Dolby Cinema reveals new exclusive Bumblebee Movie poster

Great poster! Can't wait to watch it when I get back to Hong Kong.

Following information submitted to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) we've now learned that Bumblebee's age rating certificate has been lowered from a 12-A (no one under twelve years of age without Adult Supervision) to a PG rating (Parental Guidance advised). Thus certificate will increase the chance that more families will see the film when it opens on the 26th of December in the UK. It appears as though footage was cut to make this change as the new running time is now 113 mins and 38 seconds, the amount of footage lost is minimal.


Please note that this poster was from before the date of the movie was changed to that of the 26th December in the UK.

Are you looking forward to seeing this film? If you have already seen it at an early advance screening, don't forget to leave your feedback in our spoiler thread. Everyone else feel free to leave your comments in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews.

So, 22 seconds of footage was cut. No biggie.

Wow, Bumblebee was 22 seconds away from being PG? Nice lol.
I'd imagine those 22 seconds were some of the few curse words removed/shortening some intense action shots. Who knows. And who cares

Weird, Cinema ratings wise Once upon a deadpool is showing as a 15 rating for us (the original deadpool 2 release here was a 15!) so they are kind of screwy and always have been.
Looks like some showings of bumblebee are on this weekend and the cuts durations not enough to avoid seeing it -but if 60 seconds of cuts from Arnies Commando can make it A-team level of violence 22 seconds could be more than a few curse words.
Maybe it will be like the first film and get an imax screening with a few cut bits put back in.

I wonder if they cut (Spoiler for the movie) Dropkick killing humans due to the potential "violence" of it

Nah that's still in as it's listed on the BBFC page itself.

Today, we have some very special and unique news to share with you. Seibertronian TulioDude was fortunate enough to attend CCXP 2018, which is a Brazilian Comic Con Experience. The event featured a very large media presence, and among the many booths at the event was one dedicated to Bumblebee and his upcoming movie! TulioDude was kind enough to take a ton of pictures of the event, and even wrote us up a description of the event to go with his pictures. Check out the full experience below!

TulioDude wrote:The first three are the Bumblebee statue that was present.Upon close inspection it seems a advanced version of a papercraft, mixed with metal and lights.Its was very well done.

The place was built to resemble a garage with few tools and different models of TVs,as you can see the next three photos.

The other side had few games resembling an arcade with arcade like cabinets (pretty sure one of them was Metal Slug), one pinball machine (a Bumblebee movie themed one) and a stage with people playing Just Dance with some 80’s songs and a few more. There was also some dioramas like the previous one seen in other conventions around, but I did not manage to get more photos of them. An overall view in the next pic.

Of note, one of the highlights was one arcade cabinet with a Bumblebee game, which could be played by up to two players in split screen. I thing this game was seen elsewhere before but I don't remember where. There was also the same in a few smart devices nearby.The next four pics show this. The toy store named ToyMania, was one responsible for selling Transformers merchandise there. It was a selection of the Bumblebee line, Studio series, Cyberverse and miscellaneous ones. If bought anything, you earned the convention exclusive cup, and any if spent more than R$199,00 (Brazil currency remember) in total price, you get the exclusive shirt (i didn't get one). All this seen in the next nine pics. The pin-bottom was the prize for playing the Bumblebee arcade game.

To cap it off one last pics of the tools and one of the outside view.

Glad to help!It was fun there!

With Bumblebee edging its way into theaters soon, we have word from director Travis Knight regarding his future projects. Despite rumors stating that Knight would replace former Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn to take over for the third film, Knight himself dispelled the rumor in a statement he made to Bad Taste, a website based in Italy. He explains that, “After Bumblebee, [Knight’s] goal is to return to work at the animation studios Laika, [his] ‘child’ bringing with him [all] the baggage of experience [he’s] gained with [Bumblebee].”

For those who do not know, Knight made his name known working on stop-motion animated films such as 2009’s Coraline and 2014’s Kubo and the Two Strings, the latter being Knight’s directorial debut. Despite the warm reception towards Bumblebee, his live action debut, it seems Knight’s tenure in the Transformers franchise will be left short and sweet.



Are you saddened that Knight will not continue to work with Transformers, or do you prefer his work at Laika? Perhaps you wish that Knight was indeed taking the helm for the third Guardians movie. Let us know what you think in the Energon Pub and stay tuned here at Seibertron.com for all the latest Transformers news and reviews!

With the premiere of Bumblebee this last Sunday at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, fans and critics alike are buzzing over the film. The festivities weren’t only for the onlookers; several members of the film’s cast and crew were in attendance, and they joined together that night at Ohm’s Nightclub for a triumphant after-party. There lead actress Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Charlie Watson in the film proper, was surprised when her compatriots presented her with a cake in a surprise celebration for her upcoming 22nd birthday.

Amidst the hectic activity of the night, Steinfeld and several others on the crew were interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter to give their thoughts on the film’s production. In regards to the film’s rewrite, Steinfeld shared that, “Christina Hodson wrote an amazing script, which drew [Steinfeld] into this world… Kelly Fremon Craig, who wrote and directed [her] in Edge of Seventeen, did the rewrite, and [Steinfeld and Craig] had wonderful conversations about developing Charlie’s voice into what you see now.”

In addition to acting, astute readers may know that Hailee Steinfeld has written a song for the film’s soundtrack. A self-admitted ‘bucket list’ item, she described the process as follows: “I wanted the song to ring true to the 1980s, while being able to fit into [her] body of work as an artist.”

She also comments on the filming itself, and the bizarre circumstances under which she performed due to her main acting partner, Bumblebee himself, being wholly computer-generated. In her own words, “When you’re reading the script, you’re kind of taking it all in as if it’s real… When you show up to set and they tell you you’re working with a tennis ball and a stick for four months, you realize it’s not going to be easy.”



For more of the interview, and a taste of Director Travis Knight, fellow actors Pamella Adlon and John Cena, writer Christina Hodson, and voice actors Justin Theroux and Angela Bassett’s experiences please refer The Hollywood Reporter’s full article, posted on their website.

RobRobRobRobRob wrote:With Bumblebee edging its way into theaters soon, we have word from director Travis Knight regarding his future projects. Despite rumors stating that Knight would replace former Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn to take over for the third film, Knight himself dispelled the rumor in a statement he made to Bad Taste, a website based in Italy. He explains that, “After Bumblebee, [Knight’s] goal is to return to work at the animation studios Laika, [his] ‘child’ bringing with him [all] the baggage of experience [he’s] gained with [Bumblebee].”

For those who do not know, Knight made his name known working on stop-motion animated films such as 2009’s Coraline and 2014’s Kubo and the Two Strings, the latter being Knight’s directorial debut. Despite the warm reception towards Bumblebee, his live action debut, it seems Knight’s tenure in the Transformers franchise will be left short and sweet.



Are you saddened that Knight will not continue to work with Transformers, or do you prefer his work at Laika? Perhaps you wish that Knight was indeed taking the helm for the third Guardians movie. Let us know what you think in the Energon Pub and stay tuned here at Seibertron.com for all the latest Transformers news and reviews!

I think he's following Steven Spielberg's footsteps. Spielberg never directs sequels. He only executive produces them.

15ngcs1 wrote:I think he's following Steven Spielberg's footsteps. Spielberg never directs sequels. He only executive produces them.

LOL WOT?

Jurassic Park The Lost World wants to say hello as well

Fine Spielberg said he rarely directs sequels

15ngcs1 wrote:Fine Spielberg said he rarely directs sequels

Maybe he talks about these days, but when you look at his career he has 4 sequels out of 32 films. That's way more than rarely.
And guess what film he will be working on soon, ANOTHER SEQUEL to Indiana Jones

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/indi ... 202861005/

he's very dedicated to that particular franchise if he chose to direct all of them

Film cut? I'll have to see an uncut version for Bumblebee's Hot Rod, then!

if only hot rod was in the film to begin with!

Nowhere in this short article does it have anything saying he is retiring from the Transformers films, aside from the title. All it says is he's going to go work on animation projects, which if you're a director, you move on to your next job. He could easily come back for the next instalment, if there is a next instalment, which would be years away.

true. these titles are always misleading.

Basically he's not doing the next one there's talk that Paramount are looking at other people for the Optimus Prime movie.

Well, I'm going to need to drop my opinion here as well as an '85 kid who grew up with G1


Bumblebee was awesome! I agree with the person who said I'd spend another whatever bucks on the 5 minutes of Cybertron alone.

Damn I love this movie. It starts with action, we actually have flying Tran...

Spoilers!!!!

No, no spoilers. I love the movie, it has character development, it has humor. It has slow parts and takes it's time with scenes and moments. The action is great! I do think the forrest battle is still thé best battle. But man would that forrest battle have looked good with Transformers looking Transformers.

I love the very few Transformers in the movie so that they actually have screentime. I know everybody loves the first movie but Megatron and Starscream had a 4 second dialogue wich made it look like they were an adaptation of anything. Otherwise the cons were just mindless drones to be brutally murdered by peace loving Autobots.

I like he humans, I was very unsure about John Cena (European and don't watch/follow any of that WWE stuff a lot of Americans are crazy about, I do like the womens WWE, sick moves and hot chicks). I liked the family, a bit cheesy at times but not overly and actually had some deep elements.

I loved the relationship between Charlie and Bee, and Charlie and afro boy. It was sweet. If Bay directed this than afro boy would be spying on Charlie taking showers. My god it's so fresh no not see that depraved sexuality we have nowadays with 16 and pregnant, instaho's, Nicki Minaj and women getting to be celebrities and influencers by effing some rich black dude. Man that part of our pop culture is destructive and lizard brain sad as hell.

Ontopic, Cybertron man... Cybertron.

Travis Knight knows his stuff and made his film and I love it. He loves Transformers and I hope this director get's another chance at my most favorite franchise.

SPOILERS....
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The last scene where Bumblebee takes off on the bridge, damn man, chills and almost tears...

I had a great time watching the early screenings of Bumblebee and am going to watch it with the waifu again soon, and at least one more time solo after that. I love this film, I love the fact that the current toyline Siege looks a lot like the Cybertron parts.
They really changed a lot since there are no Cybertron scene toys on the shelf or in the making as far as we know. So the director really had power and took a stand to have that scene in.

EDIT: Whoops, wrong thread!

ZeroWolf wrote:Basically he's not doing the next one there's talk that Paramount are looking at other people for the Optimus Prime movie.

Whoever the next director is, he should be somebody who grew up watching the G1 series...

For those posting spoilers, we have a thread for it.

Salacious_Monk wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Basically he's not doing the next one there's talk that Paramount are looking at other people for the Optimus Prime movie.

Whoever the next director is, he should be somebody who grew up watching the G1 series...

Why?

Burn wrote:For those posting spoilers, we have a thread for it.

Salacious_Monk wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Basically he's not doing the next one there's talk that Paramount are looking at other people for the Optimus Prime movie.

Whoever the next director is, he should be somebody who grew up watching the G1 series...

Why?

That's because otherwise the director will hardly understand how most fans fall in love with transformers in the place.

Salacious_Monk wrote:That's because otherwise the director will hardly understand how most fans fall in love with transformers in the place.

What about those fans who got into transformers because of Beast Wars?

Or those fans who got into Transformers because of Armada/Energon/Cybertron?
(Both groups are old enough to have disposable income now)

WHY does it constantly have to be G1? WHY can't it be something new and different? I mean it's only a franchise whose core concept is about change.

Burn wrote:

Salacious_Monk wrote:That's because otherwise the director will hardly understand how most fans fall in love with transformers in the place.

What about those fans who got into transformers because of Beast Wars?

Or those fans who got into Transformers because of Armada/Energon/Cybertron?
(Both groups are old enough to have disposable income now)

WHY does it constantly have to be G1? WHY can't it be something new and different? I mean it's only a franchise whose core concept is about change.

Maybe in thirty years time we'll get a beast wars movie, but who am I kidding, they'll still be beating the G1 horse's skeleton.

Burn wrote:For those posting spoilers, we have a thread for it.

Ah, whoops! Sorry about that, I'll move the post to the relevant thread.

Burn wrote:

Salacious_Monk wrote:That's because otherwise the director will hardly understand how most fans fall in love with transformers in the place.

What about those fans who got into transformers because of Beast Wars?

Or those fans who got into Transformers because of Armada/Energon/Cybertron?
(Both groups are old enough to have disposable income now)

WHY does it constantly have to be G1? WHY can't it be something new and different? I mean it's only a franchise whose core concept is about change.

These two series can never match the G1 series. The stories of these two series were OK. But the biggest problem is that there were too few characters. In addition, the robot designs in Beast Wars were utter horrible...

I'm afraid I must disagree as in my view (your milage will vary) both of those series are superior to G1 toon. The G1 toon was just a toy commercial where you bad characters appearing for no reason (hey Astrotrain where did you come from! And the protectorbots! At least the aerialbots, stunticons, combaticons and technobots got an introduction)

ZeroWolf wrote:I'm afraid I must disagree as in my view (your milage will vary) both of those series are superior to G1 toon. The G1 toon was just a toy commercial where you bad characters appearing for no reason (hey Astrotrain where did you come from! And the protectorbots! At least the aerialbots, stunticons, combaticons and technobots got an introduction)

In terms of story, yes, the stories of the two series are OK. Some of the G1 stories are not well-written.
But if you have too few characters (like in Beast Wars and Armada), the WAR between autobots and decepticons will be just like a feud between two small gangs...

Salacious_Monk wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I'm afraid I must disagree as in my view (your milage will vary) both of those series are superior to G1 toon. The G1 toon was just a toy commercial where you bad characters appearing for no reason (hey Astrotrain where did you come from! And the protectorbots! At least the aerialbots, stunticons, combaticons and technobots got an introduction)

In terms of story, yes, the stories of the two series are OK. Some of the G1 stories are not well-written.
But if you have too few characters (like in Beast Wars and Armada), the WAR between autobots and decepticons will be just like a feud between two small gangs...

Sometimes that smaller scale is more entertaining than a realistic portrayal of warfare. Said smaller scale is even one of the reasons this Bumblebee movie is drawing in so much more critical acclaim than all of the previous five films put together,

And it's not like the G1 cartoon always had every single Autobot and Decepticon go into every single battle in every single episode.

And the G1 fights were more of a comedic brawl then a war. You wanted a war you had two choices, your imagination or the comics. Having a larger cast means nothing.

Sabrblade wrote:

Salacious_Monk wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I'm afraid I must disagree as in my view (your milage will vary) both of those series are superior to G1 toon. The G1 toon was just a toy commercial where you bad characters appearing for no reason (hey Astrotrain where did you come from! And the protectorbots! At least the aerialbots, stunticons, combaticons and technobots got an introduction)

In terms of story, yes, the stories of the two series are OK. Some of the G1 stories are not well-written.
But if you have too few characters (like in Beast Wars and Armada), the WAR between autobots and decepticons will be just like a feud between two small gangs...

Sometimes that smaller scale is more entertaining than a realistic portrayal of warfare. Said smaller scale is even one of the reasons this Bumblebee movie is drawing in so much more critical acclaim than all of the previous five films put together,

And it's not like the G1 cartoon always had every single Autobot and Decepticon go into every single battle in every single episode.

I don't think being small-scale is the reason that the bumblebee movies are attractive. The new movie is attractive because the transformers finally have their personalities and the robot designs are prettier. In the previous five movies, all the transformer characters were just paper-thin.

ZeroWolf wrote:And the G1 fights were more of a comedic brawl then a war. You wanted a war you had two choices, your imagination or the comics. Having a larger cast means nothing.

The G1 cartoons aimed at the kids so you couldn't give a realistic portray of a war. You still remember the reaction to Optimus's death in the movie? However, having a larger cast can provide you the foundation for making the transformers movies into an epic. The live-action movies are not just for kids. You can make them into something like the starwars series.

A larger cast is incredibly expensive though, hence why in revenge of the Fallen onwards the cons got bulked out by reskinned models that they had already used. The 07 movie had a smaller cast as well and is the most favourable of the live action movies (till Bee of course) in a movie setting you have two hours to keep people's attention. A large cast and making them distinct from each other is a very tall order, that's before you even think about plot. Until it changes, paramount will also keep the human element, which again requires time to develop them.

Now all of this is possible but you have to be careful with your choices. Marvel worked because they didn't throw the Avengers at you at the very beginning, each got a movie to sell themselves, so the Avengers movie could sell you them as a team. Only curveball with this approach is of course Guardians of the Galaxy, but we weren't getting them any other way, and their first film did suffer from marvel villain syndrome.

ZeroWolf wrote:A larger cast is incredibly expensive though, hence why in revenge of the Fallen onwards the cons got bulked out by reskinned models that they had already used. The 07 movie had a smaller cast as well and is the most favourable of the live action movies (till Bee of course) in a movie setting you have two hours to keep people's attention. A large cast and making them distinct from each other is a very tall order, that's before you even think about plot. Until it changes, paramount will also keep the human element, which again requires time to develop them.

Now all of this is possible but you have to be careful with your choices. Marvel worked because they didn't throw the Avengers at you at the very beginning, each got a movie to sell themselves, so the Avengers movie could sell you them as a team. Only curveball with this approach is of course Guardians of the Galaxy, but we weren't getting them any other way, and their first film did suffer from marvel villain syndrome.

I doubt that a larger cast would be incredibly expensive. You think people like Scarlett Johansson or Robert Downey Jr. would be much cheaper than CGI? I have seen aquaman. It was full of CGI and was almost plotless but the budget was only around $180 million or so. You don't need to make the robots unnecessarily complex like Michael Bay did. That can save a lot of money. Making transformers distinguishable is not difficult. You can use colours. In the G1, Megatron was grey but Star was red, blue and white. But in Bay's movies, almost every decepticon was grey...
Paramount can try making the next movie 40% transformers (CGI) and 60% human and the one after that 50% transformers (CGI) and 50% human and so on. If the result is good, then in the end we can have a 100% CGI transformer movie.

We already have had a 100% cgi transformers movie, Predacons Rising.

That was also a smaller cast.

Bigger cast does not equal a great movie. Movie studios want their films to make as much money as possible, especially if based on a kids toy franchise like this, so they'll want to make as much for as least possible. But as I said earlier things may change but don't expect it to happen over night.

If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Sabrblade wrote:If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personally about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Thank you Sabrblade, you've put it better than I did.

Sabrblade wrote:If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

ZeroWolf wrote:We already have had a 100% cgi transformers movie, Predacons Rising.

That was also a smaller cast.

Bigger cast does not equal a great movie. Movie studios want their films to make as much money as possible, especially if based on a kids toy franchise like this, so they'll want to make as much for as least possible. But as I said earlier things may change but don't expect it to happen over night.

Precons rising was a bit disappointing... Honestly, I think that Paramount should consider stagger autobot and decepticon movies. The next transformer movie can feature starscream (a decepticon movie) on how he tries to overthrow Megatron and then gets banished to the Earth where he builds his own troops (terrorcons/predacons/combaticons). The movie after next can feature Optimus Prime (an autobot movie) on how Megatron after having dealt with Starscream's rebellion starts to invade the Earth and how Optimus Prime defends the Earth.

Salacious_Monk wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

Not everyone reads them plus they can be rendered pointless by the next film...look at all the tie ins to the live action tf movies.

ZeroWolf wrote:

Salacious_Monk wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

Not everyone reads them plus they can be rendered pointless by the next film...look at all the tie ins to the live action tf movies.

You don't need everybody to read them. You just need enough people to read in order to cover your cost and give you a profit. Not everybody uses an iphone but Apple still makes a lot of money from their iphone business.

Salacious_Monk wrote:Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

The MCU is a whole a different animal. The Avengers films can handle having large main casts because they allowed the other movies leading up to each of them to give focus to all of if the main characters (or in Hawkeye's case, Age of Ultron gave particular focus to him). That's how the Avengers films themselves work as ensemble films. They bring together familiar faces that we've gotten to know on a more personal level in the surrounding MCU movies. And yet, somehow, the Avengers films also still manage to find a way to adequately juggle everyone's screentime focus relatively evenly.

Whereas the G1 cartoon just threw in everyone from 1984 right out of the gate, and only kept adding more characters as time went on, and yet still chose to give the majority focus to a fraction of its main cast, leaving the large remainder an army of dudes we saw all the time but barely ever got to know.

That's partly why every cartoon afterward and some* of the live action movies (especially this Bumblebee movie) scaled back the main cast roster to a core group of characters that get ample focus and development between each of them, allowing us to get to know each of them more personally than most of the G1 cartoon's cast ever got, thereby further enhancing the meaningfulness of both the narrative of the ongoing storyline and our viewing experience overall.


* -- By "some" of the live action movie I mean those like the 2007 one, AOE, and this Bumblebee movie, where the characters were more clearly defined in their smaller units. ROTF, DOTM, and TLK, meanwhile, had expanded rosters full of generics and nobodies added to their robot casts.

Sabrblade wrote:

Salacious_Monk wrote:Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

The MCU is a whole a different animal. The Avengers films can handle having large main casts because they allowed the other movies leading up to each of them to give focus to all of if the main characters (or in Hawkeye's case, Age of Ultron gave particular focus to him). That's how the Avengers films themselves work as ensemble films. They bring together familiar faces that we've gotten to know on a more personal level in the surrounding MCU movies. And yet, somehow, the Avengers films also still manage to find a way to adequately juggle everyone's screentime focus relatively evenly.

Whereas the G1 cartoon just threw in everyone from 1984 right out of the gate, and only kept adding more characters as time went on, and yet still chose to give the majority focus to a fraction of its main cast, leaving the large remainder an army of dudes we saw all the time but barely ever got to know.

That's partly why every cartoon afterward and some* of the live action movies (especially this Bumblebee movie) scaled back the main cast roster to a core group of characters that get ample focus and development between each of them, allowing us to get to know each of them more personally than most of the G1 cartoon's cast ever got, thereby further enhancing the meaningfulness of both the narrative of the ongoing storyline and our viewing experience overall.


* -- By "some" of the live action movie I mean those like the 2007 one, AOE, and this Bumblebee movie, where the characters were more clearly defined in their smaller units. ROTF, DOTM, and TLK, meanwhile, had expanded rosters full of generics and nobodies added to their robot casts.

I didn't mean to say that the strategy of G1 series was perfect. My point is that the G1 series had a large cast and it did you the impression that a war was going on. Unlike the avengers(superheros), Optimus Prime/Megatron was the commander but not the most powerful transformer. Later series scaled back the cast and this "war" atmosphere was no longer there. the movies were more like superhero movies and lost this "war" charm. You don't need to portray every soldier in the Lord of the Rings but you still need those soldiers to let the audience know a war was going on.

So how about that Bumblebee movie ...
(Though I can understand why it's gone off topic, I don't know what purpose this thread even serves any more now that we have a spoiler one.)