You know how Marvel plans out their cinematic universe before making the movies? Let's do the exact opposite!!!

 

Okay good. 

 

You put a lot more thinking into the 5 Bay movies than I ever did. I just enjoyed the Bayhem. Didnt try to overanalyze the inconsistentcies in the films. By the way there was plenty of kibble in ROTF just look at the pannels on mixmaster and the truck bed and wheels on long haul. Shatter and Dropkick had standard Bumblebee style kibble until they got their air modes. Thats when the real kibble comes in. Dont think I dont understand your points. But to an untrained eye who doesnt overanalyze movies it makes the perfect prequel. Detail freaks will call it a reboot based on inconsistencies alone. For me a reboot is a clean slate. Even you cant argue that Michael Bays chalkboard was not totally erased for this movie. And then one of the producer guts (probally Lorenzo) made a statement about Prime being back on earth something to the effect of "whos to say he didnt return to earth" ? You got Travis contradicting himself. You got Lorenzo contradicting himself. No matter which side of the aisle youre on, who knows what to expect in the next film ? They could very well be playing games. Michael Bay did the same shit for 10 years. Id put more faith in what you get in the movies than what you get spewing out of either of these guys mouths. Same goes for hasbro pannel guys who came to answer questions about toys at a convention. In my eyes, I saw a reboot. Never gave half of the details you pointed out a 2nd thought when I watched it on the big screen. Not all fans analyze movies. And with tbe popularity of studio series my money is on Bayverse making a comeback. They could have wiped the slate clean. They could have made it a real reboot. But they didnt. If it was a reboot, it was the crappiest reboot ever. If it was a prequel, they dis a decent job at being consistent with the level of minor inconsistencies...something no true Bayverse fan ever cared about. Lets see what happens in a few years.

 

I don't think Lorenzo can really "confirm" anything. He can't even confirm the contradictory plots from movie to movie.

The common audience doesn't need to analyze anything to notice the clearly dumb parts. If you think the problems in Bayverse are just tiny nitpicks from "haters," you're really more sensitive about these movies then you're letting on.

 

I think it's good to point out the distinction you brought up when comparing Bay fans to Bay haters...

- Some people see the flaws in stories and movies whether they want to or not. These people have a greater appreciation for movies that don't trigger a natural "WTF?" response and are typically better critics because criticism comes more naturally.

- Some people don't notice the flaws and enjoy what they're given. These people have a greater appreciation for movies and stories in general and are able to enjoy themselves more easily, which is a great trait.

Critics shouldn't pan the general audience for enjoying movies more easily, and the general audience should accept that thoughtful critics probably have good points, even if they didn't notice them.

But finally, creators should be held by both audiences to the high standard of pleasing both groups because it ends in the highest enjoyment of the work.

I mean, it's common sense, but still worth saying when either group always seems to be tribally pitted against the other.

 

Got to love when someone is so ignorant of the source material that they think a romantic relationship between two of the robots is some sort of brand new concept. It's been done so many times in the different cartoons and comic books that we all have the been there done that teeshirt already.

Reboot sounds nice though because I'd hate for some new writer to have to slog into the convoluted mess of the previous films or to the get ever growing list of dead robots that can't play the get out of death free card.

 

They actually admitted they just threw in stuff at random into the TF movies if they thought it was cool, as well the fact that plot inconsistencies weren't a major concern (Of course, many of us figured that out long ago).

In other words, everyone getting a headache trying to explain the various discrepancies needn't have bothered.

Basically, Paramount's attitude to the franchise was that audiences should switch their brains off and be happy just watching giant robots, explosions and toilet humour, and not kick up a fuss about the quality of writing, dialogue, character building, etc.

But here's the thing. For a lot of Transformers fans, it wasn't just about giant robots. It was about the stories. The characters, their relationships to each, their distinctive personalities, traits and histories.

There were so many things the movie-makers could have with the potentially interesting characters at their disposal.

Instead, the Fallen turned out to be a Palpatine wannabe (even the dialogue between him and Megatron seemed to be cut and pasted from the Star Wars movies). Shockwave, Megatron's second-in-command on Cybertron in his absence, and sometimes rival got absolutely wasted. A lot of moviegoers can't even remember him.

And in the last movie they threw in a random Autobot, originally known as Side Kick, gave him a French accent - and called him Hot Rod .

Bumblebee is a step in the right direction. Let's hope Paramount gets that.

 

Then why are you arguing why it isn't?

 

Sorry, folks. Feeling ranty. (I'm not angry at anyone. I'm just unloading.) TL;DR These movies make us dumb or at least receptive to stupid.

Lorenzo can confirm he's a big part of the problem, however. Because he is. I'm starting to think his mouth goes where the money is. If they said purple people eaters are where the money is, he'd say it's not a reboot or a prequel, it's a spinoff in an alternate world with a special appearance by mega superstar Frank, the purple people eater, and Frank would ultimately have a 10 second cameo in which he waves to the camera with a meek and mild "hi" while Bayhem is going off in the background. You know, the kind of scene in which you'd say "why is he there in the middle of a bomb going off in the town square while children and puppies are running for their lives?" that Bay is more or less made for.

As for the second part of your post, he's incredibly sensitive about these movies. He will argue you 'til he's blue in the face, fighting for no good reason while you're trying to discuss these movies with reason and it just gets ugly and ends up pointless.

Well, humanity is tribal, so it's expected. That said, these movies seem poised to piss off both groups because they can. It's proof that Hollywood and Paramount especially are out of touch with audiences these days. When even Sony starts to shape up and actually work with Disney/Marvel AND kick Adam Sandler to the curb, you know there's a running change in the studio machine and for some reason, Paramount hasn't gotten sucked up into it. They should, but they haven't. The same mentality that keeps them from joining the Movies Anywhere consortium (mind you, it's easier for the end user and doesn't make them a subsidiary of Disney, but whatevs...) is the same one that keeps them in the same rut they've been in the past few years.

My response aside, your post got a like. One of the best well-reasoned, factual, clean cut and straightforward posts in this thread. We need more of this.

Fans cringe at the thought of relationships in Transformers. There are plenty of posts in plenty of threads on this and every board, as well as in the Facebook groups in which fans are like "They're robots. They don't have gender, they can't make babies, they don't need to." Honestly, it's probably a bad idea at this point. I'm sure, in the right hands, it could be done, but we've seen there are no actual right hands. Even Knight wasn't perfect. (He was so much better, though.)

The only reason the whole LGBTQ storyline flew in the IDW comics was that it was inclusive and it was the first of its kind in Transformers lore and they went there. I guarantee you if it was a Straight orientation relationship, people would've balked. Now that we've covered both ends of the spectrum, I think we've had our fill and should probably avoid it at this point. (And this is no slight against anyone who is in the LGBTQ+ community or their supporters. It's just a valid point.)

Yet, Lorenzo says Unicron is a bad idea... Honestly, rather than offend groups of people who have deep-rooted issues in gender/sex/orientation/what have you I'd think someone behind the scenes would be like "So... about that planet-eating planet guy... How do we dig up Orson Welles to have him voice him again? Thoughts? Bob, get the backhoe!"

It's bothered me that no one behind the scenes cared about continuity. Star Wars, the MCU, even some of the DCU has tried to keep a continuity going. Put aside the individual chapters and their issues for a moment, the overarching theme/story/whatever has more or less served to make a cohesive whole that the audience can follow.

Transformers, for some reason, just can't stay on a track because the powers that be won't allow them to. Like we're supposed to be stupid or something.

Heck, even Star Trek Discovery and Enterprise, both prequels (apparently) tried their best to not completely piss all over what came before and I'll even give Discovery some props for the whole Pike is running the fleet and he has the holographic interfaces removed so we get the whole TOS look explained so there's no inconsistency there. (It's not the best explanation, but it's serviceable and works.) We couldn't even get THAT out of the producers, Paramount and Hasbro.

I certainly hope Hasbro has learned their lesson, however. People DO want a cohesive story, people DO want to know how the lore works and what it is.

If you look at the roadmap (and forgive me if I miss a piece, it's such a friggin' mess and I can't believe I used to defend it...) here's where we are:

The Autobots come to Earth to find a pair of glasses with a map etched into them, which will then lead them to the Allspark. (So much goes on about the glasses that you actually forget about the Allspark once the film gets moving.)

Then we find out that The Fallen came to Earth before ancient Egypt's time and the Primes buried themselves in a tomb to protect the Matrix, which is arguably more powerful than the Allspark because it, too, can give life to a Transformer. (Thus making the Allspark a pointless MacGuffin)

THEN we find out that Megatron and Sentinel Prime had a master plan to wipe out an entire planet (and its indigenous race) in the beginning and that the Matrix and Allspark were basically pointless (thus doubling down on the whole MacGuffin thing) this entire time and as long as Megatron had been successful, Cybertron would've been saved and the whole needing the Allspark thing was a pointless campaign on Megatron's part. I mean, yeah, he would've used the Allspark to create a massive army to take over everything but as long as he had Cybertron restored and his Decepticon forces en masse, he didn't really need it after all and neither did we as the audience.

Oh, and it's not done yet, oh no. Optimus, apparently, is a lost knight who led the Cybertronian crusades and somehow forgot about it until he was in Lockdown's ship and somehow starts speaking Cybertronian Gaelic to a Dinobot he remembered he forgot existed and they never needed the Allspark OR the Matrix or Megatron's plan because they weren't "born" but built and their creators (sight unseen except for a weird fleshy/gooey/robotic hybrid) want them back and they aren't as autonomous as we were led to believe in the three previous films.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! ACT NOW AND WE'LL INCLUDE...

There are even more knights, who worked with King Arthur and Merlin who passed on their power and gifts to their distant descendants who will use those to face off against Quintessa, the deceiver, who claims the Transformers are her creation (which Optimus confirms she is exactly that) thus rendering the weird handed creatures in the previous flick a pointless CGI creation with a pointless opening sequence all for naught.
And Unicron is Earth.

I mean, doggone. Which is it? No one, not a single living soul can keep up with this. Even Sir Anthony Hopkins gave Bay praise for his work ethic and said it was all fun but he couldn't tell you [email protected]# all about what the film is about. That's so incredibly insane that it defies words. That's... I can't even comprehend that level of garbage.

Then comes Bumblebee and it's a prequel that doesn't make any sense and undoes ALL of the previous films because it can...until someone with common sense comes along and says "nuh uh, cut this and that and we're going to make it a reboot. It'll make more sense if we make it do this. We backed ourselves into a corner, people."

It shouldn't have taken edits in the SIXTH film to finally get it right and have some semblance of a sensible storyline. Simplistic is best, it seems.

Because he's smarter than he tries to make you think he is. He says he likes popcorn flicks and putting his brain on autopilot but in the same breath says he wants, and we deserve, better. He's starting to see the writing on the wall with Lorenzo finally on board saying it's a reboot, so he's trying to cover his bases so posters like you and I can't completely trap him and he has an out. It's better to do mental gymnastics and jump through well-positioned hoops than it is to take the adult route and admit he's wrong.

I used to be like that. I'm not anymore. It's easier to (as his rap heroes would say) take the "L" and admit I'm wrong and then build a bridge and get over it than to stand around going "NO! I KNOW THE EARTH IS BOWL SHAPED AND STARS ARE PINHOLES IN A CURTAIN!" which gains nothing for anyone.

These movies, I have a love/hate relationship with them. They've singlehandedly put us on the larger map while also making us dumber or at least being more receptive to stupidity and being told "Hey, it's okay to be dumb! You do you, idiot!"

It's okay when it's Dumb & Dumber which is meant to be outlandish and funny because it's so ridiculous, it's not when it's Transformers looking at you with a straight face while selling you a dumber story than Adam Sandler trying to perform standup sober. (He has to be drunk when he performs, you can't be ...that while sober.)

/end rant. *sigh*

 

Paramount didn't care about the quality of the movies. They just wanted their millions. Then they noticed Marvel hitting £1b 20-something movies in, while TLK flopped.

We are really lucky Travis Knight was directing Bumblebee. I guess when the figures for TLK came out, the folks at Paramount panicked and let him do what he wanted, which was make a good movie with a minimum of interference (or 'suggestions') from them (and likely many of the usual busybodies didn't want to be associated with the 'Bee movie as well in case it flopped too).

I did kind of find it funny that Megatron was two-timing Sentinel Prime and the Fallen while napping for thousands of years. And how did the almighty leader of the Decepticons manage to crash-land himself into a coma when every other Decepticon and Autobot managed to do just fine?

EDIT: (Incidentally, does anyone else wonder if Lorenzo is being sent out by Paramount to find out just how receptive the potential audiences are to their ideas for future movies?)

 

I agree. Quantity over quality is Paramount's biggest problem.

Knight was great, I'm glad we had him, but I will give Bay a bit more credit on wasting scenes. While he wasted money traversing the globe, needlessly, he didn't film scenes with expensive CGI going to waste. Knight, considering he's used to hand animation like the Wallace & Gromit guys, you'd think he'd want every scene to matter and wouldn't have blown the cash on that scene with Bumblebee saying humans aren't worth saving. (It's a deleted scene in another thread. He could've dropped the dialogue and kept the scene intact.)

It's probably at least $10,000+ (maybe even a lot more expensive) wasted on a scene he cut for no good reason. When I saw that scene, I had to rethink my higher pedestal position for Knight. Don't get me wrong, he's leaps and bounds better than Bay. By far. But I was just surprised he wasted it.

And on your last point... YES! So glad someone else sees it. The films make ZERO sense.

 

When the makers of an official Transformers movie manage to mistake Brawl for Devastator, it should have rung a warning bell for every TF fan who was paying attention.

 

They knew his name but thought Devastator sounded more menacing hence the change.

Anyways, considering this man wanted humans to be the main focal point fighting off Transformers with Autobots being in the background I do not have any hope for this man directing

 

Exactly. . .I could tell clearly by the plot of Bumblebee itself (saw it at an early screening-AMC Stubs is NICE!!!), that the released film was and is a reboot, long before the execs kept playing verbal olympics in regards to the reboot/prequel issue. . .

Lorenzo's (and some of his associates) pink slip is long overdue. . .

 

It really didn't help that Paramount was constantly wanting to have everything both ways. They wanted an endless film series but they also wanted every movie to be a stand alone film that could be an entry point for new people. They wanted a reboot but they fear any real actual change might hurt the box office so a series of soft reboots that weren't really a reboot at all. Parts of the production team would be nice to old fans and other parts of the production team were saying the old fans can drop dead.

 

Honestly? That's a good point. I had forgotten about that. IIRC, it did indeed do that.

But it didn't work and everything else pointed to him being Brawl. Plus, he was such a throwaway character, they couldn't make it work. I wouldn't mind them doing a Lucas and going back and correcting that in the film and the credits. (I'd have them change more, of course, but still...)

Problem is, he got exactly what he wanted and people complained. Even newbies and non-fans said they wanted to see more of the robots themselves. He won, in the end, though. This is the problem with allowing adults, OLDER adults, to work with a children's property for Hollywood's sake. In a lot of ways, it helped us in terms of toys and new lines, but it also damaged the name/franchise a good bit. Now everyone expects them to be stupid and dumb. I liked Bumblebee the first time I saw it, loved it the second and still do. Problem is, we all know that as far as movies go, it's pretty formulaic and by the numbers and wouldn't normally stand out aside from the CGI of Bumblebee, Dropkick and Shatter.

It only worked as well as it did, being an E.T. retread, because it was literally the best of the entire franchise in terms of story and character. They followed the KISS method and it worked. (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

Shame that a boy meets girl flick was what it took to get a course correction in a saga about alien robots looking for a home.

Lorenzo's hanging on because the movies made him money, without much effort. He can run his mouth all day, he can switch lanes whenever he wants and he can still collect a paycheck. He's not going anywhere unless Paramount gives him the old heave ho and he's certainly not going to retire any time soon. He's what, 50-ish? He's got at least 20-30 years of this in him, maybe more.

We're just going to have to hope someone can slip in and gently push him out somehow.

To be fair, Hasbro gave them that idea, really. With all of the universes and then the Aligned Continuity, it made sense to Paramount to make 'em stand alone, rather than part of a bigger picture. Now, I realize that Aligned came AFTER ROTF, but slightly before DOTM, but they had this planned for a while. So much so that there was an official Bible put out to keep everyone in the same boat to take the same insane ride.

I'm hoping they all learned that being all wonky doesn't work and the audience not only deserves better, but they actually CRAVE it.

 

I wouldn't mind one simple romance between 2 bots, but not in the way IDW went about it. For me it would have to be a coupling that exists in previous lore.
Orion -> Ariel, is the best version because so much can pull them apart, before things get too deep. But, Hotrod -> Acree, Ironhide -> Chromia also acceptable to me.

Even better if it's only hinted at as lightly as the original cartoon.

 

Yeesh at this point these news stories are like that scene in episode 8 of Generator Rex where Breach just mockingly chants "It is a school, but's not a school" repeatedly

 

No, they definitely screwed up, and probably didn't notice until someone (probably a real Transformers fan) pointed it out. Even the toy was still called Brawl.

Going by later revelations, their attitude was probably 'Yeah, so what?'.

In other words, the guy (I'm guessing you mean Lorenzo) didn't have a clue about Transformers.

Going by some of Bonaventura comments, I've a nasty feeling that certain folks at Paramount are still planning to steer the Transformers movie ship back in the direction of an iceberg, and hoping we'll come along for the ride.

One day someone will make a historically accurate film about the making of the first Transformers live actions movies. It'll be a movie about giant robots - and dinosaurs.

 

I want to go on record saying I wouldn't believe a single word out of that man's mouth. If he said the sky was blue I'd want to go look outside because there's at least a 50% chance something happened and it's turned red, green, yellow or purple with orange spots.

This is a problem a lot of studios are having at this point. They all see what Marvel/Disney have accomplished and somehow believe it was just random circumstance and any incompetent writing team that can't hold a single scene together will be capable of creating a decade long continuity without issue. That's not the way it works, and the idjits thinking it does need to have a good long hard think on why throwing random ideas at the board, then changing them mid production movie to movie isn't how you keep people interested.

This is my fear. I don't think Paramount can allow the Transformers movies to grow organically into a strong brand of their own because the management team seems to have some weird thing about stepping all over their directors. They want what they want until tomorrow, when they want something completely different. They need consistency, and it's not going to happen until they get rid of folks like Lorenzo Derp-a-Derp and the team that thinks the proper way to write a movie is to just take every idea you've ever had, toss them in a blender and pour them out in random order.

The management they have in charge don't seem to be capable of grasping the simple concept that continuity builds continuity. It's not random. It's not chance. It's not brainstorming instantly puked out on the page. It's careful planning, careful plotting, careful editing, and someone with a firm grasp of how to keep a large story well in hand. And they've shown they are often incapable of keeping even a single scene coherent. And this goes all the way back to the 2007 movie. The empty/full/empty/half-gone plate of donuts being the one that jumped out to me even the first time through the film. Call it nitpicky, and it is, but it's symptomatic of how they view this franchise. As unimportant drivel with a fandom that will accept any level of stupidity so long as there's enough explosions, young girls in overly tight clothing, and military equipment galore with the odd bit of robo-fighting blurred beyond coherence here or there.

The public has spoken. Bumblebee was a fun movie. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it certainly was more fun than the previous films, and people took to it despite TLK being a flop. Bumblebee has some problems, and moments where you feel a little disjointed as the prequel elements clash with the new continuity elements here or there, but it's still fun and not insulting.

Will they let that fun continue? Based on the senile sounding ranting of Lorenzo, I'm guessing not. He doesn't even know day to day what the hell's going on. How can we expect this man to steer the ship out of danger and into a true continuity?