After a solid decade of Michael Bay delivering TRANSFORMERS movies that somehow got more chaotic as they went along, last year’s BUMBLEBEE toned things waaaay down with a more character-driven outing. Taking many (many) notes from the movies of the 80s and the Amblin era, the movie focused more on the relationship between Hailee Steinfeld’s Charlie and the yellow Autobot, making for a movie with more emotional moments than action-packed ones. Turns out that may have been a problem for some fans of the series, according to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and in a new interview he revealed that the planned sequel will be more of a merger of the heartfelt approach of this movie and the crazy action of the Bay films.
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The producer was speaking with Collider at SXSW recently when he was asked the reception to the new reboot of the franchise. Making less than the other movies but making up for it with critical acclaim, Bonaventura talked about the benefits and shortcomings of centering on a more intimate story, which meant putting the action audiences have come to know on the backburner.
“…the audience had asked us several times, in different ways, ‘I want to get to know a Transformer better.” We did that. In some respects, definitely a tip to what the audience had said to us. The interesting part is when you set out to do something like that, you don’t exactly know the ramifications of it. In this case, the ramification of it was, for the people who didn’t love the movie, was not enough action. Because you’re telling a more intimate story, therefore you can’t. So the criticism we got from some fans was like, “Hey, come on.” It was funny, I was just in Japan…and one of the reporters said to me, ‘I love the movie, I love this, I love this, and I was very tired of Michael Bay.’ I said, ‘Uh huh, I’ve heard this before.” And he goes, ‘But you know, after watching this film, I kind of wish it had a little more Michael Bay.’ It was really funny. I said, ‘Listen, I completely understand. I like what Michael does, too. Two different films, two different attempts.'”
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As a result of this reception, the producer said that the goal next time around is to take the heartfelt approach of BUMBLEBEE and add an extra bit of that Bay “umph” – hopefully with far fewer culturally insensitive Autobots and characters who look perpetually sweaty.
“Several lessons have come out of this. One is that we have the freedom to tell almost any story. The other is that, how strongly the audience identified with the strength of character and emotion. I know the next Transformer, our attempt anyway, is to sort of do a fusion of Bumblebee and the Bay movies…a little more Bayhem. And a little bit more of the character falling in love within the emotional dynamic of the movie. One of the things I want to do—and I hope we pull it off—is, we did it with Bumblebee because he’s so cute and he’s so accessible, but he can’t talk. I think the more human we can make these characters, the more people are going to like them.”
I am one of the viewers who fall into the minority of BUMBLEBEE as someone who didn’t care at all for this new entry. While this is no time for a full review, I will say a redeeming quality was the emotional core between Charlie and Bee, which made for a few sweet moments but was hardly enough to make up for the lack of compelling action. On that note, trying to take what worked from this first movie and add an extra layer of spectacle to the sequel sounds like the perfect route to make for something as emotionally compelling as it is action-packed.
BUMBLEBEE is available to own on Blu-ray and 4K April 2.