They're taking aspects from various different aspects of Transformers to construct their own mythos - which is what not only Transformers, but pretty much every adaptation or reboot of every franchise ever has done. A brilliant example of this is the MCU.

The Maximals and Predacons as prehistoric Cybertronians (possibly, given they were described as "ancient" in an interview and what's been revealed of their designs seems to sell the "ancient" feel), with an RID-inspired (in looks, not origin) Scourge as the leader of the Terrorcons (who seem to be a band of unaligned bounty hunters, given Scourge has been compared to Lockdown) with Nightbird as one of his minions isn't exactly what happened in G1 (although who's to say Hun-Gurr and co. aren't part of Scourge and Nightbird's "merry" little band...), but it's still an interesting premise - and I really want to see how it all fits together.

Except the Autobots meeting the Maximals has been on fan wish lists for the past quarter-century. As a Beast Wars fan, I'm excited to see what the film does with them - given Caple seems to be a Beast Wars fan, I do think he'll do those characters justice.

Also, there might be a context in the film that's just as good as the original one - certainly the theory that the Maximals are prehistoric Cybertronians has some merit. Imagine the story potential that might come from the first Prime, Optimus Primal, seeing the future of his race.

I enjoyed Bumblebee - I went to see it four times and it reignited my love of the franchise, which TLK had nearly killed 18 months before - and I really want to see what this new continuity (which pretty much everyone has says Bumblebee is the start of) has to offer.

 

You're free to check even the comments on random movie news sites. Every other comment is "reboot the damn thing already".

 

Marvel knows what to keep and what to update though, and has built and keeps building on solid foundation. We're apparently still sort of on Bayverse mode and introducing Beast Wars within it. In this particular case, it makes the world of Transformers feel vastly smaller, when it used to stretch in space and time.

Most of these ideas, exist in their context. It feels extremely random, arbitrary and Bay-ish to throw them all together. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect synergy. Plus, Bayverse precedent has not been positive.

That's why it's the stuff of fan fiction. It's detrimental to the overall world and myth. It's something that should be apparent to writers. It makes the world feel smaller and it robs the characters of their room to breathe and develop the way they were meant to.

We're still in Bayverse context.

Cool, I enjoyed it too. But that's an example of the minimum I expect of this epic mythology. It was fun, but still, a movie were Bayverse Bumblebee was still treated as a puppy, in a story that played out like those light-hearted filler issues from the comics. And fence-sitting between Bayverse and reboot. We want a clean reboot. With a talking Bumblebee.

This whole position, feels like it hinges on the fact that, as a fan, you want to see twists on the original, because you've exhausted your engagement with it. But these movies are supposed to introduce these concepts to a wider audience. And they're once again, introducing everything twisted. Therefore, leading into more contrary opinions of what anything is and more toxic fandom and identiy crisis. But, sure, the only thing that matters is if it's "fun".

 

I mean, yeah - that's because they've got excellent writers and directors. A good creative team can sell anything.

Did you mean it doesn't seem "unreasonable"? Because brand synergy is exactly what you seem to be arguing for.

Yeah, but shouldn't we build on from Bumblebee, which is a solid film, for a new continuity?

And I'm totally fine with radio-talk Bee, principally because that's the version of 'Bee I grew up on - I was ten when the '07 film came out, which was my (and a lot of my generation's) introduction to TFs. And, in Bumblebee, it was key to the emotional journey of the character in the film.

Well... no. My position is not because I've "exhausted my engagement with the franchise", but because I'm an optimist by nature - it's going to be cool seeing the Maximals and Predacons in live action (and Ron freaking Perlman playing Optimus Primal) and, from what we've been told of him, Scourge sounds like a badass.

Now, I do agree with the core of what you've said about introducing these things to a wider audience, but there's two ways of doing that - there's doing it like the MCU, which is concerned with keeping to the spirit of the original material... or there's doing it like the 2019 Lion King. Which is far, far worse than most of the Bayverse films (except TLK).

The ROTB release date, BTW, roughly coincides with my little cousin's tenth birthday (who absolutely loves Transformers) - I might take her to see it. And she'll probably love it - and it'll introduce her to ideas like Maximals and Predacons and characters like Optimus Primal and Cheetor and Rhinox.

 

Most of the brand is Autobots going on adventures with their human buddies and stopping the Decepticons' doomsday plan. To me Bumblebee felt like a smaller-scale version of the average Transformers story (albeit without an ensemble cast). You keep talking about Transformers as an "epic mythology" as if it's Lord of the Rings. It's really not. Occasionally it goes more mythological, but usually that stuff is just backstory to add an illusion of depth to the world.

Bay's Transformers is actually among the more 'mythological' takes on the brand.

And what makes you think Bumblebee would talk in a reboot? There's a fair chance that a reboot (even by a different studio) would take some notes from the Bay movies, since that's the version of Transformers general audiences have become most accustomed to.

I think this is where our worldviews are just inherently different. I don't want to see the same things over and over again. The original stuff will always exist, and we can always go back to it. I want to see these characters and stories in new contexts, with new aesthetics. Beast Wars in modern day? Bring it on.

I think your logic holds up for something like Lord of the Rings, which is arguably a near-perfect story that doesn't need any changes or improvements (aside from some basic stuff that comes with translating it to screen). But Transformers was never known for its storytelling genius. It was always pulpy kids' stories. There's a lot of room to change things up and re-contextualize things. There's certainly a good way and a bad way to do it, but it's a bit silly to expect movies made in 2021 to be overly beholden to Saturday morning cartoons from forty years ago.

 

No, I meant it seems unreasonable to expect synergy. Bad syntax. Oops.

I'm not fine with radio-talk muscle car puppy Bee. And as much enjoyable as the movie was (and I ended up seeing it more than once, at home, as well, I admit), I don't think it could hold as solid foundation to build upon. It was and felt constructed as a filler episode, a spin-off. If it weren't for a couple of stinger moments (Bumblebee meeting Prime at the end and the after credits scene, mostly), the idea of any follow up would barely cross our minds.

I showed my girlfriend some G1 episodes and she liked it better than I expected. She hadn't watched anything related to Transformers before that. And then I said we should watch Bumblebee sometime. I thought she'd like that too. I kid you not, her reaction was "That's the same Bumblebee character we saw last week on the cartoon? What?!?! Why did they make him stupid?". And that's supposed to be the "good" movie.  

I don't think it's a conscious decision, but more of a result of prior engagement. We're all thinking stuff like "wouldn't it be fun if this and that twist", with stories that we love. But that's why fan fiction exists, most of the time, and what makes it feel like fan fiction when you see it. First thing that makes an original character feel fan made, is that they're always a badass of some sort. Usually OP badass. With a beard made of flames. Wink wink. It's kind of a classic mistake.

Remember when Budianski's profiles, characterized almost every single character by their flaws? Because you want to humanize those robots. If they're just badass, then, they're props once again. Granted, in this case, it's just based on brief info about a character we haven't seen. He might be still written as a proper character, with flaws and motivations. But... Again... Why twist every single detail about every single character featured, so much, that they're barely recognisable and completely out of context, in order to fit this movie? Sometimes, it just doesn't fit, man. It's just that the higher ups, demand this and that, because it performs well on the market research sheets, you know what I mean? And that's not something that makes me hopeful or excited.

Oh man, I couldn't convince myself to watch the 2019 Lion King. What a bad idea.

As far as what you said about Marvel, that's hitting the nail right on the head for me, as far as criticisms about how Transformers has been adapted to the big screen (and sometimes the small, as well). It was never much about the designs for me. I bet that, even Bay's aesthetic, could work, if the spirit of the characters and the overall story was intact. Not many people seem to notice, but Transformers is a very particular and very tough nut to crack, tonewise. It's sort of campy space opera war drama, that requires a level of sophistication, but also isn't afraid to be fun. It needs far bigger attention to nuance in order to adapt, than it seems. And nuance is lost on many people these days.

That's so sweet! I don't care about anything else in this instance. That is awesome!  

 

Just stop, man. Stop.

 

I don't agree at all. To me most fanfiction just feels like the characters people know doing the stuff they know. Whenever I see fan writeups of "ideal Transformers movies", it's usually just a bunch of stuff taken from G1 and MTMTE.

 

Ok.

 

I think you have to view each piece of media as their own thing, not as a direct adaptation of previous material. The movies although inspired by G1, Beasts Wars etc. aren't made with the intention of creating an live action version of that specific series, and I think once you can put those things aside you can view each movies/series in a different light.

That's not to say I don't want to see more influence taken from the source material I do, I very much do! I think Bumblebee proves that Transformers can be better by utilising more of the source material in terms of aesthetic, I've always wanted to see those G1 designs and voices on the big screen.

I would love to see the OG Beast Wars cast return to voice their respective characters in ROTB, but we also have realise that they are not supposed to be those same iterations, ROTB Primal isn't supposed to be BW Primal.

If you can separate your view of each Transformers series or movie, I believe you can get a better perspective and enjoyment out of them.

 

Bingo.

Transformers hasn't survived and thrived for almost four decades by doing the exact same thing over and over again. The modus operandi of Transformers has always been to reinvent what Transformers is when things get stale. Which is a genius strategy when you take into consideration that Transformers is a kids' brand, and the target audience ages out of the brand pretty quickly. Us fans who stay onboard are kind of along for the ride.

The notion that Transformers creators shouldn't put new spins on the brand is just baffling to me. That's what's kept Transformers alive and relevant every time. The 1986 movie, G1 Season 3, G2, Beast Wars, RID2001, the Unicron Trilogy, Bay's films, etc. All of these reinvented, re-contextualized, and added to what Transformers is. Even Bumblebee's nostalgia-driven approach was fresh within the context of the movie series. Transformers isn't about adult fans reliving childhood nostalgia over and over again. Although there are outlets for that (Generations, Masterpiece, IDW, home video releases of old series, etc).

 

Thanks to, basically just the Unicron Trilogy and the movies, we now have a generation of fans that has been shaped by these ideas that Transformers can, has, and should be absolutely anything, without any rules basically. And they've been taught that in order to elevate and defend the value of what they happened to grow up with, it is somehow reasonable to dump on the very source material that inspired it. If Bay and Bonaventura basically encourage that mentality with everything they say and put to screen for 15 years, then why not?

Imagine growing up with, let's say, that forgotten Spider-Man Unlimited cartoon and then spending all your adult life demanding that every piece of Spider-Man media features that glorified spinoff version or at least "not grandpa's Peter Parker again".

I'm not saying there can't be room for experimentation and drastically different takes. Every franchise has a bit of that. But the mainstream representations of the franchise, should be the most indicative ones. For Transformers, it feels like the comics (and video games) have always been doing what the cartoon and movies should, when it should be other way around.

That's how you end up with a truly toxic and dysfunctional fandom, where, everyone's idea and expectations about even the most basic aspects of the franchise are completely incompatible. And that prevents you from even daring to re-establish brand identity, synergy and harmony. Just throw a little something for everyone in there, and hope they turn up. Wink wink ROTB.

 

For the entirety of its run, Paramount and Michael Bay thought whatever worked for these movies was enough to keep producing shit and focus less on quality. The movies made millions of dollars in profit for paramount despite the diminishing quality of them til TLK where the audience finally had of them. It got so bad it almost made paramount go bankrupt. They really need to start giving consumers actual good movies and not just another dumb action flick with slow mo explosions. Bumblebee was a step in that right direction, but the question becomes has paramount learned it’s lesson in regards to making good films, or is history doomed to repeat itself? This is not to proclaim ROTB will be bad on my end, but at the same time I don’t think paramount can go back to how the bay films worked. I hope ROTB turns out good and doesn’t turn out to be another crap hollow action film made by Hollywood to get people watching for the explosions and action scenes alone.

 

Bingo, @TheSoundwave!

A good comparison for what post-UT TF has become is the Godzilla franchise - which basically says "there is no canon" (aside from the '54 film having happened... and even then, that's open for discussion). Whilst Godzilla and Mothra have remained largely static (with occasional outliers), others have been changed quite radically.

For instance, King Ghidorah has gone from planet-destroying monster (and occasional superweapon for various alien invaders) to mutant created by time travellers to heroic guardian monster to Lovecraftian interdimensional eldritch god to invasive rival alpha to Godzilla.

Mechagodzilla's gone from alien robot built to invade Earth, robot built by the JSDF to protect Japan from Godzilla, a cyborg built using the bones of the original Godzilla, an alien grey-goo weapon and a superweapon built by a secret conspiracy, using the remnants of Ghidorah's conciousness, who want to exterminate all of the Titans.

 

Oh, meanwhile, people keep saying that Transformers is just a kids' toy brand, to justify extremely low quality efforts as being "for kids", when, the very thing that basically eradicated the competition from GoBots, was giving it a darker and more sophisticated edge, akin to Gundam for the US. GoBots, now, seem like a mature work of art, compared to half of the recent cartoons we've gotten.

Somehow, these same adult people consider the downgrade from a practically four quadrant brand to "kids' brand" a huge success, while the mainstream is practically oblivious to the fact that iterations other than G1 and Bay's movies exist. Yeah, great success. I wonder why every recent toyline is 101% G1. Those mental gymnastics are laughable.

 

I've said it before but I strongly dislike the justification "it's for kids, therefore it's okay if it's low quality", because it implies that kids don't deserve things that are well made because they're too dumb to realize what they're being given is cheap and poorly made. Not at all saying they can't enjoy what amounts to animated junk food, but if that's all they're exposed to then I have to wonder what kind of effect that would have on them in the long term.

 

See, that's what should be happening.

Instead, we're getting the exact fucking opposite. And we can thank the movies for that, because the franchise didn't simply reboot with a clear plan back in 2011 and instead blundered right into Age of Extinction. And then TLK. And then even after Bumblebee was praised for not being Bayverse, there's no evidence to really suggest ROTB isn't a Writer's Room frankenstien like TLK before it, the only difference being the robots at least look like traditional Transformers and not H. R. Geiger rejects.

 

Not only that but it will shape the priorities of whoever is making the product into something negative because they think the dumb crap they are making works.

 

The '86 movie was a radical reinvention of the brand. Slaughtering Optimus and most of the heroes? Beast Wars too. At the time there was absolutely nothing else like that in the brand, and a lot of fans tore the very concept to shreds. The idea that dramatic reinvention started with the UT is flat out incorrect. It's always been there.

No one's saying that we should give kids trash. I was saying that kids' tastes change between generations, and Transformers has to modernize and reinvent itself to stay relevant. Not everything can be some definitive '80s inspired thing aimed at hardcore fans.

 

If the next transformers cartoon is more of a teen Titans go rip off, then that is just sad.