Charlie's a pretty big dork behind the initial scowling; she's a big music fan who rocks out in the morning, is very easily excited about things she likes (music, movies, cars), wears Goofy Print Underwear, is very clearly a klutz, and repeatedly finds herself in awkward and embarrassing situations. Also, she's played by Hailee Steinfeld, which more than guarantees the 'adorable' part.
Memo calls himself a "nerd". He reads comics, collects action figures, is fairly non-athletic and socially awkward, and dresses in an 80s nerd chic. However, he clearly fills his shirts well and he's visibly attractive, it's really just down to his social awkwardness.
Alternative Character Interpretation: While there is clearly some attraction and reciprocity between Charlie and Memo, the question of why exactly she turns down Memo at the end of the film is open for interpretation. It's possible she wanted to take it slow after what her adventure with Bumblebee and get to know him better first before anything further came up. Or it's possible she saw him as only a friend. Another way to see it is that some part of her mind idealized Bumblebee as the ideal man despite Bee not being a human male since she established a connection with Bee before she and Memo even had any meaningful interactions and needed time to get over Bee. And a more cynical way of looking at it is that Charlie remembered how he opened her garage door without knocking and walked in on her and Bumblebee in a precarious situation, marked that as a Stalker with a Crush red flag in her mind, and decided to put him in "potential love interest" timeout in her mind for the time being.
And You Thought It Would Fail: The idea of a Transformers film focusing solely on Bumblebee, a character many had begun to see as a Creator's Pet, coming out only a year after Transformers: The Last Knight was critically lambasted, a financial failure, and seemingly killed the film series, which was suffering Sequelitis ever since Revenge of the Fallen. While the movie has a promising director by the name of Travis Knight, who directed Kubo and the Two Strings, the writer has only written two other movies, Shut In and Unforgettable (2017), both of which were poorly received. However, this began to Fade Out when more and more info about the movie started to come out, and by the time of release, people were outright optimistic. In the end, the film not only received mostly positive reviews, but it also has a much better score than The Transformers: The Movie, the movie that established most of the cinematic Transformers lore. As a result, after years of people hoping for the franchise to end, many are now clamoring for more Transformers movies along the lines of Bumblebee.
Award Snub: The film got several nominations for Teen Choice Awards and Saturn Awards, with Hailee Steinfeld specifically nominated for Choice Action Movie Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectfully, both of which she lost out on to MCU nominees.
Sally is either a well-meaning mother who loves Charlie, or a neglectful jerk who is constantly inconsiderate to her daughter's problems.
Broken Base: The change from being an action-focused franchise to a character-driven story. The film overall has very little action, with the first ten minutes being the only real action sequence until the climax unfolds, outside of a brief flashback to Cybertron and a Car Chase with a single patrol car. For some, it made the film too boring and lacked the non-stop action that the franchise was known for, but for others, it allowed the movie to flesh out the characters of Charlie and Bumblebee as well as their friendship, so that we actually care when they're in danger. To the film's credit, it never advertised itself as being action-heavy compared to the previous entries, with the trailers and most advertisements focusing on the funny, charming, character building side instead of the dark, apocalyptic vibe of the previous films' trailers.
Cliché Storm: So far the biggest complaint from viewers is (like Christina Hodson's priorfilms) that the plot is rather predictable and has been done before, particularly in films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Iron Giant. This is considered a case of Tropes Are Tools, though; many feel that even though the plot is predictable, it's coherent, straightforward, and understandable, with characters that the audience can get invested in, whereas the past films' plots were incredibly off-the-rails and impossible to follow with characters that were either unlikable, uninteresting, or just there for fanservice. As well as this, many of these clichés help to give the movie an 80s feel, fitting with its setting and the films' status as a love letter to the Transformers' original era.
Common Knowledge: As stated here on TFWiki.net, many people (including on This Very Wiki) operate under the assumption that this film and its sequel Rise of the Beasts are a Continuity Reboot of the original five Michael Bay films, despite no official confirmation from Hasbro or Paramount of that fact. In the lead-up to ROTB, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura consistently referred to at as a prequel to the 2007 film, and afterwards director Steven Caple Jr stated he considered the firstthreemovies as definitive canon to his film and the last two movies as an Alternate Continuity. That being said, Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts can certainly be considered a new universe if it makes one happy, and setting the new films so far back in the past seems like a deliberate attempt to avoid too many continuity snarls.
Shatter and Dropkick are a pair of Decepticons out to hunt down and kill Optimus Prime. Introduced torturing and murdering the Autobot Cliffjumper, the two arrive on Earth where Dropkick kills a human simply for fun. Directed to the human authorities, the two claim to be peacekeepers hunting down a criminal to give them access to humanity's satellites. After capturing and torturing Bumblebee, the two murder a doctor who was helping them, revealing their intent to bring their forces down on Earth and kill every human being, not stopping until the planet is a cinder. A vicious pair of Brains and Brawn, Shatter and Dropkick embody the worst of the Decepticons.
Prequel comic: Malignus is a Mini-Con whose small size belies his apocalyptic ambitions. Leading a cabal of Decepticons during the Cold War, Malignus intends to provoke a nuclear conflict that would wipe out the human race, allowing him to plunder the planet for its Cybertronian treasures. Throughout the globe, Malignus organizes False Flag Operations and assassinations of top officials from both Eastern and Western Blocs, raising tensions between the two sides. When Bumblebee and his human companions raid the Decepticons' base, Malignus tries to have them fed to his Sharkticons, and then fires a nuclear warhead directly at the Soviet Union when they escape and nearly foil his scheme.
Creator Worship: The fanbase adores director Travis Knight due to having directed the beloved Kubo and the Two Strings and his Ascended FanboyTruer to the Text approach being what many feel made the film so strong, and pretty much everyone wants to see him return to shepherd future movies. Hailee Steinfeld also gets this due to her performance as Charlie, leading to her being considered one of the best human characters in the franchise's history.
Ron giving Charlie a self-help book encouraging her to smile more as a birthday present, before trying to cheer her up by reading from it. Keep in mind that Charlie's still reeling over her father's death and none of her family seems to notice; combined with the incredibly awkward atmosphere, it becomes hilarious once you're done feeling bad for Charlie. Helping matters is the book's name, Smile for a Change, which reads like a Stealth Insult, but coming from Ron, he reads it as Sincerity Mode.
Dropkick in general. His dislike of Earth, but primarily humans, is pretty much played for laughs, even when he's killing a random civilian (admittedly a jackass one), and his dialogue drips with Comedic Sociopathy.
Prior to release, some fans believed that, with Hasbro's plans for a Shared Universe on the horizon and the cancellation of the sequel to The Last Knight, the movie was going to be a complete Continuity Reboot of the Transformers Film Series.note Though Lorenzo di Bonaventura noted that he avoided the word "Reboot".. This was helped by the shots of Cybertron and other Transformers taking on a more cartoon-inspired aesthetic, and continued up until release. In the end, the film maintains enough Broad Strokes that one could see it as either a complete reboot that merely makes nods to the other films, or as a prequel that just takes creative liberties and loose continuity, which is hardly new for Transformers.
As the film was confirmed as "new storytelling universe", it has become quite likely that after The Last Knight becoming financial failure, the film got reworked from the original draft which was more heavily tied to Bay films (suggested by how the film’s original opening was Bumblebee escaping a human army on Earth and the movie's offical prequel comic establishing his long history on the planet and rivalry with Blitzwing, who was a tank-jet Triple Changer instead of a Seeker) to make it work as either a prequel, though with discontinuities, or its own fresh start for a movie series depending on its box office performance.
The end of the movie sees Optimus and Bumblebee seeing seven Autobot escape pods entering Earth's atmosphere, causing speculation as to which Autobots were in them. With Transformers: Rise of the Beasts seeing the return of Arcee and Wheeljack, but the introduction of Mirage and Stratosphere, general consensus is that they were four of the seven pods, leaving three of their identities unknown, though a somewhat common idea is that they were the remaining three definitively identified Autobots in the opening battle: Ironhide, Ratchet, and Brawn.
However, Rise of the Beasts definitely marks it and Bumblebee as a reboot with one extremely major change: in the Bayverse films, it's revealed that Earth is the sleeping Unicron, the Chaos Bringer. In Rise of the Beasts, Unicron is not Earth and is awake and active elsewhere in the galaxy.
Evil Is Cool: Shatter and Dropkick, the main villains, have already picked up a following for their designs striking a good balance between the G1 and Bay designs. Their increased screen-time allowed them to show off their dynamic, playing a villainous buddy-cop duo each with their own quirks and personalities, making them stand out compared to past generically evil Decepticon fodder. Their fight with Bumblebee in the climax is undeniably one of the highlights of the film, portraying a David vs. Goliath battle, especially with Dropkick.
Fan Nickname: The reboot series this movie may start is already called "Knightverse" and "Travisformers" by fans.
Fandom Rivalry: Between fans of the Michael Bay-directed films and fans of this movie. A large part of it comes down to the fact that the Bay films had a huge fandom unconnected to the larger Transformers fandom (who in general hate those movies), while Bumblebee has been largely accepted by the latter due to being Truer to the Text rather than follow the Bay films' direction. Combined with a big Genre Shift (going from Alien InvasionDisaster Movie films to A Boy and His XComing of Age) and change in tone, the film does not cater to the same audience as the prior movies did. A few comment sections and audience reviews tend to feature a lot of back-and-fourth between the two groups, with Bumblebee being decried by the former for not following the previous films' style.
Fanon Discontinuity: Despite Word of God wanting to avoid the term 'reboot', there are many who prefer to believe this movie is the new canon and all preceding installments in another timeline, citing the film's various Continuity Snarls (which, granted, is nothing new in the Bay films). It's a case where many would see this trope as a positive; there's no reason for one to need the other films to enjoy Bumblebee on its own, and any subsequent sequels are likely to continue from this point rather than revisit the Bay era.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Though not exactly one everyone is comfortable with, Charlie/Bumblebee has a much more vocal support movement than Charlie/Memo, despite the latter being the closest to a canon couple. It doesn't help that Memo seems to only exist to discourage people thinking of Charlie and Bumblebee as romantic.
This marks the second film where an Autobot responds with "never" in regards to giving up Optimus Prime's location and pays for it with their life. For this film, it was Cliffjumper, formerly it was Ratchet.
This also marks the second film where a Decepticon tells a human; "Thank you for your hospilality." Whereas formerly it was the rather jovial Nitro Zeus and his words sounded sincere, here those words come from the sociopathic Shatter and are a Kick the Dog moment prior to executing said human.
When Shatter and Dropkick are confronted by Sector 7, Dropkick expresses wants to kill them, Shatter ordering to stop saying "Not yet." That becomes less funny later in the movie when it turns out the duo were not only planning to kill the humans in Sector 7, but also call an army to wipe humanity along with the Autobots.
The release of Cloud Starscream is a redeco of Generations Doubledealer, a retool of Blitzwing. Guess which of the 'Cons in this movie possessed the Starscream-ish head & Blitzwing's name?
A redeco of the Mechtech Bumblebee toy with red eyes (due to molded clear red plastic) is totally canon now.
Ravage's redesign has no tail, which becomes rather ironic when you remember that Bumblebee killed him in Revenge of the Fallen by ripping his tail out with his spine.
The self-help book about learning to smile more ends up being eerily similar to an exchange in the next big female-fronted blockbuster, Captain Marvel (2019).
Hype Backlash: To a minor extent, some of the more infamous 'Geewuners' fandom and the Bayformers fandom have had a far less-positive reaction to the film, likely in-part because of how beloved it became among critics and audiences. The film's Genre Shift, change in tone, and audience catering, leads to some of the latter complaining that it was Pandering to the Base for the older fans, while some of the former complain that it didn't Pander enough.
I Knew It!: Many expected that Bumblebee will eventually scan the 1976 Camaro at the end of the movie, as some merchandise of him had the alt mode.
A number of fans have complained that, while most of the other characters are redesigned to be very true to their original cartoon designs, Bumblebee himself looks too similar to the version in the Bay movies, with some saying that they should have kept his blocky body-type and horns on his head from the G1 design. The decision at the end for him to scan a Camaro is similarly not particularly well-liked. While this was likely done to keep continuity with the other movies, when the film was recut to be a Continuity Reboot, some feel this should have been cut too in order to let Bumblebee keep his classic form instead of the Camaro. Others have argued that they should have compromised by having Bumblebee resemble his G1 design during the Cybertron scenes and then change to the design he has in this film once he scanned an Earth alternate mode.
On the other end of the spectrum, some fans who liked the unique takes on character designs from the previous films complained about the designs of this film hewing too closely to the original cartoon. That said, very few of them have an issue with the less cluttered and more colorful aesthetic.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The most disliked character in the film is Sally, Charlie's neglectful mother, who constantly criticizes her daughter for being "mopey" (despite having lost her father not too long ago), not to mention jumping to conclusions and punishing Charlie for stuff way out of her control. This is in contrast to Shatter and Dropkick, who are quite enjoyable to watch thanks to their Evil Is Cool status, and Tina, who is a clear unsympathetic Hate Sink.
Just Here for Godzilla: Even among those not interested in the premise, the more G1-accurate character designs have people excited. The opening ten minutes which showcases this the most has been cited by many as one of the main reasons to see the film, even if the rest of the film is very different.
Shatter and Dropkick are two of the most evil Decepticons we've seen, being utter sadists who'll stop at nothing to find Prime, and willing to kill entire planets to do so. However, they're also a villainous Buddy-Cop duo who, while both sadistic, have completely different styles to their sadism (Shatter being a talker who enjoys playing mind games and twisting the knife by adding insult to injury, while Dropkick is a brute who likes to cause as much physical damage and pain as he can), and have some entertaining scenes together that it's hard to not find them engaging. Adding to things is how, instead of just attacking the Earth, they come up with the brilliant scheme of convincing Sector 7 that they're the good guys in the war, making them stand out considerably as surprisingly tactful and resourceful.
Poor Cliffjumper. The fanbase has taken to making many jokes about how Hasbro loves killing him off early in crude and disturbing ways.
To some extent, Memo is often teased by the fandom, often due to being "rejected/friendzoned" by Charlie. The fact that Jorge Lendeborg Jr.'s character in Spider-Man: Homecoming is also rejected by a girl in his one scene seems to be brought up a lot. Generally his character is well-liked, at least.
The epic Cybertron battle sequence at the start has fans demanding a full-on movie taking place on Cybertron, "with as little human action as possible". A plethora of fan-made videos have shown up on YouTube that modify the battle of Cybertron such as by inserting G1 music, recreating it in Transformers: War for Cybertron or Minecraft visual design, recreating it with action figures and shooting a homemade video of it or simply updating the quality.
The first trailer quickly got stuck with the jokingly affectionate moniker "The Shape of Metal/Gasoline/Energon", thanks to sharing the theme of a (platonic, in this case) love story between a human female and a male non-human, not to mention a shot of Charlie embracing Bee underwater that looks very similar to a scene to Del Toro's film. Comparisons to The Iron Giant are also popular, even having a scenes in their climaxes that are almost identical. It also helps that all three films take place in the same Cold War setting.
Charlie bonding with Bumblebee by gently placing her hand on his face has drawn jokes of calling the film "How to Train Your Autobot".
Shatter and Dropkick, the two main Decepticons, are oftenly jokingly compared to Team Rocket's Jessie and James from Pokémon: The Series.
It didn't take long for everyone, including TFWiki.net, to get in on making joking comparisons to Bee Movie. Some fans even humorously hoped it would open with Optimus Prime narrating "According to all known laws of aviation..."
"The Queen of Wakanda is a Decepticon!"Explanation Shatter is voiced by Angela Bassett, who played T'Challa's mother in Black Panther (2018).
"Bumblebee, sweet boy", a memorable quote from the Netflix documentary show The Toys That Made Us, was quickly associated with the trailer's Lighter and Softer take on the movies' Bee.
The seeker character featured here was widely assumed to be Starscream, only for Word of God to say that he’s actually supposed to be Blitzwing. Cue jokes about Travis Knight not being able to tell the difference between Starscream and Blitzwing, or Starscream toys being referred to as Blitzwing toys.
Some extend the joke to other characters, such as claiming Soundwave is actually Reflector or that Optimus Prime is Ultra Magnus.
And quite a few fans are disappointed that Blitzwing doesn't have three faces like in Transformers: Animated.
Naturally, John Cena's reputation as the invisible man has fans questioning why he doesn't appear in any of the trailers.
"It's basically the plot of The Little Mermaid but with robots"Explanation Some have pointed out similarities between the two, with a main protagonist (Bumblebee/Ariel) losing their voice, befriending a human of the opposite gender (Charlie/Prince Eric) and fighting against a female antagonist who is crushed by a boat (Shatter/Ursula).
There's the discourse debating on whether Ravage is a cat or a dog, as in the original G1 series, he's referred to as a "panther" but has a rather canine head, and true to inspiration, the Ravage appearing in this movie looks a lot more like a dog.
Comparing this new entry positively, directed by Travis Knight, to the previous ones directed by Michael Bay has the phrase 'it's like Knight and Bay.'
Cliffjumper's Cruel and Unusual Death at the hands of Shatter and Dropkick had lead many to joke that Hasbro really has it out for Cliff, as this is the second time he's been killed early off.
"Did you think you could hide?!"
"Because of you, our franchise has a future." and other similar snowclones.
"Thank you for giving me my _____ back." Explanation Fans jokingly use this with touching screencaps from different source media.
"With all due respect, are you out of your damn mind?!" Explanation Fans quickly started using this quote as a way of dismissing low blows (e.g. name-calling, your mom jokes, etc.) in internet flame wars, or dismissing insults to the Bumblebee movie itself.
The G1 Seeker seen in the trailers being revealed to be Blitzwing instead of Starscream got disappointed people criticizing Travis Knight for pointless character namedrop. While it can be also be stated that showcasing his character design was mostly for marketing, it was understandably impossible for Knight to reveal the reasoning for different character name without outright spoiling his death.
Fans dumped much of their frustrations onto producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura during the period of uncertainty about if Bumblebee was a reboot or not, simply because his statements seemed to suggest that it wasn't (which was how the movie was originally shot) while other sources said otherwise. In the end, a lot of it ended up being the result of misleading headlines.
Soundwave's trademark synthetic voice, much to the delight of anyone who found his Doctor Claw voice from previous films too silly to be scary.
Also, the occasional usage of the original transformation sound as opposed to the general clinking, mechanical sound from the previous movies (though the latter is still used for most of them).
Stan Bush's The Touch getting air time, given how beloved and iconic that song is with the fandom.
Moe: Both Charlie and Bumblebee result in this reaction. Bumblebee is this always but the film plays it up due to his memory loss making him scared and vulnerable, but as ever upbeat and curious. Charlie meanwhile at first downplays it because she's still grieving for her father, but it's quickly apparent she can match Bumblebee's upbeated nature and behind the angst is a quirky and Adorkable young woman, which makes the bad things she deals with all the more upsetting.
The line: “THERE’S A DOOR IN MY WAY!” Thanks to John Cena's incredibly hammy delivery, it makes him sound more like he's a wrestler who just has his epic entrance ruined by a simple object.
The trailer's use of the Bobby Bolivia quote from Transformers (2007) as an emotional Call-Forward comes across as rather chortle-worthy, since Bolivia said it disingenuously as a means of trying to hock what he saw as a piece-of-crap car on a gullible teenager. But for many, the use of the line works anyway, helped in no small part by the fact that Bolivia was played by the late Bernie Mac.
The G1-esque designs of the Cybertron battle in the opening may look a little less realistic and more cartoonish than the rest of the series, but to the fans of the 80s cartoon, it's what they've been wanting from this franchise for years.
Bumblebee's attempt to use "The Touch" to encourage Charlie. It's as cheesy as it is hilarious.
As Bumblebee and Charlie part ways, we see her in his side mirror, with the text "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" clearly in focus. Heavyhanded and corny for sure, but also a moment for feels and tears.
After Bumblebee refuses to rat out his friends, claiming he’ll never talk, Blitzwing sadistically insists they make it official. He then proceeds to transform his hand into a spiked blade reminiscent of Robocop’s data spike, and plunges it into Bee’s voicebox, before ripping it out completely. It gets even worse when you realize Blitzwing basically just ripped out part of Bee’s throat.
Cliffjumper's Cruel and Unusual Death, via being sliced in half right down the middle! And this is AFTER he's been tortured extensively to the point of losing his right arm!
Dropkick's weaponry includes a cannon that causes humans to pop like bubbles, leaving behind nothing but a puddle of slime!
Shatter and Dropkick's beatdown of Bumblebee when they find him. Due to his memory loss, he isn't even fighting back while the two much larger Decepticons assault him. Topping it all off, Dropkick shoots and nearly kills Bumblebee after they find Optimus Prime's message.
Shatter and Dropkick finding the message that Optimus Prime's message, they state their intentions to call an army to Earth. Dropkick gleefully comments "We'll burn the whole planet TO CINDERS." while the normally comedic Dr. Powell is scared out of his wits and tries to warn Burns that the Decepticons plan to wipe all life on Earth.
No Yay: For some, the implications that the film is a Robo Shipromance. Largely because 1) Bee spends much of the film partially brain-damaged (not to mention just very alien to human customs) and thus makes the idea of him being romanced uncomfortable; 2) Charlie is only just 18 so it's kind of creepy for a robot that's thousands of years old to romance; 3) in the film itself, their relationship is such a strong case of Platonic Life-Partners, some just don't want to see it 'corrupted' by becoming a romance. And that's before you get into how some feel Squick towards the idea of Transformer/human romances in general.
Older Than They Think: People have used the newer, more classic Transformer character designs in the film as confirmation for the film being a Continuity Reboot, which was eventually confirmed to be the case. However, Transformers continuities having different character designs between installments is nothing new in the franchise, even including examples that are drastically different without accounting for a change in art style. In the film series alone, Megatron had a drastically different body by the fifth film, to what he started with. So whilst the film's status as a prequel or reboot was uncertain prior to the confirmation of it's status, the character designs aren't necessarily the deciding factor.
Conversely, after the film was confirmed as a reboot, then that means it has kept several elements from the Michael Bay films; notably Bumblebee's overall face/head and aspects of his body design have carried over from those films as well as him becoming a Camaro at the end. Sector Seven has also carried over. This also isn't anything new to the franchise, as Transformers reusing character designs and story aspects for new continuities with minor alterations (sometimes none) is also something that often happens. Notably, the IDW comics made a habit of incorporating and repurposing many aspects of Transformers lore to fit that continuity whilst outwardly leaving them identical to past incarnations (examples including their version of the Thirteen Primes being identical in appearance to those from the Transformers Aligned Universe).
Though some expressed confusion on if the film is a reboot or a prequel prior to its reboot status becoming official (which really just seemed to be dependant on if they liked the prior films or not), the Broad Strokes approach to different instalments within the same 'continuity-bubble' is pretty par-the-course for Transformers. Even ignoring the Michael Bay movies having loose continuity themselves that would introduce conflicting ideas each instalment, but the G1 cartoon and the G1 Marvel comics had considerable differences, as did the Unicron Trilogy (particularly Cybertron), and more recently and infamously, the Transformers Aligned Universe.
Though the film was well-regarded by the larger Transformers fandom, some of the more extreme die-hard G1 and anti-human fans decried that the film used the A Boy and His X trope again. As with before, Transformers working with humans is pretty much the franchise's most reoccurring plot point, and in particular the way the film portrayed it is pretty much identical to many of the early comics. This similarly applied to fans of the Bay films who decried the film having more Slice of Life-type elements with much of the film just being Charlie and Bumblebee bonding rather than having any action; a lot of the older comics and cartoons featured stories where little Autobot-Decepticon fighting happened until the end, with the story instead focusing on an Autobot befriending a human.
Optimus Prime has roughly four collective minutes of screen-time, but whether he's thrashing Decepticons, performing iconic poses, or showing up with a Freightliner alternate mode and telling Bumblebee he's saved the Autobot cause, he makes those four minutes count.
Soundwave and Shockwave as well, featuring the voice of Epic Voice Guy using their original voices!
Ravage too, managing to knock down Optimus and disarm him, and only getting knocked off with little damage after Optimus punches him right in the face!
Blitzwing appears for about four minutes at the start of the movie, but he makes the most of them.
Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker, despite not getting any lines, prove themselves as a legitimate threat by blowing up the tower that the Autobots are using as an escape pod launcher.
Pandering to the Base: With the more G1-esque designs and general 80's feel, the film seems determined to cater to the geewunners who complained about the previous films diverging from G1 (which is relatively common in the franchise). The Cybertron scenes in particular look like cut-scenes from Transformers: War for Cybertron but with really up-scaled rendering, and with several characters showing as cameos. Bumblebee himself is the only one to retain his prior film design, but even that is made rounder and more aesthetically closer to past installments. A few reviewers also noted that the transformations of the robots themselves were more fluid and believable, and are attributed to director Travis Knight's extensive background in stop-motion animation. This is generally seen as a good example of pandering, as even many non-G1 Transformers fans had felt that the previous movies lacked several iconic aspects people expected from the characters and their particular reinvention of the franchise had fallen out of favor with the general public, so this new approach breathed some much-needed life into the series.
Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: The relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee was supposed to be more of A Girl and Her X type of bond, but there are fans who see their close relationship as hints of a romantic one. The two share a lot of intimate moments together, including a few involving Charlie gently caressing Bumblebee's face. There's been more than a few fans who've joked that Memo was added to the movie to discourage the idea that Charlie might be into robots.
As noted at the top of the page, prior to the movie, Bumblebee was beginning to be seen as a Creator's Pet by Transformers fans due to the heavy presence he's given in prior movies and Transformers media that's drawing inspiration from such. However, as the film avoided too much merchandise, and focused on Bumblebee's genuinely endearing qualities and his role as the human protector, not to mention portrayed him as The Woobie as he goes through an extremely vulnerable point in his life, it's safe to say Bumblebee regained fan adoration.
Soundwave and Shockwave, two iconic Decepticons, were criticized for their portrayals in the Bay films because of their radically-changed designs compared to their previous portrayals, and their lack of screentime making it harder to establish them as effective fighters. In this film, they appear briefly in the Cybertron scenes, but long enough to show G1-fans their new looks based on their classic designs, establish themselves as such serious threats that the Autobots had to retreat, and their few lines are spoken in their classic vocoded and monotone voices.
Ron the Death Eater: Sally. While not exactly mother of the year, some people make her out to be an Abusive Parent who despises Charlie, in spite of the fact that she is clearly a hard-working woman who just doesn't understand her daughter's problems. Some also tend to ignore that she tried to find Charlie after going missing, making it clear she does love Charlie.
The prologue scene on Cybertron, for being a love letter to G1; the streamlined and colorful designs that harken to G1, the classic voices of Soundwave and Shockwave, the Seeker trio led by Starscream that transform into tetrajets, and cameos from the likes of Brawn, Arcee, and Wheeljack. A common refrain among fans is that the prologue alone is better than the five prior films, and it's what everyone remembers from Bumblebee.
Charlie and Bumblebee's final goodbye also counts.
Some also call it the best Herbie The Love Bug movie, given how it plays to the other films' common tropes and story elements, just with a giant robot.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The Transformers film series has been a critical whipping boy since the beginning, with no entry ever achieving a "Fresh" rating. Sequelitis only exacerbated the problem, culminating in the abysmally received The Last Knight. You might think the franchise was finally circling the drain at this point, but then Bumblebee comes out and receives nearly universal approval. Who would have expected that? In short, on Rotten Tomatoes, it went from 16% (The Last Knight) to 91%.
A good number of fans are disappointed with Blitzwing's immediate demise, given that he was the one who inflicted a permanent handicap on Bumblebee. Some have pointed out that it would have been interesting to have had him become a long-term antagonist and perhaps even work with Shatter and Dropkick, while becoming Bumblebee's nemesis with a personal grudge. Interestingly, the prequel comic book actually did set up this sort of story with Bumblebee and Blitzwing having been enemies for a decade, battling each other around the globe. This plotline apparently meant to connect to an earlier draft of the film.
Charlie’s younger brother Otis seems quite nonchalant about losing his father at a considerably young age, even though we don’t know the exact time frame between their father’s death and the film’s plot. Though this could be justified by them being Daddy's Girl and Momma's Boy respectively, it could’ve been another interesting thing to explore in the film. While they get Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moments at the end of the film, Otis was pretty much a rather one-note Annoying Younger Sibling to that point. One of the trailers did include a bit somber-looking shot of Charlie driving Bee with Otis, so the siblings probably had some screentime cut from the film, since the finished film was already nearly two hours long.
While the Cybertron scenes were short, fans have expressed some disappointment that Shockwave and Soundwave only get two lines each.
Cliffjumper, who earned fans for standing up to Shatter and Dropkick, is killed off almost as quickly as he is introduced. Again. To add more insult to injury, the "Bee Vision: The Transformers robots of Cybertron" Special Feature reveals that he could have scanned a Porsche 924 or a Suzuki Swift.
Bumblebee's original voice being that of Dylan O'Brien. While losing his voice is a part of his story, it leaves you wondering how the story would pan out if he never lost it in the first place, especially since the film is no longer a prequel to the Bay series and thus isn't beholden to details like that.
Unnecessary Makeover: There has been mixed reaction to Bumblebee scanning a Camaro at the end of the film, as the Volkswagen Beetle mode that he gave up is the alternate mode of original Bumblebee while the Camaro is usually associated with the divisive interpretation of Bumblebee from the previous live-action films, and arguably doesn't really fit Bumblebee's Badass Adorable persona as well as a VW Beetle does.
Visual Effects of Awesome: Par the course for the Transformers films, but even more so by applying the complex and detailed aesthetics of Michael Bay's transformation effects to G1-inspired designs in a similar fashion to the High Moonvideo games.
Win Back the Crowd: With the franchise in serious danger after the financial and critical disaster of The Last Knight, this film achieved renewed interest and nearly universal critical approval, possibly breathing new life into the franchise.
Charlie had no friends before meeting Bumblebee, and was mercilessly bullied by an Alpha Bitch and her posse. Her family (especially her mother) also has a hard time connecting with her while she is currently grieving the loss of her father whom she used to build cars with.
Bumblebee, who gets his voice and memory ripped out by Blitzwing, hunted by the government, and mercilessly tortured by Shatter and Dropkick.
Alternative Title(s):Transformers Universe Bumblebee
, written specifically for the movie.