Don't disagree with you one bit, just want to add on. Dark and gritty DOES work, if your character is meant to be dark and gritty. Batman in the DCEU works because he is supposed to be dark, brooding and downright scary. He deals with stuff other mainstream heroes don't. Superman is supposed to be that beacon of light, of hope for humanity, that we should strive to be something better. Dark and gritty does not work for him, because it is not true to his character and hence the issue with the DCEU. They try to characterize all their characters in the same vein. That is one of my issues with the Bayverse, very limited characterization, and they don't even remain true to their own character from movie to movie. In my opinion, Bay was simply the wrong director. I strongly believe, that if you are going to give a franchise to someone, they need to be first and foremost a fan....or at least do shit ton of research like read a comic, watch the cartoon to at least get a feel for why the fans turned it into a franchise. Instead, we got characters misnamed and poorly designed (I think someone described it best as a cutlery drawer coming to life) and very poor characterization and don't forget an incomprehensible plotline. I gave up caring about that franchise after two, maybe three movies and I AM A FAN....of Transformers. Bay does not seem to be. He should never have gotten the franchise.

 

Wow! I think that speaks for how many people want Transformers done well, and still hoping to see that. Bumblebee has got a lot on his shoulders. I hope it knocks it out of the park and leads to greatness in the future.

Could it be argued that for a big part of the world, a truly truly substantial reason for this financial success was that people really really wanted to see Transformers in live action? I mean, Hollywood (especially at that time) wouldn't just drop millions of dollars to adapt an intellectual property that no one cares about. I would argue that a great reason for the eventual decline of the series is that, for a lot of people, it did not deliver what was promised: What people loved about Transformers: The characters, the stories, the feeling of what they grew up with.

Let's hope that Bumblebee is not a case of "too little too late" to redeem that.

 

Where we disagree, is on the DEGREE of success. I believe it could have been so much better in different hands. Was it successful? Sure. Was it near as successful as it could have been? Not in my opinion. Plus, you have to admit, its success tapered off quite a bit with the last two or three movies. Unlike say, the Marvel universe who are under the "direction" of one guiding force..Feige.

 

I would say the success would have been about the same no matter who did it,as long as they had their own vision. Remember only TLK wasn’t a financial success. It was always going to taper off faster than Marvel because the universe is smaller, I’m no fan of the Marvel movies but they have a huge list of characters that they can make films about with a different tone, and feel in each movie. I mean even Star Wars is tapering off.

I’m also not a fan of a franchise being under the direction of the vision of one man, like Marvel is, especially if that’s a producer. The director should always have the say in my opinion be that Bay, Knight or anyone they hire.

 

I think the key word here is "exactly". I don't think many people would turn down some much needed updates to the concept, lore, stories and characters. And they are much needed. In fact I'd argue, that's what many people would like. Actual updates, originating from a deep understanding of the source material and where they need to be applied. Making things almost completely unrecognisable, except for some names and plot settings in the most vague of senses, is, I'm afraid not the same thing as an update, but rather, nameslapping. We would have been getting along much smoother if that had been the case. Excluding the core fanbase to chase after a new one is the opposite of what leads to Marvel's continued success and public perception.

That doesn't mean you are wrong for loving the end result.

 

I respect that you like the Movieverse even though it ruins your credibility regarding everything else you say...ever. As a fan, you must be able to admit, that the Movieverse could have been better, MORE successful. box Office Mojo has DOTM at 18 all time gross and the next Transformers movie on the list is at 21. Ahead of those are six marvel movies, two SW movies, Jurassic World and a Harry Potter movie...all parts of franchises. The difference between 1st and 18th is double the box office. Not saying it could have matched all those movies, but it could have done even better.

 

No thanks. After five movies of Bay's style, I'm ready for someone else to have a go.

 

What a lot of people also need to remember is that no studio had confidence that transformers was going to be a box office success. I remember the early days Murphy, and Desanto had to shop it around all the studios and none of them bit. Even Paramount weren’t interested at first. It was the younger execs that talked the big wigs into taking it on.

Some folk talk like the box office success was a foregone conclusion, just because it had transformers on it. But that was far from the case at the time. Transformers had only tasted true mainstream success once before in the 80’s. The other series were ticking along ok but they never reached the public conciousness that way again until 2007. And only really Bay, and a few producers were confident until it started tracking huge that summer. The studio just thought they were gonna break even, or just over.

 

How many times do I have to hear "yeah Bay's films weren't good... BUT THEY REINVIGORATED THE BRAND! IT INTRODUCED IT TO A NEW AUDIENCE AND GENERATION!"

Newsflash: *ANYONE* who was handed the franchise then would've done that. Transformers are an awesome brand that had been reinvigorated umpteen times, because kids love robots, kids love vehicles and dinosaurs, and robots that transform into said things is a proven winning concept.

IT STILL COULD'VE, and really let's be honest here; SHOULD'VE (easily) been done better. People easily forget that Stephen f*cking Speilberg was originally slotted to direct the first one himself instead of just produce and advice like what ended up happening. I would've given my left nut to see a singular vision Spielberg TF movie, and I'd wager a lot that his guiding hand is the main reason why the first one is so far the only halfway decent Bay flick we got out of this franchise so far. Bay fumbled the football on every single one after, on what should've been an easy repeat of or building of success. Yes they made money, but they were also shallow husks, universally panned by critics, given razzie awards, and diminished the brand in many eyes overall. Bay focused on explosions, the military, almost no plot and an easy paycheck. He essentially ate the goose that laid the golden egg.

Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Joss Whedon, Jon Favreau, Chris Nolan, hell almost anyone would've taken more care of the franchise, treated it with more respect, and had a smash hit on their hands

 

I hope the blue text was not lost on you.

 

I agree that Marvel might have a larger stable of distinct characters, but not that it is the cause of the tapering off of the Transformers movies. I blame that squarely on lack of coherent plot, poor character development etc. I think the Bayverse could have went on strongly had it been better written and conceptualized. The movies were crap and the fans voted by not buying tickets. I think SW might be tapering off for the same reason...could be oversaturation...but maybe the plotlines just are not compelling enough for fans.

 

^THIS. Preaaaaaaaach

 

Transformers succeeded because back in 2007 having something on such a scale of CGI integration with live action was virtually on the edge of what films could acomplish. It helps that the film executes its role of being the introduction to the Transformers very well by keeping them mysterious and not immediately tipping its hand (that opening sequence where barely anything is explained about this mysterious helicopter that was supposedly destroyed some time back, only for it to suddenly just start rearranging its parts, stand up, and then simply shrug off anything the soldiers throw at it really establishes the threat of the Decepticons to humans), the entire "arrival" sequence with the Autobots and their introduction to Sam and Mikayla is very well done, and unlike all other films, the three-way split narrative illustrates how various parts of humanity are responding to this mysterious new presence that's beyond their understanding.

Where Transformers faltered is immediately after that first film, the only way anybody seemed to figure out how to introduce new threats was to force something of Cybertronian origin as having been on Earth the whole time and somehow Megatron was related to the new threat and weirdly the most important human aspect carried over from the first film was Sam's love life. Oh, and the humans turning on the Autobots was literally the only way to actually get the plot moving (especially if the Decepticons simply asked humans to do it) because the Autobots were so OP even by ROTF that the Decepticons couldn't actually mount an effective counter strategy to them despite outnumbering the Autobots by the dozens from ROTF on.

In order for Transformers to work in the traditional format, the conflict has to largely be Autobots vs Decepticons. It's the entire founding premise of the franchise. Yes, exceptions exist like Rescue Bots, but for a mainstream series you can't just sideline the Decepticons in favor of some vague, undefined threat working through proxies, or really have humans become far more a threat to the Autobots than the actual Decepticons because the Autobots are only around to protect the humans - if the humans can take down cybertronians no problem then what do the Autobots need to be around for?

Indeed, DOTM should have been the end, allowing them to step back, restart the series so the deaths of a lot of franchise-critical figures (namely the Decepticons essentially since the big names were all dead...again...), but also have a PLAN for going forward so they don't have to retcon entire plots every successive film. Additionally, with it being Shia's last film and Bay himself expressing interest in leaving for another project, that should have been a clue to Paramount for reorganization for an even stronger relaunch.

Instead they got lazy and went the 'almost reboot' method by killing off or simply omitting all but two characters still alive at the end of DOTM (and you know the two I'm talkingabout) and coming up with some radically different take on the entire fictional setting, right down to terrible designs that intentionally were as free from kibbble as possible so they could drag-and-drop alt. modes on whatever they so chose. There's no realistic way that Bumblebee and Stinger sharing identical body types should turn into two completely different vehicles between them. Galvatron looks like a shitty knock off of Gipsy Danger from Pacific Rim. Crosshairs is just some dude in a trenchcoat who barely looks like he is made of car parts, a downgrade from the other corvette transformer Sideswipe who utilized car kibble in a unique and functional way for battle AND had dual pistols added to his arsenal in DOTM. It was like the least interesting thing about the Transformers was the very act of becoming facimiles of cars.

Bumblebee looks to be correcting this. Robot parts being exposed in alt. mode to show he isn't a real VW, both he and the seeker have plentiful kibble so you know what they turn into at a glance, and partial transformation at one point where BB's arm is sticking out from the passenger side door to clutch onto a guard rail - you would NEVER see something like THAT in a bay film, where he wouldn't DARE have cars doing non-car things of that manner after DOTM.

Then where do you stand on Hasbro's current plan of brand unification? Because they're going to try and make the designs look uniform across the board, and if the evergreen designs are any indication, it will be heavily G1 influenced. The seeker from the trailer being identified by people who barely even know the franchise as Starscream proves the power of those recognizable designs and Hasbro wants to tap into that.

Just to show how a completely ridiculous plot and equally silly stuff in the film does not automatically make a good film, let's compare Battleship to the more recent Fast and Furious films.

Battleship was an attempt to ape the success of the Transformers, as the 'aliens' look suspiciously cut from the same cloth, so to speak, of design. But the film itself doesn't have the plot to back it up and it's generally considered a failure.

Fast and Furious originally was NOTHING LIKE what it is now, essentially being films about trying to infiltrate street racing to stop criminal operations, with the fifth inverting it by being a heist (through street racing a bank vault). Films Six, Seven, and Eight however have just taken the original crew (with some roster changes due to one of the main character actors having unfortunately died during filming seven, just can't remember what his name is regretfully) with the same dynamic between them, and now they're basically a crack anti-terrorism force that fights almost 80s level supervillains...through street racing. It's all so completely bonkers and stupid but the film makes no apologies for it and instead embraces being cool for the sake of cool. I mean, Seven is the best example because of that attack on the mountain convoy is absolutely MASK with the team's modified cars but also the semi-transforming van with the hidden machine guns, but also Jason Staham's character who just keeps repeatedly popping up out of thin air to screw up Dom's day and doesn't give a damn what Dom is doing at the time (which, amusingly, is trying to find the plot device to...locate Jason Staham's character), AND Dwayne Johnson's character removes a broken arm by flexing it back together and shattering the cast, then proceeds to drive an ambulance over a bridge to take out a low flying UAV, double taps the UAV's camera, then takes the drone's mini-gun and walks over to where the final battle is taking place and fires the gun at the helicopter full of terrorists.

It's all so gloriously stupid and unrealistic, but nobody cares because it's just a massively fun romp headed by extremely entertaining character interactions.
And even though it's all about street racing, it doesn't have a bug up its ass like some films (*cough*last two Transformers films*cough*) about needing the cars to be super exotic expensive pieces. In Seven, there IS a supposed "one of five ever made" hypercar, but it's really only even in the film to explain why some Middle Eastern billionaire has a car in a private vault in a penthouse apartment...purely so they can have a car street race across floors of three separate buildings before said car is abandoned and smashes into the ground below. And my belief that Fast and Furious currently is proof that MASK actually can work on nearly the same formula seems justified as the director of those films was tapped to direct a potential MASK film adaption in the future.

The reason Fast and Furious works even when it's basically a live action cartoon at this point, while Transformers admittedly has equally silly concepts at play but fails, is because of the tone. Transformers films under Bay seem super serious all the time outside of almost random comedic moments, and relatively little time is spent with the robots doing anything OTHER than fighting or sitting around in alt. mode doing nothing. Fast and Furious is all about the fun and probably hasn't taken itself seriously since the fourth film - hell, Staham's introduction at the beginning of Seven has him promising revenge for his comatose brother...before proceeding to take him through the entire hospital wasteland left in his wake getting to the hospital room in the first place, which is so wrecked that you'd think Staham's character was a one-man Expendables film set loose in there (even if Staham himself is an Expendables character).

Seriousness over humor has its place in the Transformers franchise, but the films just haven't proven they can do it and with the trend of audiences not wanting dark and broody over lighthearted and fun, it's the direction the franchise needs to go to be profitable again. Knight seems to understand this and Bumblebee's trailer reflects that. Leave serious plot to the comics for now, we need to have some simple fun with transforming space robots again.

 

Good post, well articulated. Makes me want to go see that FF movie, I like me some ridiculous unbelievable action...like John Wick. For the record though, I am pretty sure the Rock could do everything you described.

 

I’ll agree with the sentiment that the last two Transformers movies have taken themselves a bit too seriously. I don’t think the first trilogy falls into that trap as much, I feel they had a much more light hearted tone. I think AOE, and TLK changed tone because Bay probably wanted to change things up if he was coming back, and the fans are constantly asking for Transformers to go that way.

I’ve never thought Transformers as a franchise can do too dark, and serious, which is why I enjoy the original trilogy more, and why I think Bumblebee is garnering such a positive reaction. The franchise is at its best when it’s just being pure fun, and just going with a ridiculous premise, and running with it like the Autobots hiding in the nooks, and crannies around Sams house. It’s not a popular viewpoint I know as a lot of fans want it to get even darker than the last two films.

 

No.

 

It is meant to portray sarcasm, but if that is lost on you, then OK.

 

Look, you clearly took it the wrong way, my use of blue text, which is meant to denote sarcasm in that the statement was clearly meant to mean the opposite of what was stated - as in the definition of sarcasm. I sincerely do respect that you appreciate the bayverse. If you still want to be offended, I am not going to lose sleep over it.

 

Speaking of Bay.. how has he avoided this me too movement? having women show up to his house to wear next to nothing to wash his car to get a job..... ... just seems like he's got something going on... maybe he's just really weird