Fandom is a difficult force to manage. Massive franchises like Transformers live and die on the cultural impact they have made over the last 40 years. Its never-ending march of animated series and films ensures an influx of new fans, but the adult devotees who fell in love with Transformers decades ago remain integral. Many fans want their favorite franchises to grow up with them, prompting them to become enraged at material like Transformers One.
The live-action Transformers movies made an absurd amount of money at the box office. The franchise is a cultural institution, though for unfortunate reasons. It's interesting to wonder what the default Transformers image is in fans' heads. Is it the action figures on every store shelf? One of the many animated series that have run over the past few decades? It could be the Michael Bay movies, but new cinematic steps forward could change that.
Transformers One: Where Did Megatron Get His Name?
The mighty leader of the Decepticons hasn't always carried his impressive title, and his backstory often explains his cruel nature.
Transformers One Is A Kid-Friendly Comedy
Director | Josh Cooley |
|---|---|
Writers | Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, and Bobby Rubio |
Stars | Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key |
Release Date | September 20, 2024 |
The trailer for Transformers One has more jokes than action beats. It depicts the tales of Orion Pax and D-16, the young Cybertronian workers who will eventually become Optimus Prime and Megatron. While the premise seems to take after several prequel novels set in the same early era, the film's tone is less intense. It's very comedic, though most jokes feel pulled directly from the scripts of other kid-friendly movies. The heroes, portrayed by stars Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry, have a familiar odd-couple chemistry. The plot seems to follow the group's desire to prove themselves and earn their ability to transform, a strikingly common narrative structure for any child-based follow-up project. This suggests a target audience somewhere between six and eleven years of age. Fans well above that demographic aren't pleased.
Fans wanted something more like Bumblebee
It's fair to say the live-action Transformers movies aimed their broad action comedy tone at pre-teen boys first and foremost. Those movies featured dull, straightforward stories with blatant heroes and villains. Nuance never entered the conversation, but the bizarre adult-oriented sense of humor and offputting sexuality of those projects allowed some to pretend adults were welcome to the party. The live-action franchise's apex remains Travis Knight's Bumblebee. That project opened with a colorful recreation of the war that sent the Autobots to Earth. Many fans believe Knight intended to expand that concept to a feature, creating the first Transformers film without human characters. Those fans would come to expect that idea in Transformers One, which sells itself on its prequel status and animated presentation. Sure enough, the film disappoints those devotees. Transformers One looks much closer to one of the animated series than the modern live-action films. This is, however, not necessarily a bad thing.
Transformers Animated is a Perfect Source Material
The Transformers is the starting point for most Transformers fans. It's a classic Saturday morning cartoon designed primarily to sell children the iconic toys by any means necessary. This is a rough starting point for a massive international media franchise, but this concept underpins almost all mass-market entertainment in the modern era. It's a bit of a cliché to point out the distasteful origins of a concept like Transformers, but that doesn't make it any less accurate an observation. Transformers, Star Wars, superhero comics, and many other tentpole blockbusters emerged from entertainment aimed at young people. Some examples transcend their origins, but the Transformers franchise has failed that challenge on the big screen.
The Transformers: The Movie has a fascinating blend of tones. It depicts the heroic Autobots working to defeat the all-consuming evil god Unicron. The stakes are comically high, but Nelson Shin and Ron Friedman weren't messing around with the presentation. Unicron is an existential threat, and the consequences of its endless hunger appear as nightmarish eldritch horror. Conversely, the film is awash in the silliest comedy that has ever graced a theatrical screen. It's kid stuff, yet the stakes, drama, and antagonists appear with the weight they deserve. This would be the ideal presentation for a Transformers project. It's an inherently immature idea motivated by the kind of thinking that sells toys, but children innately understand the drama of big science fiction ideas. This juxtaposition was once integral to the franchise, and Transformers One can bring it back.
Transformers may one day have its version of The Dark Knight or Into the Spider-Verse, but Transformers One doesn't seem to be it. A deeper exploration of the Robots in Disguise and what they mean as an idea could be fascinating, but it isn't on the docket at the moment. Transformers One is a silly, kid-friendly action comedy about machines finding their destiny. That's all it needs to be, and no amount of intergalactic war policy or gross Michael Bay humor will fix that.
Transformers One Could Be The Film Fans Have Waited For
This upcoming prequel to the long-suffering Transformers film franchise might answer every prayer to Primus.
