Bumblebee

Money, violence, sex, computer graphics, scatalogical humor, racism, robots designed to be rednecks but given European accents, and maybe another sequel to the saga... what's not to love? TF m1, Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon and now Age of Extinction.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Bumblebee

Post by Sparky Prime »

The new trailer for Bumblebee is out, showing a few scenes taking place on Cybertron, along with some very G1 designs of Optimus, Shockwave, Soundwave, Ravage and some Seekers.

And there is another trailer with a few other scenes as well.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Bumblebee

Post by Sparky Prime »

After four years... I finally got around to seeing the Bumblebee movie.
Spoiler
At Cybertron, Optimus orders the Autobots to fall back and evacuate the planet as they loose ground to the Decepticon army. He sends B-127 to Earth to establish a new base for the Autobots to regroup. Unfortunately, B-127 ends up crashing directly on top of some Sector Seven agents on a training exercise. B attempts to escape, but the soldiers corner him... until Blitzwing shows up, and rips B's voice box out when he refuses to talk. B eventually kills Blitzwing but is severely damaged, scanning a Volkswagen Beetle before passing out.

Jump to Charlie Watson. She's a day away from her 18th birthday, and is determined to finish fixing up the Corvette she and her late father had been working on. She's still not over her father's death, while the rest of her family has moved on and everyone is pushing Charlie to be happy again. Charlie has been going to her uncle's repair shop to get spare parts, when a Volkswagen Beetle catches her eye. Frustrated that she's having no luck fixing the Corvette, and her family pushing her to be happy, she goes back the next day for the Beetle. She eventually discovers her new car is a living robot, which she gives the name Bumblebee because of the noises he makes when attempting to communicate, and teaches him to hide in vehicle mode to keep him safe.

Meanwhile, Decepticons Shatter and Dropkick interrogate Cliffumper on one of the moons of Saturn. Cliffjumper refuses to talk, but suddenly gets a signal from B-127. Believing B-127 might be more useful, they kill Cliffjumper and make their way to Earth. They end up teaming up with Sector Seven, each side planning on betraying each other when they get what they want. Shatter and Dropkick essentially create the internet, despite that's actually been around since the 1970's. Bumblebee inadvertently lets them know where he is when his puts his finger in a power socket while exploring the house alone, causing an energon surge. Bumblebee is captured, and the two Decepticons find a message from Optimus informing them the Autobots are coming to Earth. Leaving Bumblebee for dead, they leave to signal the Decepticons to send an army to Earth. Charlie, Bumblebee and Agent Burns working together are able to defeat the two Decepticons and prevent them from signaling their army.

In the end, Charlie says goodbye to Bumblebee, who scans a Camaro and leaves to meet up with Optimus as more Autobot refugees arrive. Charlie finishes working on her dad's Corvette and takes it for a drive.
This is everything the 2007 Transformers film should have been. It's essentially a 'kid and their first car' story like they tried to do with that first movie, only this was done so much better. Rather than Sam wanting a car just to impress a girl, Charlie's relationship with Bumblebee is used to help develop her character. There's also no MacGuffin in this movie for once. Earth is simply thought to be a safe haven for the Autobots to regroup at. Although, the movie seemed a little confused by how much the Transformers knew about Earth. Optimus calls it a well hidden planet, but the Decepticons already seemed to know about the planet, they just didn't seem to have much interest in it.

I really liked how they portrayed Bumblebee talking through a radio this time around. Unlike previous films, Bumblebee actually scans the radio stations to put together sentences, or uses a clip from a song. It's much more in line with what I thought it'd be when they first said he'd talk using the radio to speak in the 2007 film, where instead, Bumblebee seemed to have access to any audio clip, including television and film, which always felt more like a cheat. This worked so much better.

I don't think the bully subplot was necessary to the movie. There's a group of popular kids that gives Charlie a hard time, which isn't explained. Charlie eventually gets revenge on one of them, at the insistence of Memo and Bumblebee. But the movie really doesn't do anything with this plot. I don't think it'd change anything in the movie if they'd cut these scenes altogether.

I kinda wish the movie had given us some idea of how long ago Charlie's dad had passed away. Given Charlie's mom had a new boyfriend that lived with the family, and how everyone is trying to encourage her to move on, I'd have to guess it's been at least a year or longer. But Charlie makes it seem like it could have been a few weeks ago. Maybe this was intentional, to show that different people process trauma at different rates? I dunno. Really it wouldn't change anything if they'd told us how long it'd been, I just think it would have helped give us a bit more context for why everyone was pushing so hard for Charlie to get over it.

Continuity wise, there are some common story beats to the previous films, as well as beats that breaks away from them. Essentially, it resets the continuity, starting over while not completely ditching everything.

Overall, I really liked this film. Easily the best out of the live action Transformers movies.
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