Last night I attended a press screening of the new Bumblebee movie in Boston. I am a longtime fan of Transformers. They came out when I was 10 years old and the perfect age for these toys. I’ve attended two Botcons and have seen all media surrounding Transformers since 1984. For a while I even did a video series where I reviewed Tranformers comics from the 80s. I even have a collection of about 400 Tranformers. So, yeah, I’m a fan.

I’m going to come right out and say it. I loved Bumblebee. Travis Knight used his masterful storytelling expertise honed from years at Laika to make a coherent story that Transformers fans will love. He hit on so many good marks. First off, you know who all the characters are, except for Shatter and Dropkick. I have my suspicion that those guys are left over Bayformers that were designed and adapted for this movie. They have that feel to them. Bumblebee himself on the other hand has had a complete overhaul in is design. We saw a little featurette before the movie and then the same one at the end but it tells you a lot about the care that went into making this movie. Here is a shortened one.

John Cena’s character, Agent Burns was an interesting one. We meet him early on and we learn why he is hunting Bumblebee. He isn’t just some one dimensional army dude. He is very self aware and is the only person who even questions the name Decepticons. I mean no one in the movies has ever stopped for a moment and said, “hey wait, these guys have deception in their name, you think we can trust them?” That is not the line but he’s the only guy who asks. This movie is very stripped down to the essentials of a story. We don’t get those sweeping shots of tons of military hardware. This movie has some military response but it is way more reasonable. It makes more sense like this scene.

This isn’t Michael Bay’s Transformers and that is a great thing. Don’t get me wrong, I was super thrilled to see the first Transformers movie back in 2007. I was so thrilled that I watched it twice in one night. Once through a charity event and the second time with the attendees of Botcon 2007 in Rhode Island. It was such a thrill to see Optimus Prime roll in and transform, even if he looked way different than his G1 form. That is okay, fans get to see a G1 Prime in action and it is amazing!

What fans may gripe about is that the movie doesn’t take place all on Cybertron. Look, Cybertron is cool and all but even the cartoon took place mostly on Earth. Will we see a Cybertron based movie in the future. Maybe, that would be cool, but in this case I thin there were just about the right amount of Cybertron. This movie had a very 80’s feel. It was set in 1987 and it felt sort of like one of those kids action movies of the 80’s. It had a great vibe to it and there was also a nice soundtrack happening. Honestly, they even worked in Stan Bush’s “The Touch” in a very perfect way. People, I cried when I met Stan Bush at Hascon in 2017. That song meant so much to me as a kid and I had a hard time getting the words out to tell him that. I was even wearing mt “The Beetle” shirt when I met him.

Hailee Steinfeld’s character Charlie Watson is a wonderful character. A girl who is full of teen angst over a traumatic event in her live. Her life simply stopped when this happened and she has been stuck in a spiral of despair ever since. Her one thing is her goal to fix a specific car for a very special reason. Charlie is a capable, likeable character. I think that audiences will connect with her story and friendship with Bumblebee. They need each other in a very special way. Through their relationship we see how they each become better, stronger and more sure of themselves. I tear up at the end of this little featurette with Hailee talking about the movie.

The story does center around Bumblebee or rather B-127 which was his designation on Cybertron. Bumblebee and many of my G1 faves are fighting on Cybertron and Optimus charges Bumblebee with a mission of going to Earth and establishing a base there. As he leaves Cybertron he sees Optimus fighting to his last against a whole battalion of Decepticons. Alone and completely out of his element, Bumblebee crash lands on Earth. There he uses his ability to scan forms in order to transform into something that will allow him to hide. We get to see Bumblebee in many forms in this movie and while each is different, they are all distinctively Bee.

I loved the design of Bumblebee. Travis Knight made a decision to strip everything down to make the characters look more real where you would see car parts instead of just slick CGI. The CGI in this looks amazing and not just forks in a blender like many of the Bayformers looked. One thing that Travis focused on were the eyes of Bumblebee, through his eyes and expression you see actual emotion. This guy has been hurt, he is alone, he is scared. There is a real connection of friendship between Charlie and Bumblebee. You actually feel for these characters.

I cannot say enough good about this movie. I cannot wait for the chance to bring the kids to see it. This is the movie that I have been waiting for. Travis Knight made a movie that explains so much about how Bumblebee becomes the Bumblebee that we saw in the 2007 movies. Why he cannot talk, how and why he uses music to communicate. I will concede that we needed the 2007 movie and all the changes that Bay made to the characters to truly appreciate how Travis brought us back to G1. Heck, even my most favorite character of all time gets a moment of screentime and he isn’t some crazy mad scientist car that gets executed. I’m talking about Wheeljack, baby. He was my first Transformer and will always be my favorite.

Go see Bumblebee this Friday 12/21.