Alright, I’m for the most part an incredibly casual transformers fan…
BUT PLEASE tell me I’m not the only one getting those Miramax Bionicle vibes off of this? The cheesy, plucky group dynamic, the heroes learning to use their toy gimic, the emotive but cool robot designs that dont quite look like their original versions but get the point across? The epic scale? I got weird nostalgia tingles! I was actually grinning ear to ear by the end of the trailer.
sigh I have the exact opposite reaction. It looks bad to me. Feels like a by-the-numbers origin movie aimed “at children” to make up for it’s lack of humor. But that’s just me.
Haven’t really been impressed with any TV or movies coming out for Transformers for a while.
I mean that’s fair, the humor didn’t seem like it was anywhere near incredible (which further reminded me of the Bionicle movies lol). But I don’t know, something about the way they’re approaching it just felt comfortingly familiar but fresh, if that makes sense.
It feels familiar to me because it uses live-action celebrities over voice actors, and likely will copy elements of The Lego Movie (which I have noticed a few animated films doing these days).
As for the BIONICLE films, yeah those haven’t aged so well in my eyes either. :S I’m an old grouch!
I am not asking for a super-serious transformer film (already hated the Bay films too). I really wish they’d make something of Bumblebee’s quality again with the writing and respect to the lore. I enjoyed that film a lot, and would pay good money to see something on it’s level once more.
Definitely agree about Bumblebee, that was such a great movie. I thought Rise of the Beasts was good but it didn’t hit the high charm of Bumblebee or match the crazy action spectacle of the Bay films (which otherwise sucked) so it felt a bit hollow
I found Rise of Beasts just disappointing. I also laughed incredibly hard at the end with the GI Joe card. People scowled at me in the theater when I laughed that hard, don’t care, it was ridiculous. XD
stop copying me 
The visuals are absolutely phenominal, the animation work is spectacular, money went into this and it shows.
But this is one of those times where I wonder if the film producers legitimately looked at themselves and inquire, “did anyone ask for this?”
Like sure, you’d be appeasing the Transformers fans, but there’s ultimately not many of those. You now have to convince general audiences to go see a Transformers film featuring only four Transformers you recognize off the bat, in a style nobody is familiar with, with barely any transforming, starring an Optimus Prime who isn’t voiced by Peter Cullen - also known as the thing keeping modern Transformers alive.
None of those things are necessarily bad; you need to start testing the waters with other Prime VAs sooner rather than later in the event Peter Cullen suddenly can’t continue VAing for whatever reason. But here, the one thing that could’ve guaranteed people actually show up to your radically different Transformers film is completely absent - and Peter Cullen absolutely has the chops to do an Optimus voice that’s pre-Prime. None of these decisions make sense outside of appealing to a select group of Transformers nerds, who while fairly rich and very easily baited, hardly make up for millions and millions of dollars spent hiring people like Chris Hemsworth and pumping out visuals as crisp as these.
Long story short, I kind of hope it bombs. Not because I hate it, it looks generally fun enough to be tolerable, but due to the rather inane decisions made here in such frequency regarding its even existing at all, it doesn’t deserve to succeed.
It is as they say: all that glitters is not gold. It can look shiny and new, but it certainly still looks bad internally due to the casting choices, writing choices, and the way it’s trying to appeal to basically no one. This is an error that movie studios continue to make time and time again. Making a shiny, nice looking movie that doesn’t appeal to audiences who have genuinely had better, expect better, and want better.
Ok, so when i first saw the trailer? i wasn’t into this. But after a while, i’ve come to the conclusion: This probably isn’t for me, and that’s okay.
Because a fresh start movie untouched by the stagnation of the Bay films or G1 is what this franchise needs. It needs a new place for people to jump onto.
This might not be the movie most Transformers fans want, but that’s okay.
There are plenty of Transformers stories to enjoy out there. Take the new Skybound comics for example, which are some of the best TF comics in recent years, if not some of the best comics in general.
And who knows, maybe a two minute trailer isn’t the best thing to judge a whole movie off of. Give it a chance.
Tldr: TF: One might not be that bad, i’d say reserve judgment for until you’ve seen it
Honestly, it seems promising so far. If it bombs, it bombs, but I’m cautiously optimistic.
the trailer sent me down a rabbit hole that ended in me really wanting the $160 yolopark optimus prime kit so that’s fun
Idk man these all seem like things only Transformers fans would really care about. Really, I think the audience is ‘little kid’, and at that point, conventional arguments don’t really apply. Funny cartoon robot adventure, three transformers I already know plus the pink girl for a broader gender appeal, there was a tease of transforming in the latter half of the trailer at least, and if I’m seven years old, who is Peter Cullen? No idea.
This is a perfect “mommy daddy can we go see the new transformers movie” scenario, and I’ll bet it makes bank. Maybe it’ll even make enough money to fund a War For Cybertron film in the vein of the Cybertron scenes from Bumblebee (which is what I was hoping this was tbh)
I’ll probably see it it in theaters once. Whether or not I like it enough to watch again? Idk I gotta wait for that one-man consensus. I think this movie will get more flack from deep-lore transformers fans than from general audiences, and that’s why I believe it’ll be a financial success
I feel like this is more for general audiences than transformers fans. Like wekua said, it’s a lot easier for a child to see the new animated transformers movie that’s separate from everything else and want to go than for something that’s a continuation of a previous story
pretty much everyone knows optimus prime and megatron, so a movie focusing on them that doesn’t require any knowledge other than “these two fight sometimes but now they’re not fighting” would be the best option for someone who isn’t very up to date on the franchise and IP (like me!)
let’s take the most recent transformers movie: rise of the beasts
I saw the trailer and was kind of interested, but I didn’t recognize most of the characters and felt like I didn’t know what was going on or why it was happening and thus didn’t watch the movie
with this, I can understand pretty much everything with just the baseline knowledge that these are robots that live on a robot planet and they get into battles sometimes, so I feel a lot more inclined to check it out
it also helps that the characters look a lot more like toys than their bayverse/otherwise counterparts, which just adds to the idea that this is a new story and isn’t bogged down by a decade’s worth of movies
anyways that’s just what I think; even if the movie sucks (which it might) it seems a lot more tailor-made for general audiences than the more recent movies
You may not know who Peter Cullen is, but you know what Optimus Prime sounds like. And much like with Chris Pratt, you had people deciding in advance they would have nothing to do with the Mario movie simply because it wasn’t Charles Martinet. Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime in much the same way as Charles Martinet is Mario, and to not cast Optimus Prime as Optimus Prime in an Optimus Prime movie is certainly a choice.
For the Mario movie, it worked out okay; Chris Pratt is a talented voice actor with a decent range and he evidently made it work, says the billion dollar revenue from the film. I hope Chris Hemsworth will be able to live up to the expectations he now has thrust upon him by every single potential moviegoer.
I think perfect is stretching things a little. The Bayformers movies continued to sell because of the established status quo, despite the films themselves going so far downhill that their creative mastermind is now a laughingstock in the entertainment business. That’s the power of ‘the new transformers movie’ and I don’t think it’s going to apply nearly as much here.
Why? Because the last film to come out that audiences will remember is Rise of the Beasts, which due to its Bayformers-esqe visual style makes TF1 look like a cartoon by comparison. Will that be a jarring-enough shift to deter audiences? Maybe. Hopefully not, because…
If this doesn’t work (and it’s already a logistical gamble on a whole bunch of levels) hollywood will likely never try something like this again. Which means that a War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron era film will almost certainly never happen.
So, here’s to hoping it doesn’t flop abysmally and sour any taste for a more interesting and actually decent film about transformers in the future. 
Chances right now are pretty slim; I don’t think we’re going to be getting another Mario movie out of this one.
I still do kinda hope it bombs. Yes I want more good Transformers movies, but I also really hate these sort of lukewarm, same-y movies being churned out on the regular. It’s time someone (general audiences) said no.
I will mention something about this sort of mentality, because I have heard it the last, like, 15 years now at this point? (That’s how long I feel like we’ve been through a phase of suckage with “blockbuster” films). While I agree it’s often good not to rush to judgement, this is a trailer. Trailers are meant to display parts of a movie that they think would entice and excite moviegoers. A trailer can really make or break a film’s perception. It’s an advertisement, so you’d think with an advertisement, it would make me want to buy a ticket to see it. I don’t feel that way with this film.
Here’s the thing: I have heard it so long. “Don’t knock it until you try it.” And then I go and try it, and it’s as bad as I was suspecting from the trailer. Because the trailer is very revealing on the quality of a film, most of the time. (Yes there are exceptions obviously. Looking at the trailer for Star Wars back in 1977.) If it looks bad in a trailer, it likely will be bad.
I am more than happy to be proven wrong for my perceptions of a film! I have eaten my words before. For now, though, I will go off of my current feelings over the movie due to the information the filmmakers thought I needed to know about it.
EDIT: In case anyone wants to also say “it’s for children”, let me point you to some heavenly views on the subject, for my opinion. Basically: just because it’s meant for kids, doesn’t mean it needs to suck. Quite the opposite. Kids deserve better!
Ngl, even Reddit was more tolerant of the trailer than most people here, which really surprised me. Personally, I liked it. It feels like Bumblebee, but without the teenager “coming-of-age” plot that consumed most of the screen time. And given the shots of Megatron as Megatron in the trailer, I wouldn’t be surprised if some War for Cybertron kind of stuff comes up by the end. Especially since that seems to be the inspiration for the character designs.
Regarding this:
I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t seen any other Transformers media, but I feel like some of this talk of trailers being bad is from how much plot was disclosed in the previous movie’s trailer. This one, while full of admittedly corny jokes, isn’t going as far as showing the death of a character while following up with shots of him in the final battle. It does a good job of hinting at the plot without giving the whole shebang to you on a plate like ROTB did. I think this is one time where you should actually wait to criticize the movie as a whole, rather than saying it’s objectively bad based on cut-and-pasted clips from the previews.
It’s also worth considering that if they’re planning on advertising this to kids, they’ll probably go for clips that are similar to what other kid-oriented films are using right now (see the trailer for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie from earlier this year for examples of a similarly styled trailer). From several complaints I’ve seen regarding how child-oriented this movie appears to be, it really seems like people are just mad that they didn’t get a continuation of the live-action movies (Bayverse or Knightverse). I’m not saying that the story should be demeaned for kids, but I’m not getting that feeling that from the trailer either.
As I said in the above post… If your child asks for a fish, do not give him a stone. “Child-oriented” should not be code for “cringy and bad”. I am certainly getting that feeling from the trailer immensely, it’s trying too hard to be funny.
Tbh, I do agree that it’s trying too hard to be funny. But I would rather have some evidence of this applying to the whole, finished movie rather than a 2-minute compilation of clips used in the trailer. It’s one thing to say the trailer is bad. It’s another to extrapolate that to the entire film from approximately 1/60th of its length (assuming it’s a 2-hour movie). Besides, I heard the same arguments about the Mario and Sonic movies, and both ended up being very popular, despite people hating their attempts at comedy in the trailers and lack of attention to canon.
I’m not particularly interested in the plot or the movie, but hey at least it has Steve
If he doesn’t get a studio series I will never forgive hasbro
It also appears to have BBM Brawn in one shot (although it’s likely just a similar design).
