I'll be waiting for that one...

I think the biggest reason it's not doing well is because, from the previews, it looks like the first Transformers movie all over again. A young kids gets a run down car and finds out it's an alien robot. That was already done again to some extent in AoE with Cade finding Optimus.
Also, Bumblebee was already the star of all the other TF movies among the robots, except for maybe AoE.
IMO a better idea for a solo prequel movie would have been Drift. Have him as a Decepticon get injured or something and then nursed back to health by humans. Make sure to point out he's a bad guy in the trailers. Then he changes sides because of the human's kindness.
Otherwise, I think a continuation of the current story would have done better. Personally I'm much more interested in what Quintessa will do next versus what Bee did in the past.

 

I’m pretty sure it’s around the middle of 2019. Spring.

Agreed.

EXACTLY.

 

Pretty much, it’s being marketed as a prequel.

Pretty much.

It bugs me how inaccurate it actually is, it looks like they just took inspiration from the movie, previous Bee toys from the films. For example.... the door wings and just the whole figure itself.

 

Thank you. And it’s also ok to like G1, G2, Bay’s, or Knight’s iterations at the same time. It’s called being a fan.

 

43 pages (whew), so I’m not sure if this has been answered or not, but is there any guess when we could expect to see this released? Movie accurate or not, it still looks great to me. The first studio line release I’m considering buying.

EDIT: Nevermind, read the post a few posts back. Possible Spring 2019. Keeping fingers crossed.

 

I think a few people have mentioned March or so/spring.

 

I want a Cliffjumper figure. And judging by the fact that Hasbro loves making Bumblebee toys in their studio series line and there was a Cybertronian Bumblebee model in the movie, they could make that and then redeco into Cliffjumper with a new head.

 

I'm not arguing that these designs make the film more financially viable, but that the G1 designs look great and can be adapted just fine with a live action film setting. Optimus didn't need to be a long nosed truck and have barely recognizable truck parts strewn over a too complicated design to be in a film. Not once have I ever mentioned box office. Bay's films were huge (at first) and raked in the cash so obviously SOMETHING he did was right but I think he alienated some older fans with his aesthetics and his reasons for them. The new director and his team of designers did a great job adapting designs that Bay didn't care to adapt and I think these prove Bay was wrong. That is literally my point. If you wan to argue box office and shit, please talk to someone else.

Ummm, no. I think Bumblebee could be a terrible film that may not be a box office success but I do think this films designs prove that Bay was wrong in how he and HIS team approached said robot designs. That's literally all I was arguing. You're just being WAY too defensive of the Bay films. Someone can't even be critical of a friggin robot design around here, lol. Get over it.

And if the general movie going audience didn't care than it wouldn't have mattered if the robot designs matched better to the source material. Obviously someone here and there cared otherwise you wouldn't be arguing about it with me, lol.

 

You’re not understanding my point. The G1 designs don’t PROVE anything other than you like them more and think they work better. You’re not PROVING anything, you’re just validating your opinions. There are some people who don’t like the new designs from the film at all, does that prove they are wrong?

And your point about the truck being long nose in 07 makes no sense either. Bay wanted OP to be bigger, so he chose a bigger truck, and one that was much more appropriate for the time period. That’s it. Show me one interview where he said “it was literally impossible to make Optimus a flat nose truck and anyone who attempts that will fail.”

 

I would be curious to know why. Most people seem to just be all over it because of the G1 design.

My problems with the design are as follows: the design looks incomplete, like it was rushed or had different people designing it. The head, shoulders and chest are all smooth and lacking in very many features or detail. The ab section is exposed and muddy. The legs and arms have an "overflowing box of popcorn" look. All that combined, there isn't any congruity unlike the highly detailed, dynamic but admittedly spindly first trilogy design or the solid knight armor but kibble free AOE design.

Specific details, the head is bloated and undetailed. Looks stiff and expressionless. Also, that ab section is really bad; it is a dark space of nothingness that always draws my eye in. And it looks frail like if it were hit, it would explode to bits. It would be bad on any design, much less one where the upper half looks to belong to a different robot than the lower half.

I find the toy better because the legs match the upper body more.

"I don't care to judge this thing by objective metrics, so just allow me to continue ranting."

Whatever you say. I don't care to really engage here. If you and others like the designs, fine, but that's hardly a metric to judge their successfulness by when there are other people whom either don't care one way or another or actively don't like the designs.

However, as some others have pointed out, the numbers are currently inconclusive with a pretty small dive in viewing over time. We'd have to wait to see when Bumblebee releases in all countries to get better measurements.

 

No, they prove that Bay didn't need to change the original designs to get a big, chunky robot. They prove the designs didn't need to be so overly complex either. Yeah doing a say, Masterpiece MP-10 Optimus toy as a robot on film wouldn't work but this Optimus used in Bumblebee strikes a great balance between recognizable design and detail and keeps his mass large and imposing. Hell, even in AOE Bay had the same Optimus design used in 2007 in the same size he had always been transform into a G1 type cab over truck. Even HE proved he didn't need that much mass to be the 2007 robot design, lol. And yes, it IS indeed my opinion. That is correct so why don't you stop getting insulted that I'm critiquing Mr. Bay's design choices and live with it. I never stated anything as some sort of all knowing authority unlike you seem to want to believe I am or like you're acting. First you go on about box office that I never even brought up and then you start throwing out some crap about Bay quotes... you just keep implying and and saying things that just aren't true. Don't put words min my mouth. I never even said Bay thought it would be impossible to make Prime a cab over. Seriously, get over yourself, lol.

 

"I don't care about what you say so I'll just throw a bullshit quote here to sum up how I think you're acting so i can just ignore your points."

See I can do that too. 9_9

I can apply your same critiques to the Bay design too but it's pointless. I don't HATE the Bay designs. I'm not using these as ...metrics to judge successfullness or whatever either. I don't see why you're bringing box office into this as well since I never mentioned box office or the success of the films. Neither of those enter into my original statement but you and others just keep on dragging that in. I don't get it. Also, there's no rant here. I'm just arguing my original point but all of you just keep heaping things into this that are nothing to do with my original statement.

I dunno, maybe all of you just grew up with the 2007 films as kids and just...feel the need to defend your childhood. I grew up with Beast Wars and RiD so I dunno, maybe this is what Bay fans feel like constantly.

 

I don't understand how any of what you said is exclusive to the designs you see here. You could say the same exact thing for the Bayverse designs: smooth outer parts forming a shell around more of the exposed details. DOTM Prime's chest had the same exact exposed detail like you mentioned. The only difference with these designs is that the outer parts are larger, thus, more useful as an armor. Another difference is that these just happen to look more like the source material. Also, it's way more pleasing to the eye and much easier to follow in battle. Have you looked at Prime's face close up? It still has detail but it just has a different shape and less depth in the mask area.



You say people like the designs because they're G1, but it seems like you don't like the designs because they're G1.

 

By AoE, Bay et al had abandoned the idea of having realistic mass congruency or physically possible transformations between robot and alt modes. The 2007 quote that you couldn't have a robot of the size he wanted from a flat-nosed truck still stands.

I grew up with G1, and I think the Optimus design from Bumblebee is lacking. For a live-action movie, the 2007 design looked a lot better. The design from BB looks kinda fake and cheap.

 

Yeah, I dislike the designs because they're G1. Not like I buy primarily CHUG, said that the toy looked better than the movie design or anything. I don't like G1 Prime. You have me all figured out.

This design is far more inconsistent than any of the other designs and that exposed area actually looked like something. The outer parts, by virtue of being larger yet trying to maintain a "detailed" look end up with large flat swaths with bits jutting out of them. By being larger, these look worse because they don't blend in with the exposed parts. They clash with them. Somewhere, there is a proper middle ground but the designers did not find it in the film.

What the hell was your original statement supposed to be, exactly? Perhaps you didn't state it clearly enough and that's why people are extracting incorrect interpretations? Or, you know, maybe there isn't any objective metric to say whether or not these "work" any more or less than prior or at all. People have called these designs cartoony, video game like, etc. and those are just as valid as your stance.

And to set things straight here so people can stop assuming some inane anti-G1 bias: I started with the cartoons. The movies were an off-the-wall reinterpretation I found out about going to Walmart. I explicitly remember being surprised the police car toy was a Decepticon.

 

Looks good! It's like IDW, G1, and Movie wrapped into one.

 

How does this look anything more "something" than what's on Bumblebee movie Prime?



Seriously, there's nothing better about the abdominal area on DOTM Prime. You either like this, like the other, or like both, but nothing is inherently better about DOTM Prime's abs.

It's funny you called the abs on Bee movie Prime a dark space of nothingness when that statement can't be anymore accurate with DOTM Prime.

They don't look anything like that. The detail bits are at a lower depth than the large metal plating, not jutting out like you mentioned. If anything, it's not jutting out any more than the sharp angled peices present all over Bayverse designs. The parts don't clash anymore than the flat prices and detailed pieces on Bayverse designs. This is the middle ground. You can't get anymore middle ground than a mix of complex and simplified. If you lean one way or another, you will either get too detailed like the Bayverse designs or not enough detail like designs made for TV animation.

The designs in the Bayverse have their place. Hell, I actually like some of them including Prime, but the G1 influenced designs have a place too. Personally, I prefer Bee Movie Prime.

 

DOTM has obvious defined ab shapes. It's worse than the grill-like section on the earlier movie designs, however.

Fine, I worded that badly. They are flat spaces with random gaps revealing nonsense parts. And, yes, they do, because they again are larger parts revealing smaller parts. More broken apart or broken apart in a more sensible fashion wouldn't clash as much. Large smooth spaces + small pieces don't match particularly well. There were chunks of the vehicle and armor pieces, but were segmented or small enough that it looked more in line with the rest of the design. They were part of the detail. The AOE era made the car parts too small, whereas this makes them too large — or rather, simply not detailed enough to help mesh with the places more exposed. If you don't see the difference, I have no more to say to you.

And, while this is a middle ground, it isn't the only or best middle ground. If his shoulders and chest were slightly more segmented while still keeping the chunk of the red, it would look better and match the legs better. This is a bit literal of a mix between simplified and detailed when the top is smooth and blocky with little breaking up, while the bottom is smooth bits that are broken up by detail.

And being broken up by detail isn't really bad; the shins aren't half bad. Giant solid pieces, then large gaps just don't look right. It's like a movie bot is hiding in a cartoon bot suit.

Or the better, more simple way to say it, is that blocky and detailed done the way it is here results in clashing.

 

So because DOTM Prime has human-like abs, it makes it better? What?

Again, this not exclusive to Bee movie Prime's design.

Whatever you have described has been present in countless live-action mechs. Large parts with small exposed detailed—that's just a popular design aesthetic. No one seems to be complaining about the designs in Pacific Rim which do the same exact thing.



I don't see how you'd be able to segment Prime's design anymore without looking like adding detail for the sake of it. Segment the chest even more? At that point, it would be even more complex and gappy than Bayverse Prime. It looks plenty detailed to me.



Honestly, it just seems like you are you digging at the bottom of the barrel to prove your opinion. It's okay to hate the design, but just because you don't like this design, in particular, does not make it a bad design.

 

You do realize that me calling it ugly doesn't mean that I am staying that as an end all, be all, right? Does every opinion have to be prefaced with an "in my opinion" just so people know that it is an opinion? Can't we just assume that all talk here is opinion based?

And do I look like a Pacific Rim fan to you?

Yes, adding detail for the sake of it would be the point... to match the other parts that are detail for the sake of it. About the abs: you don't see how something looking like something stops it from looking like nothing? Well then.

And I like how you made a diagram showing things that make me like the TF1 design better.   The flat spaces, gaps and nonsense parts actually flowing together instead of looking separate. Edit: the vehicle parts move in a manner that lines up with the parts, rather than everything being forcefully flat/blocky.

But I don't think we will come to an agreement so I am going to leave. Edit: And it is seriously perturbing that you would say that I am making things up when the detail spaces on this and the vehicle ones clearly do not flow dynamically with each other in the manner the above design does. You just can't see how one part being flatter contrasts with the exposed ones?