The Energon Pub

[Rodimus Prime]

If the overarching theme in the movie is black and Latino culture and NOT Transformers, then it is a failure.

Thank you. My point precisely.

[-Kanrabat-]

I can't speak for other people, but I would have the same angry reaction if the director claimed that the movie was made to "celebrate French people and Christian values".

This. SO MUCH this.

We all WANT a Transformers movie like the cartoons, focusing on the Transformers themselves. It's our dream. This shouldn't "celebrate" ANY racial, religious, or sexual aspects, it should celebrate TRANSFORMERS.

That is what most of us "haters" mean to say, more or less awkwardly. But too many just raise the "ism" cudgel to vilify us.

If I want to see a movie about humans celebrating human culture, ANY culture of ANY "color", there's countless movies out there. But here we are promised a movie about EXTRATERESTRIAL ROBOTS and what do we know about their culture and their traditions? NOTHING. Nada. Transformers are supposed to be a species of sentient beings millions of years old. Yet all we see are empty shells that fight each others for no reasons.

I bet we will see the Maximals for around 9 minutes out of 2¾ hours just like it happened for the Dinobots in Age of Extinctions.

[Sabrblade]

If I want to see a movie about humans celebrating human culture, ANY culture of ANY "color", there's countless movies out there. But here we are promised a movie about EXTRATERESTRIAL ROBOTS and what do we know about their culture and their traditions? NOTHING. Nada. Transformers are supposed to be a species of sentient beings millions of years old. Yet all we see are empty shells that fight each others for no reasons.

So, in other words, you want a movie version of Cyberverse.

[First-Aid]

Transwarp key? That pretty much locks in the time travel angle. That also opens a SH!T TON of cans of worms. That Transwarp key could be the figurative and literal key to rebooting everything ala Star Trek TOS/Star Trek Chris Pine version.

[Sabrblade]

Transwarp key? That pretty much locks in the time travel angle.

Not necessarily. Though the concept of Transwarp technology was originally introduced in Beast Wars as involving time travel, later fiction of more recent years (beginning most prominently with Animated) has streamlined the concept to merely refer to the kind of technology used by space bridges simply for long-distance space travel.

[-Kanrabat-]

If I want to see a movie about humans celebrating human culture, ANY culture of ANY "color", there's countless movies out there. But here we are promised a movie about EXTRATERESTRIAL ROBOTS and what do we know about their culture and their traditions? NOTHING. Nada. Transformers are supposed to be a species of sentient beings millions of years old. Yet all we see are empty shells that fight each others for no reasons.

So, in other words, you want a movie version of Cyberverse.

More budget, better animation, skip going to Earth, and trim out the usual fillers?

YES PLEASE!

[Sabrblade]

If I want to see a movie about humans celebrating human culture, ANY culture of ANY "color", there's countless movies out there. But here we are promised a movie about EXTRATERESTRIAL ROBOTS and what do we know about their culture and their traditions? NOTHING. Nada. Transformers are supposed to be a species of sentient beings millions of years old. Yet all we see are empty shells that fight each others for no reasons.

So, in other words, you want a movie version of Cyberverse.

More budget, better animation, skip going to Earth, and trim out the usual fillers?

YES PLEASE!

So, Cyberverse Seasons 2-4, then.

[Rodimus Prime]

Transwarp key? That pretty much locks in the time travel angle.

Not necessarily. Though the concept of Transwarp technology was originally introduced in Beast Wars as involving time travel, later fiction of more recent years (beginning most prominently with Animated) has streamlined the concept to merely refer to the kind of technology used by space bridges simply for long-distance space travel.

So how was them traveling to prehistoric Earth explained away? Isn't Transwarp capable of time-travel as well? I don't remember details from Animated and I haven't read up on convention exclusive material.

As for a movie version of Cyberverse, yes please!

[Sabrblade]

Transwarp key? That pretty much locks in the time travel angle.

Not necessarily. Though the concept of Transwarp technology was originally introduced in Beast Wars as involving time travel, later fiction of more recent years (beginning most prominently with Animated) has streamlined the concept to merely refer to the kind of technology used by space bridges simply for long-distance space travel.

So how was them traveling to prehistoric Earth explained away? Isn't Transwarp capable of time-travel as well? I don't remember details from Animated and I haven't read up on convention exclusive material.

Emphasis mine.

[o.supreme]

If I want to see a movie about humans celebrating human culture, ANY culture of ANY "color", there's countless movies out there. But here we are promised a movie about EXTRATERESTRIAL ROBOTS and what do we know about their culture and their traditions? NOTHING. Nada. Transformers are supposed to be a species of sentient beings millions of years old. Yet all we see are empty shells that fight each others for no reasons.

So, in other words, you want a movie version of Cyberverse.

More budget, better animation, skip going to Earth, and trim out the usual fillers?

YES PLEASE!

So, Cyberverse Seasons 2-4, then.

More like The first 2 minutes of Bumblebee, and the flashback sequence.

[Rysquad]

I'm just waiting for the day when we have a transformer movie. No humans. Just giant robots.

Kinda makes the whole "robots in disguise" thing moot though.

[Cheesinator]

Humanless transformers movie is the dream.

But at that point what's the difference between that and the Cyberverse shows? Same stuff but better graphics?

This. SO MUCH this.

We all WANT a Transformers movie like the cartoons, focusing on the Transformers themselves. It's our dream. This shouldn't "celebrate" ANY racial, religious, or sexual aspects, it should celebrate TRANSFORMERS.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating those things, just doing it to the exclusion of a story or the main reason for the movie/tV series. Hopefully they will learn from the recent issues with Doctor Who. Doctors 9, 10/11, 12, and 13 were off the chart popular because of great writing. There are ALWAYS lessons in Doctor Who, but good writing disguises them in creative storylines and characters. When Jodie Whitaker came onboard, a new writer took over and, frankly, it was a lesson everytime but they no longer tried hiding it...or they tried to and just were horrible at it. The result? Doctor Who ratings globally are down dramatically, with Oprah re-runs outscoring them in some cases. The BLATANTNESS was the turn-off. It boiled down to horrible writing, making the "woke" lesson the story as opposed to disguising it in a fun or intense storyline. It was just, "Here you go. Sorry it's not entertaining in even the least bit." I loved the show, as did my wife- who actually got me into Doctor Who (I'm a sassy Nine fan, she's a Colin Baker person). We watched the first three with Jodie and she turned it off in disgust. Her opinion- it was just stupid and borderline offensive to old fans.

It's not the WHAT that matters. It's the HOW. If the overarching theme in the movie is black and Latino culture and NOT Transformers, then that is failure.

I'd just like to point out that there was no real difference between the first few Whittaker eps to any other Doctor immediately after they regenerated. First two eps don't even have a moral undertone or "lessons" at all, just Doctor fighting a Predator wannabe and then getting involved in a space-race.

The only things that had changed were that the Doctor was a woman, and her companions were not (all) white. And neither of those facts were relevant to the plots at all.

You can blame wokeness I guess, but quite literally all that show did was diversify the cast's gender and ethnicities a little (and again, placed extremely little - if any -emphasis on this) and that was apparently enough to turn people like you off.

That said, I agree with the last point about how the movie would be a failure if it's all about black and Latino culture. But I really can't imagine how anyone would extrapolate that from the comments that started all this.

[Sabrblade]

I'm just waiting for the day when we have a transformer movie. No humans. Just giant robots.

Kinda makes the whole "robots in disguise" thing moot though.

And I guess that means that the 1986 movie was never a Transformers movie either. Turns out the only Transformers movie to ever see release in theaters was the Japanese Beast Wars Second movie.

[Rysquad]

I'm just waiting for the day when we have a transformer movie. No humans. Just giant robots.

Kinda makes the whole "robots in disguise" thing moot though.

And I guess that means that the 1986 movie was never a Transformers movie either. Turns out the only Transformers movie to ever see release in theaters was the Japanese Beast Wars Second movie.

It's a continuation of G1 season's 1 and 2 and had human characters in it so it's fine.

No interaction with Earth? No Earth-based alt-modes. I mean, let's just make a movie out of the Fall of Cybertron cut-scenes.

I can't recall what the commercial was for but there I recall a recent ad where a kid sees Bumblebee parked and basically waits all day for him to transform.

I'm sure that's the magic Hasbro wants to capture. (and they want to sell toys too)

My point is the whole "no humans" thing is cool and all, but I'm not part of the all when people say we "all" want no humans.

The "only on Cybertron" backstory is fine, but it's just backstory to me.

[Rodimus Prime]

Transwarp key? That pretty much locks in the time travel angle.

Not necessarily. Though the concept of Transwarp technology was originally introduced in Beast Wars as involving time travel, later fiction of more recent years (beginning most prominently with Animated) has streamlined the concept to merely refer to the kind of technology used by space bridges simply for long-distance space travel.

So how was them traveling to prehistoric Earth explained away? Isn't Transwarp capable of time-travel as well? I don't remember details from Animated and I haven't read up on convention exclusive material.

Emphasis mine.

I get that BW started the time travel concept. But you said that later TFA and other material streamlined it to be space-travel only. I was just wondering how that was done.

[Sabrblade]

Transwarp key? That pretty much locks in the time travel angle.

Not necessarily. Though the concept of Transwarp technology was originally introduced in Beast Wars as involving time travel, later fiction of more recent years (beginning most prominently with Animated) has streamlined the concept to merely refer to the kind of technology used by space bridges simply for long-distance space travel.

So how was them traveling to prehistoric Earth explained away? Isn't Transwarp capable of time-travel as well? I don't remember details from Animated and I haven't read up on convention exclusive material.

Emphasis mine.

I get that BW started the time travel concept. But you said that later TFA and other material streamlined it to be space-travel only. I was just wondering how that was done.

I meant they streamlined it in general for later fiction to use as space bridge tech. They didn't retroactively change how it worked back in Beast Wars.

It's like how later fiction streamlined the Ark's journey to Earth to always be about searching for the AllSpark, but that doesn't also change its original missions in either the Marvel comic or the G1 cartoon.

[Rysquad]

What's really bizarre about all this is that Bumblebee already set the precedent for this in a major way. Hailee Steinfeld's character was a huge focus (both in marketing and the movie itself), with the film going into her family, history, personality and trauma. People like you didn't seem to mind when it was a white girl, but apparently trying to do the same with nonwhite people is completely enraging?

Just to add to the diversity in Bumblebee, Hailee Stenifeld isn't white. She's a mix of lots of cultures, including African American and Filipino. The main All American white guy was John Cena, who was the "bad guy" for a big part of the film and who learns that not all giant robots are bad.

Hate to be that guy but Hailee Steinfeld's Charlie Watson isn't really a mixed-race character though. I'm pretty sure it was "ethnically-ambiguous" casting.

If you want to see more obvious Filipino and African-American casting, it's on Transformers Earthspark.

[muddyjoe]

As much as I despise Michael Bay's movies, at least his aren't woke, identity politics bullcrap.

[Hydrargyrus]

It's okay to prefer Transformers media that doesn't have humans as a major element. But oftentimes, there are humans in Transformers stories. Those humans always belong to a culture. This movie has humans from a different culture than they usually are from (at least for the movies—I haven't crunched the numbers on all Transformers media). The linked article in the news post does not seem to imply the movie is primarily about that culture. The title of the new post might.

I think sometimes we (humans) get carried away focusing on the things that bother us when we're reminded of them. I know I'm prone to that behavior. But I think that's not often worthwhile. Specifically, voicing grievances about the state of the world on a somewhat-related thread on a Transformers forum seems a little pointless. You spend more time being upset, remind people that agree with you to be upset, and frustrate those that don't agree with you. I don't see a winner. Maybe these forums are a failure when they aren't talking about Transformers. (That's a joke, by the way.)

Maybe I'm making the same mistake here. Maybe this comment only riles readers up more. But I hope not.

[84everfan]

Exciting stuff, love to see it.

[Seibertron]

Because that's getting its own spin off movie as a prequel. Hopefully showing shockwave's leadership of the cons in megs absence.

Will this be an actual thing?
And without any woke poison?

woke poison…wow. Sometimes you can just smell fans in their posts

Well, name a single "woke" movie with heavy "woke" marketing that got tremendous success and brought sales records. I'll wait.

That's enough. Those of you here that regularly toss around "woke" have really got some problems. If you feel that way, I assure you that you're on the wrong Transformers fansite. I support the majority of ideas that you consider to be "woke". I'm liberal. My business supports liberal ideas. I'm tired of providing a platform for those of you who are hung up on things that you consider to be "woke". Those of you using that term here as well as attacking anything and everything that's not part of your world or that you consider to be "woke" are nearing the end of your time here.

If you want to stay here on our forums, the "woke" comments need to end now and forever. I'm letting you know I'm tired of reading those comments here on Seibertron.com. Those comments are not welcome here. THOSE COMMENTS DO NOT BELONG HERE.

[noctorro]

Well, it's to be expected. I just hope it isn't at the cost of good/okay story telling.

You must say it's kind of a departure from the Bay movies hahaha.

Teaser looks good, cg's a bit off but it's a teaser so I don't expect She Hulk or Dr Strange 2 cg level cringe/cheapness. Or Justice League by Whedon, my god the green screen.

From the teaser, lots and lots of bots! And it looks like it's not fanbaiting.
Of course there will be humans, and if the cringe is white guy or a black girl whatever man, cringe is cringe.

I liked Charlie in Bumblebee a lot, so hopefully they'll go more like that style instead of screaming hysterics. And I hope they don't go full Shuri/Ironbaby/Rey Mary Sue/Gary Stue (yes there is the male variant of that, but less used).

The Mexican dude actually looks like my co worker, so I was confused as hell since he was on sick leave for about 2 months (was he actually filming a blockbuster movie?)

All in all, this movie looks like fun and I'm looking forward to the official trailer

[Glyph]

Thank you, Ryan. That's good to see.

[muddyjoe]

Because that's getting its own spin off movie as a prequel. Hopefully showing shockwave's leadership of the cons in megs absence.

Will this be an actual thing?
And without any woke poison?

woke poison…wow. Sometimes you can just smell fans in their posts

Well, name a single "woke" movie with heavy "woke" marketing that got tremendous success and brought sales records. I'll wait.

That's enough. Those of you here that regularly toss around "woke" have really got some problems. If you feel that way, I assure you that you're on the wrong Transformers fansite. I support the majority of ideas that you consider to be "woke". I'm liberal. My business supports liberal ideas. I'm tired of providing a platform for those of you who are hung up on things that you consider to be "woke". Those of you using that term here as well as attacking anything and everything that's not part of your world or that you consider to be "woke" are nearing the end of your time here.

If you want to stay here on our forums, the "woke" comments need to end now and forever. I'm letting you know I'm tired of reading those comments here on Seibertron.com. Those comments are not welcome here. THOSE COMMENTS DO NOT BELONG HERE.

"Liberal ideas"?... Like censoring free speech when it doesn't agree with your world view?

[william-james88]

Gary Stue (yes there is the male variant of that, but less used).

I just call him James Bond

Joking aside, the talk of the transwarp key fits into the time travel rumours we heard of a while ago and that other outlets are pushing, comparing this film to days of future past.

But that would mean this is not a reboot to the franchise itself but simply a change in continuity. So we'd still be stuck in Bayverse but with different potential for stories. Instead of saying goodbye to the Bayverse, it's doubling down on it, providing more stories within it. Isn't that the complete opposite of what fans wanted when there was discussion of a reboot?