Transformers needs the third restart after part 7 and the perfect role model already exists

Since director Michael Bay left, the Transformers series has been trying to reinvent itself. For ten years, Bay orchestrated the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons in gigantic sci-fi blockbusters, one more successful than the other. But then Transformers: The Last Knight saw its revenues plummet by almost half, and Paramount realized it needed a rejuvenation.

Where previous films easily surpassed the billion mark, Bay’s latest Transformers adventure came in just over $600 million. For the studio a clear sign that the audience fed up with Transformers megalomania and wasn’t particularly interested in the story of Mark Wahlberg’s robo-whisperer, who replaced Shia LaBeouf as the lead actor since Part 4.

Transformers has twice attempted to reinvent itself, but so far nothing has ignited

The solution to the problem was a Transformers film that distanced itself from the massive predecessors, threw off mythological ballast and was therefore perfectly suited as a new entry. In 2018, Bumblebee focused mainly on an Autobot, mixing the action bombast with one touching coming-of-age story and feeds on the 1980s nostalgia that has ruled Hollywood since Stranger Things.

You can watch the trailer for Bumblebee here:

Despite the wonderful balance of clinking metal and broken hearts, Bumblebee failed to start a new Transformers era. The next reboot had to. In Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which has been in cinemas since last week, there is little to discover. Regardless of the new characters and locations, the film basically just copies the concept that Bumblebee came up with.

The 1980s give way to the 1990s. Sunny San Francisco is replaced by the nighttime streets of Brooklyn. And instead of A-ha and the Simple Minds, Notorious BIG and the Wu-Tang Clan call the shots. In theory, that doesn’t sound so bad. The longer Transformers: Rise of the Beasts goes on, the more his is revealed tiresome formulaicity. Bumblebee’s charm is gone.

Once again, lonely characters searching for a place in the grown-up world meet an alien robot who unexpectedly turns out to be their best friend. However, there is not too much time to get to know each other: A MacGuffin is introduced, various Transformer clans are introduced and a larger-than-life enemy attacks. After the first third, everything just becomes unwound without curiosity.

Transformers submits to its brand, while the series should reinvent itself as pure action cinema

Shortly before the end, the seventh part stomps a GI Joe crossover out of the ground. It’s like a surrender. The creatives behind the series have given up. From now on, the Hasbro brand license takes over the narration. This has little to do with cinema anymore, but Transformers should be exactly that: pure (action) cinema. Because there is hardly any other franchise that is driven by movement like Transformers.

I know this sounds abstract, but let me explain the idea briefly. One thing that sets cinema apart from any other art form is that illusion of movement. It is created when 24 frames per second rush past our human eye. This movement is particularly effective in action cinema.

And that’s why I hope Transformers reinvents itself as a pure action film.

The perfect role model already exists: Mad Max: Fury Road. What could this sci-fi return have lost in mythology and legacy issues had it followed the trend of contemporary cinema franchises. But director George Miller has fearlessly eliminated anything that would have bloated the film and reduced it to one thing: movement. We race through the desert with Mad Max, once there and once back.

Sci-fi action ecstasy: A Transformers movie like Mad Max: Fury Road would be a dream

Of course, Fury Road has a plot and characters. We get a sense of the post-apocalyptic world in which the story takes place. But in the end all these elements become one kinematic vortex sucked in. More and more cars join the car avalanche, which races through sandstorms and swamps as if the engines should never stop. If you unleash such an action inferno, you can even put your title hero in chains and make it a side note.

This urge to move is also deeply rooted in the core of Transformers. Even Michael Bay preferred to watch them never-ending transformations of Autobots and Decepticons instead of seriously considering the importance of the Allspark. And when he couldn’t avoid it, he transformed it and made it part of the flow of movement, accompanied by a symphony of clicking noises.

Under Bay, the Transformers franchise was on the cusp of its heyday essence of movement to be in the cinema, kind of like Tony Scott’s last feature film, Unstoppable, in which we follow a locomotive that skids unstoppably along the tracks for two hours. As if the train that arrives at the La Ciotat train station in one of the first hours of the cinema has gone completely out of control.

In the next Transformers movie, the train isn’t just supposed to pull into the station. Just before he comes to a stop he transforms into a giant alien robot and from that point on we experience a non-stop action movie that’s the same radical and fearless as Fury Road is only interested in moving forward. There are no keys to collect to open portals that no one can go through.

Podcast: Is Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Worth It?

In the new edition of the movie podcast canvas love, our colleagues from FILMSTARTS talk about Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and reveal whether it’s worth taking a look at the sci-fi blockbuster.

Is the new Transformers film in the tradition of Michael Bay’s megalomania or is it more of a comparison to the cozy spin-off Bumblebee? In the podcast you will learn everything you need to know about the rise of the beasts.

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