird tonal choices due to that, as the whimsy went against some of the violence and deaths. Several joke characters are literally liquefied by the bad guys, who complain of getting the goo on them.

All that said, it does achieve some amusement value without sacrificing the good elements of the series. The visual effects are as good as they always are and even though the sentimental moments are obvious, it's handled well.

Now that I think about it, isn't there less product placement in this film compared to the previous ones?

It's set in the 80s. You're hardly going to get a deluge of the latest laptops or whatever.

Seen it. I'd give it a 7/10. Which to be honest easily makes it the best transformers movie ever by virtue to have characters and development, and a straightforward plot that makes sense.

Still, having a TF movie where the Transformers are characters, and the fight scenes are intelligible and possible to make out is nice. And the movie comes across as loving the source material and not hostile to it. The characters being recognizable, and not the godawful designs of the previous films is a good example.

The biggest weakness I think is the movie struggles to unite the "Autobots V Decepticons" plot and the "Girl and Her Robot / The Iron Giant" plot. The later is the better of the two, The movie seems to struggle to have Charlie do something in the Climax. Memo basically drops out of the climax entirely. And the much set up diving skills of Charlie don't really... do anything?

Edited by Ghilz on Dec 22nd 2018 at 10:10:22 AM

At 21 million, Bumblebee gets the weakest opening in the franchise

Sad, but not surprising. Besides the Bay Movies already burning out people on the franchise and creating an existing downward slope, the movie's facing stiff competition with Spider-Verse, Aquaman and Mary Poppins return.

I honestly am not sure why they released it on such a crowded week.

Didn't it have a smaller budget compared to the previous films?

It did, but it still had at least $100 mil pumped into it. (Wikipedia only gives an estimate.)

So I have seen the movie (fun fact: it's the first time I ever saw any Transformers movie on the big screen) and I enjoyed it.

On it stands on its own and could potentially lead to new timelines/film series with ease. However, as someone who liked Transformers Prime and the War for Cybertron mythos, I do wish some elements be changed during the beginning of the movie.

Namely like the mentioning of the Ark, where most of the Autobots would be on in order to escape Cybertron. The escape pods sequence only make the Autobots forces look incredibly tiny, which in my opinion limits the options.

Speaking of that sequence, Jon Bailey as Soundwave is pretty good but Shockwave sounds too emotional, almost like a parody. I almost expected to hear a Dr. Smoov skit where Shockwave goes on a rant of how he's the only Decepticon being treated like a joke. I would prefer Corey Burton's more subtle voice from Transformers Animated; or heck, since they got David Sobolov to voice the Seeker designated as Blitzwing, why not have him reprise his role as Shockwave in this film? Both of them would have been far more fitting as Shockwave.

Anyways, this new revision of the war for Cybertron, Sector Seven, and Bumblebee has a lot of potential for future films. I'm a bit worried that they might squander in future films due to their conflict stance on whether this is a prequel or a reboot..

And I do hope that there would be more Transformers designs are not entirely based on G1 in the future. As I've stated before, the best designs are the ones that unique but familiar to recognize.

Saw it last night and really enjoyed it. I definitely want sequels in this new continuity, especially if they're all as good as this one. No hamfisted sex appeal, no gratuitous explosions, and the jokes were actually funny, not to mention actual good character writing. I was pleasantly surprised that even though they had trouble telling good guys from bad that they still didn't trust the Decepticons at all, which is more than I can say for the US government of the previous movies.

It seems like they cut out as many hard references to the Bay films as possible for the reshoots.

All a good move IMHO. Better to cut the baggage of garbage that is the bayverse and give themselves more room to continue fresh.

Edited by Ghilz on Dec 31st 2018 at 8:22:31 AM

I honestly can even wrap my head around on why they insist on saying it's a prequel of any sorts.

The ties they kept to Bayformers are small and don't bother me TOO much. Sector 7 still being a thing is ok for future stories, and stablishing Simmons I can understand since the character was surprisingly popular (not that I ever understood why, though if you retool the character you can salvage a lot).

Bee turning into a the Camaro is pretty pointless too. People LOVE Beetle Bumblebee, and an hypothetical encounter of this Bee with Sam is so far down the line that the scene at the end is nothing but pointless fanservice to a franchise the entire fandom wants to forget about.

Everything about this movie, specially everything regarding the Transformers themselves is so much better than what the previous five movies did with the material, from Decepticons with actual personalities, fun interpretations of the G1 designs, good blend between old-school geewunner nostalgia and the more modern Transformers asthetic, Optimus felt like fucking Optimus, and we the promise of an actual Transformer ensemble going forward, with the likes of Wheeljack, Arcee, Ratchet.

I left the theater so pumped for future movies that follow this template.

Bayformers is a thing of the past, let it die already.

There's people who also like Camaro Bumblebee so I can understand keeping that. A lot of the more recent "badass" bumblebee went for a more camaro-esque alt mode than something beetle-ish (Prime, Ri D, Cyberverse).

I'm well aware, and I don't hate Camaro Bee, he looks really cool and badass.

But they just spent a whole movie endearing us to Bettle Bee (like, the amount of daww's he inspired in my screening were off the charts), that it feels like a waste for him to already discard the form at the very end.

As cool as it was to see G1 Optimus riding with Bee at the end, it would've been pure fangasm if both were in the G1 forms at that moment.

It took a while, but I'm finally in the theater to watch Bumblebee! Spider-Verse and Aquaman can wait, but if the the best Transformers movie is underperforming, then I have to contribute!

I'll let you know how it turns out!

I was interested in this before everybody suddenly loved the idea of a Bumblebee film. When the idea was an absurd, final gunshot to a dying franchise. But now...

I'm not going to defend ROTF, DOTM, AOE, or TLK as good films, but between not being entranced by the trailer like apparently everyone else, not being all that disposed to Michael Bay (I mean, I liked the first Turtles), and me hating having to agree with Rotten Tomatoes I'm going to put this in the "see it 2-4 years down the line once the hype has died down" folder.

Edited by Soble on Jan 1st 2019 at 11:29:11 AM