The Transformers Cinematic Universe

[Asura]

No, the first film is ****e too. It's got some good scenes (when Bay is clearly being reined in). But is a terrible film.

The first film belongs to a different, pre-MCU era.

With properties like this, we were that used to Hollywood producers taking the project "to put their own stamp on it" (read: "do what I want and not give a crap about the original thing"). Occasionally that worked, like with Starship Troopers.

Actually, thinking about it, I'll revise that:

Once it worked, with Starship Troopers.

But generally speaking it resulted in adaptations that were both bad, and barely resembled their source material. Remember the GI Joe movie? When they first released info about it, the director wanted to make a super-hero movie about a character named GI Joe, and for that to be the movie.

But that meant with TF1, I think many of us were bracing for it being (1) bad and (2) nothing like the source, so when we actually got Optimus Prime transforming and saying, in Peter Cullen's voice, "I am Optimus Prime", or Megatron saying "You have failed me for the last time, Starscream-", or a character swinging off a gun-turret in a shot-for-shot version of how Kup does it in the movie, it just bought the movie much good-will.

But in a world where we've seen things like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the MCU, which have all collectively done a great job of bringing their material to the big screen by people who clearly had respect for that original material, I feel that retrospectively the movie suffers.

[Dogg Thang]

This year's Rise of the Beasts is the sequel to Bumblebee

Maybe technically but it doesn’t seem to follow the characters from that movie except for the presence of Bumblebee himself and some other Autobots who had no more than a cameo appearance in Bumblebee. The heart of that movie was in the human characters and their relationship with Bumblebee.

[teddymeow]

Did you ever wonder where Optimus Prime got his name? Well, in this thrilling origin story...

He was named Optimus by his mummy and daddy and then he pays a subscription for next day delivery... Or something.

[Soundwave]

Just watched the new trailer for Rise of Beasts & it's looking even better than I hoped

Apart from giving away huge information on the big bad it just looks all kinds of awesome & I can't wait

Will be the first Transformers movie I've seen on the big screen since the original on Boxing Day 1986

Neil

[Baseley09]

Bumblebee was ok tbh, all the others have been complete arseholes. In a race to the bottom, didn't mind dark of the moon.

Genuinley not been able to sit through some of them , tried em all.

[Neon Ignition]

I watched the trailer and began thinking as to how the hell all this happens in the 1990's but come the events of the first film no-one has a clue about Transformers etc


Then I remembered what film franchise I was thinking this about

[Neon Ignition]

[Dogg Thang]

They still look so bitty and messy, even though Arcee is actually recognisable, which I guess is a win on some level.

[Neon Ignition]

Hemsworth Leads Animated "Transformers" Cast - Dark Horizons
Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry and Scarlett Johansson will lead the voice cast list on the animated prequel film which is now officially titled Transformers: One

Hemsworth will voice Optimus whilst Henry will voice Megatron

Johansson voices Eilta, Keegan-Michael Kay voices Bumblebee, Jon Hamm voices Sentinel Prime and Lawrence Fishburn voices Alpha Trion

Josh Cooley, director of Toy Story 4, is helming the film

[Neon Ignition]

Embedded Tweet

[Neon Ignition]

New "Transformers" Runtime Relatively Short - Dark Horizons
The latest entry is 1hr 57m long

[Asura]

Good. I mean, a movie should take as long as it needs to tell the story it wants to tell, but my recollection is that ~3 of the prior movies felt waaaaay over-long.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.boxofficepro.com/long-range-box-office-forecast-transformers-rise-of-the-beasts-has-an-uphill-battle-between-spider-man-and-the-flash-next-month/

Early tracking has Transformers: Rise of the Beasts on course to crash and burn as hard as Morbius

[Asura]

https://www.boxofficepro.com/long-ra...sh-next-month/
Early tracking has Transformers: Rise of the Beasts on course to crash and burn as hard as Morbius

Gonna call it now.

I think this is going to defy those predictions and it's going to be a sleeper hit.

I think this for two reasons; firstly, because Transformers has always performed well at the box office (even if it's on a downward trajectory), but also, because I think people underestimate just how popular the Beast-era Transformers subfranchise is.

With its weird premise of robots who turn into animals (I mean, is that more weird than cars? I guess it is, a bit), the Beast stuff has always lived in the shadow of the older Transformers media. But there was a generation of kids who absolutely loved it. The shows were hugely popular; they ran for literally years with around 80 episodes. They absolutely weren't flash-in-the-pan.

Just watch. I may not think much of the Beast shows, as it wasn't my childhood, but I think those kids-now-adults will turn out in droves for this movie.

[Dogg Thang]

I realise this question would have been answered decades ago but… what’s the benefit in robots transforming into animal forms?