Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

[School of Movies 2024]

The initial and glowingly positive reviews are coming in for Transformers One this week. It's the first entirely-animated Transformers movie since the infamous Optimus-Prime-slaughtering 'The Transformers: The Movie' in 1986, and I am happy and hopeful for the future in that regard.

But what of the state of the live action films? The fifth and final Michael Bay-directed mess was The Last Knight in 2017, which did almost HALF the box office of the obscenely successful Age of Extinction in 2014. Then came Bumblebee in 2018, very purposefully different in tone from the leery MacGuffin hunts of the Bay films. It made less again, despite being the only one with heart and soul.

Then in 2023, this seventh entry sought to split the difference with a return to the MacGuffin hunt and big, noisy robot battles of the earlier entries, but with an injection of the humanity and spark of Bumblebee.

This episode contains a bonus; the previously Patreon-exclusive exploration of my re-edits of the five Bayformers. What, if anything can be saved from that towering mountain of extremely lucrative scrap!?