Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

[lastmaximal]

Yeah, the Maximals and their entire gig have been condensed remarkably well here, but that still necessarily includes making a lot of sacrifices to make room for the backstory baggage.

It was always going to be an overstuffed narrative, which has the side effects of denying much time for characterization and/or character development (for those that DID get characterization). And then there's freaking Unicron and oh, yeah, there's a GI Joe element too (although the latter is entirely sequel hook and not part of the main story, to be fair).

Bumblebee gave us a great storytelling model: a decent human plot that's carried compellingly and is complemented by the Transformer plot. If this movie were entirely about a jaded Noah adjusting to having been booted from the service and caring for his brother, and working with impetuous Mirage and a guilt-ridden (but not homicidal) Optimus Prime to find the transwarp key, that would have been plenty.

Have Prime mistake Scourge and co for Decepticons first, with Scourge hinting at being more (and later name-dropping Unicron). Build to a faceoff in Peru or whatever. Make Bee's death a closing cliffhanger and have the Maximals show up in the stinger, with Prime and Primal having their standoff.

 

[LordGigaIce]

They also need to figure out once and for all if this new run of movies starting with Bumblebee and continuing with RotB and its sequels is a reboot or not. Right now they're trying to be both and they have to make a call on that.

 

[Cybersnark]

Y'know, if not for the name recognition (and the fan expectations stemming from it), Cheetor & Rhinox work fine for what they are, which is essentially toy-only characters making a cameo appearance. Like, if you'd just search-and-replaced the movie Maximals with, I dunno, B'Boom, Sonar, Ramulus, and Jawbreaker, would people still be complaining, or would they just be thrilled that their obscure favourites actually got any screentime?

See, the thing about all of these movies is that Hasbro wants to sell as many toys as possible, but the writers and VFX people don't want too many characters, so we end up compromising with either multiple off-screen characters (as in the early Bay-based toylines), armies of cameos who don't really do anything for the plot, or multiple equally-inaccurate toys of the same character.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I wish they'd release a director's cut and let us see the story they intended to tell here. 'More' seems like the last thing this movie needs, but if it includes more breathing room maybe it would all balance out better.

 

[lastmaximal]

It didn't work as well for me when the Snyder Cut did it. But I think there's more I like here to start with, so maybe.

But that just cements the notion that all that, properly paced and fleshed out, could have made for two films rather than half-assing each into one.

Y'know, if not for the name recognition (and the fan expectations stemming from it), Cheetor & Rhinox work fine for what they are, which is essentially toy-only characters making a cameo appearance. Like, if you'd just search-and-replaced the movie Maximals with, I dunno, B'Boom, Sonar, Ramulus, and Jawbreaker, would people still be complaining, or would they just be thrilled that their obscure favourites actually got any screentime?

See, the thing about all of these movies is that Hasbro wants to sell as many toys as possible, but the writers and VFX people don't want too many characters, so we end up compromising with either multiple off-screen characters (as in the early Bay-based toylines), armies of cameos who don't really do anything for the plot, or multiple equally-inaccurate toys of the same character.

Eh. I feel the complaint stands whether it's Cheetor or Claw Jaw. Either gets that "audience gleeful they're there at all" we've always gotten since the first movie (so much of the discussion then was fan begging for x or y to be onscreen regardless of the Bay "characterization" stuff), and either remains a cipher on screen when portrayed Iike this.

I will say that I dearly miss the days of tons of offscreen characters in the toyline, and would rather have that than four Arcees, there Cheetors, two Airazors and a Primal in a pear tree. At least give each different iteration a "mission deco" or something. But then, that might have resulted in me picking Weaponizer Arcee as my ROTB Arcee... and having her be orange. So I guess some in-between.

 

[Sabrblade]

This discussion makes me feel like this movie was another Age of Extinction type scenario, where Hasbro wanted the movie to focus on one element (the Dinobots), but the movie itself wanted to focus on a different element (Cemetery Wind and KSI), and the latter ultimately won out while the latter got shoved to the side as much as possible.

In this movie's case, Hasbro obviously wanted this movie to focus on the Beast Wars-based characters, but the movie clearly wanted to focus more on Unicron and the Terrorcons instead.

 

[UndeadScottsman]

Wasn't it pretty well know that there were two scripts in consideration after Bumblebee, one based on Beast Wars since it was hitting that "kids who were into Beast Wars are now adults with disposable income" stage, and one that was a direct sequel to Bumblebee with Prime and the Autobots and what not, and it was ultimately decided to mash the two ideas together. I knew I had a long period of consternation when I heard about that.

Like, this movie was compromised from the beginning and unfortunately the creatives weren't able to prevent that from affecting the quality.

 

[lastmaximal]

I very vaguely recall that, but I wasn't following closely at the time so I got hit with the full force of it in the official announcement that was littered with proper nouns (Maximals! Terrorcons!) and made me feel very concerned for how crammed this thing was going to be, after the lower-key-and-more-engaging-for-it Bumblebee seemed to show a new formula that would work.

And in the end those two elements pulled away from what I wanted, which was more Bumblebee-esque grounded human/TF story, in two different directions. Admittedly, to be fair, what we got wasn't terrible for it, and it's been good to see how well-received it is.

Aside:
Man, I remember the runup to Age of Extinction fondly. There could have been so many interesting things there, from the new human protagonists to Cemetery Wind to Lockdown to all the stuff with Knights.

This was really the era of "the product was a mess, but there's lots of interesting lore bits to play with... if only I were half as skilled as John Barber."

 

[Lobjob]

I mean, I felt the opposite. I thought after hearing about all the concepts and characters it was going to be a complete disaster, but instead we got a surprisingly concise narrative that managed to weave everything together, imo.

Sure, Id rather they not mash things together, but considering that was the assignment, I think they did a pretty good job.

Also, I rewatched The Last Knight recently and it is still absolute madness.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

I wish they'd release a director's cut and let us see the story they intended to tell here. 'More' seems like the last thing this movie needs, but if it includes more breathing room maybe it would all balance out better.

From all the discarded material, from all the early reports, I don't feel like THAT film would be any better. Maybe even noticeably worse.

The general vibe I got was that the original iteration was more "Bay-like", with the Maximals even more minimized (or cast in a more antagonistic light). The movie would have ended on the downer of Optimus Prime "dying" (only to be revealed to be with Unicron), leaving an "open ending" like The Last Knight.

While there ARE elements cut that I wouldn't be adverse to re-incorporated (some minor character moments), but I think, broadly, we DID end up with the better overall film.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Even if it's worse I'd like to see it just to know what they were going for.

 

[unluckiness]

I just want to see the implied events between Bumblebee and this.

 

[lastmaximal]

I mean, I felt the opposite. I thought after hearing about all the concepts and characters it was going to be a complete disaster, but instead we got a surprisingly concise narrative that managed to weave everything together, imo.

Sure, Id rather they not mash things together, but considering that was the assignment, I think they did a pretty good job.

Also, I rewatched The Last Knight recently and it is still absolute madness.

We agree on all of these points. I'm just saying that it may have been better to give each direction its own narrative space and putting it all together cost each depth and substance, but I'm with you in that what we got was far from a mess in the end, considering how difficult the task was.

The Last Knight was absolutely a hot mess. Even to me it felt like an expansion pack just extending more of a few concepts from AOE and more transparently retreading some set pieces.

 

[UndeadScottsman]

The Last Knight is where, I feel, the Bay films finally gave up any semblance of making sense or continuity, and I figure if the movie isn't going to care about that stuff, then why should I?

Turns out when you don't care about that stuff, it's an alright way to kill two and a half hours. Anthony Hopkins appears to be having a ball at leeast.

 

[Sabrblade]

It honestly feels like Bay made TLK as bad as it was so that Hasbro would finally be convinced to let him walk away from directing these movies.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I believe they had genuine high hopes for TLK at some point. It was going to be a soft relaunch of the whole franchise. The writers room produced ideas for a whole cinematic universe. The brainstorming session was bonkers, they didn't say no to any idea, and they felt good about it.

But those ideas were just a few bullet points each, and it turned out that nobody knew how to develop any of them into a whole solo movie. So they bashed all of them together into one movie.

But the resulting movie was very long, and they were still stung by the criticisms of AOE being too long, so they desperately shortened the runtime by clipping a few seconds from the beginning and end of every scene.

 

[Sabrblade]

It also didn't help that the writer's room was headed by the guy who wrote Batman & Robin.

 

[Lobjob]

I mean, I am a psycho. The Last Knight is insane, but I am the kind of maniac who still wants to keep the Bay movies connected to whatever comes forward.

Like, Rise of the Beasts skirts *real* close to what I wanted, but I really want some time travelers to go back in time from the crazy, bat shit wild future dystopia that could only result from Cybertron being drug across the Earth's crust. Like, an X-men Cable, Bishop or Days of Futures past situation. A plot that allows for an Abrams style trek "reboot". Make it some weird time travel chaos and all the random inconsistencies of the franchise and sightings of transformers throughout history in The Last Knight make sense. If you, me, or someone *really* cared, you can make it work.

And totally unrelated, yes, I enjoyed the writings and continuity philosophy of John Barber.

 

[lastmaximal]

I'm right there with you on having hoped that this would be an opportunity to DOFP it.

But now that that's failed to happen (not saying it would've been better than what we did get)? At this stage, I don't even really care anymore, the window's closed, just reboot already and make the next ones good. I think we're also well past the point where making a clear separation from the Bayverse would hurt this current iteration of the movies. So just do that already rather than flip-flopping in interviews. I don't disagree that one could make it work, but at this stage, who and what does that really benefit?

I believe they had genuine high hopes for TLK at some point. It was going to be a soft relaunch of the whole franchise. The writers room produced ideas for a whole cinematic universe. The brainstorming session was bonkers, they didn't say no to any idea, and they felt good about it.

But those ideas were just a few bullet points each, and it turned out that nobody knew how to develop any of them into a whole solo movie. So they bashed all of them together into one movie.

But the resulting movie was very long, and they were still stung by the criticisms of AOE being too long, so they desperately shortened the runtime by clipping a few seconds from the beginning and end of every scene.

Hell, I had high hopes for TLK at some point. Well, not "high", just hopes. I had seen the previous movies, after all.

But like I said, AOE dropped a lot of neat lore to play with -- Lockdown and the Creators (who might have other agents), Autobots having to reestablish on Earth with Optimus gone (this time to seek out the creators), a nebulous and malleable Knight backstory, KSI -- and TLK had some intriguing new possibilities (Hot Rod, a returning Barricade and Megatron, a returning Cade, Anthony Hopkins coming in, leaning into the Knight aesthetic, even the order of the Witwiccans had potential). And so with a gaggle of writers there to make the most of all that, there seemed to be possibilities there.

Of course, nothing changed from the whole "let's write the thinnest-ass plot needed to justify what is essentially a theme park ride" mindset, and so we got a movie that was basically AOE Again, feeling as Mad Libs as these movies have ever gotten.

 

[Cybersnark]

I'm right there with you on having hoped that this would be an opportunity to DOFP it.

Surely you mean Target: 2006.