Movie Review - (TF6) Transformers Bumblebee

[GoktimusPrime]

* Screw scale. The triple-changers seem to change into really small aircraft. Then again maybe that's exactly what they do. It's not like they have to be sized to carry humans, and only have to look right at a distance. Do Decepticons give a damn about scale?

The aircraft and vehicles seem to be in scale with other. As discussed on the Studio Series Dropkick review thread, the Huey is a rather small helicopter. But still definitely larger than a muscle car.

The movie does show the aircraft being larger than the car modes, but the aircraft fold up into the cars. Yeah, it's super complex and, together with the scale issue, we can see why it's not possible to make a triple-changing SS figure. But as far as mass displacement goes - with the assumption of sub-space mass-shifting - it generally works.

It's a lot better than the "Tetris-formers" of Age of Extinction or the outright ridiculous morphing that we see in AOE and The Last Knight. Gah! Take Optimus Prime for example. Where the hell do things go? Look at how the rear half of the truck just gets swallowed into his back! No wonder the toys have a hell of a time dealing with that part of the vehicle in robot mode, with all of them being backpackformers (especially the Leaders).

And feel free to freeze-frame watch the combination transformation for Dragonstorm and Volcanicus. It's so cheap and lazy (only, ya know, with double the budget of Bumblebee).

[Magnus]

Finally got around to watching Bumblebee today.

I thought it was decent-good, but not great. I think there were two reasons for this:

The first is the blatant break in continuity. Sure, people like to take dumps on the Bay movies for a perceived lack of continuity, and there have been issues, but in reality, the continuity is NOWHERE near as bad as people make it out to be. The opening scene of Bumblebee was a big continuity break seemingly for the sake of getting those G1 designs on-screen, and it seems to change the motivation for going to Earth - Bumblebee isn't explicitly sent to look for the AllSpark (although that could easily be a secondary objective), but instead goes to Earth (a planet that Optimus now knows about instead of not knowing much if anything about it) to determine if conditions are suitable for a base of operations.

Also, the G1 designs clash with the established design aesthetic. I liked the original movieverse aesthetic because the Transformers are portrayed as complex mechanical aliens. The G1-esque designs don't look alien. Futuristic? Yes. Alien? Not really.

The opening scene therefore represents not only a storytelling but an aesthetic continuity break. If people criticise the Bay movies for a lack of continuity, they should criticise Bumblebee, too.

The second thing that seems to have tempered my enjoyment of Bumblebee is that it got hyped up a lot - because I kept reading about of the hype and people praising it, I probably expected the movie to be awesome, which it wasn't - to me, at least. I was probably expecting to get my mind blown, and I was disappointed when my mind wasn't blown. Then again, I knew going in that Bumblebee was going to be 'low-key', and that it simply couldn't compete in terms of action or spectacle.

That's not to say the movie was bad - it wasn't, at all. Although it does feel like a rehash of the first movie, and is more than a little E.T.-esque, it's still fun to watch, and it's... wholesome? Heartwarming?

One area that it benefited from was the simpler story/plot. The previous five movies were written to have a lot going on - there were lots of characters that all needed screentime, and the writers were giving complex backstory that needed exposition to give the movies more depth and possibly avoid accusations of being 'simple' or 'brainless'. As a result, the plots were surprisingly convoluted. This is why I find the statement that the previous movies 'had no plot' annoying and inaccurate - if anything, they probably had 'too much' plot. I never had problems following the plots of the previous movies, but this one was easy to follow because it was simple. It was very straightforward - there wasn't elaborate backstory that needed exposition or twists and turns in the plot.

Performances - I'm not fussy about acting, but I liked Hailee Steinfeld's performance, and she was definitely a highlight for me.

Some people have praised the more 'family-friendly' nature of Bumblebee, but it's also worth keeping in mind that Michael Bay explicitly makes his movies for teens and up, and that 'older' target audience probably helped expand his movies' appeal beyond little kids and parents into the young adult demographic and contributed to their box office success.

[GoktimusPrime]

I think Bayformers has far greater issues with continuity.

The Transformers were made by the AllSpark Cube... but wait, no... they were made by fleshy pink Creators. No, screw that, they were made by a metallic goddess. Megatron arrived on Earth in the early 20th Century and the other Transformers arrived in 2007. No wait, the Transformers arrived thousands of years ago and forced the Egyptians to build the pyramids in order to house a Solar Harvester. Thousands or millions of years ago Megatron made an alliance with the Fallen and he now needed Optimus Prime dead in order for The Fallen to rise again. Oh, and there have been Transformers living on Earth for ages as Seekers. But not for long! It also turns out that thousands or millions of years ago, Megatron also made an alliance with Sentinel Prime who needed Optimus Prime alive in order to manipulate him to use the Matrix of Leadership to reactivate Sentinel. The Decepticons have been infiltrating human society for decades and manipulated the space programme. And there's an army of Decepticons on the Moon that for some reason everyone forgot were there before. Anyway, plan is to bring Cybertron to Earth in order to destroy it and enslave humanity to rebuild Cybertron. But not for long! It turns out that the Transformers' creators have been to Earth in the prehistoric past where they terraformed Earth in order to create Cybert--, Transformium, and make Transformers. This apparently wiped out life on Earth... even though there's still... life... on Earth. And the Decepticons can "transform" like flying Tetris blocks. And Optimus Prime was part of some ancient order of knights, some of whom became the Dinobots. But not for long! It turns out that an order of Autobot Knights (any relation to the Dinobots?) allied themselves with the Camelot. They gave a special stick to Merlin that could only be activated by a member of his bloodline. And I guess by luck every direct descendant of Merlin continued to have children and somehow they're genetically similar enough for the staff to recognise over other humans that might be just a close a genetic match (inbreeding?). And Earth is Unicron now so Cybertron's come for a grudge fight and this now starts to awaken Unicron, even though he didn't seem bothered when Cybertron was space-bridged over by Sentinel Prime. Turns out that Cade is the last knight of Cybertron, despite not being Cybertronian (screw the Dinobots!) and the girl that he likes is the direct descendant of Merlin. And for some reason which I'm sure is important to Cybertronians, the last knight must be chaste... and Cade qualifies despite being a biological father. But apparently there's a chastity reset -- I don't want to think about this any more. And yeah, the Autobots have been on Earth for a jolly long time too... sporting 21st century alt mode parts. Cos why can't Hot Rod have Lamborghini Centanario parts just after WWI? What's a Citroën?

Now I personally don't think that Bumblebee's continuity issues are nearly as bad as Bayformers... and given that continuity has been such a nightmare, I'm not sure why it even matters now.

Furthermore, two very important facts to bear in mind regarding Bumblebee's continuity.

1: Travis Knight did consult Michael Bay (and Bay did produce this film)
Knight sat down with Bay and talked to him about continuity issues regarding Bumblebee and how he should approach it. Bumblebee was made with Bay's blessing... and money.

2: Studio interference
The original cut of Bumblebee that Knight had filmed was more in-continuity with Bayformers. Knight had intended for Bumblebee to be a direct prequel. However, Paramount later decided that they wanted it to be a reboot and parts of the movie were reshot or omitted. For example, the original version would have shown us a frozen Megatron inside Sector 7's Hoover Dam base. He would have looked more like G1 Megatron with a fusion cannon attached to his arm, but cosmetic differences aside it would have been a direct visual link with the 2007 movie. Jack Burns (Cena) was also a darker and more serious character, but Paramount wanted more comedy so reshots were done. Initially Bumblebee accidentally killed one (some?) of Burns' comrades. This is why Burns seems so hostile and fearful towards Bumblebee in some parts of the film, like when he says that he's seen what the Transformers are capable of. Initially this meant that he's seen them kill people before, but in the final cut it comes across as meaning that he's seen people, including himself, get hurt.

So yeah, Knight's original vision was actually to have a Bumblebee movie that was closer to Bayformers, and this was done in consultation with Bay. But Paramount decided to take it in a different direction. But at the end of the day we still have a movie with a heart. A movie that's a proper story, and that is what film is - a story-telling medium.

but it's also worth keeping in mind that Michael Bay explicitly makes his movies for teens and up,

What kind of teens was he targeting?!?

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings for adolescents (The Hobbit was written for children). None of those stories relied on cheap parlour tricks to engage the audience. They instead engaged the audience by actually have engaging stories motivated by character development! And I've taught The Hobbit as a junior text in a unit of work about the Hero's (Bilbo's) Journey. Bumblebee works in a similar way. Both Bilbo and Bumblebee go on a fairly simple and straightforward character arc. Frodo's arc is more complicated, but that's because LOTR was written for teens; if the next TF standalone film can step up from Bilbo level characterisation to Frodo level characterisation then I think we'd be in for a real treat. And especially if the next TF film is focusing on Optimus Prime, as Frodo's journey (as well as the other 3 Hobbits) is one of going from being civilians to battle hardened veterans - and in Frodo's case, irreparable PTSD (which is why Gandalf and the Elves take Frodo, unable to readjust to civilian life, to nurse him in the Grey Havens).

[Magnus]

I think Bayformers has far greater issues with continuity.

The Transformers were made by the AllSpark Cube... but wait, no... they were made by fleshy pink Creators. No, screw that, they were made by a metallic goddess. Megatron arrived on Earth in the early 20th Century and the other Transformers arrived in 2007. No wait, the Transformers arrived thousands of years ago and forced the Egyptians to build the pyramids in order to house a Solar Harvester. Thousands or millions of years ago Megatron made an alliance with the Fallen and he now needed Optimus Prime dead in order for The Fallen to rise again. Oh, and there have been Transformers living on Earth for ages as Seekers. But not for long! It also turns out that thousands or millions of years ago, Megatron also made an alliance with Sentinel Prime who needed Optimus Prime alive in order to manipulate him to use the Matrix of Leadership to reactivate Sentinel. The Decepticons have been infiltrating human society for decades and manipulated the space programme. And there's an army of Decepticons on the Moon that for some reason everyone forgot were there before. Anyway, plan is to bring Cybertron to Earth in order to destroy it and enslave humanity to rebuild Cybertron. But not for long! It turns out that the Transformers' creators have been to Earth in the prehistoric past where they terraformed Earth in order to create Cybert--, Transformium, and make Transformers. This apparently wiped out life on Earth... even though there's still... life... on Earth. And the Decepticons can "transform" like flying Tetris blocks. And Optimus Prime was part of some ancient order of knights, some of whom became the Dinobots. But not for long! It turns out that an order of Autobot Knights (any relation to the Dinobots?) allied themselves with the Camelot. They gave a special stick to Merlin that could only be activated by a member of his bloodline. And I guess by luck every direct descendant of Merlin continued to have children and somehow they're genetically similar enough for the staff to recognise over other humans that might be just a close a genetic match (inbreeding?). And Earth is Unicron now so Cybertron's come for a grudge fight and this now starts to awaken Unicron, even though he didn't seem bothered when Cybertron was space-bridged over by Sentinel Prime. Turns out that Cade is the last knight of Cybertron, despite not being Cybertronian (screw the Dinobots!) and the girl that he likes is the direct descendant of Merlin. And for some reason which I'm sure is important to Cybertronians, the last knight must be chaste... and Cade qualifies despite being a biological father. But apparently there's a chastity reset -- I don't want to think about this any more. And yeah, the Autobots have been on Earth for a jolly long time too... sporting 21st century alt mode parts. Cos why can't Hot Rod have Lamborghini Centanario parts just after WWI? What's a Citroën?

Ok, I'll bite. It's interesting that you deliberately presented everything in the most obfuscating manner possible by creating a single seemingly unorganised mass of text.

The Transformers were made by the AllSpark Cube... but wait, no... they were made by fleshy pink Creators.

Where's the contradiction here? The presence of the Creators in no way contradicts the idea of the AllSpark. The AllSpark had to have been created by somebody, and the AllSpark doesn't just randomly generate 'bots by itself - its power needs to be directed or activated by somebody. Why not these Creators?

No, screw that, they were made by a metallic goddess.

Fair point. Still, Quintessa is implied to have been influential on early Cybertron.

Then again, the Guardian Knights called her 'the great deceiver', so take what she says with a train of salt.

Megatron arrived on Earth in the early 20th Century and the other Transformers arrived in 2007. No wait, the Transformers arrived thousands of years ago and forced the Egyptians to build the pyramids in order to house a Solar Harvester.

Again, where's the contradiction? Transformers arriving in the first movie doesn't contradict or preclude the idea of older ones arriving on Earth before.

Thousands or millions of years ago Megatron made an alliance with the Fallen and he now needed Optimus Prime dead in order for The Fallen to rise again. Oh, and there have been Transformers living on Earth for ages as Seekers. But not for long! It also turns out that thousands or millions of years ago, Megatron also made an alliance with Sentinel Prime who needed Optimus Prime alive in order to manipulate him to use the Matrix of Leadership to reactivate Sentinel. The Decepticons have been infiltrating human society for decades and manipulated the space programme. And there's an army of Decepticons on the Moon that for some reason everyone forgot were there before. Anyway, plan is to bring Cybertron to Earth in order to destroy it and enslave humanity to rebuild Cybertron. But not for long!

Ok, fine. It gets a bit confusing here, but it can be sorted out:

1. Megatron starts a war for control of the AllSpark, apparently with the Fallen hovering in the background.

2. Sentinel Prime negotiates an end to the war with Megatron, possibly promising to deliver his Space Bridge technology.

3. Sentinel Prime is lost to space. No more Sentinel.

4. Megatron continues the war, and the AllSpark is lost.

5. Megatron flies after the AllSpark.

6. Megatron lands on Earth.

7. The Ark lands on the Moon.

8. The Ark is found by Decepticons, possibly while looking for Megatron and the AllSpark. Soundwave and Laserbeak move on to Earth, while other Decepticons stockpile Space Bridge pillars and wait for the next move.

9. The 2007 movie happens. The AllSpark is lost.

10. Revenge of the Fallen happens. Megatron returns to the Fallen without the AllSpark, but fortunately there's a new plan: that planet he was on happens to have an old Harvester on it. They can use that to make Energon and use that to rebuild Cybertron, and kill the last known Prime while they're at it.

11. The Harvester is destroyed, and the Fallen is killed.

12. Megatron learns that Sentinel Prime is on the moon. He knows that Optimus now has the Matrix, so he comes up with a new plan: engineer the Autobots' discovery of the Ark so Optimus can revive Sentinel Prime. Since Sentinel is in league with Megatron, they can come up with something once Sentinel is reactivated.

13. Dark of the Moon happens. Sentinel and Megatron get back in contact and come up with a new plan: since this planet they're on happens to have a large population of intelligent creatures on it, use those Space Bridge pillars to bring Cybertron to Earth and get them to do a lot of the work of rebuilding.

There you go. No contradictions. Continuity is preserved.

It turns out that the Transformers' creators have been to Earth in the prehistoric past where they terraformed Earth in order to create Cybert--, Transformium, and make Transformers. This apparently wiped out life on Earth... even though there's still... life... on Earth.

Again, where's the contradiction here? I already stated that the idea of the creators doesn't preclude the AllSpark. It is well known that the dinosaur extinction didn't wipe out all life on Earth.

And the Decepticons can "transform" like flying Tetris blocks. And Optimus Prime was part of some ancient order of knights, some of whom became the Dinobots. But not for long!

Again, where's the contradiction here? Nothing we've seen so far precludes the idea of the 'knights'.

It turns out that an order of Autobot Knights (any relation to the Dinobots?) allied themselves with the Camelot. They gave a special stick to Merlin that could only be activated by a member of his bloodline. And I guess by luck every direct descendant of Merlin continued to have children and somehow they're genetically similar enough for the staff to recognise over other humans that might be just a close a genetic match (inbreeding?).

Again, where's the contradiction to previous movies here?

And Earth is Unicron now so Cybertron's come for a grudge fight and this now starts to awaken Unicron, even though he didn't seem bothered when Cybertron was space-bridged over by Sentinel Prime.

Ok, fair point. Clearly Unicron has been dormant and slept through a lot of stuff. If he can stay dormant through meteor strikes, earthquakes, and aliens terraforming part of his surface, then he can sleep through anything. Then again, one wonders if the extra gravity from a body as large as Cybertron so close to him might be enough to wake him up, but we never got to find out.

Turns out that Cade is the last knight of Cybertron, despite not being Cybertronian (screw the Dinobots!) and the girl that he likes is the direct descendant of Merlin. And for some reason which I'm sure is important to Cybertronians, the last knight must be chaste... and Cade qualifies despite being a biological father. But apparently there's a chastity reset -- I don't want to think about this any more.

Cade was 'chosen' because the knight gave him the talisman. Odds are anybody who it was given to would have been 'chosen'.

Chastity was one of the traditional qualities of a knight - who said it was a Cybertronian requirement? Granted, it's been a while since I've seen The Last Knight.

And yeah, the Autobots have been on Earth for a jolly long time too... sporting 21st century alt mode parts.

The idea of Transformers being on Earth isn't contradictory, but the art department made a mistake by making the 'historical images' those of modern Transformers. Point conceded.



Like I said, nowhere near as bad as some people think.

Furthermore, two very important facts to bear in mind regarding Bumblebee's continuity.

1: Travis Knight did consult Michael Bay (and Bay did produce this film) Knight sat down with Bay and talked to him about continuity issues regarding Bumblebee and how he should approach it. Bumblebee was made with Bay's blessing... and money.

So, wait... it's not just up to the director? There are other people involved in the decision-making process? What about 'the director has final say' as you've stated before when blaming Bay for the previous movies' faults?

2: Studio interference
The original cut of Bumblebee that Knight had filmed was more in-continuity with Bayformers. Knight had intended for Bumblebee to be a direct prequel.

Yet Knight made a point to break aesthetic continuity by including G1 designs. We know he did this because he said it was his decision.

But at the end of the day we still have a movie with a heart. A movie that's a proper story, and that is what film is - a story-telling medium.

I think the previous movies have actual stories and 'heart' as well - at their core, they're about ordinary people trying to make their way through life when they're caught up in an interstellar war - like in Bumblebee. You're meant to connect with and feel for the protagonists of the previous movies as well.

For that matter, what is 'heart', anyway? The idea that movies have 'heart' or 'soul' is something of an issue - often movies are criticised for not having it - yet these things are very much subjective and don't even have an 'agreed' definition.

[Paulbot]

Nicely put Magnus.

I think there’s only one potential continuity issue with the latest movie tying in to the others, but it’s one that can be easily solved with two words in the real world, a few lines of dialogue at most in a sequel, and is supported on screen in TLK. At least I think it is, I want to rewatch that film before I elaborate further.

[Magnus]

Nicely put Magnus.

I think there’s only one potential continuity issue with the latest movie tying in to the others, but it’s one that can be easily solved with two words in the real world, a few lines of dialogue at most in a sequel, and is supported on screen in TLK. At least I think it is, I want to rewatch that film before I elaborate further.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Which issue did you have in mind?

Sure, the continuity issue is something I put some effort into defending, and I kind of feel a little silly about it now that I've typed that defence out and potentially veered the thread off-topic. I'll admit, I've let the issue of continuity get to my head since I've decided to take a position to defend it, and I did admit that the aesthetic break in the beginning soured my experience with Bumblebee more than a bit.

Back to Bumblebee, since I thought that the simpler story was to the movie's benefit, I've now been wondering if perhaps future movies could take note of the simpler story in Christina Hodson's script and not worry too much about lore-building. Either that, or have somebody whose specific role is to fact-check things. Sure, the back-story each movies tries to introduce adds depth, but it also adds complexity.

[GoktimusPrime]

Ok, I'll bite. It's interesting that you deliberately presented everything in the most obfuscating manner possible by creating a single seemingly unorganised mass of text.

I was channelling Bob Hale from Horrible Histories.
"But not for long!"

Where's the contradiction here?

See, now you could apply this for much of the continuity issues with Bumblebee.

* Bumblebee arriving in 1987 and not WWII.
Who's to say that this was Bumblebee's first arrival on Earth? He could have arrived in WWII then left the planet, then arrived back again in 1987. The prequel comics show him being active in the 1960s.

* Sector 7's "first contact" with non-biological entities
Not all S7 agents may be privy to everything. Even Simmons previously said that he had to go searching within S7 archives to find out about stuff like the Seekers, which ended up with him being labelled as obsessed by his colleagues. But less obsessive guys like Powell and grunts like Burns certainly wouldn't be aware of stuff like NBE-1, the Seekers, the historical Autobot alliance etc. It's not unheard of for one hand of a government branch to not talk to the other (it certainly happens IRL enough times).

* Bumblebee and other Autobots arriving on Earth in 1987
Again, who's to say that they're going to stay there? Something may happen that makes Optimus Prime and the others leave Earth, then return again in 2007. Perhaps Bumblebee is the only one nominated to stay behind.

Are my excuses really lame and clutching at straws? Absolutely! But so were yours. What I'm saying is that the Michael Bay TF movies already established a pretty dodgy continuity base that it's not surprising that Bumblebee would have challenges in finding its place. Quite frankly, if the Bay Movies don't care enough to maintain a good, solid continuity that audiences can follow without having to invent excuses, then why should Bumblebee?

11. The Harvester is destroyed, and the Fallen is killed.

12. Megatron learns that Sentinel Prime is on the moon. He knows that Optimus now has the Matrix, so he comes up with a new plan: engineer the Autobots' discovery of the Ark so Optimus can revive Sentinel Prime. Since Sentinel is in league with Megatron, they can come up with something once Sentinel is reactivated.

13. Dark of the Moon happens. Sentinel and Megatron get back in contact and come up with a new plan: since this planet they're on happens to have a large population of intelligent creatures on it, use those Space Bridge pillars to bring Cybertron to Earth and get them to do a lot of the work of rebuilding.

Megatron knew that Sentinel Prime was on the Moon for a long, long, long time. Remember that the whole space race and Apollo 11 mission was something that the Decepticons had been seeding with secret alliances like with Dylan Gould's family. The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was due to a component from the Ark's engine that was housed there. So the Decepticons had been planning this, as per Megatron's instructions before he left Cybertron, since at least the 1960s.

Plan A (The Fallen) and Plan B (Sentinel Prime) are at complete odds with each other. If Megatron had successfully killed Optimus Prime, but let's say that his plan is otherwise thwarted... like maybe someone else stops the Fallen (he apparently cannot be killed by anyone other than a Prime, but let's say someone is able to imprison him or something), or maybe someone succeeds in destroying the Star Harvester before it can destroy the Sun. Let's say something happens that makes the plan fail but the Matrix of Leadership is never found, and sure, Optimus Prime remains dead. Plan B is screwed. All those centuries and decades of meticulous planning. The entire reason for directing humans into the space race and sending lunar missions. Wasted. No Matrix = no Sentinel Prime = no Space Bridge. What then?

See... tactically and logically this makes no sense. Your Plan B cannot contradict Plan A. That's not how contingency plans work.

Again, where's the contradiction here? I already stated that the idea of the creators doesn't preclude the AllSpark. It is well known that the dinosaur extinction didn't wipe out all life on Earth.

It was never stated that the Creators wiped out the dinosaurs. It was stated that they wiped out all life on Earth before. So... what are modern organisms descendant from?

Cade was 'chosen' because the knight gave him the talisman. Odds are anybody who it was given to would have been 'chosen'.

LOL There would be so many parallel universe alternatives of this scenario with hilarious results.

Chastity was one of the traditional qualities of a knight - who said it was a Cybertronian requirement?

Maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly, but I thought that Cade was chosen by the Talisman and also able to make it interact with the Round Table (which proved to be of at least partial Cybertronian make) because he exhibited the qualities of a knight, including chastity. Again, not sure why the Cybertronians would care about this. Also not sure why the knights of Camelot would care about this either. Religious vows such as chastity, poverty and obedience were something that was typically restricted to Militaris Ordinis (monastic knights such as the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitailer, Teutonic Knights etc.). It made little sense for other knights, as a class of nobility, to practise chastity and poverty. Who would inherit their titles and lands? Owning huge... tracts of land!

Like I said, nowhere near as bad as some people think.

The Fallen/Sentinel Plan A/Plan B thing is the worst culprit for me, but yeah, much of the other ones are more minor. But again, so are the continuity issues in Bumblebee. So you're gonna get nitpicky with one then you need to get nitpicky with all.

So, wait... it's not just up to the director? There are other people involved in the decision-making process? What about 'the director has final say' as you've stated before when blaming Bay for the previous movies' faults?

The director is the primary leader of a film. And in the cases of smaller independent films, s/he is the absolute authority. In bigger Hollywood blockbusters the studio can come into play... but it varies. Often studios aren't that interfering, but at other times they can be. Solo: A Star Wars Story is an example of when a studio was very interfering where the original directors were sacked, and Ron Howard was brought in to redirect and finish the film. A pretty extreme example, I'll grant you. But nonetheless, as the director it is Ron Howard who cops any praise or blame for the performance of Solo. He's the captain of the ship - the figurehead. That's the burden of leadership.

It's not too different from how say political leaders cop praise or blame for something that may not necessarily be something that they did (e.g. global economic factors beyond their control). For example, one problem with ROTF was the writers strike. That's not something that was Michael Bay's fault, but it didn't do the film any favours and Bay had to work with that. In July 2010, Michael Bay said, "I'll take some of the criticism. It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers' strike." - so while Bay adamantly pointed out that the film was let down by the strike, he did also cop it on the chin as the director.

And before we become too critical of studios interfering with directors, it could be argued that it's sometimes a good thing. Take Star Wars for example. 20th Century Fox were far more interfering with the creation of A New Hope and other people were generally more willing to be critical towards Lucas' ideas. Luke Starkiller... Revenge of the Jedi... Yoda being played by a monkey?! I think one problem that Lucas had when filming the Prequels was that he had become venerated as a godlike director. Here's the man who created Star Wars! In the 70s and 80s there were people who shot down some of Lucas' ideas, but by the 90s he'd become such a legendary figure that everyone was starstruck and probably thought that everything he thought of was a great idea. Jar Jar Binks? That sounds awesome! Now to Lucas' credit he did appear to realise that this was happening after The Phantom Menace, and we know that he had more assistance in co-directing Eps 2 and 3 and he was also more self-critical (e.g. Jar Jar Binks has a lesser but more important role in Ep 2, and in Ep 3 he only makes a brief voiceless cameo). If the studio wasn't willing to run interference then Lucas realised that he would have to run interference with or for himself.

Yet Knight made a point to break aesthetic continuity by including G1 designs. We know he did this because he said it was his decision.

That's a fair point. I think that Bumblebee has definitely made a visual reboot. Robots In Disguise did a similar thing as a sequel to TF Prime -- there was a change in design aesthetics, even in flashbacks and other characters appearing in the RID with the new design (e.g. Bulkhead, Ratchet etc.). And IDW did that a lot at one stage... especially when they were switching between Don Figueroa's hybrid Bayformers-G1 designs with the other artists' G1 designs. It kept on switching back and forth which I found weird. But yes, that was definitely Knight's intention, especially with the unmade/cut(?) scene showing a G1-style Megatron frozen in ice.

For that matter, what is 'heart', anyway? The idea that movies have 'heart' or 'soul' is something of an issue - often movies are criticised for not having it - yet these things are very much subjective and don't even have an 'agreed' definition.

I felt that Bumblebee elicited a far greater level of audience empathy and emotional investment than the Bay movies. I found myself being far more emotionally moved by these characters. I also found them to be more likable and memorable, even the Decepticons.

If you want a more objective measure, let's look at character development. This is linked with the Hero's Journey and how much the character has changed by the end of the story vs the beginning of the story. Bumblebee, from the 2007 film to the Last Knight, never changes as a character. He's stagnant. Many of the human protagonists don't seem to make many great changes... rather they just complete a set of tasks like a computer game character. Unlocking achievements isn't character development.

In Bumblebee our characters go on a shared journey of rediscovering lost identities. Charlie was a broken girl at the start of the film. Her world was devastated when she lost her father and her best mate. Her pain was unbearable and she found living to be increasingly difficult, taking an emotional toll on herself and her family. Her adventure with Bumblebee helped her to reconcile her feelings of grief. She started off using her automotive skills to repair Bumblebee - skills that her father had taught her. It was part of his legacy (which she previously felt was being lost because she couldn't finish fixing the Corvette). She even tried to sever some of her ties with her father when she attempted to get rid of her diving trophies and she also got angry when Bumblebee watched the diving video. But this would also come full circle when she ended up diving to rescue Bumblebee from the bottom of the canal. So there's this almost emotionally connective chain between Mr Watson, Charlie and Bumblebee. For me, the emotional climax of the story was when Charlie and Bumblebee embraced for the last time. They had helped each other to find themselves after being lost in darkness.

Sam's character arc in the 2007 movie was basically boy gets girl and is friends with the Autobots. Again, these are achievement unlocks rather than character developments. The Bayformer movies had more caricatures rather than fleshed out 3 dimensional characters. And to be fair, the G1 cartoon is also mostly populated by caricatures rather than characters. The first Michael Bay TF film was pretty faithful to the core spirit of the G1 cartoon (unlike say the G1 comics, Beast Wars or the IDW comics which actually go into greater depth with their characters).

Now I'm not saying that Bumblebee's character development is the bee's knees (no pun intended). As I said, it's probably more like the character development in The Hobbit or Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. Relatively straightforward and basic - something that kids can understand easily enough. But this isn't a bad thing either. E.T. has a similar level of character development. As I said before, books like The Lord of the Rings are stories that are aimed at an older adolescent audience, and thus have considerably greater depth in their character development.

[BigTransformerTrev]

1. Megatron starts a war for control of the AllSpark, apparently with the Fallen hovering in the background.

2. Sentinel Prime negotiates an end to the war with Megatron, possibly promising to deliver his Space Bridge technology.

3. Sentinel Prime is lost to space. No more Sentinel.

4. Megatron continues the war, and the AllSpark is lost.

5. Megatron flies after the AllSpark.

6. Megatron lands on Earth.

7. The Ark lands on the Moon.

8. The Ark is found by Decepticons, possibly while looking for Megatron and the AllSpark. Soundwave and Laserbeak move on to Earth, while other Decepticons stockpile Space Bridge pillars and wait for the next move.

9. The 2007 movie happens. The AllSpark is lost.

10. Revenge of the Fallen happens. Megatron returns to the Fallen without the AllSpark, but fortunately there's a new plan: that planet he was on happens to have an old Harvester on it. They can use that to make Energon and use that to rebuild Cybertron, and kill the last known Prime while they're at it.

11. The Harvester is destroyed, and the Fallen is killed.

12. Megatron learns that Sentinel Prime is on the moon. He knows that Optimus now has the Matrix, so he comes up with a new plan: engineer the Autobots' discovery of the Ark so Optimus can revive Sentinel Prime. Since Sentinel is in league with Megatron, they can come up with something once Sentinel is reactivated.

13. Dark of the Moon happens. Sentinel and Megatron get back in contact and come up with a new plan: since this planet they're on happens to have a large population of intelligent creatures on it, use those Space Bridge pillars to bring Cybertron to Earth and get them to do a lot of the work of rebuilding.

There you go. No contradictions. Continuity is preserved.

I like that, thats probably the most sense I've seen someone make out of the first 5 movies continuity.

Yeah, continuity would be great but by this time I don't really give a stuff. If the new Bee movie wants to contradict what has come before (which it has) thats fine with me. Personally I hope the powers that be give up on trying to make the new movies fit in with the old and decide to head off in a whole new direction instead.

[GoktimusPrime]

I think that Nostalgia Critic put it best in his Non-Review of The Last Knight. You can love Bayformers to bits -- that's fine. No problem with that. The issue is that the Bayformers films had become formulaic and repetitive. One thing that irritated many movie goers was the lack of something fresh and new.

This is what Bumblebee brings to the Transformers film franchise. Something different. At least, something different for Transformers. Yes, the plot is basically the same as E.T., so I'm not pretending that it's the most original idea ever. But it is something different for Transformers. And some people may like it and maybe some people don't, but it was high time for some change. And we know that AOE and especially TLK made less money, so the studio needed to look for change in the next movie. Michael Bay basically lathered, rinsed and repeated his formula across his Transformers films - and if you love that formula, that's fine... but you've had 10 years of it. Can we have something different now? Please?

Sure, Bumblebee's not perfect, but it tries to be different. And it tries to be good. And this is the thing -- movies don't need to be perfect (there are few that can be said to be flawless), they just need to be good. The MCU is a great example of this. Their movies aren't perfect, but they are - for the most part - considered to be good, likable films that people want to watch more of. The MCU has also been running for over a decade now and people aren't sick of them! Fans are eagerly anticipating films like Avengers Endgame and Spider-Man Far From Home.

With Bayformers... if you love those films it was a case of, "Here we go again!" \(^O^)/
But if you were sick of them then it was a case of, "Here we go again..." (-_-)
And I don't want the Bumblebee formula to be repeated ad nauseum either. I do hope that the next film also tries something different.

[FruitBuyer]

Small correction, AoE did not make less. It is second only to Dark of the Moon at 1.1 billion.