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[Rodimus Prime]

It has some wokeness, but there just about 4 stupid short dialogue moments, nothing more. Has nothing to do with the plot. No, it's not woke, has some silly woke stuff. For Transformers and Beast Wars fans, go watch and support it.

The director doesn't deserve it. If those 4 moments have nothing to do with the story, why include them?

Why was this posted?

Because it's a spoiler thread.

[cloudballoon]

Well, Scourge face reveal is not even a spoiler, there's just no context.

We're in a clickbait world right now. Top military secrets are handed out to near lowest ranking, part-timer personel willy-nilly and these lowlifes release everything on Discord, Reddit and social media for clicks/fame. No secrets are safe. Paramount/ROTB's marketing machine probably think intentionally revealing everything pre-premiere is the better hype machine to get more people buying tickets.

[Emerje]

Watched the movie Thursday at 3pm. I like it. Can't say I even remember any "wokeness" in the movie, but I tend to be oblivious to that anyway, people with different and harmless ideas from me don't really scare me enough to spend much time thinking about it.

Anyway, I assume at some point we'll get an Apelinq repaint (or even a retool?) of Optimus Primal. I've been avoiding spoilers so that was the biggest surprise for me. That and the G.I.Joe bit, I was expecting NEST or Sector 7 or something.

They really did miss an opportunity to make the Terrorcons sympathetic villains. They should have painted them as characters that didn't enjoy what they do but were forced to by Unicron, perhaps through some sort of influence, mind control. Him just being a killer for Unicron despite the mention of his home world was lazy. I was hoping he would be his planet's Prime that Unicron tainted and there'd be some glimmer of his heroism as he was being tortured.

Mirage rapidly changing forms as a nod to G1 characters was neat, but I think the garbage truck might have been a hologram instead. I didn't find him to be nearly as annoying as I thought he'd be. He certainly lasted longer than Jazz.

It was strange that there were three specific tasks that only the humans could do. Human involvement is already contentious in these movies, but having three scenarios that only the humans could do was a little forced.

Finally, they really should have explained better what was meant when Primal said he was their future and their past. Beast Wars fans get it, but casuals watching the movie wouldn't.

Emerje

[noctorro]

Watched the movie Thursday at 3pm. I like it. Can't say I even remember any "wokeness" in the movie,

Anyway, I assume at some point we'll get an Apelinq repaint (or even a retool?)

They really did miss an opportunity to make the Terrorcons sympathetic villains. They should have painted them as characters that didn't enjoy what they do but were forced to by Unicron,

Finally, they really should have explained better what was meant when Primal said he was their future and their past. Beast Wars fans get it, but casuals watching the movie wouldn't.

Emerje

The wokeness was small, but I have pointy ears because of how Hollywood treats its consumers. There was as silly bit on racism and assuming. But it was harmless imho.

Apelinq looked freaking demon awesome. I hope they make him into a toy. At first I thought there are simply more Primal gorilla bots, like a tribe or team.

I agree on your terrorcon bit, they talked (thank god) but were still shallow as a puddle. Scourge's whole planet and entire race got destroyed right? That's where more dialogue was needed to enrichen the story/world.

Same goes for Primal's story. How did they end up on a Maximal Planet, whilst being from the future and named after Optimus. These are story elements that would've been great to flesh out more.

[noctorro]

Just saw it, .

Why was this posted?

Because freedom is the right of all sentient beings.

+ this is the spoiler section and this site spoils the movie anyways. So no reason not to give a small review.

What they could've (maybe should've done) for seeds to a sequel:
1. Bumblebee remain coma and can only be fixed by something @ Cybertron
2. Optimus being sucked into the thingy and lost (they have to find him)
3. Now Primal has to be the leader of the Autobots and Maximals

What also bugs me is the fact that Scourge is stronger than Optimus in the beginning of the movie.
Scourge is also stronger than Primal.

And at the end of the movie suddenly Optimus defeats him with the help of a headmaster sized robot.

Optimus didn't get an upgrade (like beefy tank truck toy we got in stores), so why can he defeat Scourge now? I like my movies with power level consistencies.

What would've worked if Prime and Primal fought him together and then Scourge was defeated.
Or what would've worked if Unicron half way in the movie took half of Scourge's power for a seed to the sequel and that's why he can now be defeated by a weaker bot.

So the movie starts with a group of heroes and earth is safe. Then the movie happens and at the end you have the same group of heroes with some new friends and the earth is safe. ... It's like a G1 episode where all the pieces are put back in their starting positions on the play board like nothing (or barely anything) happened. I don't know about you guys, but I like some continuety and progress in movies.

The only seed to the sequel that you have is that slapped on military force at the end.
I thought sector 7 generic FBI force again, but it's something else.

What would be cool if they go full Human Alliance in the next one (so power armors/mech style)

Hopefully I'll go see it for a second time soon.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

I saw the movie for the first time this evening. I am thinking about going to see it again tomorrow night.

I thought the movie was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. I would probably rank it with DotM right now as my favorite TF movie.

The standout star of the movie absolutely was Mirage. I loved him, and he got a ton of screen time and lines, and he even had a nice character arc throughout the story while keeping it fun. I am so glad that we got him, and I really hope that sequels will use him as well as they did here.

also, I am totally on board with all the SS Mirage figures we could get: Porsche, Lambo, F1 car, hologram style, end-of-movie rebuild, and trash truck if we are really feeling bold. Of course, most of those could have just been holograms instead of actual alts, but it still rocked. We also need an exo-suit toy of him.

Primal was my 2nd favorite of the movie. Ron Perlman really nailed him. You can tell he learned some stuff from PotP, and had much better direction here. His voice really added gravitas to all of what Primal did. I really liked him. Well done.

Scourge would be the 3rd guy that stood out to me in the movie. Peter Dinklage did a great job as his voice, and he certainly got some great money shots. The opening scene of him coming out of the woods to confront Apelinq was awesome, that was so cool! I also appreciate how it took Mirage, then Noah, then Prime, and finally lava to get to him. He was a cool villain for sure.

The rest of the cast was pretty good too. There really wasn't a bot that was bad. Maybe a few under-used, like Rhinox and Wheeljack, but they are still there for sequels, and pretty much everyone got a stand out character moment. I personally loved how they handled Wheeljack.

Plot of the movie was good, it was definitely breakneak speed, could have used maybe 10 extra minutes to slow some stuff down a smidge. But there really wasn't a lag in the movie at all.

I love how Prime just has bots around the world, so Wheeljack was already prepping for their arrival, and Stratosphere was an uber. Which, BTW, winning line from Mirage: I'm walking to peru

I think it ended up being a good movie. It was certainly strong, and I would argue that AOE is the only movie that came close to the level of characterization of the cast. There was a strong bot cast, and some good humans, and some good moments as well.

I loved it, glad it's finally here, and I will gladly see it again.

PS: for SS, on top of what we have coming so far plus what is leaked to finish the main casts, we now need a corrupted Airazor, Apelinq, Stratosphere, All the Mirages mentioned above, Exo-suit Noah, maybe a battle damaged Scourge with his face revealed, Scorponoks, maybe some retooled Freezers (3 pack maybe?), Haslab Unicron, and I'd still like Transit even if he ended up a deleted scene.

[william-james88]

It has some wokeness, but there just about 4 stupid short dialogue moments, nothing more. Has nothing to do with the plot. No, it's not woke, has some silly woke stuff. For Transformers and Beast Wars fans, go watch and support it.

The director doesn't deserve it. If those 4 moments have nothing to do with the story, why include them?

The commentary on the struggle of living in the USA was directly linked to the film. Noah is a war veteran and can't find a job while his brother is dieing and the family can't afford the medecine, since the US' healtcare system is all **** up and based on greed. So, his only way to make things work is to turn to a life of crime where he tries to steal a car. But that car happens to be Mirage and he's taken to Optimus Prime and it turns out they need a human at that very moment because humans can fit in doors and be inconspicuous. So yeah, all that commentary on the hardships of surviving in the US are directly plot related.

I am glad you posted it to be honest.

I thought of you while watching the film. Remember when you were asking why all reviewers post their figures in the same kneeling pose every damn time? Well it just so happens that 3 seperate characters do the exact same pose in this film. Noah, Prime and Bumblebee. This film went all out on the Ironman pose.

Did scourge beat optimus the second round

They didn't get to do much fighting then since Airazor broke up the fight.

So Primal does not help Prime in beating Scourge its all Optimus?

Nope, Prime does it all on his own, but he uses the environment to mess Scourge up, like Lava and the quickly rotating tower.

I'll be doing a review and incorporating some of the thoughts found from fellow staffers in this thread.

[william-james88]

Have you watched Rise of the Beasts yet? Well many of us at Seibertron have and here are our thoughts on the film. You'll notice that me and D-Maximus Primal have very different views on the film, offering two sides of the same coin. Please share yours as well and please note that these reviews are not spoiler free.

This film is ok. It's basically dollar bin Marvel with skybeams, an army of no name villains that come out of nowhere for the finale that takes place in a drab CG landscape. BUT this is still a step in the right direction for a Transformers film. It does a lot of things right like have a focus on the robots, have action scenes you can follow (mostly), no annoying human characters, minimal bathroom humour and lots of transformations. While this all sounds like basic asks for a Transformers film, you'd be hard pressed to find any film from the live action Transformers franchise have all of those requirements outside of Bumblebee. Not to say Bayverse elements are completely gone though.

As I wrote previously, the reboot/not a reboot discussion does not matter if elements from Bayverse are still found within this film. And Bayverse Optimus is here, big time. Not only is it the same face as the earlier Bay films (which looks worse than before in the more G1 style helmet) but his personality is exactly the same, very focused on violence in both his dialogue and his actions. It really surprised me how this film almost goes out of its way to be different from the earlier Bay films, getting a lot of elements right, but sticking the same Optimus at the core of it. So if people want this to be a different continuity, then sure, fine, you now have a new Bayverse continuity, nobody wins here.

The script also suffers from a lack of polish. This is more mcguffin centric then probably any previous Transformers movie to date (which is insane to type) and instead of giving us something clear, you get a really needlessly complicated artifact which turns the writing into utter nonsense. It's a key that hasn't been seen for one thousand years. But it's made by the Maximals who are the future of the autobots and developped this technology that Unicron needs to travel across the universe even though Unicron himself provides Scourge, his henchman, with technology to travel across the universe. It's just nonsense.
More gripes of mine include minimal time spent on Cheetor and Rhinox who have little to no lines in the film and are only seen in their robot modes for a grand total of 15 seconds (not an exageration, you are free to time it yourself), and never in a clear shot. For a film called Rise of the Beasts, you'd think the beasts would be the main selling point, instead of Optimus Prime just wanting to rip spines apart, but no.

So while the film finally has all the pieces there, and gets the idea of what a live action Transformers film should be like, the finished script just isn't compelling and the final action set piece has all the negatives both fans and critics are tired of with Marvel films. I will give it this though, Steven Caple Jr did an excellent job on the pacing. This film just zips right through but the scenes never feel disjointed within the quick pace either. It's very basic go from point A to point B stuff, but I think it's a good foundation for these films going forward, which is why I am still excited for what is to come in this franchise. I would rate this just slightly above average as a film. In terms of Transformers films, I don't think it's on the same level as Bumblebee. It's closer to the first Transformers film, and while that first Michael Bay film might be a better movie, I would say Rise of the Beasts is a better Transformers Movie, which actually matters to me more when all is said and done.

- William-James88

I thought the movie was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. I would probably rank it with DotM right now as my favorite TF movie.

The standout star of the movie absolutely was Mirage. I loved him, and he got a ton of screen time and lines, and he even had a nice character arc throughout the story while keeping it fun. I am so glad that we got him, and I really hope that sequels will use him as well as they did here.

Primal was my 2nd favorite of the movie. Ron Perlman really nailed him. You can tell he learned some stuff from PotP, and had much better direction here. His voice really added gravitas to all of what Primal did. I really liked him. Well done.

Scourge would be the 3rd guy that stood out to me in the movie. Peter Dinklage did a great job as his voice, and he certainly got some great money shots. The opening scene of him coming out of the woods to confront Apelinq was awesome, that was so cool! I also appreciate how it took Mirage, then Noah, then Prime, and finally lava to get to him. He was a cool villain for sure.

The rest of the cast was pretty good too. There really wasn't a bot that was bad. Maybe a few under-used, like Rhinox and Wheeljack, but they are still there for sequels, and pretty much everyone got a stand out character moment. I personally loved how they handled Wheeljack.

Plot of the movie was good, it was definitely breakneak speed, could have used maybe 10 extra minutes to slow some stuff down a smidge. But there really wasn't a lag in the movie at all.

I love how Prime just has bots around the world, so Wheeljack was already prepping for their arrival, and Stratosphere was an uber. Which, BTW, winning line from Mirage: I'm walking to peru!

I think it ended up being a good movie. It was certainly strong, and I would argue that AOE is the only movie that came close to the level of characterization of the cast. There was a strong bot cast, and some good humans, and some good moments as well.

I loved it, glad it's finally here, and I will gladly see it again.

- D-Maximal_Primal

[Emerje]

The wokeness was small, but I have pointy ears because of how Hollywood treats its consumers. There was as silly bit on racism and assuming. But it was harmless imho.

Ah, that. I'm pretty sure Wheeljack was joking anyway. He turns into a TV truck, the Transformers picked up languages from Earth broadcasts, there's no way he doesn't speak the language, they probably all speak the language.

Optimus didn't get an upgrade (like beefy tank truck toy we got in stores), so why can he defeat Scourge now? I like my movies with power level consistencies.

I had a hunch it was a toy-only design because we never saw a truck like that on set like we did Bumblebee. I feel like this might have been one of those cutting room floor things from the past year. I really wonder how different the movie became during the year delay? Was Unicron always in it? Was the McGuffin different?

PS: for SS, on top of what we have coming so far plus what is leaked to finish the main casts, we now need a corrupted Airazor, Apelinq, Stratosphere, All the Mirages mentioned above, Exo-suit Noah, maybe a battle damaged Scourge with his face revealed, Scorponoks, maybe some retooled Freezers (3 pack maybe?), Haslab Unicron, and I'd still like Transit even if he ended up a deleted scene.

HasLab Unicron feels a little ambitious, and really as a movie line they can probably get by with doing it at retail. Personally I think if they do one he should match TLK Primus, maybe be about the same size as Armada Unicron.

But I think a Core class Noah is in order. Or maybe a Battle Master?

I thought of you while watching the film. Remember when you were asking why all reviewers post their figures in the same kneeling pose every damn time? Well it just so happens that 3 seperate characters do the exact same pose in this film. Noah, Prime and Bumblebee. This film went all out on the Ironman pose.

I laughed so hard when Noah did the 3-point Iron-Man pose (since he's basically Iron-Man in the last act) followed by Prime doing it right behind him like it was supposed to be some cool visual moment.

Nope, Prime does it all on his own, but he uses the environment to mess Scourge up, like Lava and the quickly rotating tower.

He does get an assist from Noah who takes out one of Scourge's knees from behind.

My thoughts on the movie weren't used in the article, but they're here (towards the top of the page) if anyone wants to read them.

Emerje

[william-james88]

My thoughts on the movie weren't used in the article, but they're here (towards the top of the page) if anyone wants to read them.

Emerje

I tried to see what I could use, but they seemed more like thoughts on very specific scenes and scenarios than soemthing I could use in a review. If you want to jot down a review of what you thought of the film in a more general , I could then edit the article and include it.

[-Kanrabat-]

I just saw the movie and here's some bullet points impressions.

-- The "wokeness"
I get this out of the way first. The "woke" was only in the commentaries of the director in some of his interviews. THAT'S IT. In the movie itself, sure there's some social commentary, but it's based in reality. I'm also glad that in the movie itself, the human's problems were not based on race, but on CLASS. Let's face it, if India are on the nose with their caste system, it's pretty much the same all over the world, with more or less subtlety. Also, I was glad to see that the only time "racist" was mentioned in the movie was to mock the over-sensitive concept.

-- Easter Eggs
"Grampa Primal" at the beginning wear the mutant mask of the original Optimus Primal toy! That was a nice touch. Also, Mirage have shown that he could transform into the original F1 car if he wanted to. Nice!

-- The humans
Noah may be the best human main character in the Bay movies so far. His struggles are relatable, he's not annoying, and he's believable as a hero. The girl tho, she's just "meh". She's just the same old, same old "strong whamen" on auto-pilot. To be fair, she didn't have enough screen time to be fleshed-out but that was an acceptable sacrifice so that the bots could shine.

-- The
Mirage is a bro and Arcee is pretty cool. Wheeljack is almost a Skids/Mudflap but thankfully, his screen time is short. Breakaway, I just love those old senile veteran bots. And Optimus, it was a bit strange to see him so "immature", but he did "grew" so it was nice to see. As for Bee, I was surprised to see that he was "benched" in order to let the other bots shine. A good call.

-- The
Too bad we don't see much Cheetor and Rhinox, but at least Airaisor and Primal were important. Plus, I wondered why they only maximised for just a little while in the final battle. I supposed they follow the same rule as in the original Beast Wars. They can only be in bot mode for a short period of time before being "poisoned" by the Earth's Energon. That was not explained in the movie, but I have a strong impression that's the case.

-- The
The Terrorcons were cool, especially Scourge. They were menacing and those Freezer minions... Oooooffff.... You don't want to encounter them in a dark place!

-- The Joe reveal:
Will this announce a pure Joe movie, or a TF/Joe X-Over?

Overall, I really appreciated the movie and I think it's as good as the Bee movie at the very least. I'm looking forward the next!

[DISCHARGE]

I wanna say here so I wouldn't ruin anything for anyone anywhere else.. I liked the movie. I saw the trailer for it
during the surpa bowl, maybe a commercial once or twice.
I stayed away from spoilers.
The tempo was weird but they tried to tell a story in 2 hours time.
My favorite scenes were Airazor's entrance (she was my favorite character next to Nightbird- they tried to give them some development)..
..and the split second shot of Mirage as his G1 version both car and bot modes. I saw that and saw what could have been..

Anywho.. not reading on spoilers I was surprised by the poster and patch at the theater.

[william-james88]

Now that I think of it, what was the point of off road Bee? His off road alt mode is a big part of the promotional campaign and toyline but the prominent shot we see in the trailer is the only shot we see in the movie. We never see him get that alt mode, he's just suddenly different in one shot.

Also, weird that they gave wheeljack ears for a split second just to have it in the trailer, but then he loses them instantly.

[-Kanrabat-]

Now that I think of it, what was the point of off road Bee? His off road alt mode is a big part of the promotional campaign and toyline but the prominent shot we see in the trailer is the only shot we see in the movie. We never see him get that alt mode, he's just suddenly different in one shot.

Also, weird that they gave wheeljack ears for a split second just to have it in the trailer, but then he loses them instantly.

Easy.
Marketing.

People complained about Wheeljack's look so they threw them a little bone.

As for Bee, he was benched for half the movie but they didn't dare mention that in the promotions. As for "where" Bee got his off-road look, he must have chosen it out of convenience. There's a "new rule" in ROTB. Transformers can transform into whatever the fuk they want. They just have to think about it, as demonstrated by Mirage.

Now I'll wait for a voyager garbage truck Mirage and a leader class Breakaway.

[william-james88]

Now that I think of it, what was the point of off road Bee? His off road alt mode is a big part of the promotional campaign and toyline but the prominent shot we see in the trailer is the only shot we see in the movie. We never see him get that alt mode, he's just suddenly different in one shot.

Also, weird that they gave wheeljack ears for a split second just to have it in the trailer, but then he loses them instantly.

Easy.
Marketing.

People complained about Wheeljack's look so they threw them a little bone.

As for Bee, he was benched for half the movie but they didn't dare mention that in the promotions. As for "where" Bee got his off-road look, he must have chosen it out of convenience. There's a "new rule" in ROTB. Transformers can transform into whatever the fuk they want. They just have to think about it, as demonstrated by Mirage.

Now I'll wait for a voyager garbage truck Mirage and a leader class Breakaway.

Mirage showed that he can use holograms and he's the only one which morphs into a bunch of different modes, so I think everything we saw with him were "illusions". He wasn't an actual garbage truck.

[-Kanrabat-]

Mirage showed that he can use holograms and he's the only one which morphs into a bunch of different modes, so I think everything we saw with him were "illusions". He wasn't an actual garbage truck.

Oh yeah, that's valid.

Still, the "off road" version is just a simple mod from Bee's regular Camaro so I think the Transformers can also do that.

That count also for Optimus and Scourge truck modes that are based in real live, but are modded to hell and back.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

I watched the movie a 2nd time last night after my big exam, and I enjoyed it more the 2nd time!

For one thing, the first time I watched it, it was Friday afternoon in a small town. Yesterday, I watched it in a big city theatre, with a sold out theater. It really helped enhance the experience!

Couple notes from the crowd there:

-People laughed a lot at Mirage, he was clearly the star for everyone there.

-Wheeljack turned out to be a favorite as well, he got a bunch of laughs too, and a bunch of "aww!" as well with his butterflies.

-I heard kids cry when Bumblebee died.

-And then a bunch of high school and college ages boys were loving the "Don't call it a comeback!" section. They were talking about it and re-enacting it after the movie even! They seemed to have fun.

-I heard someone yell out "NO!" when Mirage "died".

Some notes of my own to add to what I had said previously following the 2nd viewing:

-I love the Sonic/Tails/Knuckles codenames used. that was an enjoyable little piece.

-Reek ends up being a pretty funny characters, especially at the end when mirage comes back.

-I appreciated just how beat up Optimus' sword gets during his final fight with Scourge. By the end, it is but a stub. 2nd movie that has happened in too.

-One thing that I didn't like was the seeming lack of battle damage on most of the bots. I'd say that may be the weakest point of the new CGI compared to the old.

-Scourge's introduction walking through the woods still gave me goosebumps. with the glowing chest and stuff, he was awesome there.

-Optimus Prime, for the first half of the movie, was definitely a tired dad rolling his eyes at Mirage, with Bee and Arcee being the annoyed older siblings. That dynamic is great.

-I also figured out part of the reason I love mirage so much: Pretty sure he and I are about 80% the same personality. My wife confirmed that fact too.

Also, final note:

IT IS STRATOSPHERE, NOT BREAKAWAY

[-Kanrabat-]

Strataway.

I still want a leader toy of him.

Also, they should make a big-ass Scourge toy with LIGHTS and sounds. This bad-ass villain deserves it.

[TulioDude]

Post some of my detailed thoughts in the spoler tags in case anyone clicks this thread by accident
The films is awesome! I had a good time watching it. The Maximals look pretty good. The opening
is pretty effective in setting up the story. I liked the deepcut of bringing Apelink.
It's hinted that Maximals are from the future, but not outright stated, leaving it a little ambiguous. But for what it was, this didn't get in the way of my enjoyment.
Noah and Elena were used pretty well. They were introduced, their motivations are pretty clear and relatable. They have cool moments with the bots and are part of the the larger themes of the movie.
Noah and his brohter were pretty adorable.
Mirage is pretty fun, I liked all the ways they used his transformation abilities. His partnership with Noah feels familiar, but without just being a repeat of the previous films.
Arcee, Bumblebee and Stratosphere all pretty distinct from each other and had at least one moment to shine. Glad too see Bee's use of the radio and quotes to talk again. This movie has one of the better uses of this part.
Optimus Prime is pretty cool. His fights are pretty amazing. I get what Steven Caple Jr was talking about this being an less experienced version him.Him being distrustful of humans, then seeing with own eyes their potential is an cool direction to take him. With this, when he is says in 2007 movie he see the potential for good in humans hits harder
Optimus Primal felt pretty solid. He can feel he is strong as a leader, but his fear for friends safety is palpable. Airazor has a very calming presence, too bad we didn't get more of her. Cheetor and Rhinox could have used more lines, maybe a more clear look at their robot modes.

Also did anyone get this impression?That there were more Maximals traveling to Earth than the ones we saw? It was clear the Maximals have split up during the years, Optimus Primal was asking Airazor about the "other ones"

The final scene with the GI Joe character feels more like a setup for future films, but it1s nice to know that Noah won't have the same financial difficulties. I really thought that it was going be Sector Seven.

Maybe I will add more later.

[ScottyP]

Fun movie to watch but here 24 hours later it feels superfluous. Nothing's terrible about it, but nothing really struck home either. Easy to tell that 14 month or whatever release delay was probably spent on editing the nonsense plot to at least be coherent, even if it did jump over some important details several times.

I could've sworn Michael Kelly had played a Sector 7 agent at some point in the past, but IMDB says I'm wrong. Anyhow, that ending was stupid, but entirely unsurprising. Hasbro's gonna will their vapid shared universe to life no matter the cost.

[-Kanrabat-]

Hasbro's gonna will their vapid shared universe to life no matter the cost.

I was expecting a Sector 7 card.

But eh, if they can reboot Joe correctly this time around, I would be all for it.

[ScottyP]

Hasbro's gonna will their vapid shared universe to life no matter the cost.

I was expecting a Sector 7 card.

But eh, if they can reboot Joe correctly this time around, I would be all for it.

I legit thought that was gonna be Sector 7 then a later scene was going to do the Joe thing. Had heard it was a post-credits scene a couple weeks back, so was still surprised a little. Alternately, they were editing this thing up until the 11th hour.

[Whifflefire]

Saw the film Saturday morning. I liked it! I agree with the general consensus that although it wasn't the greatest movie of all time, it was absolutely an enjoyable and fun action movie. My theater was pretty much full, and the audience responded very well to it, laughing at the jokes and clapping a lot during the final battle, especially Bumblebee's reappearance. A good theater-going experience. As a Transformers fan, I'm happy.

Some things I liked that I haven't seen many people mention:
The Autobots talk in vehicle mode! Something present in every other series, but largely absent in the original movies seemingly to contribute to the realism. It was nice to see here, as it reinforces that the 'Bots are still characters even in vehicle mode.

The shot of Arcee chilling inside Wheeljack behind Noah and Elena is pretty funny.

I like how they used Apelinq. As he's very obscure, his role as the sacrificial stake-building character elevates his status in the franchise, instead of pruning the potential of a more storied character like what happened with Cliffjumper. I recall his death being a sore point with many people in Bumblebee, but I have not seen a single complaint about Apelinq. It also opens the door for plenty of Jokes about how Apelinq made it to the big screen before *insert prominent character here*.

Chris's scenes were actually pretty emotional. I like how his relationship with Noah was portrayed. Both get moments to show how much they care for each other and it pays off for them both at the end.

While the Maximals could have used some more robot mode focus, Cheetor spearing Nightbird out of the sky was a cool if quick bit of nice robot mode action.

The only thing I would have really changed about the movie is let Airazor stick around a little longer (and of course let her transform). I think it could have added to the climactic battle if she ended up being forced to fight alongside the Terrorcons at the end, with the other Maximals having to confront her. Then maybe at that point she has her sad moment with Primal, although of course the best scenario would be that she survives, but I understand the necessity of a protagonist death to make the villain's death more cathartic.

Otherwise, I think the film did a pretty good job. I think it's much more exciting than Bumblebee, but I think Bumblebee still has the better story. I'd agree that a 7-8 out of 10 is where it scores. Right now it ranks right in the middle, but it is much better than the films behind it.

7)TLK (2/10)
6)AOE (4/10)
5)RoTF (6/10)
4)ROTB (7.5/10)
3)TF1 (8/10)
2)BBB (8/10)
1)DOTM (9/10)

[zko]

I liked this one probably the best out of the entire series and have already as of a couple days ago preordered the DVD on amazon.

I really really was hoping to see in IMAX but they are pricey and far away around here so I Just went to the closest local 2D theater and it was still pretty awesome especially the opening with Primal talking about Unicron.

The closing quotes by Optimus always get me a little nostalgia teary eyed in these movies and I thought it was very awesome when the 'my name is Noah Diaz' thing was playing for the autobots and humans uniting because Anthony Ramos really pulled it off through the whole movie and I was glad he got some epic lines at the very end.

I didnt spoil myself too much on plots and stuff outside of what the toys were showing and the cast, and I was glad I didnt.

Some of my family were saying this one was gonna be the "wokest" one because of the new director and the fact it was in rain forest saying that scourge would be a log truck contributing to deforestation etc etc. I kept telling them that this would probably be their favorite one even though they never got with Beast Wars or Dinobots and mostly like the Vehicle TFs. I was pleased to see I was right when they kept laughing at Mirage stealing Noah and other parts that were meant to be funny, and they later admitted that the BW part didn't ruin it.

Optimus Primal's Ape Parkour scenes were all cool to watch, reminded me of how he jumped around in Beast Machines. I hope if Cheetor makes it into another movie we get to see him in Beast Machines style with his dual sabers blocking a bunch of shots jedi style.

Some of my family also didn't know that references to BW are in sports until I explained more of the movie to them and was like: Beastmode in football is from Beast Wars that this is based on. (they are big on football and never made the connection lol) and that the Mirage car was Kim Kardashian's boyfriend for a while / much about Pete Davidson in general.

So while I am a fan of all things TF from G1 to Bayformers and in between I must say this is my favorite by a good margin of the "Hasbro Cinematic Universe" that will probably lead into a GI Joe crossover and make me regret not having ordered that Megatron and Baroness set yet.

Movie even had Noah going full Kicker suit/Cerebros Spike headmaster from series finale of G1 in it. So I was well pleased as that is something Ive been pushing for a long time to have in these movies... and now that Hasbro is basically making Power Rangers, maybe they can eventually get the rights to the weirdly based on Transformers somehow VR Troopers!

Expand the HCU!

EDIT: On the wokeness fears I went into the theater wearing a recent Optimus Prime graffiti shirt I bought with a spraypaint can laying next to him, so I could blend in.

[william-james88]

To those who watched Transformers Rise of the Beasts, you may be curious about what was cut and how the movie changed during production. We will have 3 articles detailing different aspects such as a cut character, scenes we saw in the trailers and from the set videos that were cut, and the difference between earlier test screenings and the final film.

This article will be about the character Transit. We saw Transit in the marketing material from Takara Tomy's Beast Awakening page (that's what the film is called there). He is a Decepticon that turns into a bus. Now we see Optimus Prime in a bus yard in the film, that is our first shot of him and he was supposed to have an encounter with a Decepticon.

Sources differ slightly, but the gist is that the Decepticons know that Optimus is on Earth and instead of carpet bombing the planet like what might have been planned in the Bumblebee film, they keep sending soldiers to take out Prime. Everytime a Decepticon arrives, they blow up their ship making it unusable for Optimus, guaranteeing that he is trapped there. This notion is replaced by a line in the film which recounts that Earth was supposed to be a pit stop for the Autobots but that now they can't get home.

The scene follows with Optimus fighting Transit, killing him and dumping his body in the Hudson river, where we see other decepticon bodies, showing that this is just the latest attempt in a long line of attempts on Optimus' life.

Now part of that scene should be in the home video release, we'll see how much of it was finished, and it is said to have been removed for being too dark. But it explains a lot:

- It further shows Optimus' frustration at not getting home, how the Decepticons are basically messing with him, stranding him on Earth where he can't take the fight to them.

- It also explains the look he has when he can't beat Scourge initially. He's been fighting grunts for the past 7 years, taking them out with ease, and now he finally has a real threat to fight. It would also explain how he probably can beat Scourge (and ultimately does) but initially does not due to not making all the use of his skills, strength and ferocity which he finally unleashes in the final showdown.

So there you go, a dark scene for sure, but it would have gone a long way in helping fans understand why Optimus is so grumpy for most of the film and why he can't beat Scourge until he suddenly can (granted that second one still needs a lot of inference).