Transformers 7 Director Explains how his Film is a Sequel to Bumblebee and a Prequel to Bay Films
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 8:56PM CDT
Categories: Movie Related News, People News, InterviewsPosted by: william-james88 Views: 105,528
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"The main hero is Optimus, as we all know and love," Caple said. "We're bringing Prime back, paying direct homage to Generation One. I care so much about this character that I really wanted to dive into Transformers, and I saw a Bumblebee and I was like, okay, Bumblebee had his own movie, but I want to discover more about Optimus Prime, dig underneath the surface, get underneath the metal, if you would, and like explore who he is and his experience here on earth, you know?"
"I know everyone has been asking like crazy, are we going, G1, are we going to G1?" Caple continued. "The answer is, yes, we are going to G1, the Prime."
The movie takes place about a decade before Michael Bay's Transformers -- and Caple plans to use that as an opportunity to explore a kind of "Year One" approach to Optimus Prime, and give fans a sense of how he became a great leader.
"It's 1994, and in a way, both the animated series and the Bay films treat Optimus the same in the sense of who he is as a leader, what is his drive?" Caple said. "All those things. What we've done is we're bringing it back to where you see how he becomes, what you're familiar with. And that's big new news."
And, yes, it isn't just a question of him spending 10 years on Earth. There's more to it than that, and fans will get to see what his "emotional" tie is to the planet, according to the director.
"When you say got to where he is, you mean 'we need to protect these earthlings and this biological planet,'" Caple explained. "The way to look at it is he's new to earth and he doesn't have a connection to earth the way we met him in the Bay films and the way we met him in the animated series where he's already a protector of Earth. And so in this film, it's forming, why does he have a link to humanity? And why does he have a link to earth? And that's emotional...At the beginning of Bumblebee, we showed, he escaped from Cybertron his home planet. And so in a sense, he's he literally is like an ex-pat here, right? He's landed. He's, he's an alien and he's never been here before. And so it allows us to get underneath say the stoicism of what we're traditionally presented in an Optimus."
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Posted by TulioDude on June 23rd, 2021 @ 8:58pm CDT
Edit:A movie focused on Optimus's views most of time should be cool.
The closest is still Age of Extinction.
Posted by william-james88 on June 23rd, 2021 @ 9:01pm CDT
Deadput wrote:Sabrblade wrote:You jest, but Ben Yee described his robot mode as resembling a cross between Cybertron Scourge and Prime Predaking, but also with smokestacks that may or may not suggest a truck altmode.ZeroWolf wrote:Surprised no one has pointed out that if there's an scourge in this, compete with Predacons, maybe they're adapting a little of RiD 2001 (this is a joke)
I like the idea of this Scourge having a beastial type robot mode but doesn't transform into a beast mode but instead turns into a black truck like Rid Scourge
That was the whole shtick of the RID 2015 Decepticons, did you dig that too?
Posted by ScottyP on June 23rd, 2021 @ 9:39pm CDT
We just have to accept that the movie continuity is broken and no one working on these cares to fix it.
Posted by Deadput on June 23rd, 2021 @ 10:18pm CDT
william-james88 wrote:Deadput wrote:Sabrblade wrote:You jest, but Ben Yee described his robot mode as resembling a cross between Cybertron Scourge and Prime Predaking, but also with smokestacks that may or may not suggest a truck altmode.ZeroWolf wrote:Surprised no one has pointed out that if there's an scourge in this, compete with Predacons, maybe they're adapting a little of RiD 2001 (this is a joke)
I like the idea of this Scourge having a beastial type robot mode but doesn't transform into a beast mode but instead turns into a black truck like Rid Scourge
That was the whole shtick of the RID 2015 Decepticons, did you dig that too?
I didn't like the lack of variety with almost every Decepticon going that route and not every design was great but I did like a good amount of the Decepticon designs in RID,
Steeljaw and Thunderhoof are great characters in my opinion and that's just the top of my mind, I even liked the Lobster (Bisk) and Crab (Clampdown) characters but probably not in anything outside of that show.
Posted by LinaNui on June 23rd, 2021 @ 10:22pm CDT
Posted by Deadput on June 23rd, 2021 @ 10:45pm CDT
LinaNui wrote:I really hate how I keep hearing that they are going to show us why Prime is the way he is, in a movie in 1994. Prime is millions of years old and has been fighting the war for a long time. No way he is going to be changing so much right now. I wish they would just stop trying to connect these new movies to the first 5. Because they keep doing this they are ruining there new movies and the old ones.
In this entire franchise the millions year war in regards to age has almost never factored into character development
ever
Otherwise the "young" characters such as Bumblebee wouldn't need any reason to go through their arcs, everybody would be an Alpha Trion or Kup, etc, nor would they act much like humans since living for millions of years would result in a living being so unlike any currently living human.
Honestly one of the best part of the Bay film "continuity" is that one could view the modern Autobots and Decepticons as only thousands of years old with the war not being that old, while we still had some ancient characters here and there but in their cases none of them had anything to do with the modern Autobots/Decepticons until the events of the movies they were in.
Posted by Rodimus Prime on June 23rd, 2021 @ 11:55pm CDT
Posted by Munkky on June 24th, 2021 @ 6:16am CDT
ScottyP wrote:We just have to accept that the movie continuity is broken and no one working on these cares to fix it.
Just have John Barber write a couple of prequel comic books, I'm sure he can work something out.
Posted by william-james88 on June 24th, 2021 @ 6:41am CDT
Rodimus Prime wrote:Definitely should have gotten a better director.
He's just reciting whatever paramount said, there's this real intent with lying that Optimus Prime is the same in the cartoon and in the films, even Peter Cullen says it routinely that the are the same. They just don't want to alienate anyone, but in the end the film will be it's own thing (as Bumblebee was). This director actually has a vision and is making the project personal, that's enough for me to be interested. I think we should reserve a little bit of judgment until we see more of the film.
Anyways, I found an amazing quote by someone over at TFW, regarding the handling of continuity in the Bayverse:
Frankly, you can't fit the Bayverse into the Bayverse. The Cybertronians found Earth because of the Allspark, but also the Decepticons were going to rendezvous here with Sentinel Prime, and also they had been here for millennia building Solar Harvesters into pyramids and whatnot, except that the Autobots arrived in 2007, but also have been here for centuries and fought in World War II.
Like, what the fuck.
Posted by AllNewSuperRobot on June 24th, 2021 @ 6:53am CDT
Deadput wrote:Otherwise the "young" characters such as Bumblebee wouldn't need any reason to go through their arcs, everybody would be an Alpha Trion or Kup, etc, nor would they act much like humans since living for millions of years would result in a living being so unlike any currently living human.
100% this. This is where the humanising thing falls flat. Because anything living for millions of years wouldn't act like us. Also they've never really explored the time scale beyond signifying it as a big number. If the Civil War raged for millions of years and Alpha Trion, Kup etc were already "old", how old are they? What is a natural Cybertronian lifespan? What does the flow of time mean to them?
Big existential questions like this of course, don't bring in the box office.
So "War" (simple concept) happened a really, really long time ago but the alien robots that have waged it have no cultural identity of their own. So they decide to mimic the behaviours of a species that is very much beneath them on a physical, evolutionary and mental level. Like people befriending ants.
Also, even though the war has been waged by both sides equally, the Autobots aren't equally as aggressive, capable and ruthless as the Decepticons. Because, that is how the canonical millennia long stalemate would work in a Civil War.
AKA guffaws, explosions and pew, pews.
Posted by ZeroWolf on June 24th, 2021 @ 7:29am CDT
AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Deadput wrote:Otherwise the "young" characters such as Bumblebee wouldn't need any reason to go through their arcs, everybody would be an Alpha Trion or Kup, etc, nor would they act much like humans since living for millions of years would result in a living being so unlike any currently living human.
100% this. This is where the humanising thing falls flat. Because anything living for millions of years wouldn't act like us. Also they've never really explored the time scale beyond signifying it as a big number. If the Civil War raged for millions of years and Alpha Trion, Kup etc were already "old", how old are they? What is a natural Cybertronian lifespan? What does the flow of time mean to them?
Big existential questions like this of course, don't bring in the box office.
So "War" (simple concept) happened a really, really long time ago but the alien robots that have waged it have no cultural identity of their own. So they decide to mimic the behaviours of a species that is very much beneath them on a physical, evolutionary and mental level. Like people befriending ants.
Also, even though the war has been waged by both sides equally, the Autobots aren't equally as aggressive, capable and ruthless as the Decepticons. Because, that is how the canonical millennia long stalemate would work in a Civil War.
AKA guffaws, explosions and pew, pews.
And all that we can lay at the feet at 80s Marvel
Posted by AllNewSuperRobot on June 24th, 2021 @ 7:32am CDT
Nearly 40 years on, Transformers should be so much more than that by now. Sigh
Posted by EvasionModeBumblebee on June 24th, 2021 @ 8:26am CDT
I will say that I really appreciate the references to the Bayverse though, like Bumblebee’s head design in BB and the Camaro he scans at the end.
Posted by That_Guy on June 24th, 2021 @ 8:36am CDT
Constructicons were created on Earth, yet had a rivalry with Omega Supreme and even built Megatron.
Characters after the fact they were killed off, yet show up later in series three.
Starscream while friends with Skyfire was in his F-15 form and not Triangular.
Granted a lot of this was errors on the art part.....but hey, sounds like they threw that in Bayverse as well
I see Bayverse as it is, an opening to where we got more media and action figures from different eras more so than before they made the Movies.
Posted by Solrac333 on June 24th, 2021 @ 9:29am CDT
Posted by WiseMan on June 24th, 2021 @ 9:45am CDT
Posted by Rodimus Prime on June 24th, 2021 @ 9:57am CDT
I'm making my judgment on both what I've read so far about this new movie and the director's past work. Both are underwhelming. His only decent job was Creed II and that was because he had Ryan Coogler and Sylvester Stallone holding his hand. And from what I have seen so far about this new movie, regardless of where it comes from, is very discouraging. Of course, this all just a matter of opinion, if this appeals to you, that's your choice. For me, this will end up as something to pass time on a rainy day, just like Bumblebee was. And that movie was disappointing as well. It's the only TF movie I saw only once. The TF action and story was fine, but there were way too many humans and their interactions. And this new film looks the same, with 90s hip-hop garbage thrown all over it. And my guess is the Beasts will be in it for a fraction of the story, used as a plot device to trick more people into seeing it. Like you said, they don't want to alienate anyone. So they make it mediocre for everyone.william-james88 wrote:They just don't want to alienate anyone, but in the end the film will be it's own thing (as Bumblebee was). This director actually has a vision and is making the project personal, that's enough for me to be interested. I think we should reserve a little bit of judgment until we see more of the film.
Posted by ZeroWolf on June 24th, 2021 @ 11:16am CDT
WiseMan wrote:1994, huh? So I wonder how long it took for Optimus to download the entire English language from the "Worldwide Web" (as he mentions in the first movie) with a 56K modem?
Hot Rod didn't need to do that in The Last Knight
Posted by WiseMan on June 24th, 2021 @ 11:43am CDT
ZeroWolf wrote:Hot Rod didn't need to do that in The Last Knight
At this point the continuity of the Bayverse is so bad that I think the entire Tyran cluster takes place inside the Unicron Singularity.
Posted by ScottyP on June 24th, 2021 @ 11:48am CDT
Well, he tried a little with Bumblebee, then they changed the movie's intro late in production (or so it's been said) and it made that entire prequel impossible from the moment the movie came outMunkky wrote:ScottyP wrote:We just have to accept that the movie continuity is broken and no one working on these cares to fix it.
Just have John Barber write a couple of prequel comic books, I'm sure he can work something out.
Posted by TulioDude on June 24th, 2021 @ 12:51pm CDT
ZeroWolf wrote:WiseMan wrote:1994, huh? So I wonder how long it took for Optimus to download the entire English language from the "Worldwide Web" (as he mentions in the first movie) with a 56K modem?
Hot Rod didn't need to do that in The Last Knight
Of course not,he is french!
Day 541 of waiting for Transformers Armada Masterpiece news
Posted by william-james88 on June 24th, 2021 @ 1:51pm CDT
TulioDude wrote:ZeroWolf wrote:WiseMan wrote:1994, huh? So I wonder how long it took for Optimus to download the entire English language from the "Worldwide Web" (as he mentions in the first movie) with a 56K modem?
Hot Rod didn't need to do that in The Last Knight
Of course not,he is french!
"He's not french, he just likes the accent"
Posted by william-james88 on June 24th, 2021 @ 1:54pm CDT
ScottyP wrote:Oh no, not this again. Anything but this again. I can't take another year of producer and director double talk about reboots and spinoffs and what the hell ever.
We just have to accept that the movie continuity is broken and no one working on these cares to fix it.
I dont plan on covering more of the back and forth like last time, but I liked this article since it laid bare what Ryan was saying for a while about how non committal Paramount and Hasbro are about this whole live action universe. Going forth, it's within the TF universe Bay shaped but the director can do almost anything he wants, continuity be damned.
Posted by AllNewSuperRobot on June 24th, 2021 @ 1:58pm CDT
Posted by william-james88 on June 24th, 2021 @ 5:23pm CDT
Also for all the Lorenzo Di Bonaventura fans, he made a video for China, on Weibo, announcing the film. You can view the video here.
Posted by AllNewSuperRobot on June 24th, 2021 @ 5:38pm CDT
Posted by D-Maximal_Primal on June 24th, 2021 @ 8:31pm CDT
First up, and most importantly for me, Scourge sounds frikkin BADASS. I love the sounds of him! He sounds like ever Scourge ever, G1, RiD2001, Cybertron, all rolled into one. I love the concept. I want to see him!
Beasts are neat, glad they are finally going live action. Rhinox and Primal sound really cool, I am excited to see them.
Offroad Camaro Bee sounds great!
Nightbird is a neat thing.
I don't care that Mirage is a Porsche, he sounds pretty cool too!
The concept of the movie is kinda muddled, but I am excited by what I'm hearing. Lots of cool concepts, now it's time to see them come together.
overall, I am excited. This news has excited me
Posted by Deadput on June 25th, 2021 @ 2:52am CDT
Posted by Tuned Agent on June 26th, 2021 @ 11:10am CDT
The thing I'd be most excited for is Optimus getting character development, but I'm going to need to see that before I really believe it. Bumblebee couldn't even get much character development in his own movie, so I'm not expecting much from Optimus in this one.
Posted by william-james88 on June 28th, 2021 @ 10:17am CDT
If you want to see exactly how that would sound, so to the 5:30 mark of this clip.
Posted by Sabrblade on June 28th, 2021 @ 10:21am CDT
Posted by Razorbeast88 on June 28th, 2021 @ 10:59am CDT
Posted by Lore Keeper on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:15am CDT
Posted by Rodimus Knight on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:23am CDT
Betting Paramount will not use the line "Well isn't that just prime."
Posted by GeekyGamer Gal on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:36am CDT
Here's hoping I don't feel like I was rejected for a role for MST3K after watching this one.
Posted by Sabrblade on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:41am CDT
Posted by TFfan1 on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:50am CDT
Posted by o.supreme on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:54am CDT
I'm torn here. Perlman is a fun actor to listen to. He was bad in PotP, because that was a terrible show, as was the voice directing, and sound mixing, among other things. Chalk will always be Optimus Primal to me, and I love seeing him in film roles such as Godzilla (2014), and Sonic (2020). However, I was at Botcon 2004 in Pasadena when rumblings of the first film were going around. Cullen knew nothing about it, but I remember the thunderous applause when a fan said if they don't get him to voice Optimus Prime, there would be *riots* (figuratively I'm sure...) ...oh boy, that has not aged well....
Anyway... Paramount didn't get Welker to do Megatron, and despite some fans disappointment, Hugo Weaving did well I thought (even if he himself thought it was stupid and bounced after his 3 picture deal was done). And well...they did get Welker eventually...
As much of an Original Series fan as I am, I see both sides of this, I really want to see Garry Chalk get a good solid role in a larger motion picture, but I know why Paramount made the choice they did. Will this be met with the same anger and disappointmentas if Cullen had been passed up? For some people yes absolutely, for some, maybe not. I have the greatest of respect for the original BW cast. They not only did great work, they are great people as well. I wish them all continued success in the industry, even if it doesn't happen to be in this specific film.
Posted by TFfan1 on June 28th, 2021 @ 11:58am CDT
Sabrblade wrote:They didn't get Garry Chalk because they never even reached out to him.
Oh, that's a real bummer. I love Perlman, but it's definitely soured if Chalk wasn't even given the chance. I know schedules conflict and such, and I can't really imagine it was a budget or union thing like the Netflix series. I guess they just wanted the star power...
Posted by Autobot N on June 28th, 2021 @ 12:13pm CDT
To play the devil's advocate, everyone in Prime Wars except for Megatron was lackluster and boring, so maybe his Primal will be better in a big budget movie with better voice direction.Rodimus Knight wrote:Ron Pearlman is great in so many things, but not this. I hated his Optimus Primal. It was so lackluster and boring.
Betting Paramount will not use the line "Well isn't that just prime."
Posted by TulioDude on June 28th, 2021 @ 12:32pm CDT
Posted by TOO MUCH ENERGON! on June 28th, 2021 @ 12:35pm CDT
Posted by angtre on June 28th, 2021 @ 1:38pm CDT
Posted by bluecatcinema on June 28th, 2021 @ 1:42pm CDT
Posted by o.supreme on June 28th, 2021 @ 1:48pm CDT
bluecatcinema wrote:He must have really enjoyed voicing Primal in Power of the Primes to want to reprise the role.
I'd actually be surprised if he even remembered it. It was probably more the money, and just another chance to act than anything.
Posted by william-james88 on June 28th, 2021 @ 3:41pm CDT
TulioDude wrote:If Optimus Primal been hanging out on Earth long before the Autobots,it makes sense to use Ron Perlman's veteran sounding voice.
But the autobots are even older, so how does that comment make any sense.
Posted by TulioDude on June 28th, 2021 @ 4:52pm CDT
william-james88 wrote:TulioDude wrote:If Optimus Primal been hanging out on Earth long before the Autobots,it makes sense to use Ron Perlman's veteran sounding voice.
But the autobots are even older, so how does that comment make any sense.
We already have the precedent with Cyberverse with the All Spark creating Cheetor to serve as its Guardian
Posted by Deadput on June 28th, 2021 @ 7:46pm CDT
william-james88 wrote:TulioDude wrote:If Optimus Primal been hanging out on Earth long before the Autobots,it makes sense to use Ron Perlman's veteran sounding voice.
But the autobots are even older, so how does that comment make any sense.
I mean it's already been described in interviews that the Maximals are Ancient, so it seems that in this film it's the other way around.
Posted by D-Maximal_Primal on June 28th, 2021 @ 7:56pm CDT
I am very sad they didn't even ask Chalk, he's very disappointed he wasn't even considered.
At the same time, I'm curious to see how Perlman's voice comes out. Marnocha did a great Megatron in Prime Wars but then they neutered all his best parts for WFC. Foushee does a great Cyberverse Optimus, but is terrible in WFC. I hope movie Perlman is far better than Prime Wars Perlman
Posted by Autobot N on June 28th, 2021 @ 8:18pm CDT
Maybe the Maximals are still from the future, but they never went back there, so they've been sitting around on Earth for millions of years so they're comparatively ancientDeadput wrote:william-james88 wrote:TulioDude wrote:If Optimus Primal been hanging out on Earth long before the Autobots,it makes sense to use Ron Perlman's veteran sounding voice.
But the autobots are even older, so how does that comment make any sense.
I mean it's already been described in interviews that the Maximals are Ancient, so it seems that in this film it's the other way around.