Bumblebee (2018)
 

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First movie of the live-action Transformers franchise (actually, a spinoff thereof) that won't be helmed by Michael Bay (who's been trying to pass the cooling potato to someone else for a while now...but keeps getting dragged back into the director's seat by the studios). Supposed to take place in California, 1987 and will star Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie, a 18-yo mechanic who finds a seemingly broken-down Bumblebee in a junkyard and brings him back home for repairs.

Poster:

https://i.imgur.com/Ps8PK9f.jpg

The trailer looks good so far since as it doesn't have any Michael Bay tropes like slo-mo, explosions, unnecessary fanservice and dumb plot. Looks like a good movie about a girl and her robot.

From the trailer alone, the movie seem to have a lot more heart compared to the Bayformers sequels. As expected from the director of Kubo and the Two Strings. Here's hoping the movie is actually good and audience will appreciate it. Kinda hoping that this movie will be the start of the Transformers reboot project.

My guard is still up when it comes to any live action Transformers movie at this point. But if nothing else the trailer looked solid. Not blowing me away good, but actually seems like it could be a decent movie. Something that honestly was harder to say about most of the Michael Bay Transformers movies.

If it turns out to be good I'll likely check it out.

Love Bumblebee's design in this movie, though I find the comparison to The Shape of Water from people online a bit cringey.

More G1 designs in Bumblebee movie:

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makes you think why they didn't do this for the 2007 movie in the first place?

From what I saw in the "Making of"-featurette and the Audio Commentray in the DVD/BD release back then, back in 2005/2006 before the movie was made, ILM didn't even know how to do a convincing/realistic transforming robots that still retain some parts of the vehicles when in robot mode. It's thanks to Michael Bay pushing the limit of the VFX technology with the help of a Japanese programmer that they were able to make a a program that can make a convincing mechanical transforming objects (robots, in this case). But the achievement of the VFX was encouraged by the "realism" of the designs of the Japanese artists. They seem to put more focus on portraying "realistic alien-robots" and "realistic setting" than capturing the aesthetic of the G1 (which, let's admit it, some G1 designs do look silly). At the time, they couldn't wrap their heads around Megatron transforming into a gun, Soundwave who is a big tape-recorder that launch cassette-transformers, and Starscream who is a jet fighter with bright primary colors and silly face. They thought the G1 designs were gonna look dumb when put in a realistic world where the US Forces take the Transformers invasion seriously. And the VFX-team certainly didn't want something silly-looking and simple as their transforming-robot debut. I'm partly agree with them. That Skorponok-scene is still one of the best scenes in the entire Bayformers series thanks to the added realism without committing the sin of "too much is happening on screen" that later sequels are guilty of.

I'm actually one of those (few) people who respect Transformers (2007) and Michael Bay for what they have done to push and advance the VFX technology. Hollywood VFX have never seen that much breakthrough ever since Jurassic Park. Note that before TF1, the most complex CGI character that ILM had done was General Grievous from Star Wars III. To go from Grievous to transforming Optimus Prime is no small feat.

Yeah, Bay and the others weren't too enthused by the whole "walking toaster" appearance of G1 bots and wanted something more organic - and that meant more moving pieces. Additionally, Bay implemented the rule that, aside from the AllSpark that was practically a mystical/magical artifact, the Transformers shouldn't be able to defy the laws of physics when changing forms - i.e. no change in overall volume; nothing gets bigger or smaller when transforming...mass just shifts around. This rule is the reason why Optimus didn't get his traditional cab over truck appearance from the cartoons: it simply didn't provide enough "body volume" and give Optimus his tall appearance (he'd have been much shorter); they had to switch to the traditionally-bodied Peterbilt truck to find room for the arms and torso and ensure Optimus would be one of the taller (I think he was 18m tall? can't remember) Autobots.

Bay also was not fond of the idea of Megatron transforming into a handgun to be fired by Starscream or another Decepticon. He basically argued, "imagine Darth Vader transforming into a light saber and being wielded by a stormtrooper - ain't that silly". To make up for that, Megatron received cannon arms instead.

Bay really pushed ILM to develop ray tracing techniques for more realistic vehicles - he had shot enough car commercials to know that reflections would play a big part in their appeal and appearance and so he petitioned ILM to dig on that side, resulting in very complex but realistic models. And complexity went up with time...during TF2, ILM managed to crash its entire computer pool when trying to make the first render for Devastator, which eventually became a record-breaker in the complex CGI model category.

I'm a bit frightened. This is both looking like a good movie and a good Transformers film. What is happening!?

Honestly, the transformers look better. This is starting to look like a Transformers movie that I can hope does well rather than groan at if it does well.

Bumblebee Puts the Transformers Franchise Back on Track:

"The new Transformers prequel spin-off Bumblebee, from Kubo and the Two Strings
director Travis Knight working off a script by writer Christina Hodson — she's working
on two upcoming DC movies, Birds of Prey and Batgirl — is exactly what Transformers
should always have been. Hodson has said that she wanted the film to be a very
simple story about a girl and her car, recalling what Spielberg said over a decade ago.
And that's what it is. Bumblebee is centred on the titular mute yellow robot that can
turn into a car, in this case a Volkswagen Beetle, and his human friend, in this case a
nearly 18-year-old named Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld, from The Edge of
Seventeen).

Sure, Bumblebee has elements that are seemingly requisite of Transformers movies.
There's John Cena as Agent Burns, part of the US military that is duped by two evil
robot aliens — known as the Decepticons — Shatter (Angela Bassett, from Black
Panther) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux, from The Leftovers) into helping them hunt
down the noble Bumblebee. The film is set in the late ‘80s, which is why no one yet
knows the good robots from the bad. And there's even a world-ending plot of sorts,
one that can only be stopped by Transformers going at each other in the end. But all
that is mostly in the background, and Bumblebee succeeds by keeping the focus on
the human-machine bond."

See:

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/entertainme...railer-1972201


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How Bumblebee's Post-Credits Scene Retcons Michael
Bay's Transformers:

"Ultimately, Bumblebee's post-credits scene is about setting up more Transformers
movies in the vein of what Travis Knight has achieved in his critical smash, something it
teases in an effective way. The Michael Bay era is unavoidably over, and so minimal lip-
service is only to be expected. Simply put, canon is not the key concern (but this is
nevertheless surely the start of a much bigger retcon)."

See:

https://screenrant.com/bumblebee-pos...ormers-retcon/