One of the Transformers movies embraces Steven Spielberg‘s original vision and earned more critical acclaim and appreciation than Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. When Steven Spielberg first approached Michael Bay to direct Transformers, the Bad Boys director dismissed it as a children’s movie. However, as The Making Of “TRANSFORMERS” Behind The Scenes reveals, visiting Hasbro’s Rhode Island headquarters helped him understand the franchise’s true potential and made him change his mind.
Steven Spielberg had been a fan of Transformers comics and toys long before he signed up as the movie’s executive producer. Owing to this, his vision for the Transformers movie was simple and in sync with the source material’s storyline: it involved the moving story of a boy and his car. Keeping this in mind, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman scripted Transformers‘ first draft, focusing predominantly on Sam and Mikaela’s perspective. However, after finding Transformers‘ first script too childish, Michael Bay decided to give its narrative and action a military spin. While Bay’s ideas helped Transformers earn hefty box office returns, they failed to impress most critics.
How Bumblebee Represents Spielberg’s Initial Transformers Plan
In 2018, Bumblebee overturned the Transformers movie series’ diminishing critical ratings by staying true to Steven Spielberg’s initial plan. Drifting its focus away from Michael Bay’s signature “Bayhem” and shock-and-awe entertainment, Bumblebee emphasized a young girl’s tender relationship with the titular Autobot. Using the bond between the two characters as a narrative device, Travis Knight’s Bumblebee presented a relatively more grounded coming-of-age narrative that dealt with relatable themes surrounding loneliness, grief, and finding one’s place in the world.
In many ways, Bumblebee is an antithesis of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. While it has its moments of slambang action scenes that audiences would expect from a Transformers movie, it primarily draws attention to its characters rather than visual spectacle. Moreover, instead of treating Bumblebee as an alien technology by solely highlighting his design and transformation, the movie humanizes him by adding charm and genuine emotion to his personality. These elements make Bumblebee reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., affirming that the auteur was right on the money with his original vision for Transformers.
Why Bumblebee Succeeds Where Transformers Fails
From its opening scene, Bumblebee brings new life to its alien characters by portraying them as the central drivers of its narrative. Even before introducing Charlie (played by Hailee Steinfeld from Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye) and her teenage dilemmas, the movie presses on the struggles that Bumblebee faces on Cybertron. This not only makes Bumblebee’s narrative as significant as Charlie’s but also makes the Autobot’s motives and the stakes of his mission the primary conflict of the movie.
Michael Bay’s Transformers movies only attempt to blur the lines between the franchise’s human and alien relationships. In contrast, Bumblebee completely erases these lines by showing how, despite their differences, Charlie and the yellow Autobot bond over the alienation they feel among their own kind. All in all, both Transformers and Bumblebee are entertaining popcorn flicks in their own right, but Bumblebee gains the upper hand because its favors sentimentality and is in tandem with Steven Spielberg‘s eye for great storytelling.
Key Release Dates
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Release Date:2023-06-09
