If you’ve been stupid/brave enough (take your pick) to watch all of the Transformers films, you will know that outside of incredible visual effects, poorly scripted characters and stories that don’t hold up to any logic, the other common thread across all the films is the story arc of Optimus Prime. Spoiler Alert: In virtually every film, the story for the Autobots revolves around Optimus being missing and needing to someone be found or rescue before he comes and saves the day. It’s a storyline that has pretty much become a running joke in Transformers movies in trying to build up the relevance of the Autobot’s leader, who often at the end of the day, doesn’t do much at all anyway.
While repetitiveness and cliché have been working for the Michael Bay-directed films at the Box Office thus far, the last movie proved that audiences are starting to get tired of the same formula. However, for the spin-off Bumblebee movie it looks like things may finally change for the franchise, which is not only going to put a new director in place for the first timewith Travis Knight, but also addresses one of the franchise’s biggest problems by putting together a decent writing team for the movie, headed up by Oscar-winning Akiva Goldsman.
However, it seems that despite a new set of creative minds in the film, it looks like they will still find space for Optimus Prime. Let’s hope they can do something different with the character this time. The news was confirmed in a recent interview with Cinemovie, where Peter Cullen, who has voiced the character in both the animated series and recent live-action movies confirmed that he will be returning to voice the character for the Bumblebee spin-off.
The Bumblebee film, which is also due to star Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena is reportedly set in the 80s and for those that might have been awake when watching the films, will know that Prime is not supposed to arrive on Earth until his initial encounter with Sam Witwicky. Considering the last film: The Last Knight pretty much destroyed any semblance of continuity the film series had, I guess it’s only fair that this new film continues the trend and ignores everything that happened before it. Still, it’s only made the low hopes I had for this film even lower by hearing this news.
What the Transformers really need is a hero who can transform this series into something worth watching again. The Bumblebee film is unlikely to be that movie, unfortunately.
Last Updated: October 3, 2017
Kromas Ryder
October 3, 2017 at 10:41
Please let this franchise die.
Allykhat
October 3, 2017 at 10:59
**Spoiler warning rant**
I watched the newest one this weekend… the amount of plot holes…
Like the sword (Which I assumed is Excalibur), one second Mark has it in his hands, stops the knights from killing Optimus, then in the next frame AND FOR THE REST OF THE GOD DAMNED MOVIE…. POOOF. Gone. No more Excalibur. Its not even referenced thereafter.
A major plot device for the beginning of the movie and parts of scenes therafter, vanishes without a trace 1 scene after its actually shown. Whaaat?
Even the Dinobots were severely under-utilised. The Mini Dinos were nothing but fluff and played no part in the actual movie. And then out of left field (which nobody saw coming /s) That nice big “To be continued in… Transformers: Guess what happens next!”