Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura spoke to Slash Film regarding the future of the Transformers Live Action Movie Franchise, following the reception of their latest movie; Transformers: Bumblebee.
“Reboot, I always hate that word because for one, I’m not sure I really understand what it means,” Di Bonaventura said. “We are going to do another big Transformers movie. It is going to be different than the ones that we’ve done before.”
“It’s not like we look at the elements of what we did before and go, ‘Well, let’s not do this’ or ‘Let’s not do that. It’s more about how do you evolve the experience for the fans. Let the fan have a new experience.”
About the open-endedness of The Last Knight and about the concept of Unicron:
“Okay, I’m going to be controversial,” the producer said. “I’m not a fan of Unicron. It’s too big. It’s so big it’s beyond any sort of relatable thing I think, for me personally. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be in the series someday. I don’t know that I’ve thought much about it honestly because we’ve been focused on [Bumblebee] movie.”
Lessons learned?
“I think we’ve learned something in this movie about tone that I would think the next big Transformers movie is going to have. It’s not like we’re going to copy it but we’ve learned something. There’s more freedom than I think we originally thought in terms of what we can do.”
King Glurch
That would be awesome! I love the idea of Earth just being a homing beacon for Unicron, and especially the idea of a movieverse Star Saber and Dai Atlas. I would definitely expect them to be more futuristic looking than the other Autobots.
Shepard Prime
Yeah, but in the case of Fantastic Four, that was the studio not trusting the director (who was a comic fan and knew the source material) to make Galactus work because the *suits* were the ones that forced him to go with the Ultimate version of Galactus instead of his traditional self. Suits that don't know the property are always gunshy over stuff like this only to be proven wrong by Marvel (and other similar movie franchises) that you can make giant cosmic concepts work, it's in the execution.
20th eventually figured out that the audience for these isn't as dumb as they think they are but it was too little too late. They let the cuffs off the powers in the X-men universe (after being homegenized and limited in fights prior) for instance but after Marvel and DC showed them that you can make this stuff believable.
I agree with the point being made but disagree with how you made it. Raimi (especially at the time he was making the Spider-man movies) was the perfect choice for the character, failing only on Spider-Man 3 and that was due to studio interference more than anything. But Raimi really nailed Peter/Spider-man's world in a way that few were back then. Certainly, he did better than that mess James Cameron wanted to do.
Curious why you think Raimi (not arguing or attacking btw, just honestly curious PM if you don't want to derail the thread) was a poor choice?
Enigma2K2
It IS fantastic, but I hate you anyway.
ZapRowsdower
We've learned that keeping Bay away from the project is the best thing you can do!
I had the same argument for why Raimi was a terrible choice for Spider-man. The audiences or producers could not distinguish what made the movies successful and erroneously gave too much credit to the director. The fact is that the franchise did well DESPITE the poor choice in director. If movie companies could accept and understand that, they would make better movies.
Instead, they let Bay make the same movie FIVE TIMES. What a total waste. Imagine how successful the TF franchise would be today if they let Travis Knight start 5 years ago. What if they let other directors have a shot? Paramount is circling the drain for a reason: they are terrible at their jobs.
kaijuguy19
To be fair the last time we had a giant galactic destroying character was in Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer and we all saw how that worked out. So if this is Lorenzo's way of saying "The reason why we're not focusing on Unicron now is because we're still trying to think of a way to make him work and not have people lynch us cause good grief we already have that going for 11 years straight!" then it's at least understandable if not agreeing with him that he doesn't want to take the chance now if ever
Shepard Prime
Woooo, look at Lorenzo go!
Blam!
"It's not a reboot!"
GizmoTron
And I agree, with each new show, comic, or continuity a character or concept like Unicron should be reimagined to work in whatever new story, much in the same way someone like Megatron has had so many different incarnations.
But when it comes to bringing Unicron to the movies for everyone to enjoy, there are certain aspects that movie goers (many of which haven't kept up on the franchise the last twenty some years and wouldn't know a Transformers: Prime from a Transformers: Animated but might at least know there was a show called Beast Wars in the 90's) just plain expect when you hear the name "Unicron".
Much in the way that the MCU brought Thanos to the big screen, a character whose motivations were altered a bit to fit the core themes of the films but still retained all the necessary recognizable traits people expected (big purple dude, six shiny stones, finger snap of doom, etc), in Unicron's case those traits are he's a Prime Matrix hating, planet eating, minion reformatting, guy from War of the Worlds sounding big ball of death coming your way, who also is expected to take on a massive robot form for the big climatic final battle.
Those are things the movie version is going to have to all do in a satisfactory way, and I actually think it's a good thing Lorenzo and the people making these movies recognize that all of that may be too much for the movie part of the franchise to handle right now (especially when many fans still argue that they still haven't even gotten the basic characters like Optimus and Megatron done right yet even after ten years of live-action movies).
Jerrimus
Good head cannon there but I think they will move further and further from the Bay films continuing forward. Besides studio series, which is basically a “ legacy” type thing, I think the best thing is to move away from the original films. He had five films and trashed a lot of characters along the way. Not to mention the continuity errors. It was fun while it lasted, because it’s all we had. But with Travis Knight showing what is possible with the cybertronian scenes, we can truly look forward with a positive attitude and forget about the disappointment that came before with each film.
Jerrimus
This doesn’t even make sense.
skywarp-2
Here is my take on the Bumblebee soft reboot and the last knight with respect to Unicron.
1. Continuity wise, the difference in the Transformers looks from the 80s and Bumblebee can easily be explained. Interesting how in G1 the lack of resources was the impetice for as to why the Autobots and Decepticons left Cybertron, in search of energy. It stands to reason that while the war raged on Cybertron, those original body forms were lost in various battles. The resources so shattered, that the so called Protoforms were all that they had to work with. Kinda like a really strong fighter eventually becoming weaker and skinnier due to lack of proper diet and workouts to maintain it. This is a perfectly acceptable reasoning for as to why they look different in the Bay continuity to BB. Now, also, we can consider that the war did bring about new technologies and an evolution on Cybertron, as in most wars, new tech invariably arises. This is also a reasoning that can be used to help explain the differences.
2. Unicron being Earth. With the new BB reboot, and how things were left in TLK, it can be very easy to retcon Unicron being the Earth, as to Quintessa's data being corrupted, being Unicron is so old. Those spikes that began to arise all over the earth, can actually be explained as beacons which sent a transmission to deep space calling unicron, and thus making the earth. Not Unicron, but rather a beacon to summon the killer Planet as a sort of ancient early warning system for if Cybertron were to appear or Quintessa were to come looking for Unicron. Thus again, earth is the proper planet, quintessa's dats is faulty, and opens the possibility that Unicron the killer planet could show up in a future movie.
If they ever go back and finish the Michael Bay universe, they should do it in a 15 year future timeline. With Earth and Cybertron as allies, the decepticons plotting to use Unicron to conquer the Galaxy, and the human Autonot space force can be established as a defense for the incoming battle royale with Unicron. This should be a 2 part story, and be able to articulate the continuity adjustments to the audience easily, so all can be understood. A prologue in the beginning would most likely help. It worked for Star wars, and would work well with Transformers. Have Peter Cullen be the narrator as Optimus prime. The space defense force could also include new characters like Star Saber and Dia Atlas.
With those two choices, the Bay films could wrap up, while the prequel direction can still continue it's connection to the original live action trilogies, and marry the two ideas up to fit.
What are your thoughts fellow Cybertronians?
Moy
If TLK performed better than AOE, he'd likely say something completely different regarding Unicron.
DerVernichter
While Unicron was never one of the most well written antagonists in fiction, saying you don't like him because he's unrelatable is like saying Cthulhu sucks because he's unrelatable: it's entirely missing the character's point. While Unicron's always been a lot more clearly evil entity comparedy to the Great Tentacled One, they both are figures that can supposedly overwhelm all their protagonists with fear (and insanity in the R'lyeh dweller's case) with their sheer, barely comprehensible presence alone instead of being able to empathize with them. Relatability is a great trait for a fictional character, but it's not the only one that can make one good or interesting. I for one would be all up for a more Cthulhuesque Unicron that represents the uncaring nature of the cosmos compared to which all life seems miniscule and inconsequential.
Jochimus
Eh. Speaking as someone whose most abiding fondness for years was G1, my preferred take on Unicron would have been rather…different than either the G1 or PRIME versions, but that's just me.
GizmoTron
That was a clever rethinking of Unicron for Prime, but I think generally people would still prefer the huge planet eating version from '86.
Nothing except the budget, and I believe the main point of saying Unicron is too big is because Hasbro and Paramount aren't looking to spend almost a billion dollars just to make a single Transformers movie anymore, at least not until they build the franchise back up again with these smaller (and cheaper) pictures like Bumblebee.
GWolfv2
I'll decide if I believe him or not after I see the flick I think
Black Convoy
This is already posted here:
Lorenzo says BB isn't a reboot.
Novaburnhilde
No one cares that you don't like Unicron, Lorenzo. You're free to not like him, it just shouldn't effect whether he appears in the films or not. Given the strides we've made in CGI there's absolutely nothing stopping him from appearing.
waflhaus91
What continuity though? There's no one solid line through the Bayverse. In TF1, Megatron was looking for the Allspark when he crashed on Earth. I think he wanted to turn Earth's machines into an army? Then in TF2, they decided he was actually looking for the Allspark to bring his baby transformer army to life, that just happened to be hanging out on like Saturn this whole time. And then, TF3 decided both of those movies were irrelevant because was Megatron was ACTUALLY doing was meeting up with Sentinel to use his pillars to blah, blah, blah, we know the plot. In DOTM, it took a space bridge to get Cybertron to Earth. In TLK, it just magically flew on it's own. Even though it completely disintegrated at the end of DOTM. There are way to many plot holes throughout the Bayverse to try and follow that continuity.
Dinobot Snarl
While Lorenzo misdirects and obsfucates, Travis speaks from the heart and difference is Bay and Knight