Talking to Forbes, Director Michael Bay confirms that Transformers 4 is not a reboot.
Will that change the way you do anything on Transformers 4?We’re going to start off smaller. There’s a brand new cast. To freshen the franchise we’ve redesigned everything from top to bottom. The history of the first three movies is still there, we start four years later and there’s a reason why we’re meeting a new cast.
Mark is really excited about it and it’s a great redesign. I said that 3 [which grossed $1.1 billion] was going to be my last one. Paramount was letting me do Pain & Gain and the Transformers ride was opening at Universal and it was bittersweet to think of passing it off. I wanted to set it up on a really sure footing and to bring someone else in on that, it would have been overwhelming.
So is 4 a reboot?
No, that’s wrong. We keep the Transformers the way they were, it’s just four years later. There’s a reason the Transformers are redesigned. We’re trying to broaden the franchise and give it more places to go.
Mr. Bay also confirms what the winner of Doritos Superbowl Commercial Contest will do at the set of TF4:
What will the winner actually get to do on the Transformers 4 set?Replace me as director. No, we’ll see who the person is and depending on what he is interested in being, a producer or a director, we’ll try to tailor the job. It’s all hard work with you’re working on a movie.
Visit Forbes for the full article.
Stepper
I definitely want Bay out of this franchise after TF4
Ash from Carolina
I guess it's made even crazier with the concept of Hollywood will acknowledge some films in franchise while ignoring others. When I was watching Iron Man 3 it seems like there was a good bit of connecting to the first film but other than the wreckage of the Formula One car in the background the movie just sort of ignored the second film.
Even with Transformers it seems like Dark of the Moon tried to connect to the first movie while hardly touching on Revenge of the Fallen except for Sam saying things like he saved the world twice.
emoo
If vehicle and robot modes change would make sense story wise after what happened after the last film. Keeps the autobots hidden from distrusting humans, and any future decepticons. Wonder if Bee will be a new car or just a new camero with reversed colors
Violet
I just want to ask why make a reboot of what worked in the first place? Last TF movie was not that long ago was a major HIT, why not continue with the franchise, only maybe slightly change design, maybe slightly modernize AND keep the beloved characters? Its not a freakin Humphrey Bogart movie from x years ago to need reboot. It needs a good CONTINUATION not redesign. WAY too early for that. Redesign of the bots we got used to and loved would just make them appear strange and make the film a flop. Same with completely new human/ mech characters with the earlier ones not shown like Sam, Megatron to name a few. Even if its the same universe its like your whole family was replaced with other people and youre supposed to believe its them or see theyre not and adjust. Adjust does not mean enjoy, quite the opposite . Same universe doesnt mean the same good film and that equals way less ppl in theaters, way less cash for Mr Bay. It could still be bots, decepticons, humans but in a way that SUCKS. The more I hear about this film the less I feel likely to go see it and so do my TF loving friends. (Unless Megatrons baack haha )
emoo
Except reboot usually means a story starts over all over again and no story or movie before has happened. Like batman, spiderman etc. Which is why Bay is trying to say even though it's a new cast new designs to keep things fresh, events of first three films happened = not a reboot same universe
shellformer
Well. I'd say that their good taste is also a limitation. I mean, you gotta have people who can properly handle such a goofy fucking premise and not just fill it with milporn, male gaze and racism.
NathanS
That and they're re-booting much more often. With more forms of entertainment Hollywood likes going for tried things with more built in brand recognition rather then risk something new getting caught under the avalanche of other things competing for people's attention. This leads to them wanting to reboot more, but people tend to go "What your rebooting already?" so that also plays into the "What no! This is totally not a reboot!" advertising.
bazinga66
Amen!
Ash from Carolina
The good thing about film making is since no one has ever made the perfect film things can always get better. Several times it has felt like a superhero film has reached the height of superhero films and it's all down hill from there only to some other superhero movie reach new heights.
With Transformers I feel the only two limits are the imagination of a production crew and budget.
bazinga66
When I first heard they were making a live action Transformers movie, I was like YEEEES!!! I watched all 3, sure I didn't care for some of the designs, but they were LIVE ACTION TRANSFORMERS!!!! you can't get any cooler than that! Just watch the movies and let them take you to that wonderful, magical fantasy land. They are movies about giant alien robots, just enjoy!
Knightdramon
Funnily enough, for various reasons, the first movie did turn out to be much better in many aspects than the other two. Since the first movie had a more limited budget than the other two, and they were still experimenting with the designs and how they move, you had [in my opinion] richer robot interaction. The battle at Mission City may have been outdated by the other two movies, but it presented a group of six or so Decepticons as a damn THREAT. Multiple fronts [Ironhide, Ratchet and Jazz versus Brawl, Ironhide and Ratchet against Starscream, Megatron versus Jazz, Bumblebee versus Brawl and so on] with limited bots. In the other two movies hordes of Decepticons were mowed down so easily that even if they were named characters, you wouldn't give a damn about the battle.
Ash from Carolina
Hollywood has gotten a bit shall we say weird. They want everything a reboot can give, but they are so scared that they might upset some people of the previous films the word "reboot" is treated like the worst word ever. They want some magic pill that will make more people happy without daring to upset anyone that might have been happy in the first place.
So you get the not-reboot reboot of things like GI Joe. Scared to death that someone might have actually liked GI Joe Rise of Cobra they were unwilling to throw everything out. But key characters get killed off, new stars take over the big roles, and costumes change so that Cobra Commander actually looks like Cobra Commander and Snake Eyes doesn't have lips on his mask.
Personally I liked the old days better when movies weren't afraid to just start over. But with fewer and fewer Americans going to movie theaters the studios just aren't bold enough to start over any more.
AutobotMaster44
Answer: Magic…and a whole lot of it.
CodeXCDM
I really don't see how they can resdesign everything without it being a reboot… Especially when you have the convoluted plots of previous entries……….
Still… I'd just suggest doing what I did for DotM… shut your brain off… and enjoy the mindless bot smashing fest when they're around… ignore the humans.
General Magnus
Cute, but nope.
bellpeppers
They aren't movie fanboys for starters.
Gingerchris
At the very least things should hopefully be different. Whether it's 'different good' or 'different bad' isn't actually my real concern at the moment. I mostly just want 'different'.
I still function…
NathanS
Yeah, doing the same basic thing is something you can usually get away with for about three movies. Take the original three Indy films, I'd say they have more variation between films then the TF movies, but they are fundamentally very similar. They did three, and people were satisfied, we had enough variation on the basic theme to be full and not really want another Indy film right away.
The TF movies are facing that problem, at least in the US. People liked them, but are getting tad full. I think they might be inspired by the success of things like Harry Potter and it's what, eight films? But that's also an ongoing story, people came back to see how the story ended. The TF films are episodic, sure they basically pull the old "The End, OR IS IT?" thing but that's not really the same as being part of a single serialized story.
Even with episodic long running movies like Star Trek, almost all of the original films were very distinct story wise, and that's what help it it fresh. Though notably the writers of the reboot and new take on the film series seem to be doing two "villain out for revenge" films in a row. Almost as if they just write the same basic thing over and over, not that observation would have anything to do with the writing in a TF film, no sir…
That's what makes giving the bots a makeover more then just good from a toy selling view point. Since film is visual if something looks new enough it can feel new, even if the product is the same. But even that's a gamble, if people are full of the current story will a new package be enough? Hard to say, yet even bigger is can something being done by the same director even have enough of a different package? Bay has a very distinct style after all.
Well time will tell, it always does.
Ash from Carolina
The first movie I could cut them lots of slack because there was so much new being attempted at once. Really hard to nail everything right the first time when there wasn't a template to go by on how to make a Hasbro property appealing to the mainstream and translate Transformers into a live action format when the brand has been all over the creative map since the '80s.
But yea I've gotten that same feeling of I've seen the same movie three times in a row only with a slightly different robot and human cast. The change in robots doesn't seem like a big deal though since only a few robots get lines. I really can't look forward to a fourth time of the Decepticons need a magical McGuffin to win and after about the half way mark it's a fairly easy win for the Autobots and humans to kill enough Decepticons to end the movie. Same basic story elements and plots three times in a row is just really disappointing if you like an interesting story to follow instead of just leave your brain in the car entertainment.
Trailbreaker77
Makes sense they are in the business of selling toys so the change would have been expected at some point.