It Took Transformers’ 85% Success To Learn An Obvious Franchise Lesson After 17 Years

Nearly every Transformers live-action film lacked one crucial ingredient, but Transformers One‘s 85% Rotten Tomatoes score has finally paved the way for the franchise to learn one important lesson. Directed by Josh Cooley, Transformers One avoids treading the same narrative path as the live-action films. Instead of walking through humanity’s relationship with the central robot beings and featuring a war between the Autobots and Decepticons, Transformers One goes back in time and highlights how Optimus Prime (Orion Pax) and Megatron (D-16) were once friends.

Unlike the Michael Bay movies, which only unfold on Earth, Transformers One takes place on the Transformers’ home planet, Cybertron. While all these differences have seemingly contributed to the animated film’s critical success, the primary driver of its acclaim has been one major factor. Nearly every previous Transformers live-action movie has an underwhelming or, at best, average Rotten Tomatoes score. However, with its 85% critical score on the rating platform, Transformers One has proven that the franchise was consistently getting one thing wrong.

Transformers One Made The Producers Realize Transformers Movies Should Focus On The Robots

The Franchise Had Forgotten The Importance Of The Titular Characters

In an interview (via Collider), Transformers‘ producer Lorenzo di Bonaventure opened up about how the animated films in the franchise will remain their own thing while the live-action movies go down the crossover route by featuring the G.I. Joe and the titular robots together. However, at the same time, he also revealed that the live-action films will be affected by Transformers One‘s success because it underscores what the central “robots are capable of emotionally in a way.“

Here’s his full statement:

Well, we’re going, again, subject to success, we’re going to do a sequel to this, and there will be an animated version, and it will exist completely separately to whatever we do live-action. The next live-action movie will be a crossover. Where it will be particularly affected is the fact that we now know what these robots are capable of emotionally in a way. So we’re going to have to figure out how to create that room, that we can afford that, and create a story that you can take more advantage of that.

With these newfound insights into what can potentially work incredibly for the Transformers live-action films, he confirmed that they will try to make room for narratives that bring out the emotional depth of the titular characters. Since the next live-action film in the franchise will also introduce the G.I. Joes, balancing their character development with the central robots could prove challenging. However, it is good that the franchise is finally focusing on unfolding stories from the perspectives of the titular beings instead of merely using them as narrative devices to drive the human characters’ stories.

The Live-Action Transformers Movies Focusing On Humans Hurt The Series

The Human Stories Lacked Enough Heft To Be Engaging

The producer further added that “instead of them [Transformers] reacting to humans or reacting to the human plot,” he and the franchise’s creators would like to explore what drives the robots. He agreed that achieving this would not be an easy feat since the franchise will only add more human and Transformers characters in future films. However, he assured that they would try to strike the right balance between portraying the G.I. Joes and the Transformers. This approach could work wonders for the franchise’s future since the heavy focus on human characters has hurt the live-action films so far.

As the franchise’s title suggests, Transformers was always supposed to be about the anthropomorphization of the central robotic beings. While there are human characters in the original animated series as well, the early screen adaptations of the toy franchise never shied away from exploring the emotional depth and human-like traits of the Transformers. Nearly every live-action movie made the robots look like mere war machines humans could use to protect their planet. This made the Transformers characters far less relatable and the films no more appealing than other generic action flicks.

Transformers Should’ve Leaned More Into The Robot Point Of View Years Ago

The Michael Bay Movies Were Seeing Diminishing Returns A Long Time Ago

When Steven Spielberg first envisioned a Transformers live-action movie, he wanted it to be about a boy and his relationship with his anthropomorphic car. His original vision would have honored how the animated series portrayed the robotic characters. However, when Michael Bay took over the franchise as its director, he focused less on humanizing the robots. Given how the first few Transformers movies were blockbusters, Michael Bay undoubtedly did something right and deserves credit for giving the franchise a more mainstream appeal.

At the same time, however, the Michael Bay movies also experienced a significant decline in box office numbers and critical ratings with each new installment after the third film. This fall in the franchise’s numbers should have been a solid indicator of how the director’s initial approach was not working out too well. Following the drop in the live-action movies’ global earnings, the franchise should have experimented with leaning more towards focusing on the central robots’ point of view.

Live-Action Transformers Movies Will Never Completely Focus On The Robots

Focusing Merely On The Robots Is Not Practical

While the idea of the live-action films focusing more on the Transformers characters sounds good on paper, it may not be practical in execution. If the live-action films only featured the titular Transformers, their CGI budget would skyrocket, preventing them from driving profits at the box office. They need human characters to keep their budget relatively low and create a relatable entry point for new audiences. However, even if it is nearly impossible for future Transformers live-action movies to focus solely on the robots, they can at least try to balance their screen time with the humans.

This balance, as Transformers One‘s critical success proves, will allow the live-action movies to present a deeper exploration of the robotic characters’ motivations and human tendencies without compromising the budget. Hopefully, the upcoming installments in the Transformers live-action franchise, including the G.I. Joe and Transformers crossover will learn valuable lessons from Transformers One. Instead of following the early live-action films, they will hopefully mark the inception of a new narrative direction for the franchise, where they honor the spirit of the original lore.

• Transformers

  Transformers is a multimedia franchise consisting of movies, TV Shows, video games, and comics. The franchise centers on a race of humanoid robots called the autobots who must protect Earth from the Decepticons. Some of the most popular characters include Megatron, Optimus Prime, and Bumblebee. In 2007, the first live-action movie in the franchise was released starring Shia Labeouf.