We have our most comprehensive interview yet with Transformers Rise of the Beasts' director Steven Caple Jr. While it reinforces many elements which fans have expressed disliking, like the push for diversity, rap culture, Michael Bay helping with the film and ensuring the preservation of the Bayverse, it does give us something very refreshing compared to all other Transformers films: a focus on the robots as characters the audience can truly care about. While we did have that with Bumblebee, that film was centered around the nostalgic concept of a human befriending an alien creature (who could not talk), learning about our world. This film instead is about teams of robots, each made up of distinct characters, with their own personalities and reasons for acting as they do.
Here is the blurb concerning what the director hopes to accomplish with this film and you can read the entire interview from the Hollywood Reporter
here.
I hope it’s not a cheesy answer, but I want people to be able to connect with the new Transformers that we’re creating. Yes, I definitely want people to connect with the humans, too, because they now look like us more than ever in this film. But, if anything, I just really want people to be able to emotionally connect with the Transformers that you know and the new [Transformers] that we’re bringing to the table. I’m not here to just create robots for you to say, “Yeah, that was cool. That was fun.” I want you to be like, “I really truly care about [Optimus] Primal. I really truly care about Airazor and these other characters,” because this is the foundation for what I would love the franchise to be going forward. And a lot of the stuff in this film is a huge setup for where the franchise can go, so I’m excited for people to check that out.