That’s a good question. The reason I stress the point about interaction between franchises is because of a point @Rodimal Rodimus and I discussed above.

Initially, I mentioned that one of the reasons some fans might be opposed to a Hasbro cinematic universe is because they might not like the idea of other brands “invading” TF’s space.

Rodimal Rodimus then responded by saying that such invasion need not be feared, as the other brands could be quartered off in their own corner of the universe to do their thing (e.g. the Visionaries could exist on a distant planet) with hints alluding to the larger universe beyond. That discussion is where the notion of the Visionaries not necessarily interacting with the TFs came from.

My contention then was that the cinematic universe concept would not serve TF or Visionaries very well if the allusions to the other franchises impacted neither the individual stories (like the Power Stone did in Guardians) nor the larger narrative (like the Infinity Stones did in general for MCU Phase 1). They would do just as well as separate film universes rather than as parts of a nominal shared universe. That brings us to where we are now.

At this point, I feel compelled to clarify that despite my general dislike of inter-franchise crossovers, a shared universe along the terms Rodimal Rodimus proposed could possibly work, in the hands of a skilled production team. But from a story perspective, I just don’t see the need for one, beyond the novelty factor.

I guess another way to phrase my question is this: what would the shared universe add that the individual stories couldn’t achieve on their own?

 

I fail to see how Transformers benefits from dead franchises riding its coattails.

 

To me, the answer is something like this:

You have a movie that features Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
Then later you have a Joker movie.
“Oh, that’s Batman’s enemy.”
Yeah but this is different. It’s unrelated.
“But it has Bruce Wayne as a kid, about the same time he’d be a kid.”
Different Bruce Wayne.
Oh.
“So Pattinson is going to be Batman. Is he the kid from Joker? Or a younger Batman from the Superman / Batman / Wonder Woman Movie?
Neither.
“What?”.
It’s unrelated to the others too.
“Oh. So there’s going to be another Batman Superman Wonder Woman Movie. So I guess it’s different.”
No, it’s not. It’s a sequel to the 1st one.
“Another sequel?”
No, same sequel. Just a do-over.
“Oh.”
But it might have Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern.
“Well, I know that was separate tho.”
But now it won’t be.
“Oh”.

So in my opinion, that doesn’t work. Give me a Cinematic Universe any day over that.

****
A Cinematic Universe is nothing more than a form of entertainment. It unimportant to the grander scheme of things. It’s not philosophy, religion, or life direction. Is a business plan and marketing for a product designed to make someone money.

And I’m all for it.

And if you have a number of Hasbro / IDW films, then I dunno why you wouldn’t connect them all. After all, they are already connected. It’s not a Transformers Cinematic Universe; it’d be a Hasbro Cinematic Universe.

Just like a Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t the Iron Man Cinematic Universe.

 

Ever considered how said franchises may benefit such a revival?

 

Couldn't care less, I don't want Transformers to be chained to corpses.

 

But what if Transformers itself becomes a corpse at some point?

 

That's actually a pretty good point.

 

So what? I wouldn't expect Visionaries or MASK to magically revive Transformers any more than Transformers could revive Visionaries or MASK.

 

Thank you

What if they just revive themselves with their own reboots?

Also, what even makes a franchise "dead", or a "corpse"?

 

Then they don't need to ride Transformers's coattails.

 

Fair point. Even as a DC fan myself, I sometimes find it a bit tricky to navigate the cinematic landscape of remakes, not-quite-reboots, and alternate takes, especially when the same actors are involved. However, I'm not so sure that general audiences would encounter the same difficulty if the various Hasbro properties were given their own individual cinematic universes. After all, TF, MASK, Visionaries, ROM, etc. are not so closely associated with one another as say, Batman and the Joker are, or Wonder Woman and the Justice League. Even GI Joe, which arguably has the closest ties to TF didn't cause any confusion when their movies were released during the Bayverse era. So far as I am aware, it was generally understood that these were separate film worlds based around different toy franchises that happened to be owned by the same company.

That is all true. In the end, if Hasbro should decide to go the cinematic universe route, that is their prerogative. Despite my own preferences and opinions, I'll wish them the best and hope it turns out for the better for TF. In any case, discussing these sorts of things in detail with other fans is half the fun of it. And though at this point, it seems we might just have to agree to disagree, nonetheless, I have certainly enjoyed this conversation.

 

What does that even mean?

 

Either you're pretending not to understand his point, or you actually can't comprehend it, and I'm not sure which would be worse.

 

Just saying.

 

I put this in another thread, but this is the cinematic thread so I'll put it in here and join this convo.

The reason the MCU works is because each character is their own story thread. You can follow just one character's movies, and not get lost in the teamup movies. Because these characters are brought in naturally, but then after the teamup, they go back to their own little worlds until the next one. This is why MCU works and all the rest fail. Because all the rest try to force as many connections as possible. To build a hasbro cinematic universe, it should be something like this:

Movie 1: GI Joe is a military force that combats terrorism. Cobra has risen and is a global terrorist threat.
Movie 2: Transformers. The Ark is shot down by the Nemesis in deep space and is lost through a warp gate. Ark crashes in a remote section of Earth. A small decepticon scout force hunting for them (one of many across the universe) finds them and has a fight in a small town. Think the final battle of the first Thor movie. Small scale enough that it can still be hidden. Cons manage to send a message into space before they are defeated. End credit scene shows General Hawk being briefed on a possible new terrorist threat of large mechanical exosuits. NO BIG NAME DEECEPTICONS IN THIS MOVIE!
Movie 3: ROM. I don't know much about this, but have ROM and his own stand alone movie set on his homeworld. End credit scene is early warning systems telling them a large alien warship is approaching their planet (this is a Decepticon warship).
Movie 4: Another GI Joe movie. Have characters from MASK in as Joe members without focusing too much on them, but MASK does not yet exist. End credit scene has NASA pick up an unknown object slowly heading towards Earth. Also have Cobra Commander mention the fight in the town from the TF movie and that he is preparing for the arrival of allies, or conquerers. Also feature some Autobots alt modes dotted around the action scenes, BUT THEY DO NOT TRANSFORM. They are merely easter eggs to the audience.

And then the big movie. Movie 5. The Nemesis arrives at Earth. Megatron, Starscream and co land and threaten to start wrecking cities in a bid to lure out the Autobots from the Ark, as they can't locate them. Cobra Commander approaches Megatron in a bid to offer an alliance but Megatron declines. GI Joe responds with all their vehicles and though they put up a good fight, they are ultimately defeated. Rom lands on earth, stating he followed a warship that attacked his own planet, having vowed to defend all planets from attackers (or whatever the Solstar Knights do). Maybe one or two of his supporting cast are with him. The Nemesis comes down out of orbit to start attacking a city when the Autobots finally arrive and attack the Decepticons. We end with the Joes/Solstar/Autobots against the Decepticons and the Nemesis is destroyed, stranding the Decepticons on Earth. They go off into hiding against the superior forces and the Solstar knights head off back into space. The Autobots promise to try to track down the Decepticons now lost on Earth. End credits scenes. First one shows Miles Mayhem with a Cobra symbol analysing some tf bodies from the battle and saying to Cobra Commander he could make use of these. Once CC leaves, he then mutters that it would be a use for himself, not Cobra. Second credit scene shows NEST being established as the Autobot liason with Earth's governments, since they are not terrorists and thus not under Joe's jurisdiction. Autobots also reveal they have been trying to help the Earth's population in secret (hence the easter eggs of their alt modes in previous movies) or this can be mentioned when they first turn up and talk to Joes.


Movie 6: Rom. He does stuff in his own little thing.
Movie 7: MASK. Cobra is using newly developed transforming vehicles as part of their actions but Miles and his team (MASK Villains) break away early on in the movie and establish their own little group (using vehicles from the good and bad guys in the mask series). Only one high ranking Cobra villain is a cameo (NOT CC). Joe can't respond to this as there is a major Cobra activity about to happen on the far side of the world so a small team is dispatched to deal with it (the MASK good guys, hence why they were in Movie 4). MASK guys are able to capture a number of vehicles from Mayhem and they are setup as a subsidiary of GI JOE, tasked to deal with the enhanced combat abilities of Mile's group.
Movie 8: GI Joe. We see what the cobra activity was that was keeping them from engaging with Mayhem.
Movie 9: Transformers. NEST is a thing, they go after Decepticons.


And it flows naturally like that. Organically growing the universe, but keeping each movie franchise it's own separate thing that follows it's own stories so you are able to understand what is going on if you only watch that one character (franchise) and ignore the rest, but the teamup movies still feature enough exposition to catch you up if your person was not involved in the events before. THAT is how you do a cinematic universe, THAT is why the MCU has been so successful and that is why all the others have failed. Because they try to cram everything in at once. But now, you have to play the long game, you have to let the world you are creating grow and evolve at a proper pace.


Also, I didn't mean to write out all that, but when I get on a roll with story ideas, I just can't stop.

 

This is a pretty well thought out. I don't know if you're actually going to do anything with this or it's just you writing down ideas, but if you are doing something with it, and as person who knows a bit about Rom, I have an idea as to how his universe could get more involved with this.

So basically what the Solstar Order does is locate and kill their enemies, an evil species of shapeshifters known as the Dire Wraiths who seek to conquer the galaxy. Now, if you want more connections to Rom's franchise, or give him more reason to come to Earth, the Wraiths in past fiction have come to Earth and killed and replaced humans to conquer the planet. So maybe in one of the stingers, a human could show signs of having been replaced by a Wraith, and Rom comes to Earth and possibly stays there to deal with the threat.

I hope this is helpful.

 

Its just me making ideas. No plans with it. At the end of movie 5, instead of going back home, Rom could say they've sensed dire wraiths on earth (or however they find them) so they will stay here to save this planet. Then Movie 6 is Rom set on earth. Or he does go home, movie 6 is still set in space, but that stinger you suggested is movie 6 end credit scene, setting up his appearance in the next meetup movie. And then his third movie set after that is him on earth hunting down the wraiths here.

Movie 9 end credit scene would be soundwave saying he's picked up an incoming transmission for Megatron. Then the screen shows the Cobra symbol before cutting to black.


Next 'avengers' movie would open with Joe going to battle with Cobra. It's all looking like a typical battle until half way through, a bunch of cobra vehicles transform, revealing themselves as decepticons. They then wipe the floor with joe, possibly even killing one or two named characters. Turns out cobra commander contacted megatron again and offered an alliance. With no true base, outnumbered by autobots and no means of getting off planet, this time he accepted. This gets megatron an earth mode with a logical explanation and we see decepticons as cobra vehicles. Yey fanservice.

At some point, visionaries and micronauts would come into play, as their own stories, but i don't know them so can't say how. I would say visionaries dont come to earth, they stay off doing thier own thing and eventually get worked into the bigger picture.

 

I do like the idea of these universes, but Hollywood has proven that they are incredibly bad at them. I am not convinced any of them have been well done. Not even the MCU.

Some have great movies, like the MCU, but overall, the majority of the films end up being okay, or filler, at best. Filler that really doesn't have anything to do with anything, and overall holds back the characterization of whatever characters were in that film. From the DCU, to the MCU, and other shared universes, they're just all not very good at it. Especially the side movies. The whole cinematic universe thing seems to be holding them all back.

Something that I'd love to see be executed better, in like TV shows or something. I look back at the 90's Marvel cartoons, which did a great job of bringing these characters together, and I can't help but think they handled it much better there.

Transformers might benefit from a shared universe, but evidence seems to indicate that it's better off being it's own thing. Same with all the other things they want to bring in. I mean, how are they even going to make it work? What is Jem going to hang out with Gi Joe? Are the Gi Joes going ride My Little Ponies into battle against Cobra who themselves are riding the Terrorcons? Is that it's going to be? I can see something like Gi Joe and Transformers working, but I also see it just holding back both franchises.

It's like when Universal tried to make the monster cinematic universe. Unless you're planning a Monster Squad film, I don't see the point. Reviving these franchises as individual franchises sounds like a better idea than trying to mish mash them together. It's like trying to shove shaped blocks in holes that they clearly won't fit in. Sure, eventually you might be able to cram that cylinder into that star-shaped thing, but you're really going to have jam it in to make it fit. That is, if you don't break the things first.

 

With ROM, I think it'd be necessary to establish his origins. The first hypothetical movie would probably be the safest bet, focusing on the Dire Wraith invasion of his home world and his transformation into a Space Knight. The Wraith invasion is repelled, and Rom and his fellow knights are celebrated as heroes who vow to hunt down the Dire Wraiths as they scatter across the galaxy. Then his appearance in, I'm going to say "REVOLUTION", followed by his sequel where he returns to Earth after discovering there are Wraiths on the planet. Probably establish some characters as suspected Wraiths. Then make him part of "Revolutionaries" or something.

 

Oh indeed, his first movie would be his origins. All first movies need to be origins in some way. I would say have his first appearance in Revolution movie (guess thats the name of the teamup movies) be because he's following the nemesis after they came into contact with his world. Keep dire wraiths out of the first rev movie, it would be too much. Save them on earth as his reason for being there in the second rev movie, maybe even throw hints and setup some named characters on earth are already replaced, and his third movie after rev 2 would be earth, dire wraiths, and having some humans from other franchises in. Think mcu civil war for that one. That's the non rev movie with all the crossover, as plenty has been established at that point.