With rave reviews, Transformers: Bumblebee is nothing short of awesome. But director Travis Knight sat down with ComicBook.com to explain an amazing scene that went nowhere from the initial storyboards due to the [debatable] continuity with the five Michael Bay Transformers Live Action Movies.
Since this is a deleted scene, we do not find this to be a spoiler in nature. However, the scene which connects the deleted scene is. Therefore, you may have to read all about it, after the jump.
”In the end, the writer and director did manage to craft just the movie they were looking for — which has resulted in an abundant amount of critical praise. “The movie hasn’t changed a whole lot since I first pitched in summer of 2015,” Hodson said. “I pitched it then and obviously they went and made the other movie. Then I wrote the first draft of this in the fall of 2016 and it honestly has stayed true. Certainly, the big broad strokes of the emotional journeys, key set pieces, all remain the same. Now, it’s gotten bigger in some ways. We’ve added more fun. We got to go to Cybertron! But the heart of it really remained the same.”
Bumblebee almost included a scene with Decepticon Leader and fan-favorite Transformers villain Megatron but the continuity of the big screen Transformers world shut the notion down.
“I had this whole thing boarded where we’re where we see [Decepticon leader] Megatron and he comes in like Sauron, just blowing shit up and laying waste to everything,” Bumblebee director Travis Knight told io9. It was at this point in the idea that he realized Megatron was frozen on Earth during the time period which Bumblebee takes place (the late 1980’s) as revealed in 2007’s original Transformersmovie.
So even though I really wanted to see G1 Megatron on the battlefield at the fall Cybertron, I couldn’t do it,” Knight said. “But I wanted to fit as much of this G1 stuff I loved in there, and so I put my favorite characters in. Obviously, there are ones I wish I could put in there, and I would love to see an entire movie about the fall of Cybertron because I think it’s awesome, but just to be able to visit it for a moment, to see the Cybertron of my imaginations on the big screen, it was a real thrill.”
mnabiyein
I believe Megatron not appear
Azuzu98
Man, if only people on this forum could be civil when discussing stuff like you two… Sigh.
Smasher
Oh. Gotcha!
Despite our opposite views, I've enjoyed talking with you.
I hope that's come across as well.
Galvatross
Well, just to clarify, that's not what I meant by "realistic." I meant more like it seemed you understood what the brand is like more than many other fans. Hence your view of Transformers was more based in the reality of what Transformers actually is and is meant to be. Not necessarily that you wanted realism.
Smasher
Man, I'm certainly not looking for realism in Transformers fiction.
How boring would that be?
But I would like a comprehensive narrative.
I kind of felt the same way with The Amazing Spider-man.
Peter never encountered Uncle Ben's killer in that movie.
He made a vow to be vigilant for him at the end of the movie; to exact justice.
Then in Amazing Spider-man 2 he didn't look for Uncle Ben's killer at all; never even mentioned him.
Tetratron
Yeah, I wouldn't have complained. Especially if we got a scene like the one Travis planned out.
Galvatross
I give you major props for having a realistic view of Transformers fiction!
And you know, I'd agree that was a missed opportunity. Why they minimized and didn't address the Creators in The Last Knight in favor of Unicron being Earth and Witwiccans is something I don't understand. If anything, I'd maybe focus on the Creators in TF 5, and then use them to introduce Unicron for the trilogy finale. I mean the Quintessons have often been at least loosely connected to Unicron, and sometimes heavily so.
Smasher
As much as I love the original Transformers cartoon, I don't think it's a good idea to say that the Bayverse movie continuity is at least on equal footing with the G1 cartoon.
The continuity on that is all over the place. I think it's fun to come up with reasons for how things fit, it's what I do, but that was a different age.
You can't expect audience members to write scenarios in their head to have your movies make sense.
And, you're right, the aspect of The Seed giving Transformers life was never explicitly stated in AoE, whether or not it was implied is subjective.
It certainly made things metallic and there was all this new talk about "Creators" and the Transformers being built.
And again, that's fine. Throw some wrenches in the gears. Shake up the story.
Give the audience something to think about between films.
That's actually pretty cool.
But then they ruined all of that because they never addressed any of it in TLK.
Thankfully, Bumblebee is a proper reboot and none of it matters anymore.
Galvatross
There's something that was never explicitly stated or even implied. It was merely stated the Creators detonated the Seeds on thousands of worlds, including Earth, to make the Transformers, that the humans wanted the Seed to detonate it in the Gobi Desert to make more prototype Transformers of their own, and that Galvatron wanted to use it to build a new army. And without an Allspark or other method to give them life, Galvatron's troops were merely lifeless drones controlled by him.
The Seeds' detonations merely created the metal that made their bodies, so the Creators had a race of slaves ("You were built to do as you were told."); the Allspark is what gave them life. It's no different than Sunbow, where the Quintessons built the Transformers as robotic slaves, and the Transformers were given life by Vector Sigma.
Smasher
In the first movie The Allspark definitely gives them life, but in Age of Extinction it was at least implied that The Seed could also give them life.
Add to that the fact that Lockdown tells Prime in that movie "You weren't born you were built, and they want you back."
That completely throws the origin of Transformers in the Bay movies into doubt -and that's okay as long as it's addressed.
And that's what seemed likely to happen. Optimus was flying into space with The Seed to challenge "The Creators".
But in the next movie "The Creators" were really just Quintessa and The Seed was completely forgotten.
And that doesn't even begin to address the fact that the rest of the movie killed any sense of continuity.
Galvatross
Yeah, the Sunbow cartoon is the same way. The Allspark (G1 equivalent of Vector Sigma) origins come before the Creator (Quintessons) origins, where the alien makers make the physical bodies of the Transformers, and the Allspark merely gives machines life. There's literally no issue, and if anything, that actually follows the source material.
It's little different than saying that physical materials were mined to make modern day human machines, and other energy sources make those materials function.
VikingiGamer
No they didn’t?
The Allspark gives life to them, the Matrix powers the solar harvester, the space pillars creates a space bridge and the seed creates the material used to build Transformers.
CodeXCDM
Well… When you consider that the films kept rewriting what MacGuffin was responsible for the creation of the transformers… Any story can be considered continuity.
Smasher
At what point did they throw the Bayverse continuity out the window?
They didn't do this scene in the movie because of conflicts with the Bayverse, but none of the movie fits in with the Bayverse.
Not the look of the characters.
Not the timeline of events.
Not the fact that the characters were actually likable.
Not the fact that the story made sense.
Tetratron
I would have found it amusing when the two Decepticons were connecting with the computers they discovered the files on Megatron being frozen in Hoover Dam and then going ballistic at the idea humans have been dissecting their leader.
AshleyCuadra
Still there won’t be any transformers fans it did bring new things
Music
Wait, what? Bumblebee is a stand alone film. Nothing from the previous films would have given this film any context. Hell, it's the opposite as it clearly retcons things from the Bayverse.
Mudslide
Mind. Blown.
MV95
Big rule of thumb is that if it’s not in a movie, it can be changed. Bay is quoted saying that the comics aren’t canon. And it’s like that with most movie franchises that have extended media.
T.F. Allen
It's depicted or mentioned in multiple comics, novelizations, and even in a motion comic prequel (with Mark Ryan reprising his role as Bumblebee) included as a special feature on the DVD. Pretty well-established, I'd say.