To put it simply, the Paramount big boys didn't care at that point (IMO). The Last Knight was meant to be the main course and dinner was ruined, even though the regular 'cook' had done exactly as they'd requested. None of them were looking forward to 'dessert' (Bumblebee) after that, so they left the 'new guy' (Travis Knight) to his own devices while they were still throwing up. We all know what happened after that.

I'd say when Knight started working from his own 'recipe' he deliberately left Megatron an unanswered question. He obviously realised how dumb some of the things in the earlier movies were, and the last thing he wanted to do was explain how Shatter and Dropkick failed to notice, even after gaining access to Sector 7's technology and data resources, that their apparently not particularly bright 'new friends' had both the Allspark and their leader stashed in their basement.

He could have had Megatron on Cybertron but that might have been too much for some of the Paramount old guard who were paying attention (Lorenzo Bonaventura apparently had 'concerns' about Knight's approach to the movie). Megatron on ice is a thing now  . Why take the risk? (For now )

Also, Bumblebee didn't really need Bayverse Megatron. It did just fine without him. And considering how well the Decepticons were doing during the Cybertronian war, why did they need him? Nostalgia?. Who needs a leader who crash lands himself into a coma for thousands of years? (And if Bumblebee had been a Bayverse prequel, then that meant that things only really started f*****g up for the 'Cons when their old boss woke up from his nap  ).

Personally though, I hope the next movie shows Bumblebee Megatron doing his 'peaceful tyranny' thing on Cybertron. .

Going back to the movie itself, Bumblebee Sector 7 reminded me of Stargate/Agents of SHIELD (albeit with some less competent leaders in charge). There wasn't any of that gung-ho stuf from the other movies that I really can't stand. Also, much as I like Charlie, my favourite human was probably Burns. I never thought I'd say that about a Sector 7 character.

 

the film didn't need him but according to an interview it seems travis really wanted him:

"I had this whole thing that I boarded out myself where I had Megatron in there. He comes into the scene just absolutely leveling shit, just laying waste to everything in his path like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings.

We had a [new] design and a partial build and everything. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to do it, but then as we started going through, it was going to be too expensive and really did fly in the face of continuity with the [Michael] Bay films. But let’s be honest, I’m sure they have a fleeting sense of continuity themselves."

 

And that's what I want at the beginning of the next Bumblebee movie. We saw Optimus's intro. Now it's Meg's turn. Show him wiping out the remaining resistance fighters and why the Autobots are on the run.

Yeah, the guy knew what he was dealing with.

To be honest, though, I think that having Megatron present on Cybertron in the way Knight wanted might have been too epic for Bumblebee.  . But it's definitely something they should do in the next one.

 

I saw this movie just recently now that it has been released on Netflix. To say the least I was pleasantly surprised. I lost interest in the movies after the third one and saw age of extinction and the last night well after they were out of theatres.

I actually really enjoyed this movie. it hit just about every point that I had hoped for in a Transformers movie from the start. I've been a fan of Transformers since I got Hound in 82 and this is the first time since then I've been pleased by a Transformers movie.

 

So... I watched Bumblebee, and I didn't even hate it. Bayformer design aesthetics are still lewd (The female Decepticon was smart, effective, and actually lived up to her faction name, but SHE'S BARE FROM MID THIGH TO COLLAR! How did they get full frontal nudity past the ratings board, even on a robot character? Not even a robokini!) and overly baroque, but not as bad as the early ones. Pity they're only space magic triplechangers, but maybe they'll get CHUG releases later that pull something close off for real, be they Hasbro or 3p. I'm not quite ambitious enough to try to take that on myself even as a digital modeling project rather than physical, or not at the moment anyway. And here I'd never thought I'd have to say TF2007 did something right, but making the robots transform like a physical machine instead of by magic was at least a shot in the right direction, even if Bay hastily abandoned it.

Opening scene Cybertron battle essentially directly lifted from WFC games, check. I almost had to double check I hadn't opened one of those "Videogame: the movie" cut scene compilations up until the camera got close enough to see it was definitely a Baytimus crunching skidplates. And hey, you can see what's happening! No motion-sickness-inducing shakycam and great big swatches of motion blur from extreme closeups in the middle of an action sequence! I have no actual complaints about the metal mashing in this movie, it's always a high point when it shows up.

The jet guy at the first earth fight who stabs BB's voice synth and then dies looked super fake flying in robot mode, no sense of weight to his movements at all, and if he was using thrusters for it like every other flying Bayformer they didn't show up. Some of the scenes later where Charlie and Afrodude are talking while driving around felt a little too much like they were sitting in a prop half-car with guys shaking it off camera and the roadside added from greenscreen outside the window, but if so the motion matching was good enough I can't actually point to anything and say yes, that's what was happening. The sequence with Chalie running while BB and Blueboy fought around and over her had some iffy moments too, but not too badly so.

At first I thought the human lead was named "Carly," but apparently it is "Charlie." At least she gets to be a distinct character in her own right, and the performance was credible, sometimes even inspired. She sold the emotion of her scenes well, and her I'd gladly see return in a lead role over Shia LeSpaz or taking a gamble on someone new. Her family was also believable, and I sort of want a TF of that station wagon now. Maybe use Ectotron's engineering, even if it would need to be a new mold as such. I won't say it's the real hero of the movie, but it did at least play a critical part.

Oh, Bumblebee is clumsy, haha. Giant robot on a little human house, haha. Slapstick comedy beats by the bushel, haha. Haha. Haha. Ohprimuswhy...

(sigh)

The Sector 7 guys were also annoying and superfluous. The movie would have been better if they were edited out entirely, or at most non-speaking extras for Mr. Diplomat when he intercepts the Deceps. Brock Hardcheese McChin was a jerk to his own guys even before interacting with BB, and trying way too hard to be 80s Ahnuld. Not getting splashed like at least two guys who didn't deserve it makes him sadly likely to be in any sequel that happens. How likely that actually is I couldn't guess, given how TLK was apparently an utter disaster financially and I'd seen basically no buzz for Bumblebee until I looked back into the fandom this past week. I don't think I even heard it mentioned more than twice, for that matter, far from the utter blitz that ushered in TF2007. Cutting those would have given a few more minutes for "Charlie and Bee get to know each other" scenes too, like the ones with Stephanie and Johnny Five cooking and watching Flashdance in Short Circuit. That was actually funny, and cute.

I'm not sure what the point of the "Mean girls pick on Charlie" bits was, except to set up the "revenge" scene... which I guess was to foreshadow that even as an amnesiac cinnamon bun BB wasn't entirely sweetness and fluff, so the later rampage when he's protecting her isn't straight out of the blue? Maybe? Hopefully that's not giving them too much credit.

No corpse shown for our Deceptifemme so there's at least a chance she survived, though Decepticons seem to be made of explodium this time around and she was clearly visible getting piledrivered by the crashing ship. More than Cliffjumper can say; he got definitively offed with only one scene again.

Over all, I'd rate it with low to mid range G1 or Galaxy Force episodes, making it a huge step up from the previous live action films but still nothing to get excited over, and still don't want any of the toys. Well, maybe a pin up of (checks wikipedia, since she was never actually introduced by name) Shatter, but she doesn't seem like the sort to pander to that kind of demographic despite the way she equips her chassis. And yes, wikipedia says Brock Hardcheese wants to be in the sequel they're talking about. (BIG sigh.)

-=\/=-

 

/s...?

 

Imagine being this jaded and cynical.

We got dogs humping and statutory rape discussions from Bay. I'll take a cute little robot bumbling around a house over that any day of the week. That whole scene felt so true to what Transformers is: alien robots in situations they don't understand. That's where the fun comes from, that's where the charm and magic resides. It was brief, harmless, and didn't take the joke on for too long.

Not according to fanartists.

 

Not really, but it's a less antagonistic way to put it than "CHUG is king, people who like Bayformers with a million moving parts are not True Fans!" Humor is my preferred mode to frame things, though, so I call Bayformers the Cybtertronian version of nudists.
The Bumblebee movie designs are not as bad in that respect, but still rather overgribbled. Seriously, look at it from an IC point of view: If you're a combat robot but you have to rely on "invisible force fields" to keep weapon fire and plain old environmental grit and debris out of your systems instead of a solid layer of armor and dozens of transformation joints to need to coordinate or for stuff to get into and jam instead of an extra one or two per major body part, you're adding a lot of unnecessary points of failure. Beyond that, I just like the smooth and sleek look over spikes and flaps and ridges.

Obviously, a straight G1 brickformer isn't going to be effective either - Monstercon Slog exemplifies all the worst aspects of going too old school in that respect - but there is a lot of middle ground there. I'm hoping future movies continue to move toward something like the Alternators or Masterpiece level of visual detail and transformation complexity... and the generally lighter tone as well. Bay's movies were more repellent for the way everyone was horrible and even the Autobots were only good guys by comparison than the visuals, while here even the Decepticons get along well enough that you can believe they actually have a civilization rather than roving packs of monsters fighting over whatever catches their interest, who happen to be able to talk. And then there was the Bayverse humans. I'll let Ron Chan speak for me there:



Humans will pack-bond with anything, man. I mean, draw a derpy face on a rock with a magic marker and a lot of people will be happy to hug it and squeeze it and call it George. You think just being made out of metal would keep people from identifying with Transformers as the latest group of refugees and immigrants to arrive? The ones actually responsible for massive death and destruction, sure, but not just any bot the kill-squads can hunt down and flush out. Heck, even after being in the wrong place at the wrong time to get all the worst impressions through the course of the BB movie, gung-ho soldier Brock Hardcheese McChin was reasonable enough to let Bee go after realizing that they'd backed the wrong side. He gets extra points for the line about how "they literally call themselves Decepticons, is that not raising any red flags," too, his attitude up to that point is what makes me down on him.

 

Are you saying you didn't like the Sector 7/hunting Bumblebee aspect of the movie? I've hated that aspect since DOTM. Mainly because the Autobots have proven themselves time and time again, yet humans keep trying to force them off the planet and destroy them.

Bumblebee was the first movie since 2007 where that aspect actually did work for me. It had more layers to it than just "humans hate Transformers and want them gone" for the sake of drama and action. In fact, I think Bumblebee portrayed humanity just how you described. Charlie did identify with Bumblebee and she treated him like a person. So did Memo. The government was skeptical of Bee because they were deceived by the Decepticons. They were told that Bumblebee was the bad guy. Plus, the movie takes place during the Cold War. At a time where people did tend to be less accepting of things different from them. You can bet the government would be extremely wary of an armed war machine that has built-in camouflage technology.

 

Bumblebee is the best Transformers movie
4.6/5

 

Bumblebee (2018):

Transformers reimagined as a low rent John Hughes knock off. Which I guess fits the '80s motif they kept beating the audience over the head with. It's so boring to watch a movie that is so trite and predictable that you can accurately guess every single thing that is going to happen in the entire movie, beat-for-beat, five minutes in. With no surprises or originality anywhere. Bay had a simple but successful plan of creating garbage for dummies. So for Bumblebee to be even more uninspired and hacky-formulaic shocked me beyond belief.

0/10

 

Travis Knight directed Bumblebee not Michael Bay

The tomatometer on rotten tomatoes had dropped to 91% on Bumblebee but it is still certified fresh

216 fresh reviews as of October 2019
21 rotten reviews as of April 4th, 2020

 

Yes. You seem not to have read my post very carefully. I said the Bay movies were garbage created for dummies. I then said I was shocked Bumblebee could be worse than the Bay movies.

 

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bumblebee/
www.metacritic.com/movie/bumblebee/
Visit those sites

 

2nd best, but easily the best live-action one.

 

I was afraid that Bumblebee would end up in the same category as Transformers 5 on rotten tomatoes one day

 

lol okay. I love how everyone says those websites mean nothing until the day they happen to support your case. Then all of a sudden, it's like, "Look at Rotten Tomatoes!" haha okay okay.

Listen, you like generic, formulaic, derivative crap. That's fine! Lots of people have no sense of discrimination, so you're in great company. And maybe you've never seen any of the many, many better movies that Bumblebee was shamelessly trying to emulate. That's fine, too. Maybe you're really young and haven't watched many movies yet. But I have. I mean, say what you will about Stranger Things, but at least they were honest about what they were lifting from.

None of the live action Transformers movies are masterpieces of cinema. But Bumblebee is the only one I would never watch again under any circumstances. To be fair, I'm not likely to watch Last Knight again, either. But I'd rather watch that 3 times in one sitting than half of Bumblebee once.

And decent reviews from a handful of critics does not compensate for the millions of fewer people who went to go see Bumblebee.

 

While I still think it is the 'best' of the live action films, that's a really really low bar to cross. It still has the same problems with the Bay films. It has the Transformers being secondary characters, (Something that the even the Ninja Turtles movies do better, heck, the Dora Movie does better! At least The Ninja Turtles are the stars/heroes of their own franchise in the Bay films!) and, becoming pets to the real lead characters. Plus, relying very heavily on humor. Humor, which is something that is totally subjective. Something that can make or break a scene, or heck, an entire film for someone. Humor is great when you find it funny. But, when you find it unfunny, or worse, annoying, wow does that make for a tough sit.

To me, Bumblebee is in the same boat as many of the films released recently. Good for one sit, and I'll never care to watch it again. There is just not anything great, or outstanding about it.

 

But you could call 95% of modern Hollywood "generic, formulaic, derivative, crap". Sure, there are some indie movies and whatnot that are original. And more power to you if you prefer those, I get why people do. But in terms of big franchise/blockbuster/high-concept entertainment movies, your criticisms of Bumblebee apply to most of what Hollywood puts out these days. Do Marvel movies not fall back on a familiar formula, or take inspiration from familiar sources? People have compared Black Panther with Lion King. Thor Ragnarok is inspired by '80s cheese like Flash Gordon. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a John Hughes movies. Heck, people have compared Infinity War with the '86 Transformers movie. Batman is Zorro. Zorro is Robin Hood. It's going to be next to impossible to find something from the past decade that hasn't been compared with something else. And they were doing it before that.

Bumblebee is honest about what they were lifting from. The filmmakers weren't trying to hide anything. Some of the first statements about the movie compared it to Amblin. They show Breakfast Club multiple times and play the famous song during Bee's last scene with Charlie. The movie's set in the '80s. The homages are clear as day. It's not a ripoff of ET, it's an intentional love letter to ET and other classic '80s movies.

To me a movie being derivative becomes a problem when it has nothing else to offer. I take problem with something like Abominable because it's just aping off the ET formula without adding anything. The humor isn't particularity funny, the characters aren't anything special, the action isn't particularly impressive. Unless you just really love Yetis, the movie has nothing new to offer. That felt like a movie that was ripping off ET, and trying to hide it.

I was laughing my head off at the scene when Bumblebee jumps up and down on the car. I can't recall the last time I laughed that hard in a movie theater. Something like that alone made the familiarity worth it for me. Not to mention cool triple changers, an awesome Optimus design, a fun rock soundtrack, and a scene on Cybertron. Those are all things I can't see in ET. Not everyone is going to get the same things out of it, but I feel like it added enough to justify it's existence. It doesn't have to be better than ET to be an enjoyable movie. And for what it's worth, I like Bumblebee better than ET.

 

Yes, Bumblebee is a bit generic and reuses a lot of things from other films... but the people behind the production of Bumblebee have stated what inspired the film. IIRC The Iron Giant was a huge inspiration and they legitimately referenced it whenever Bumblebee’s eyes turned red and he started firing at everyone. It’s been stated by the director and others what media inspired the film in interviews and such. Although, for some reason Stranger Things gets a pass because it’s honest about what inspired it even though Bumblebee was honest about what elements they were taking from different media as well. Bumblebee definitely isn’t the best movie of all time or some kind of masterpiece that needs to be regarded as a classic and it certainly is a bit generic in some areas but the people behind the movie were honest about what inspired it and there were definitely a lot of references and nods made on purpose.