New Animated Transformers Movie to Explore Cybertron's History in Development

I think the primary reason you can't do a standalone for Optimus is that a standalone spin off movie focuses on someone away from the main character. Optimus Prime is the main character of transformers, he's the Big Good.
I hope that this animated cybertron film shows the start of the war while those of us who read comics and novels have several good ones to choose from the broader audience don't have those. I really hope we start with Orion Pax and he becomes optimus part way through, particularly if it is in any way like the way it goes in Autocracy.

I don’t think he always needs to be right. IDW built an optimus wasn’t always right, an optimus where it took Megatron to see the flaws of his world and speak out and stand up. Even his own series showed that he was a very flawed person that was always trying to do the right thing. It’s 100% possible to make optimus a deep character.

I don’t know why the producer is saying he’s always right becuase he does things that arnt always right and I’m not talking about the “murder prime” BS that became a joke in the fandom. The last two movies with Cade trying to talk to him and help him with his own demons he had showed that. Let’s be honest AoE and LK showed optimus losing his faith in humanity and Cade and Bee proved him wrong.

Randomhero wrote:I don’t think he always needs to be right. IDW built an optimus was always right, an optimus where it took Megatron to see the flaws of his world and speak out and stand up. Even his own series showed that he was a very flawed person that was always trying to do the right thing. It’s 100% possible to make optimus a deep character.

I don’t know why the producer is saying he’s always right becuase he does things that arnt always right and I’m not talking about the “murder prime” BS that became a joke in the fandom. The last two movies with Cade trying to talk to him and help him with his own demons he had showed that. Let’s be honest AoE and LK showed optimus losing his faith in humanity and Cade and Bee proved him wrong.

I think it's become obvious by now that Lorenzo di Bonaventura has, at best, a surface level understanding of the Transformers franchise and its characters. He is similar to people that watch the movies for what they are, without being into the brand itself. Everything he's said regarding story and characters are what I would expect from someone who spent a day reading about Transformers on Wikipedia and just went from there.

Randomhero wrote:I don’t think he always needs to be right. IDW built an optimus was always right, an optimus where it took Megatron to see the flaws of his world and speak out and stand up. Even his own series showed that he was a very flawed person that was always trying to do the right thing. It’s 100% possible to make optimus a deep character.

I don’t know why the producer is saying he’s always right becuase he does things that arnt always right and I’m not talking about the “murder prime” BS that became a joke in the fandom. The last two movies with Cade trying to talk to him and help him with his own demons he had showed that. Let’s be honest AoE and LK showed optimus losing his faith in humanity and Cade and Bee proved him wrong.

I really hope that Optimus solo series is never adapted or used outside the comic. With half the time spent on figuring out how to add an earth delegate to the council of Cybertron, i think people would flash back to all that exciting senate action in the Star Wars prequels.

If anyone wants depth for Optimus, just read Chaos Theory (2 parter) . Its the greatest TF comic of all time and deals exactly with Optimus' origin.

william-james88 wrote:

Randomhero wrote:I don’t think he always needs to be right. IDW built an optimus was always right, an optimus where it took Megatron to see the flaws of his world and speak out and stand up. Even his own series showed that he was a very flawed person that was always trying to do the right thing. It’s 100% possible to make optimus a deep character.

I don’t know why the producer is saying he’s always right becuase he does things that arnt always right and I’m not talking about the “murder prime” BS that became a joke in the fandom. The last two movies with Cade trying to talk to him and help him with his own demons he had showed that. Let’s be honest AoE and LK showed optimus losing his faith in humanity and Cade and Bee proved him wrong.

I really hope that Optimus solo series is never adapted or used outside the comic. With half the time spent on figuring out how to add an earth delegate to the council of Cybertron, i think people would flash back to all that exciting senate action in the Star Wars prequels.

If anyone wants depth for Optimus, just read Chaos Theory (2 parter) . Its the greatest TF comic of all time and deals exactly with Optimus' origin.

Oh I don’t think you could ever adapt anything from the Optimus Prime comic series. Not because it wasn’t good, it was my favorite out of the two but it was a series that used all of the flashbacks and history of IDW as it’s backbone. The flashbacks were all snippets of stuff that just flushed out more of time in his life.

You’re absolutely right saying chaos theory is a good place to go and while I don’t like it maybe some of Autocracy. The final product is trash but concepts and over ideas in it are good it’s just the execution that flopped. To me that is.

I think the producer is probably basing his reasoning of G1 cartoon prime.

Oh i dont think you are alone in thinking that, i feel the same way about the autocracy trilogy. But i feel a big problem that didnt help was the visual storytelling. That artist would use the most baffling angles for his panels sometimes.

Just do a movie on Orion Pax: Super Cop.

ZeroWolf wrote:I think the producer is probably basing his reasoning of G1 cartoon prime.

Actually I felt the exact opposite. Paramount wanted to refrain from doing a film set on Cybertron as established in the original animated series, because that would not mesh well with the already established Bayverse. Yes I know it's continuity has more holes than swiss cheese, but it caused enough problems to prevent us from seeing Megatron in the Cybertron set scenes of the BB movie.

I'll probably be laughed off the forums, but I'd love to see a polished version of War Dawn as an animated film. Probably not including the Aerialbots, but a different team of Autobots traveling to Cybertron's past, and witnessing all the events that cause Orion Pax to become Optimus Prime.

Hmm. . . I know the whole continuity thing is up in the air right now, but I like the idea of the Optimus movie being about him having to lead the Autobots after Sentinel goes AWOL (which we saw in the opening of DOTM).

If they do a animated Cybertron movie it won't have to be in any continuity

leokearon wrote:If they do a animated Cybertron movie it won't have to be in any continuity

Why cant it be just a prequel to that opening scene in Bumblebee?

leokearon wrote:If they do a animated Cybertron movie it won't have to be in any continuity

That just means it will be all CGI. Something Knight said wanted to make a month ago as a prequel to bumblebee about the war before he decided he wanted to focus on smaller stuff

Yeah, I'll echo what will and Randomhero have said. This project does sound like it's setting up that opening scene but we'll learn more as time passes. All of this should be seen as a good thing as it shows they are paying attention to what people are saying about bee.

However IIRC correctly, an animated film itself isn't exactly *new* news, I seem to recall this project being on Hasbro's agenda even before the BB movie was announced. It was from the beginning to be a "Pre-Earth" film set on Cybertron, but in the Live Action movieverse. Of course I know the failure of TLK changed a lot of things, but if anything, this news only reminds us that the animated film hasn't been cancelled, as opposed to a new announcement entirely. And yes of course, the 2 or 3 minuets of All CG TF battles being hailed by fans as the best part of the film, doesn't hurt either .

william-james88 wrote:

leokearon wrote:If they do a animated Cybertron movie it won't have to be in any continuity

Why cant it be just a prequel to that opening scene in Bumblebee?

They could be when it send animated, I'm hoping for something like Into the Spider-verse (animated movie separate from Live-Action) where they don't have to be bogged down with continuity

leokearon wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

leokearon wrote:If they do a animated Cybertron movie it won't have to be in any continuity

Why cant it be just a prequel to that opening scene in Bumblebee?

They could be when it send animated, I'm hoping for something like Into the Spider-verse (animated movie separate from Live-Action) where they don't have to be bogged down with continuity

Well sure. But have you met this Fandom? Cramming Square Peg Plots into Round Hole Continuities is a Write of Passage for us.

Personally, I was not a fan of the Optimus Prime Comics. I liked it in premise and some of the supporting roles, seeing the Camien perspective of a Prime and even the Autobots’ themselves of the title was neat. But I feel like they took Prime too far afield for me. That said, some of the IDW Prewar stuff, such as the Lost Light story of Prime stealing the Matrix Bomb could lend its style to a Pre-War Cybertron story well enough without overshadowing the Pedestal Prime is usually on. I think Prime’s viewpoint would be a great way to do it, particularly if they started him off as a Laborer and not as a Police Officer, because that would put him in the same situations that Megatron was in. But the Police job gives him more flexaibility to actually do something about it.

Actually, I think Megatron would be the best POV but You risk creating a sympathetic villain. That’s not always a bad thing, but for the Movie going public, you are pretty much told from the start that Megatron is BAD, Like Uber villain. But wouldn’t it be cool if, maybe Megatron was always a bit twisted but Optimus was the one to keep him on the nobler path, and it was Starscream who secretly convinced the Council to make Optimus a Prime, and then started whispering in Megatron’s ear to go full Nutso-cookoo homicidal ragekill? That could be why Screamer manages to stick around despite Megatron’s many backhandings, because he wormed his way into Megatron’s trust and played to his urges, and now Screamer is a bad habit Megs cannot quit.

With how well Bumblebee turned out with its depth on character development and story, I can’t wait to see how they’re going to flesh out Optimus’s character next.

Megatron should be out and out BAD this is where IDW MK1 got the while autobot/deception cause's wrong.
The Primes should all be noble with the exception of the Fallen (liege maximo is a poor idea for a prime)

I fully understand characters with layers but megs and op work well as black and white characters op should be a sweaky clean Captain America type and megs like the red skull.

Coptur wrote:Megatron should be out and out BAD this is where IDW MK1 got the while autobot/deception cause's wrong.
The Primes should all be noble with the exception of the Fallen (liege maximo is a poor idea for a prime)

I fully understand characters with layers but megs and op work well as black and white characters op should be a sweaky clean Captain America type and megs like the red skull.

I think Liege Maximo can work as a Prime, not as a "villain" but not a good guy either, the only thing wrong with Liege as a Prime is that his name has nothing to do with the established Prime naming, lets look at the Primes from the "Hasbro" version since that's likely to be the one used

Prima
Vector Prime
Alpha Trion
Solus Prime
Micronus Prime
Alchemist Prime
Nexus Prime
Amalgamous Prime
Quintus Prime
Liege Maximo
Megatronus Prime (The Fallen)
The Thirteenth Prime (Optimus Prime in aligned but we all know this is a stupid idea, I have my own but that's not relevant here)

The only ones who break this naming scheme is Prima, Alpha Trion and Liege Maximo and the other two can be justified, Prima being the first should be the outlier and the one who formally established the Prime title with the others being given the title after him, as for Alpha Trion it can simply be that he changed his name from say Alpha Prime to Alpha Trion to better hide himself amongst the population of Cybertron just like how Maccadam might or might not be Alchemist Prime.


Alright does anyone remember Logos Prime? https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Logos_Prime He was the only pre aligned 13 Prime who wasn't put among the group because Hasbro didn't consider him as a canon choice for theirs.

Liege and Logos? Sort of similar words in spelling,

My idea is to merge the two together into one character, Logos Prime being his original name but in the modern day he hides himself by pretending to be an organic giant galactic mob boss named Liege Maximo, sort of like a Pretender but not exactly.

This would almost perfectly get rid of all the issues of Liege being a member of the 13 as well as finding a way to make both physical forms of the character work, one giant organic like being as his modern day form and a more smaller "loki" look as his original form.

I would also tweak the horns to be like TLK Megatron's where they start as horns on the side of his head but they close in to become a battle mask which gives Liege the Prime face mask look!

(I won't get into it here but I think the 13'th Autobot should be the "Matrix itself, someone who used to be his own form but became the Matrix to help Cybertron and guide successor Primes but without being in site, the ultimate robot in disguise, but when they need his help against someone like The Fallen or Unicron at the end of the series or something, The Autobots build a body and install his "Spark" the Matrix into this body...that being The Last Autobot)

I also like the idea that the each of the Primes being split from...well I don't know to be representatives of a part of the universe, Megatronus being "darkness/war" so he isn't evil because he's a good guy turned traitor or wants to be but because that's what he's designed to be, this would tie to my idea that Primus himself isn't good but instead represents Order as opposed to Unicron's Chaos so Primus does things for order and balance in the universe and not the greater good which is why someone like him who might be Cybertron would even let the war between Autobots and Decepticons happen or why he lets "evil/bad/flawed" individuals be made in the first place.

In other words I'm sure I could make the 13 original Primes idea into something with good writing and deep characters instead of being backstory fodder.

Good post Readout
I have a few ideas myself

New Animated movie.....let me guess...Megatron will be a female and not a gun. Optimus will be gay and the rest of the cast will cry about being victims of the decepticons.... I'd really love to see a G1 animated movie in the style of the 86 movie that continues the G1 storyline and pays tribute to those of us that think bayformers crap is not Transformers. The lack of creative ideas from Hollyweird just reinforces they idea that people pay money for crap. One can dream of G1 Transformers one day coming back onto the screen.

9adam83 wrote:New Animated movie.....let me guess...Megatron will be a female and not a gun. Optimus will be gay and the rest of the cast will cry about being victims of the decepticons.... I'd really love to see a G1 animated movie in the style of the 86 movie that continues the G1 storyline and pays tribute to those of us that think bayformers crap is not Transformers. The lack of creative ideas from Hollyweird just reinforces they idea that people pay money for crap. One can dream of G1 Transformers one day coming back onto the screen.

I mean I honestly doubt they would change it that much, it's not Star Wars you can't just make up a new cast for Transformers.

Especially not with how the Bumblebee movie went and the positive reception to the G1 stuff

Megatron however will never be a gun ever again, not mentioning the fact that a gun is the dumbest alt mode he has ever had, there is a thing called "modernization" as well as the fact that Hasbro can't sell a toy gun, I mean a kid got shot for waving the G1 toy around.

You want to know why a Tank would be the best alt form? It's because tanks are just big guns on treads.

It also makes no sense to Megatron's characterization, aside from maybe Soundwave or Shockwave I doubt that Megatron would trust anyone to use him, Starscream could literally crush him in his hand if he wanted to, also what is the difference between the fusion cannon and the barrel of his alt mode? Why bother Transforming in the first place?

The closest thing to a gun mode they could do is Megatron turning into a sentry gun with a design that resembles the original hand gun mode.

The problem is that an animated movie would not come cheap.

The other issue is the movie franchise's unwillingness to fully characterize the Cybertronians. They are generally one-dimensional characters in all the films.

During the Hasbro 4th Quarter Earnings Conference call, Brian Goldner spoke about the current state of the Transformers brand, especially in terms of the entertainment side. While this could have all been predicted, based on what we heard from Lorenzo Di Bonventura, it is nice to see confirmation that Hasbro and Paramount are continuing their endeavours in the Transformers film franchise since Bumblebee (referred to here as an entreprise etirely of himself) is profitable.

There was no indication if that means specifically a Bumblebee sequel, all we know is there is mroe than one idea in the works currently for a Transformers themed film with Paramount. You can read the quote below:

On Transformers, in the fourth quarter was up both in the US and internationally, so up overall. We really successfully reengaged fans and families with Bumblebee. It's done over $450 million globally.

The early indications as we enter the New Year are for a strong ESP and home entertainment window, and we believe that the enterprise for Bumblebee, including the film, is profitable for Hasbro go forward.

Obviously we're in the early days. Haven't hit the home entertainment window yet. We haven't even opened in Japan yet, and the movie is still in theaters.

We knew In addition to the feature film, which is an important element and we are working on new films ideas with Paramount in partnership with Jim Giannopoulos and that team, and they're fantastic, we also have television on Cartoon Network, Netflix offering, and preschool offering. So across the board, it's a brand that really embodies our brand blueprint strategy, and we continue to believe very strongly in the power of the franchise.

So, a bit too vague to get anyone's hopes up for that Beast Wars movie.

Why do I suddenly have this feeling that a live action Bot-Bots movie is just as likely?

Regardless, I guess this means Bee did well enough.

I don't care what the next movie or two is as long as their good and entertaining.


Would also prefer a reboot using Bumblebee as the first movie in a new continuity but if some miracle man can somehow make the Bay continuity actually work then I guess more power to them.

Bumblevivisector wrote:So, a bit too vague to get anyone's hopes up for that Beast Wars movie.

Why do I suddenly have this feeling that a live action Bot-Bots movie is just as likely?

Regardless, I guess this means Bee did well enough.

... I would watch a BotBots movie...

Also I now think that bee should stay a prequel to the Bay movies, as they aren't that hamstrung in certain terms. Only guidelines are no Megatron (give other cons chance to shine) bots (aside from bee) have to leave earth before 2007. That's a twenty years gap (could have been more of bee was set in the early eighties but what can you do).

Then give us a full reboot with a new take on their origins,with another style (more styles = more toys for hasbro to sell)

If they could make a full CGI movie based on that awesome Cybertron intro scene from the Bee Movie, I'd be glad. If the story is Megatron's origin and the start of the Transformers civil war, I'd be really happy!

Looks good. YouTuber AndySupreme99,already confirmed that thanks to Bee’s success, we’re gonna get FIVE new tf movies in the future. There’s gonna be a Cybertron prequel, a Bumblebee 2, a Beast Wars movie, an Optimus Prime movie, and these four will build up to the Avengers styled Blockbuster Transformers Film. Get pumped folkes, we got a lot to look forward to in the upcoming decade.

robotcaveman wrote:Looks good. YouTuber AndySupreme99,already confirmed that thanks to Bee’s success, we’re gonna get FIVE new tf movies in the future. There’s gonna be a Cybertron prequel, a Bumblebee 2, a Beast Wars movie, an Optimus Prime movie, and these four will build up to the Avengers styled Blockbuster Transformers Film. Get pumped folkes, we got a lot to look forward to in the upcoming decade.

That's a lot of movies... Bee did well, but it wasn't a box office smash, I honestly think AndySupreme99 might be jumping the gun. Then again if they're gonna try and work it like the Marvel movies...

Either way, I hope Bumblebee has show Paramount/Hasbro/Hollywood/WHOMEVER that the only way that these movies work for both just entertainment value and critical value is to have someone in the director's chair that actually CARES about the franchise. Bay did well in bringing Transformers back into the limelight with his manner, but I don't think it should have gone on for as long as it did. Knight has been a relief as he focused on the characters and interactions to create an emotional connection to reflect his emotional connection with the characters. I just hope that whomever takes the reigns for any of these movies has the same care, consideration, and just does the research to make it work.

Actually none of what that YouTuber has said is 100% confirmed, we've newsed various pieces that have said as much. The prime movie was spoke about by the producer in terms of how they would approach it, beast wars was merely hinted at and is as far from happening as you can get. Also they aren't doing it the marvel way at all. Not using this continuity that is. What is normally spoken about in those terms is the hasbro cinematic universe, where GI Joe, Micronaughts and the like would get their films and then put together.

If I had to guess I'd say that YouTuber just pulled rumours together from different sources

I'm not interested in anything if Bumblebee is the major focus. He ruined the franchise for me. I'm still messing around with some Combiner Wars but other than that I'm done with this franchise. There is nothing here for me anymore. Been a fan since 84 but between the MENTALLY SICK BUMBLEBEE WORSHIP the fans are currently suffering from & the constant price hikes I've lost interest.

Aimless Misfire wrote:I'm not interested in anything if Bumblebee is the major focus. He ruined the franchise for me. I'm still messing around with some Combiner Wars but other than that I'm done with this franchise. There is nothing here for me anymore. Been a fan since 84 but between the MENTALLY SICK BUMBLEBEE WORSHIP the fans are currently suffering from & the constant price hikes I've lost interest.

Clearly not enough, or else you wouldn't still be here looking at the news

So, I am happy to hear that they're working on the next film, which will hopefully be good, whatever it is. However, what interests me most about this article is the news (at least to me, I don't know if you guys somehow found out about this) that Netflix is offering to work with Hasbro on a potential Transformers Netflix Original. I would love it if we could convince them to either make a cartoon adaptation of IDW's More than Meets the Eye, with James Roberts in control, or make something completely original and amazing, with Roberts or any other creative person in control of it.

Anyways, I just REALLY want to see my favorite piece of TF media get some animated love and attention.

Aimless Misfire wrote:I'm not interested in anything if Bumblebee is the major focus. He ruined the franchise for me.

I'm not a fan of 'Bee either, and I was extremely hesitant to watch another Transformers movie after that Last Knight fiasco. I did however give this movie a chance after having watched the Laika films, especially Kubo since that was Knight's directorial debut, and was surprised when it turned out to be my second favorite movie of the year.

That is to say Bumblebee (movie) is not without any flaws, and I'll happily admit that Bumblebee (character) in the recent decades has become this icon for children marketing that is a turn off for adult fans. It just comes down to how much do you actually enjoy the other characters in this franchise, as it seems a waste to let one bad little bee ruin everything.

Oh, No. This Guy. wrote:Anyways, I just REALLY want to see my favorite piece of TF media get some animated love and attention.

Don't we all? If the director is good, I'm all for it.

Question ...

Why do people say Knights "cares" about the franchise and that Bay didn't?

Isn't it more likely a case of they're two different directors who had different writing staff? Hence the ... difference?

Burn wrote:Question ...

Why do people say Knights "cares" about the franchise and that Bay didn't?

Isn't it more likely a case of they're two different directors who had different writing staff? Hence the ... difference?

Only up to an extent. Both Knight and Bay were also in charge of the look of the film. Bay chose to make the characters have less smooth surfaces (to help with realism in lighting an such) but Knight wanted them closer in look to the G1 style. Knight grew up with the Transformers and is a fan and while I dont have a specific quote, I do not think that Bay knew of this brand well before being given it. And that can explain their different choices. Also, we know that Bay did not care to have Peter Cullen voice Optimus Prime for the first film (at first).

But that doesn't say to me Knight "cares", he grew up with them, that doesn't scream "fanboy".

Just seems to me it's two directors who have two different styles working with a bunch of different writers.

And it's time people accepted that the writers need to be held to task/lauded as well instead of blaming/praising just the director. As far as I'm concerned, the Bay movies got progressively worse as the writers changed.

So this whole "Travis Knight cares about the franchise" is baseless. He has a different style to directing and he had a decent writer to work with.

Burn wrote:So this whole "Travis Knight cares about the franchise" is baseless. He has a different style to directing and he had a decent writer to work with.

I agree with that too. Seeing the robots in all their G1 glory on screen did please my inner fanboy, sure, but it was only a 5 minutes thing. If the story of the recent Bee movie had the same writers as the previous Bay movies, it will have been trash and would have been the final nail in the coffin.

Bee had a strong story and that's why the movie was good. The G1 look was a great cherry on top of the sundae but this time around the ice cream too was delicious.

Burn wrote:But that doesn't say to me Knight "cares", he grew up with them, that doesn't scream "fanboy".

Just seems to me it's two directors who have two different styles working with a bunch of different writers.

And it's time people accepted that the writers need to be held to task/lauded as well instead of blaming/praising just the director. As far as I'm concerned, the Bay movies got progressively worse as the writers changed.

So this whole "Travis Knight cares about the franchise" is baseless. He has a different style to directing and he had a decent writer to work with.

Not completely. I know I mentioned before that I've watched a lot of Knight's LAIKA work, where he's been pretty much everything before directing Kubo and the two strings. In the bonus features for Kubo, Knight pretty much lays out how when he had a basic script for the movie and decided that it was to have a feudal/warring states period feel he dove into research. He spend months researching for how the characters should look, act, on how the sets should look, and what would be considered appropriate for that time period. He reached out to a couple of Japanese historical societies and museums to get the approval for his design choices, and then went above and beyond by making the more fantastical environments reflect the ukiyo-e woodblock prints. It was after he had the look completed that he then worked on the script and reworked it to better reflect what he had researched and changed with his sets and characters.

Knight is by far more meticulous and detail oriented than Bay on how his movie should work, which could be very well a by product of his stop motion animation background. Bay has stated in his interviews/behind the scenes that he's left the research to others and that he focuses more on how the visuals for the special effects look rather than how the scenes flow. I will however also state that the editing process can be a movie killer as well.

Long speech over with just this final comment. Movies have a lot of fingers in the clay shaping them, and yes directors will get most of the credit or blame because their name is always listed first, and they always have the chance to force a writer change or rework the script while in production. Then if the studio doesn't like it then they'll just fire the director, and get somebody else in there to take the fall.

Well, after reading and watching several interviews with Knight, he has made it clear that he is a fan and did a lot of research on the subject. Bay never once made any impression of that sort, he just made Bay movies that had robots in them.

So it's not so much that he "cares about Transformers", but more so "he cares about his craft".

I had nothing against Bay's style, but for me, with each change of writers, the movies got worse and worse. Christina Hodson deserves a good chunk of credit as well.

Burn wrote:So it's not so much that he "cares about Transformers", but more so "he cares about his craft".

I had nothing against Bay's style, but for me, with each change of writers, the movies got worse and worse. Christina Hodson deserves a good chunk of credit as well.

As someone who doesn't care about the G1 bleed in with the Cybertron scenes, I would say she deserves most of the credit, I reckon even Bay would have had a hard time turning it into a bad movie.

Burn wrote:So it's not so much that he "cares about Transformers", but more so "he cares about his craft".

I'd say Bay cares very much about his craft. Countless interviews with both him and members of his film and production crew have talked about how meticulous and passionate he is about things like cinematography and special effects. Getting just the right angles, using the best possible technology to capture the scene just right, that sort of thing.

Granted, that's a different kind of "caring about the craft" than what's been said of Knight doing research and showing a loving appreciation towards the source material, but both men love different aspects of the craft.

I think it best boils down to, for better or for worse (it's all opinionated) what Lindsay Ellis once said in one of her video essays discussing the Transformers films through the lenses of film studies:

"In the intersection between the Bay politique and Transformers lies the answer both to why the films have been so successful, and why many fans of the franchise find the films so noxious. Bay politique appeals to a main stream, but it does not line up with the sincere honorship of nostalgia. The message in Michael Bay's Transformers about Transformers is not 'Let's leave these wonderful creations in the innocent world of children where they belong,' it's more along the lines of 'Why would you wanna play with plastic toys when you can play with titties, you *bleep*in' losers?' So when people say 'Michael Bay raped my childhood,' ...what they really mean is Michael Bay added politique to something innocent. Michael Bay took this memory of a property that I hold fondly and robbed it of its magical, nostalgic value by dragging it into this idea of things that 'really' matter like the military, titties, and cars, which are all shown as vastly superior to the childlike quality of the franchise itself. It isn't really even about political affiliation or world views so much as its reverence for the source material, of which Michael Bay has none, which is why people who have a vague memory of the Transformers franchise (i.e. - most people) tend to respond more positively to these movies than people with a more intense knowledge and affinity for the franchise."

Sabrblade wrote:I'd say Bay cares very much about his craft.

He does, just because I didn't say doesn't mean I was saying he didn't.

They're two very different Directors who had very different writers.

To me, Bumblebee was an okay movie, it was a definite improvement over Age of Extinction and Last Knight, but I went into Bumblebee burned from those two movies, and that's probably why I don't necessarily agree with everyone who lauds praise on Bumblebee.

What it did prove to me though is that you can actually have a good decent Transformers movie, but what hasn't changed in my mind though is that it comes back to the writers. Bay movies got progressively worse as the writers changed. They found a talent in Hodson who has the potential to be a writer for female leads (we'll see how Birds of Preys (and the blah blah blah of Harley Quinn) goes).

So going forward, they need to find a decent writer who can be backed up by the right Director. The Knight/Hodson combo worked for this particular movie, but on a larger scale with a larger TF cast, I have my reservations about them.

If it makes any sense I think a difference about how it is could be separated like this.

Bay wanted to craft a good movie that so happened to have Transformers in it.

Knight wanted to craft a good Transformer movie.

Neither are technically inferior to the other, it's just different approaches to a franchise.

It's really just Knight and Bay Seriously their names really make an awesome coincidence for a sentence like that

What's the Netflix offering? Do they mean just the shows on Netflix?

The main Transformers film franchise producer, Lorenzo di Bonaventure, stated he is currently overseeing the scripting of two Transformers films sequels. He said so as part of a bigger interview to a Japanese movie news website as part of the Bumblebee press tour. One of the films is the next big tentpole Transformers film to follow The Last Knight, while the other is a sequel to Bumblebee. Please keep in mind that the film following the last Knight was already said to be a new experience and thus may involve a new storyline rather than finishing what was started in the Last Knight. The Bumblebee sequel is said to be a buddy movie featuring Optimus and Bumblebee. So one would take place in the past while the other in the present.

Here is a quote from the website:

Throughout the day, Di Bonaventura talks with smiles," Our greatest mission is to the audience To be satisfied, "to meet the expectations of the audience." To that end, he and his colleagues are already working on a new series. "We are already working on two projects and are in the process of writing a script. One is the latest in the main family series following Transformers: The Last Knight and the other is a sequel to Bumblebee So, we are thinking of works where Optimus Prime and Bumblebee will be the buddy (buddy), but when Optimus and Bumblebee are the movies of the protagonists ... how human beings get involved in their drama In the first place, the size is different between human beings and theirs .... It's a worrying point (laughs).

Without a doubt, puts the whole kibosh on fans wanting a complete reboot. Of course, the fact that the same producer overseeing the entire franchise at paramount had confirmed that there was no reboot all along was also a pretty good hint.

Will be interesting to see where they go with the next film (I mean the one that isn't Bumblebee movie 2)