John Cena appeared on the GermanTransformerssocial media page yesterday to announce that the long awaited trailer forBumblebeewas going to be released today. The prequel is taking things back to the 1980s when theTransformerswere brand-new trailblazing toys with an awesome cartoon series, way before they became box office darlings and ultimately failures.Bumblebeeis scaling it back in move that could end up rebooting the entireTransformersfranchise, depending on how well it does with critics and the box office.
As for the style, we’re looking at the very first version ofBumblebeeas an ordinaryVW Bug in the year 1987. The tone is immediately different from a Michael Bay production and it looks to be geared a little bit more towards kids this time around.Bumblebeeis directed by Travis Knight, who is best known for Laika animated featuresKubo and the Two StringsandCoraline. As far as trailers go, this one does what it intends to do by not giving away the entire plot and giving just enough footage for fans to ask for more.
John Cena is Burns, who is an agent of Sector 7 in theBumblebeemovie. In theTransformersuniverse, Sector 7 is a secret 100-year old government organization that deals with instances of extraterrestrial technology and living beings from other planets.Bumblebeetakes place on the California coast and Hailee Steinfeld plays Charlie Watson, a teenager who discovers that her yellow VW Bug that she found in a junkyard is really an Autobot named Bumblebee. Charlie fixes up Bumblebee and then learns the extent of his powers.
Things are not going really well for theTransformersfranchise at this time. The 7th movie was recently taken off of Paramount’s release schedule after it had an official release date of June 28th, 2019. This has put the focus onBumblebeeto see how the movie performs from a monetary and critical standpoint. As previously noted,Bumblebeecould, in theory, reboot the entireTransformersfranchise since it takes place 20 years before the first movie hit theaters. A fresh start might be exactly what the franchise needs afterThe Last Knightcame out and tanked, making only $130 million domestically off of a reported budget of $217 million.
TheTransformers spin-offlooks promising and could very well be the shot in the arm that theTransformersfranchise needs. As with most movies from the franchise,Bumblebeelooks really cool and it has the extra bonus points of coming from the1980s, earning heavy nostalgia vibes in the process, bringing the Autobots back to their roots and hopefully introducing them to a whole new generation of kids who had parents who were into them when they first came out. As for the commercial and critical reception, we’ll just have to wait and see howBumblebeefares.
