Early Reactions and Impressions for 2018 Live Action Transformers Bumblebee Film

whip_it wrote:just got back from toronto viewing

movie def isn't for hardcore fans even with 5 mins of G1 scenes, more geared towards families and kids just want a 'nice story'

im def disappointed, even tho this was a one off anthology movie and i knew that going in, but still, as a TF fan, im disappoited, this movie is more so about human more than ever

Burn wrote:What's this? The biggest fan of the movies is not spewing praise like always?

jON3.0 wrote:I am beyond thrilled to be the voices of Shockwave AND Soundwave in the Bumblebee movie. It’s been a childhood dream of mine to voice a Transformer(s) in an animated series and/or movie since I was 5 years old. You may already know that I voice Optimus Prime for various Hasbro things if Peter Cullen is busy, doesn’t want to do it, or for budget reasons. It was a great honor being Optimus for Combiner Wars. Shockwave has always been my favorite character and Soundwave is just barely second and to voice such an iconic moment in the film is insane!

My agent submitted my character demo (which features Prime from CW) to Paramount and they hired me to fill in as Optimus Prime for the Bumblebee movie which I was STOKED for! I knew up front that once everything was finalized, they would bring Cullen in. Working with Travis Knight was really cool. He told me if he could talk like Optimus the way I could, he would use that voice all the time. Before you record for a job like this, they always show the scene first. I’m watching the unfinished animation of the opening scene of the movie on this awesome mini-theater in sound stage at Paramount which is totally surreal and I’m seeing the Cybertronian seekers and Shockwave, Soundwave, Ironhide, Arcee and the other classic characters I’ve loved since 1984. Even as unfinished animation, I was totally blown away. I literally fanboyed on Travis Knight about how amazing it was and how it’s what I’ve always wanted to see in the Transformers movies (he’s a true Transformers fan by the way).

I recorded 4 sessions at Paramount, most of them to voice Prime. In the waiting room for different sessions, David Sobolov, Steve Blum, Grey Griffin and I talked shop while I’m trying to keep my cool. Here I am, sitting at the GROWNUP table. Before the fourth session, I received an audition for all the characters in Bumblebee and I had my heart set on booking it. We were asked to pick 4 or 5 but I did them all. I ended up auditioning 3 different times but never found out why. Never heard back from the auditions so I assumed I didn’t book anything, but at least I gave them my best shot.

When I booked the last session, I was only booked to fill in for Optimus again, but I was told I would record scratch (temp voiceover) for other characters, so I figured I still had one more shot. That was the same day Steve Blum was there. Someone came out to ask us which characters we’d booked before and of course Steve is like “Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes...” so I’m thinking I don’t have a chance since I’ve only ever actually BOOKED Optimus. I was only given 2 or 3 characters to record. When I got into the session, I was determined to at least try to do the others because some of them were my favorites. After I asked Mr. Knight if he wouldn’t mind if I tried the other characters, he was kind enough to allow me to record them. After I recorded a few, he said “Dude! You’re blowing my mind here! You sound just like them!” Greatest compliment ever. They had a montage of clips from the G1 cartoon queued up before we recorded each one to make sure they were as accurate to the cartoon as possible which is so cool to see up on a big screen with great sound. We had a fan chat about how Soundwave’s vocoder effect was originally done (he had me record two versions of the voice in two different pitches to better recreate that effect). I also told him about Corey Burton’s David Warner impression was how he came up with the original Shockwave voice. By the end of the job, I had recorded Ratchet, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Soundwave and Shockwave, with no idea whether or not anything would end up in the final movie, but I was confident that I had gave it my all.

A couple of months ago, my two youngest kids and I got to see an early version of the film and all the voices I had done, INCLUDING Optimus Prime, were in that version of the movie which blew my kids’ minds. It was definitely one of the most memorable moments of my entire life. We still didn’t know if that meant any of the voices I did were in the final film or not, but I took it as a good sign.

My agent finally gave me the great news at the end of October. I had joked with Travis Knight that if there were any other voices they needed at all, whatever they wanted, I had to get in the movie somehow and he chuckled, “Don’t worry, you will.” At the time, I took it as “one day it will happen.” It really did and I couldn’t be happier.

My goal has never been to voice Optimus Prime one day, even though it was Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime voice that inspired me to become a voice actor. My goal was always to work with Peter Cullen on a Transformers project and I finally crossed that off my list, even though I never thought it could possibly happen. It was an incredible experience and the movie is really great. It’s got the G1 look & action I’ve always wanted to see with the charm, humor & heart of Iron Giant. My name is up there on the big screen between 2 of my favorite voice actor heroes, Steve Blum & Grey Griffin. I am eternally grateful to my agent, Paramount, the other actors & Travis Knight for their kindness and the opportunity to make a lifelong dream become reality.

Giant Purple Griffin wrote:This movie had no real problems, but there also wasn't really anything to blow you away, whereas the Bay movies were more of a mix of very high highs but also low lows. It seemed like a pretty "safe" effort. The story was pretty predictable and kinda cliche and there wasn't much super memorable, except maybe the brief Cybertron fan service at the beginning. I think the critics will consistently consider it good, but not amazing, so it will probably get the highest tomato meter score of the series.

I think the 2007 movie is still the best, but this was definitely better than the last two efforts. I'm not sure where I'd rank it further from there as far as my personal enjoyment. It's kind of tough to compare it to the Bay films because it was such a different approach, for better or worse (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse).

To use baseball analogy, the Bay movies are like the power hitter that hits a lot of homers, but also strikes out a ton--you take the good with the bad. This movie felt like a solid contact hitter with no power.

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

whip_it wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

i want to see transformers movie with little to none human intervention

Giant Purple Griffin wrote:I geeked out at the Shockwave voice. I didn't know that was in Jon3.0's repertoire. Well done

whip_it wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

i want to see transformers movie with little to none human intervention

SlyTF1 wrote:
Same. I thought the humans in this movie were way more annoying than in any of Bay's movies.

Deadput wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:
Same. I thought the humans in this movie were way more annoying than in any of Bay's movies.

Yeah no

There is no reality or perceptive where this is true, there is no way anyone in that film was more annoying then say Leo or any of the awful stereotypes in the past Bay films.

SlyTF1 wrote:
I thought Leo was funny. In this movie, the human scenes just felt like a barrier that would pop up to keep the movie from getting on with the action.

Deadput wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:
I thought Leo was funny. In this movie, the human scenes just felt like a barrier that would pop up to keep the movie from getting on with the action.

Because screw establishing your characters so people can actually get emotionally invested to just get to the mindless action.

More action doesn't equal a better movie.

SlyTF1 wrote:
If their aim was to get me emotionally invested in those characters, they failed. I wanted them to hurry up and get out of the way so I could see giant robots rip each other to pieces.

Also what's the point of spending so much time establishing characters like the family if there are never any stakes involved with any of them? There was one scene where they were in danger, but it was played for laughs. No tension whatsoever.

Deadput wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:
If their aim was to get me emotionally invested in those characters, they failed. I wanted them to hurry up and get out of the way so I could see giant robots rip each other to pieces.

Also what's the point of spending so much time establishing characters like the family if there are never any stakes involved with any of them? There was one scene where they were in danger, but it was played for laughs. No tension whatsoever.

Because people have families and it would be weird if they weren't around at all? They exist for the main character's life and her character arc, a family doesn't have to be in danger to be worth existing.

SlyTF1 wrote:

Burn wrote:What's this? The biggest fan of the movies is not spewing praise like always?

Bay's absence was definitely felt. The movie lacked the sense of scale and "epicness" he brought to the table. There were a handful of scenes I thought were going to build up to an awesome payoff, but then they'd just cut back to an overly goofy joke or something. And the music was terrible. Completely laughable, especially the military theme. It made them feel like cartoon characters instead of a real threat.

But I will say the fight scenes were probably the best in the series. Too bad they were just so few and far between. I definitely liked the movie better than The Last Knight, and it wasn't a bad movie. Just didn't blow me away like I wanted it to.

Giant Purple Griffin wrote:This movie had no real problems, but there also wasn't really anything to blow you away, whereas the Bay movies were more of a mix of very high highs but also low lows. It seemed like a pretty "safe" effort. The story was pretty predictable and kinda cliche and there wasn't much super memorable, except maybe the brief Cybertron fan service at the beginning. I think the critics will consistently consider it good, but not amazing, so it will probably get the highest tomato meter score of the series.

I think the 2007 movie is still the best, but this was definitely better than the last two efforts. I'm not sure where I'd rank it further from there as far as my personal enjoyment. It's kind of tough to compare it to the Bay films because it was such a different approach, for better or worse (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse).

To use baseball analogy, the Bay movies are like the power hitter that hits a lot of homers, but also strikes out a ton--you take the good with the bad. This movie felt like a solid contact hitter with no power.

RodimalToyota wrote:I went to the advanced screening last night. I will summarize my thoughts, with no Spoilers.
This was just a solid good movie. It felt very warm and kind, with that feel of the G1 messages we all remembered from the cartoon.

The siege on Cybertron is about 4-5 minutes, it shows a absolute ton of characters in G1 form.
Every bot in the movie is completely recognizable during every scene, no confusing bay verse camera work and shoddy action scenes.

Human characters: Charlie is very relatable and has flaws, making her great character to grow with Bee.
Cena’s character does a great job at portraying the military aspect without being over the top.

Humor: Great Humor! Lots of fun pokes at bad story writing, and obvious flaws with past movies. Bee conveys a lot of emotion with his body language and ends up being very silly at the right times.

EasterEggs: Lots of Easter eggs from the G1, and the original animated movie.



Reboot / Soft or Hard? While there is a few characters and a human character which are Bayverse. Those movie completely restarted the Transformers history...AGAIN. There is nothing in BumbleBee which allows it to give any of the other movies credibility story wise. (Not that they had a good story) There is only two things that point to the 2007 movie, and the rest pointed to a whole new story. So my opinion is that this is a medium reboot, they took S7, Simmons, and Bee’s Camaro mode (Although it was a modified 70’s Camaro and not the one we saw in the 2007 movie) The rest of the film follows it’s own narrative. I hope this fully starts a new continuity. Travis Knight really put his heart into this movie and it shows.

Even if you don’t, or never liked BumbleBee before, you will love this movie.

whip_it wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

i want to see transformers movie with little to none human intervention

SlyTF1 wrote:

whip_it wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

i want to see transformers movie with little to none human intervention

Same. I thought the humans in this movie were way more annoying than in any of Bay's movies.

15ngcs1 wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Burn wrote:What's this? The biggest fan of the movies is not spewing praise like always?

Bay's absence was definitely felt. The movie lacked the sense of scale and "epicness" he brought to the table. There were a handful of scenes I thought were going to build up to an awesome payoff, but then they'd just cut back to an overly goofy joke or something. And the music was terrible. Completely laughable, especially the military theme. It made them feel like cartoon characters instead of a real threat.

But I will say the fight scenes were probably the best in the series. Too bad they were just so few and far between. I definitely liked the movie better than The Last Knight, and it wasn't a bad movie. Just didn't blow me away like I wanted it to.

Yeah I can see you're definitely a Bay fan. They chose to make a smaller scale movie with way less unnecessary explosions. That's what the movie critics are praising for and what this franchise needs. And they are actually loving the humour and heart in this film. Regarding the music and the score? It's the 80's! 80's music is great music and the score, especially the military theme, is supposed to sound like those Spielbergian Amblin movies like E.T! I think it's very fitting! And regarding your cartoon character comment, the Transformers are originated from cartoons/animation!

SlyTF1 wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Burn wrote:What's this? The biggest fan of the movies is not spewing praise like always?

Bay's absence was definitely felt. The movie lacked the sense of scale and "epicness" he brought to the table. There were a handful of scenes I thought were going to build up to an awesome payoff, but then they'd just cut back to an overly goofy joke or something. And the music was terrible. Completely laughable, especially the military theme. It made them feel like cartoon characters instead of a real threat.

But I will say the fight scenes were probably the best in the series. Too bad they were just so few and far between. I definitely liked the movie better than The Last Knight, and it wasn't a bad movie. Just didn't blow me away like I wanted it to.

Yeah I can see you're definitely a Bay fan. They chose to make a smaller scale movie with way less unnecessary explosions. That's what the movie critics are praising for and what this franchise needs. And they are actually loving the humour and heart in this film. Regarding the music and the score? It's the 80's! 80's music is great music and the score, especially the military theme, is supposed to sound like those Spielbergian Amblin movies like E.T! I think it's very fitting! And regarding your cartoon character comment, the Transformers are originated from cartoons/animation!

But it's a live action movie. I still listen to the scores from Bay's movies to this day. I'll never listen to the score from this movie by itself in my life.

hausjam wrote:I feel like some folks are heaping praise on this movie simply because it has a couple minutes worth of G1-esque action. Action that wasn’t even very good and felt very out of place. Especially since bumblebee, shatter, and dropkick were very non-G1. I am still fully convinced all the Cybertron stuff was a hasty afterthought, stuffed in after most of the movie was already made. For the sole purpose of enticing Bay haters and buying Knight goodwill from them.

Still, take all the Cybertron stuff out (which contributed nothing to the story anyway) and it was a pretty good movie. All the cgi of bumblebee on earth was probably the best cgi I have ever seen. It was beautiful. The rendering and physics actually looked real. The cgi alt mode and the real car were indistinguishable. It’s clearly where the cg budget was focused. As it should be.

But this movie’s Optimus? It looked terrible. Like someone took the Sunbow drawings, traced them, added a few panel lines, and called it a day. It was nothing more than cheap fan service. Very cheap.

Furthermore, this movie was littered with plot holes. Not even counting the continuity problems from previous movies (I don’t think anyone really cares about those anyway).

But, the good heavily outweighs the bad. Can’t wait to see it again.

Deadput wrote:For those who might be upset for the fate of Blitzwing I had an idea for what the film makers could do if they decided to Bring him back obviously this isn't a fact or anything but I think this is a good "concept" to pass to the filmmakers/Hasbro if anyone has that kind of connection (I know there are people on Tfw2005 that do but not sure if anyone here does)


So I would have Sector 7 or maybe some version of MASK or MECH have possession of his, Shatter and Dropkick's remains and are inspired to experiment and create their own triple changer from their remains which would resemble G1 Blitzwing but "Travisfied" an have a couple elements of the Seeker Blitzwing so the audience knows it's the same guy, the tank and plane wouldn't be exact real life vehicles and have kibble of the other vehicle depending on what mode he is in, that way Hasbro wouldn't have problems with triple changer kibble on the toys as well or vehicle licensing costs as well as to justify the unrealistic tan, yellow and purple colors Bltz typically has, since this is humans rebuilding him with parts from 3 different beings and possibly some Cybertron artifact/energy with a non perfect understanding the result has the creation bringing Blitzwing back to life but his mind is "shattered" and is constantly switching between his personality to Shatter's calm and collected as well as Dropkick's simple minded destructive one, with 3 minds influencing the creation all of which were killed because of Bumblebee this Blitzwing would have the single minded goal of taking revenge on the Autobot, the 3 personalities make him have trouble with which way to carry out that plan from subtle tactical planning to full on mindless rampaging. Also not sure how but if someone found a way to make Astrotrain his partner somehow that would be cool to, (Maybe the way he became a triple changer leaves him super depressed or something).


This is just my idea though with no context of whether this is truly a reboot and whether there are already plans for the next Transformers movie.

I think the idea would make for excellent character driven story telling and correct one of the things that several fans were iffed about the film, like seriously someone should get this to Travis or something.

15ngcs1 wrote:
This seems really clever, innovative and very character driven but can be very complicated for people to understand when shown on screen, but I think they can pull it off if deep thought is put into it!

whip_it wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

i want to see transformers movie with little to none human intervention

SlyTF1 wrote:

Burn wrote:What's this? The biggest fan of the movies is not spewing praise like always?

Bay's absence was definitely felt. The movie lacked the sense of scale and "epicness" he brought to the table. There were a handful of scenes I thought were going to build up to an awesome payoff, but then they'd just cut back to an overly goofy joke or something. And the music was terrible. Completely laughable, especially the military theme. It made them feel like cartoon characters instead of a real threat.

But I will say the fight scenes were probably the best in the series. Too bad they were just so few and far between. I definitely liked the movie better than The Last Knight, and it wasn't a bad movie. Just didn't blow me away like I wanted it to.

15ngcs1 wrote:
So far it's 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sabrblade wrote:

whip_it wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:you mean more about humanity? cause that's what's been missing from the past films.

i want to see transformers movie with little to none human intervention

Then go watch Predacons Rising.

william-james88 wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Burn wrote:What's this? The biggest fan of the movies is not spewing praise like always?

Bay's absence was definitely felt. The movie lacked the sense of scale and "epicness" he brought to the table. There were a handful of scenes I thought were going to build up to an awesome payoff, but then they'd just cut back to an overly goofy joke or something. And the music was terrible. Completely laughable, especially the military theme. It made them feel like cartoon characters instead of a real threat.

But I will say the fight scenes were probably the best in the series. Too bad they were just so few and far between. I definitely liked the movie better than The Last Knight, and it wasn't a bad movie. Just didn't blow me away like I wanted it to.

You know, I always liked you Sly. You always voiced your opinion well, even if it was unpopular and you don't mind people challenging you on it, always answering with heart. And what i like best is that even though you are a fan of the Bay films, you are not a blind follower, you will call him out on missteps, like TLK.

As for the idea of not needing the parents, you bring good arguments. It is not necessary for character growth. The best example is Stranger things. We really dont spend much time with the main character's parents even though they are young teenagers. Of ourse, there's Will's mom but she is an actual main character. SNL even made a joke that we never see Lucas' parents. And its not even a movie, its a whole show. The creators knew that showing interactions with all the parents was uneccesary and preffered to focus on the kids' interaction with the otherworldy aspects. And this is a great comparison to BB because oth BB and Strangers things rely heavily on 80s Nosalgia and Amblin films.

15ngcs1 wrote:
So far it's 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Did you know that Age of Exinction was as well before more critics saw it? Not saying it will sink at all, I just always found that funny. And anyways, 100% just means no one hated the film, which is very different than saying its a great movie.

15ngcs1 wrote:Definitely not 100% at the beginning for Age of Extinction.

william-james88 wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:Definitely not 100% at the beginning for Age of Extinction.

It was. There were only 3 reviews and they were all positive, making the film 100% at first. It then sunk super low

15ngcs1 wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:Definitely not 100% at the beginning for Age of Extinction.

It was. There were only 3 reviews and they were all positive, making the film 100% at first. It then sunk super low

LMAO what were they thinking

Sabrblade wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

15ngcs1 wrote:Definitely not 100% at the beginning for Age of Extinction.

It was. There were only 3 reviews and they were all positive, making the film 100% at first. It then sunk super low

LMAO what were they thinking

Reviewer 1: "Like, totes kewl movie, dudes!"
Reviewer 2: "I know, right?"
Reviewer 3: "Chaah!"