That's because they were beholden to the previous movies.

Transformers and DC share the same problem; they have to find a way to cut their losses while keeping what people liked

 

Hehe, that's why I said "solid".  

 

I get what you're saying since First Class took liberties with continuity, but that's just Fox letting a filmmaker with a vision go loose for once. There was no financial decision to reboot it, which is why Days of Future Past has a connection between First Class and the original Trilogy.

Bumblebee was conceived and possibly had its principal photography completed for a direct prequel. It was reshoots and other post-production that recreated it as an intentional reboot that invalidates the continuity of all five Transformers films, and that was a financial decision. It's a complete reboot.

 

I've been out of loop for, 2 months I think? And this is a great news for me! Glad that they're still making transformers movies.

 

Interesting indeed....

Especially since Bumblebee, intentionally or not, set up the Resistance Cells on Cybertron fighting Shockwave's regime. So Elita-1, the Wreckers and Xaaron, and the other cells could be a thing in the movies now!

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this!

And after way too many damn years of the Autobots being the "defenders of the status quo," I am beyond happy to go back to the old G1 route and have them be resistance against the Decepticons. I really hope that the resistance angle is dropped for any future movies set in the Bumblebee universe. That would truly be a shame.

 

Interestingly, on the subject of whether or not Bumblebee is a prequel or a reboot, one of the things that often gets brought up is that Sector 7 seem completely unaware of the Cybertronians and consider their meeting with Shatter and Dropkick to be "first contact", when, per the first film, they have been in possession of the AllSpark and the frozen form of Megatron since the early 20th century.

Now neither Megatron nor the AllSpark are mentioned in the film, and the fact that Dropkick and Shatter don't become aware that both Megatron and the Allspark, despite being given access to the Hoover Dam base, are in Sector Seven's possession stands out as odd.

However, this discrepancy was part of the original cut of the film, in which Megatron was shown to be in Sector 7's possession (even though the scene in which this was revealed was, sadly, deleted); it isn't indicative of a reboot, it's merely a continuity error.

Travis Knight does not agree; he said, right before the film was released, it took place in the same continuity as the previous five. Please direct me to the source that said it was a reboot.

 

Agreed.Explanations can be found I mean having Megatron there frozen in G1 form wouldn't have done much for the continuity either but the original opening would have done it in fact and also Agent Burns foreshadows the destruction of Chicago wich was a nice touch.Things might have been mixed up and with possible Hasbro interference but there can be some explanations if they want to still keep it a prequel like say:These guys were not on board with Sector 7 that much to have access to Megatron but if they took the liberty of having Bumblebee arrive in '87 I guess that's a lesser concern.

 

When he was asked the question directly during one of the interviews for SDCC he said something to the effect that he was just making a standalone film and that it was up to the studio to decide how it fit in the context of a larger universe.

I'll post the link if I find the video again.

In other SDCC interviews he said it was set 20 years before the Bay movies, which in all honesty was likely for simplicity's sake and I don't think should be taken as any kind of confirmation. It does, after all, technically act as a mix of both and was conceived as the latter so it makes sense why he would say that.

It's a weird situation and that's understandably been reflected in interviews with lots of ambiguous, speculative and non-committal statements.

The fact that there's this much ambiguity at all and that everyone seems hesitant to 100% definitively confirm that Bumblebee is an instalment of the Michael Bay universe I think says a lot.

 

Totally agree! The Autobots should be losing and be the resistance to a DECEPTICON controlled government otherwise it’s kind of anti climatic. I don’t mind if the Autobots were initially part of the status quo, but then lost power or was ostracized from the main government.

 

I thought Animated did fairly well with the Autobots are in control but it turned out the Autobots were jerks. But since movies only have a limited time to tell a story it works better for the Autobots to be underdogs attempting to stop the Decepticon who are ruling Cybertron with an iron grip.

 

Totally agree

 

Indeed - as well as how the plot of BB plays out. . .