Movies: Bumblebee (December 21, 2018)

[Baby Punisher]

New trailers out today. It looks great. It took almost 13 years to get it right. This movie undoes everything Bay did in one shot.

 

[The Nemesis]

Apparently the one that looks like Starscream isn't actually Starscream. It's... I want to say Blitzwing. That's weirdly disappointing on two levels.

Still, the flashbacky stuff from Cybertron with G1 accurate Optimus Prime, Shockwave (!), Soundwave (!!) and Ravage (!!!) actually looks kind of cool. Why couldn't we have a movie that was 2 hours of that instead of "ermagherd you need a human to be the 'heart of the story' otherwise you won't be invested"?

Also once again in a franchise with literally dozens upon dozens upon dozens of characters on which to base your Autobot/Decepticon casting choices, covering basically every flavor you can possibly imagine (and a general sense that the fandom is totally cool with you doing new takes on old secondary/tertiary characters as long as you don't screw up the core classics.), they chose to make new characters to fill important roles for... reasons. They could've been... I dunno... Slipstream and Octane or something. But no! Meet "Shatter" and "Dropkick" who you likely won't care about one bit until they inevitably get scrapped during the big slam-bang baysplosions finale.

 

[DaBadGuy316]

Damn that looks good! Can't wait.

 

[beowulf]

Still kind of meh. And that last scene in the trailer is pretty much the same as the one of the first ones in the first Transformer movie.

 

[The Nemesis]

Still kind of meh. And that last scene in the trailer is pretty much the same as the one of the first ones in the first Transformer movie.

The last movie basically ripped off a large chunk of the plot of the 3rd movie (itself essentially a ripoff of a couple of episodes of the original cartoon slammed together) so I don't think lazy "recycling" is that foreign of a concept in the franchise's writers room.

 

[Baby Punisher]

Apparently the one that looks like Starscream isn't actually Starscream. It's... I want to say Blitzwing. That's weirdly disappointing on two levels.

Still, the flashbacky stuff from Cybertron with G1 accurate Optimus Prime, Shockwave (!), Soundwave (!!) and Ravage (!!!) actually looks kind of cool. Why couldn't we have a movie that was 2 hours of that instead of "ermagherd you need a human to be the 'heart of the story' otherwise you won't be invested"?

Also once again in a franchise with literally dozens upon dozens upon dozens of characters on which to base your Autobot/Decepticon casting choices, covering basically every flavor you can possibly imagine (and a general sense that the fandom is totally cool with you doing new takes on old secondary/tertiary characters as long as you don't screw up the core classics.), they chose to make new characters to fill important roles for... reasons. They could've been... I dunno... Slipstream and Octane or something. But no! Meet "Shatter" and "Dropkick" who you likely won't care about one bit until they inevitably get scrapped during the big slam-bang baysplosions finale.

It's confirmed that it is indeed blitzing.
We have triple changers
We have legitimate Cybertronian Jets
We have f***ing Shockwave, Soundwave and an ejectable Ravage.

OH MY GOOOD GOD!

 

[Baby Punisher]

There is an international trailer that has more scenes and more Optimus.

 

[MadDevil]

The trailer looks good, but I thought the same thing about most of the Bay movie trailers too.

 

[Pilky01]

I am getting real hyped for this.

I thought Transformers was absolutely dead to me after I saw the first one but OMG bumblebee and those shots of cybertron.....I can’t believe there might exist a live action transformers movie worth viewing.

 

[Baby Punisher]

The trailer looks good, but I thought the same thing about most of the Bay movie trailers too.

Bay movies never looked like this.

Leave it to a Woman to come in and fix everything a man has f***ed up. In case you don't know, the script was written by a Woman names Christina Hobson.

My take on the Bay-era is broken down like this. The bay era was like a relationship gone bad. Bay was involved with the Franchise from 2005-2018.

From 2005-06 there was a courtship, then came a marriage in which as soon as you said "I DO" you realized you made a mistake and you spent the next 10 years of your life miserable with both parties wanting out but one party keeps convincing you to stay and work it out. Then you get Dark of the Moon and think, hey maybe we have turned the corner. That is until you see Age of Extinction and you become as dead inside as Planet Earth became after the Quintasions converted the surface to Transfromian. By the time the Last Knight comes around you have given up trying to leave because you have become so filled with the realization that it will never get any better and that the only way out is death itself. So you patiently wait for you or the other party to die. The other party being Michael Bay. Then, one day Bay wakes up and he decided to leave the Franchise and your long national nightmare is finally over. But, you are so damaged you don't believe you can ever find true Transformers live action-movie love again. 13 years of your life have been wasted on Bay-formers.

Then, one day a year later A woman names Christina comes along and promises you that it will be alright and she is going to rebuild what Bay took from you and in one swoop she literally wipes away everything that Michael Bay ever did to you. It's in that moment you feel a vibration in your chest. You realize it's your heart, it's slowly beating again. Hope has been restored. The dawn has begun and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[The Nemesis]

I still fear that the Cybertron bits are going to be like Jeff Goldblum in the last Jurassic World movie: Everything of them that's in the movie is in the trailer and we get marketed a glorified batch of cameos that don't amount to anything substantive. Trailers are almost never cut by the people involved in making a movie, so that's why they so often fail to actually resemble the movie they're supposed to interest you in.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Well, f*** Michael Bay, so since he's not directing this I'm willing to give it a shot.

Edit: Dammit, he's still involved. Maybe it's a hard pass after all.

 

[Osprey]

I was just visiting Rotten Tomatoes and was surprised to see a 100% rating... for a Transformers movie. Out of 17 reviews so far, all 17 are positive.

Bumblebee

The following quotes stood out to me:

It's an effective reimagining that also bears a knowing resemblance to classic youth-oriented films from Bumblebee executive producer Steven Spielberg.

"Bumblebee" is basically the movie that fans of the 1980s animated series wanted all along.

In a better, truer cinematic universe, Travis Knight would have been in charge of the Transformers franchise all along.

I wasn't interested before, because I was violently put off by the previous films (such that I haven't watched the last two or three), but these reviews and learning that Spielberg executive produced it and that it's set in 1987 (when I was watching the TV series and buying the toys) have me intrigued.

 

[Osprey]

Well, it was inevitable. As more reviews have flooded in (26 in total now), the tomato rating has plummeted from 100% to 96%. I'm now re-thinking whether it's worth seeing, after all.

 

[Baby Punisher]

I saw the early screening this past Saturday. It was very good and lives up to the hype.

 

[Baby Punisher]

Why do they still have bumblebee not speaking.

All shall be revealed.

 

[Guardian17]

That opening scene on Cybertron was epic!

That is how the Transformers are supposed to look like.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Holy f*** it looks good.

 

[mrmovies779]

Just watched it.Best Transformers movie ever made by far.This is exactly how it should have been from the start.Solid story,great characters and they didn't completely overkill the movie with pointless cgi and fights.

 

[tacogeoff]

Well, it was inevitable. As more reviews have flooded in (26 in total now), the tomato rating has plummeted from 100% to 96%. I'm now re-thinking whether it's worth seeing, after all.

don't live your life based on ratings

One thing I didn't get about the cybertron snippet above. They were already transforming to planes and cars but then Prime reveals Earth to bumble bee as a undiscovered hidden gem. I thought they had to scan things that they wanted to be able to transform into? I'm probably just overthinking the matter but its something that stuck out to me.

 

[Jussi]

don't live your life based on ratings

One thing I didn't get about the cybertron snippet above. They were already transforming to planes and cars but then Prime reveals Earth to bumble bee as a undiscovered hidden gem. I thought they had to scan things that they wanted to be able to transform into? I'm probably just overthinking the matter but its something that stuck out to me.

Even in the cartoon pilot they were transforming into futuristic planes and vehicles. The Decepticon planes look just like the cartoon ones.

 

[tacogeoff]

Even in the cartoon pilot they were transforming into futuristic planes and vehicles. The Decepticon planes look just like the cartoon ones.

Ya I am just going to roll with it. I was looking back into the comics/tv series and the lore is just all over the place and contradicting lol

 

[Guardian17]

I just saw Transformers : Bumblebee.

It's was nice to see so many G1 characters be so easily recognizable.

Hopefully Hasbro will just make this a start of a full reboot and forget the Bay movies.

 

[StreetHawk]

I still fear that the Cybertron bits are going to be like Jeff Goldblum in the last Jurassic World movie: Everything of them that's in the movie is in the trailer and we get marketed a glorified batch of cameos that don't amount to anything substantive. Trailers are almost never cut by the people involved in making a movie, so that's why they so often fail to actually resemble the movie they're supposed to interest you in.

Almost all of the movie takes place on Earth, so the Cybertron scene is going to just be a small part of the movie. And really, this TF movie won't have the major fight scenes that the Bay ones did. There won't be a team of 6 Autobots going at it with about the same number of Decepticons.

What that Cybertron scene is just a blast from the past with Shockwave, Soundwave having speaking parts and you see a bunch of Seekers. For the Autobots, you have a few G1 bots with 1 line.

 

[Baby Punisher]

Almost all of the movie takes place on Earth, so the Cybertron scene is going to just be a small part of the movie. And really, this TF movie won't have the major fight scenes that the Bay ones did. There won't be a team of 6 Autobots going at it with about the same number of Decepticons.

What that Cybertron scene is just a blast from the past with Shockwave, Soundwave having speaking parts and you see a bunch of Seekers. For the Autobots, you have a few G1 bots with 1 line.

It's enough to make the movie awesome and make me want moar!