Director Travis Knight is breaking the silence to let us in on the scoop following two successful trailer releases with largely positive reactions across the globe.
Transformers: Bumblebee Trailer #2 and Trailer #3 are full of nice little surprises and many blink-and-you-miss-it moments.
As the director explains, we not only saw G1 inspired Shockwave, Soundwave, Ravage and Starscream, we will also get to see characters such as Wheeljack on the big screen as well. This Autobot engineer made his Live Action debut with Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. However, director Michael Bay opted to keep his temp name (given to avoid spoilers during the principal photography stage of the production) – Que.
Speaking to the Empire Magazine, Mr. Knight stated:
“There’s a lot going on. If I was going to make a Transformers film I wanted to give nods to some of the things that I loved most about the series to begin with and for me seeing those original designs on Shockwave and Soundwave and Ravage and Wheeljack and all those different characters was a really exciting opportunity to take the audience back to that initial wave of Transformers and to evoke the same feeling that they evoked in me. I was pretty giddy bringing those guys to life.”
Speaking about movie newcomers Shatter and Dropkick:
“The triple changer aspect was something we leaned into just because I thought it was cool. I wanted to showcase how formidable an opponent could be if they have those kind of abilities and putting our main character up against someting like that was really exciting. One of the things we do in animation is try to evoke an idea or a feeling just with something’s silhouette. You can see in this film how with the two Decepticon heavies you have these big, muscular cars these angular aircraft and then you see them go up against this round, warm shape of a VW beetle. Just in the shape language you can evoke a certain feeling.”
You can check out the full article on Empire.
WishfulThinking
No problem. The best thing to remember is that Hasbro doesn't count register sales. The count what gets pushed out of their factory warehouses – and TLK looked pretty good for them. There was a dip going in and out of the last holiday season but that was attributed to Toys R Us ceasing orders and not paying Hasbro for what they got for part of last year. But the product was sold by Hasbro – it all just ended up mostly at Ollie's.
Onilink
Ah ok, i remembered a different story. Good to know, thanks.
pilot00
No idea. What I meant to say is that they made this on purpose (Starscream looks, potential Blitzwing name) to arouse the fans and thus interest in the movie.
franpincho
Oh.
So he's not actually named Blitzwing but Stascream?
pilot00
Publicity stunt.
WishfulThinking
Nope.
1. Toy sales were still up for both movies over non-movie years.
2. Movie-wise, AoE was not considered a flop or an underperformer. It did less than the first three movies but was still considered a strong performer.
3. Movie-wise, TLK was not a flop either – but it was considered an underperformer. Globally, it pulled in $605 million. That's fantastic numbers – if you're not part of a tentpole strategy for a major studio that relies on the profits to float its lesser movies' budgets OR comparing your intake to previous entries into the franchise.
I didn't like the movie either. But I'm not going to project my bias into a false narrative that the last two movies didn't sell movie tickets or move toys in bunches.
Onilink
Tbf, this only for the first 3 movies. 4 and 5 were flops
Incepticon
Or, ya know… Transformers… because it looks like that's what they'll finally be. * just being cheeky – no one get all defensive
Anyway…
I've been wondering if this new smattering of umpteen G1 looking characters now showing up is going to sort of backfire on this movie. As in, will people still really enjoy watching this baby-ised version of Bumblebee running around with a teenage girl for 2 hrs when/after they see this otherwise giant G1 cast? Like, look at the hype that's happened as a reference point: ALL we're talking about is Prime looking like Prime, Shockwave looking like Shockwave, Wheeljack might be in there, holy shit the Seekers are colored AND there's multiples of them, Soundwave looks like Soundwave AND he just ejected a cassette looking Ravage that attacks Prime, what could Megatron look like?, Cybertron actually looks great now, etc etc etc. Not one of us has really talked about, let alone shown any excitement, about any new footage of what this movie is actually about: Bee and Hailee Whats-her-name. This G1 tease could really overshadow everything else if they don't play their cards right.
Not saying that's a good or bad thing – I don't care either way – just an observation I've been having over these past few days of practically EVERY discussion happening since the new trailer.
Onilink
Yes, tell this at box office
WishfulThinking
I would say BIOMEC is probably more on the money. Those movie years, even with TLK, still outdo the non-movie years in terms of product sales to vendors by Hasbro.
Titans Return, though, was a very good seller and possibly helped TLK's movie year out more than we know.
But the idea here is that if you infuse G1 into the movieverse, you'll float all boats. We shall see…
BIOMEC
Ehhh Nope! The Bayverse don't need the G1 fans help, I think it was the other way around though.
franpincho
I don't, why?
myrrh
The Knights of Cybertron.
kaijuguy19
This wouldn't be a bad way to repurpose Cloud Starscream into a CHUG movie Blitzing.
That's Arcee next to him all right. Really want to see a closer look at her.
Onilink
It's called easter egg
Onilink
Dude, the "geewunners"are paying the bills for the bayverse fan. After the tlk ultrabomba, idk if Hasbro wants the bayformers only fan as a top customers, here.
pilot00
It is a rare moment that we have to agree in there.
Though we all know why exactly that was done.
franpincho
"Blitzwing"
Scypris
You don't like Wheeljack?! You and I are mortal enemies now..