Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

[Steevy Maximus]

Some…minor weirdness from Hasbro’s SDCC product display (that I could see, it seems to have been…OVERLOOKED by many sites).

The placard for Core Voyager Rhinox lists a release date of October. Yet Walmart is LOADED with him at the moment.

Placards for the Core Deluxe figures say…Available now?! Umm…there is ZERO information about the domestic release of Core Deluxe, so I’m curious if Hasbro will address that.

And again, is it lighting, or does Core Voyager Primal look like he has darker base plastic than the version released earlier this summer?

 

[Steevy Maximus]

Some interesting metrics from BOM from yesterday.
Transformers lost some 1200 locations this weekend, likely due to the massive dual roll outs from Oppenheimer and Barbie. Currently playing in 834 locations, the most interesting thing I saw was that, despite the MASSIVE drop in locations, the per-theatre average is only $100 less ($372) than last Friday ($471).

So, I kind of read that as Transformers was maintaining a steady, if declining, viewership and the drop off in locations was more due to the impact of newer films, not a lack of performance on Transformers’ part.

Regardless, the film WILL pass $155 million this weekend, with the slim possibility of crawling past $160 million by the end of the summer.

 

[Spin-Out]

yeah, ROTB has some serious legs on it.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Even with that gigantic loss of theaters ROTB was still in the top 10 on Friday.

 

[Superomegaprime]

yeah, ROTB has some serious legs on it.

That's good, the Sound of Freedom Movie is doing very well and that just got Armeica cinemas only and its making bank, despite mainstream Hollywood attempt at burying it, so its showing that people are hungry for good entertaining films these days and word of mouth is key to a movie sucess!

 

[Steevy Maximus]

That's good, the Sound of Freedom Movie is doing very well and that just got Armeica cinemas only and its making bank, despite mainstream Hollywood attempt at burying it, so its showing that people are hungry for good entertaining films these days and word of mouth is key to a movie sucess!

Not to trend into certain grounds, but…
Mainstream Hollywood didn’t try to bury anything. It is a low budget thriller that got lost in the shuffle of a corporate buy out (in this case, Disney’s purchase of Fox). When you are trying to balance the slate of films Disney and Fox had circa 2018, a $15 million thriller is NOT a priority when dealing with hundred million dollar films and franchises like X-Men and Predator.

As is, the film benefitted IMMENSELY from Angel Studios marketing to Patriotic and Faith based Conservative audiences. And I strongly feel that the noise raised by that demographic has brought more attention to the film than it would have otherwise received. Angel Studios leveraged that into a sleeper hit. Good for them, it’s great to see someone buck the rules and standards a bit. But I’m under no illusion that had this been released around 2019 by Fox, it wouldn’t have even been a blip on most people’s radar.

 

[MrBlud]

That plus they probably didn’t want the :ahem: “distraction” of the film’s main star doing the rounds talking about andrenochrome and trying their damndest to legitimize and spread a whole other host of batshit insane conspiracy theories.

 

[RichardT519]

Starting to drift into P&R territory...

 

[NovaSaber]

I think intentionally not correcting a conspiracy theory would be more "political" than correcting one is.

 

[Spin-Out]

Starting to drift into P&R territory...

sound of freedom is a dogwhistle to Q*non whackos who think that the jews "liberal elites" are sacrificing Christian children and drinking their blood on the sabbath torturing and killing children to get high off of adrenochrome, which is impossible bc adrenochrome is not a hallucinogen. Q*non is repackaged blood libel.

 

[Sabrblade]

It is good to hear that ROTB just keeps on trucking even as its presence in theaters continues to wind down. And even though it's also been released digitally while still in theaters, too.

 

[lastmaximal]

Part of me does wonder at why, because while I enjoyed it a lot it didn't seem like a really world-changing, thrilling thing to keep seeing again or tell friends to go see. But if you're already looking to go see a movie, it's a good solid choice and a comfy rewatch, so that much I get. Either way, I'm a bit surprised but very glad to see it going this long.

 

[Spin-Out]

tbh i think part of it is the novelty factor of "yo, this transformers movie doesn't suck ass like the first five did" still hasn't worn off

 

[UndeadScottsman]

It's a pure popcorn flick with none of Michael Bay's weirdness in it. I think it's kind of boring as the seventh attempt at a live action TF movie, but at least there's nothing in it that makes me go "Why is this is a Transformers movie."

No Bumblebee pissing on a dude
No camera shots ogling a 17 year old girl
No extended masturbation conversation
No government agent talking about how hot the 17 year old girl is
No dog humping
No camera shot practically up the female leads shorts
No robot humping
No Jon Turtorro ass-shot
No farting robots
No robot balls
No deep wang
No introducing the new female lead with shot of her ass in panties.
And most importantly, no diverting the movie to explain why the 20-year old secondary male lead is legally allowed to date the 17-year old daughter of the male lead.

Also the robot with the random accent at least isn't a giant stereotype, which is an improvement.

 

[lastmaximal]

I think Bumblebee accomplished all that so well, for me personally, that I managed to go into this not even thinking about that. But I can certainly understand the vibe of waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop and Bay writing to pop out from behind a corner and gross up the movie.

I think the closest this movie got to that was the "he's a robot, how is that racist" which was just a bit that dragged and wasn't particularly interesting to begin with, rather than something you'd cringe at having brought people to the theater to see. But yes, Wheeljack just being there and not a Hilarious Foreigner Walking Joke is a sure sign of one way the movies have moved beyond that crap.

 

[UndeadScottsman]

Bumblebee appears to have been an outlier, unfortunately. It wasn't high art, but it did feel like it aspired to be a bit more than a disposable summer movie.

 

[lastmaximal]

I agree.

A big part of that is also just how intimate the scale was. One central character with a meaningful emotional journey, which they were able to parlay into a lovely Iron Giant-ish arc with Bumblebee (aside: I'm weirded out by how little the full name is used in ROTB, although it's cute that Op uses his son's nickname more).

The worry (later dispelled) that such a packed cast and plot for the sequel would be a mess was actually the second thing I felt when it was announced. The first thing was sadness that this meant we would absolutely not get something as personal and striking as the Charlie/Bee dynamic and growth. Noah and Chris had a good story and it was smart to finally build up a Kid Appeal Autobot who could TALK and carry an arc for it, but it doesn't have as much room to really play given how many other things have to be going on. And there's even less room for Elena's character.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Bumblebee appears to have been an outlier, unfortunately. It wasn't high art, but it did feel like it aspired to be a bit more than a disposable summer movie.

Hence the December release? To make sure it's really not a disposable summer movie?

As far as ROTB goes, it just gave me what I wanted: live action Transformers action on the big screen that's visually easier to follow than a stereogram.

And, I mean, Bumblebee did that, too, but on a much smaller scale.

Also: Maximals!

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

I think Bumblebee accomplished all that so well, for me personally, that I managed to go into this not even thinking about that. But I can certainly understand the vibe of waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop and Bay writing to pop out from behind a corner and gross up the movie.

I think the closest this movie got to that was the "he's a robot, how is that racist" which was just a bit that dragged and wasn't particularly interesting to begin with, rather than something you'd cringe at having brought people to the theater to see. But yes, Wheeljack just being there and not a Hilarious Foreigner Walking Joke is a sure sign of one way the movies have moved beyond that crap.

I think the bit about "You were inside me!" was a bit creepy...

 

[Sabrblade]

It's a pure popcorn flick with none of Michael Bay's weirdness in it. I think it's kind of boring as the seventh attempt at a live action TF movie, but at least there's nothing in it that makes me go "Why is this is a Transformers movie."

No Bumblebee pissing on a dude
No camera shots ogling a 17 year old girl
No extended masturbation conversation
No government agent talking about how hot the 17 year old girl is
No dog humping
No camera shot practically up the female leads shorts
No robot humping
No Jon Turtorro ass-shot
No farting robots
No robot balls
No deep wang
No introducing the new female lead with shot of her ass in panties.
And most importantly, no diverting the movie to explain why the 20-year old secondary male lead is legally allowed to date the 17-year old daughter of the male lead.

Also the robot with the random accent at least isn't a giant stereotype, which is an improvement.

You forgot...

No excessive city destruction that would make both Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman blush
No masses of human casualties being blasted into piles of flaming skulls
No cheerful comic relief human sidekick being maliciously fried into a petrified corpse that the camera views in close-up detail, and then continues to linger on for way too long afterward
No random human civilians being blown into gross puddles of puss
No fully-visible onscreen vomiting

---

If anything, the most legitimately "weird" thing about this movie is that it actually killed off Bumblebee early on and let him stay dead for the majority of its runtime. Sure, we knew it couldn't kill him off permanently, but the fact that it even tried, and then sidelined him for most of it, is probably the best kind of "weird" we could have asked for.