Looking at the domestic box office and how the movie toys have been moving at retail I wonder if the franchise is not in a stage of franchise fatigue. If franchise fatigue has set in then I don't know if throwing more films at the public even faster is the best plan ever. Could China pull all the extra films out if they get in a domestic box office jam?

 

who cares if there is no reboot mate. im glad we are getting more transformers and optimus

 

I'm actually interested in a cinematic universe for Transformers, that way we can have prequels, spin-offs, perhaps even a tv show that focuses on the Transformers. It would be very good. Hell, I'd give anything for a NEST focused tv series that would take over the course of the two year gap between TF1 and ROTF.

Sure! I'm definitely game. More Transformers for me!

 

We don't really know what happened to Cybertron. Only HALF of it was teleported, and for all we know that half could have been teleported back or been destroyed. We just don't know. But at the very least we have half a cybertron, which is enough

 

Meh. If we're gonna ride this "shared-universe" coattail, we need to leave Cybertron in the past. I don't really think this franchise needs to go hot 'n' heavy on space action, to be honest...it's not going to solve any of the franchise's OTHER problems, and it's probably more apt to magnify them than anything else.

What this franchise needs is for a new director AND a new writer to work with what's there that COULD accommodate a "Hasbro Cinematic Universe"...meaning, of course, that they'll have to sit through the previous TF movies, at least try to pay attention to them (which apparently is more than either Bay or Krueger seems capable of), and sift through the train wre--er, I mean, cherry-pick things that might be usable, and f***ing THROW AWAY the excessively-re-used crap. Oh, and it might be nice for whoever such a new creative duo would be to keep stock of anything they bring in/contribute to the existing mythology so that they'll be less tempted to just slap it on as they go and call it good.

For starters? I'd emphasize human characters who would actually be useful to whatever's going to pass for a plot. Joyce'd probably be one; Lennox and Epps, too. Past that, though, we don't need another damned "Boy & His Robot" retread...even Cade and Optimus in AoE is sort of a variation of that same tired premise. While we're at it, at this point we can probably afford to do away with the romances, too, since they tend to contribute very little if anything to this kind of film, and would be at most two less human characters to detract from the robots.

Secondly, I think it'd also be a nice change of pace for the franchise to have a Decepticon Big Bad who ISN'T going to be either a Dead Con Walking, or wuss out and run at the end of the movie spewing another clichéd "I'll Be Back!" snarl. Also, it'd be nice to have a Big Bad who doesn't really care about Ancient Buried World-Making Space Crap for a change, and just really, REALLY, REALLY wants to destroy human- and Autobot-kind, and for that matter any other species that stands in his way. Who knows, having that kind of villain remain around, hanging over the Earth as a serious threat...it just MIGHT prove useful for, y'know, other movies. I'm just sayin'. (Also, don't bring in and pump new robots all over the marketing of the film if they aren't really going to amount to all that much. Shockwave was a total disappointment, and I've heard plenty of horror stories about the Dinobots. Enough with the bait-and-switching.)

And, if you're gonna insist on this shared universe, don't get overly ambitious - stick with properties that actually make sense springing out of Transformers. G.I. Joe is an obvious one: we've already seen what happens when a shady, presumably-government-affiliated corporation gets their hands on Cybertronian technology...what do you suppose would happen if, say, a fledgling terrorist organization got THEIR bloodthirsty mitts on the same? Can you say "COBRAAAAAAAA!"? And with the Autobots still on the run (something about their leader apparently deliberately killing a human guy...), THEY certainly can't be counted on for help; seems like somebody's gonna have to assemble a crack team for this job...

 

A cinematic universe for Transformers would be great, but it needs to start with a complete reboot. The current films have far too much baggage....even though I really enjoyed Age of Extinction.

A modern, film-adapted, more realistic retelling of More than Meets the Eye, or even better, the first major arc from the comics, would be a great place to start.

Or, you know, sell the damn movie rights to Disney/Marvel, and collect the royalties and make great toys to go along with the films. Marvel did a great job with the Transformers comics, especially the pre-movie ones. They'd do a great job with Transformers flims too.

Really, when you just sit down and look at things - Hasbro sucks at this. They're a toy company that's trying to play in the big leagues of entertainment. The brand management flat out sucks.

They've got a failed TV network, they already tried the expanded universe thing and they couldn't even keep it together for a single novel/game....if they want to do a real expanded universe, they need to get some dedicated people in the industry and come up with a single-continuity "Transformers Bible", similar to how the Halo series has done it. If they keep trying to include a bunch of separate ideas that never fit well together in the first place, we're just going to get messy plots again.

 

I also get the feeling that Hasbro desperately wanted to be an entertainment company without knowing how to actually go about it. Like Marvel in the early film days they handed things over to someone else and hoped everything would work out.

Looking at a box office disappointment like Battleship and how GI Joe couldn't be made into one of the mega summer films it seems like Hasbro is just crossing it's fingers someone can take one of their toys and make it into a popular movie.

TV, yea Hasbro isn't looking like a powerhouse there either.

 

No offense, but a lot of you're "plot holes" aren't really plot holes,but instead events that can be easily answered and/or solved in a sentence or two.

 

I just love that at some point there was a meeting where someone said "we're making a Transformers cinematic universe!" and someone else stood up and shouted "Quick!! Somebody get me the guy who wrote Batman and Robin on the phone now!!"

I like the idea of marvel type universe, lots of good stories that could be told, but these guys can't connect the beginning and the end of single film together in a way that makes logical sense, how the hell they gonna deal with multiple movies

Also, these movies are all gonna be set on earth. hardly a "universe"

 

That's exactly what the problem is.

 

Yep, reminds me of the 80's, Oregon Trail, and floppy disks.

It would be dumb to start over with a different set of characters or completely different looking style, it would be a waste of money not to use any of the models they already have for backgrounds/environments/ships, or even robots they re-use.

 

Because killing off all but two of the Autobots from the previous film and replacing them with three new guys was somehow different?

compare TF1/ROTF/DOTM Optimus and Bumblebee designs...to AoE Optimus and Bumblebee designs.

They haven't done this since ROTF - seriously, where are they reusing Devestator's models? The Fallen? Skids and Mudflap? All that shit on the moon?

Everything you're saying are reasons why a reboot will not happen...is precisely what AoE already proved they're willing to do wholesale.

 

AoE was pretty much as close to a reboot as you can get without actually rebooting.

 

It even came with the whole "don't at all mention characters from the previous movies" deal.

 

Except Ratchet, Leadfoot, and Brains. As well as showing a head of Sentinel and a head of Megatron. And the deck of autonomy cards.

 

Please, tell me more about how those specific characters couldn't have been interchangable with Sideswipe, Mirage, Wheelie, Top Spin, or unnamed recolors of the Jazz and Ironhide CGI models?

The only importance of those characters is that they die except Brains who you really could just remove from the plot altogether and nothing would really change.

 

I should have mentioned that I was referring to human characters (whatever happened to Lennox?)

 

Why are people getting so defensive about a reboot?

The stories from the movies have always been cheap setups with a couple references to transformers lore and few explosions and lewd humor to keep the kiddies and man-kiddies happy.

There is no deep lore. There are no "explanations" for why things don't make sense in the films. It's all just made up and shoved out to theaters with little to no attention to detail.



If you like explosion-fests with poor stories- fine. More power to you. But these films NOT meant to be taken as seriously as they lead on.

Ya know and I bet, if you gave a new studio and crew, who care about the source material and the fans, a chance to make something new,
you might just *gasp* LIKE IT.

 

but here is why its a good idea.

Shit ton of money, and that's all Paramount, Hasbro, and whoever else is involved now needs to know  

 

It's kind of funny that when the first film came out the mantra was you have to roll with change, you have to accept change, Transformers can't keep doing the same thing forever. But now if you say reboot then people get all upset about the idea of change or that Transformers can't just keep doing the same thing forever.

I think I'm also in the same boat of I just don't see anything so iconic or memorable from the films that you could just scrap things and start over to breath some new life into Transformers. As much as I like Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger as the Joker I'm not going to say that no other actor can ever play a live action Joker again.