Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Is A Direct Response To A 'Fan' Criticism Of Bumblebee
After years of director Michael Bay bludgeoning viewers to within an inch of their lives with "Transformers" movies filled by nonstop explosions, crass toilet humor, and pretty much rampant instances of racism and misogyny, Paramount correctly realized that fans needed a bit of a change of pace with the 2018 prequel "Bumblebee." In the hands of director Travis Knight and writer Christina Hodson, their mission statement seemed to be erring on the side of character and raising the stakes not through end-of-the-world shenanigans, but by taking characters we'd grown to love and simply putting obstacles in their path. Wrap that up in a heartfelt coming-of-age story with a genuinely likable lead (thanks to Hailee Steinfeld's performance) and the end result was the best movie in the franchise, by default. What a concept!
The follow-up, this year's "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," didn't exactly impress either critics or audiences (you can find my rather tepid review for /Film here) due to an identity crisis of sorts — it felt like it tried to have the best of both worlds, taking certain cues from "Bumblebee" while packing in as much old-fashioned Bayhem as it could. Well, apparently there was a reason for that. The film just had its home media release on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD and in a featurette included in the special behind-the-scenes look at "Rise of the Beasts," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura dropped a tidbit that the action-heavy focus in this '90s-set sequel came about as a direct response to complaints about the small-scale thrills of "Bumblebee."
Yeah ... seriously. Instead of happily embracing a new tone and identity for "Transformers," reactionary producers apparently felt spooked by the low box office returns of "Bumblebee" and listened to all the wrong feedback, as a result. Studios are gonna studio, folks.
Fan complaints ... or something more?
It's no secret that the "Transformers" franchise has struggled to find its way, both creatively and financially, in the years since parting ways with franchise filmmaker Michael Bay. As well-intentioned as it is, "Bumblebee" is missing a certain filmmaking spark to really liven up the story, while "Rise of the Beasts" attempted to win over kids, my fellow nostalgic Millennials, and Bay fans alike ... while missing the target on pretty much all of these demographics with a half-hearted adaptation of the "Beast Wars" storyline. It wasn't for a lack of trying on the part of franchise leadership, however, as we learned in the bonus features of the movie's home release.
Longtime producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura laid it out pretty succinctly at one point in the featurette:
"Well, one of the interesting things about 'Bumblebee' was, while people seemed to really love the movie, a lot of the fan base was not entirely happy with the scale of it. It was very intimate, and it was consciously intimate, and there was one refrain that came out of a large group of them, which was, 'Where's the explosions? Where's all the stuff?'"
Fellow "Rise of the Beasts" producer Mark Vahradian echoed those thoughts: "So, it was a lesson to learn that. And coming into this movie, while bigger is better in terms of spectacle, what is more important than that is that people care about those characters and their successes in those set pieces." Honestly, this all sounds like they wanted to win back the audience members they lost from the Bay years, and what better way to do that than to up the explosion quota? With plans for a "G.I. Joe" crossover in motion, the days of "Bumblebee" and its humble charms seem long gone.