It took Transformers' 85% success to learn an obvious lesson about franchising after 17 years

Almost all Transformers The live-action film was missing a crucial ingredient, but Transformers One's 85% Rotten Tomatoes score ultimately paved the way for the franchise to learn an important lesson. Directed by Josh Cooley, Transformers One avoids following the same narrative path as the live-action films. Instead of tracing humanity's relationship with the central robotic beings and presenting a war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, Transformers One goes back in time and highlights how Optimus Prime (Orion Pax) and Megatron (D-16) were once friends.

Unlike Michael Bay's films, which only take place on Earth, Transformers One The film is set on the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron. While all of these differences have seemingly contributed to the animated film's critical success, the main driver of its acclaim has been a major factor. Almost all of the previous films Transformers The live-action film has a disappointing or at best average score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, with its 85% critical score on the rating platform, Transformers One has proven that the franchise was always doing something wrong.

Transformers One made the producers realize that Transformers movies should focus on robots

The franchise had forgotten the importance of the titular characters

In an interview (via Collider), TransformersProducer Lorenzo di Bonaventure spoke about how the animated films in the franchise will remain standalone, while the live-action films will go the crossover route by featuring 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 OneThe success of because it underlines what the center “Robots are capable of developing emotions in some ways.“

Here is his full statement:

Well, we're going to do a sequel again, if we're successful, and there will be an animated version that will exist completely separate from what we do in live action. The next live action movie will be a crossover. What will be particularly affected is the fact that we now know what these robots are capable of emotionally in a certain way. So we're going to have to figure out how to create that space, that we can afford it, and create a story that can take more advantage of it.

With this new knowledge about what can potentially work amazingly for the Transformers As for the live-action films, he confirmed that they will try to make room for narratives that highlight the emotional depth of the main characters. Since the next live-action film in the franchise will also introduce the G.I. Joes, balancing the development of their characters with the central robots could prove to be a challenge. However, it is good that the franchise is finally focusing on developing stories from the perspectives of the titular beings rather than simply using them as narrative devices to drive the stories of the human characters.

Human-centric live-action Transformers movies hurt the series

The human stories lacked enough weight to be attractive.

The producer also 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 robots. He agreed that achieving this will not be an easy task, as the franchise will only add more human and Transformers characters in future films. However, He assured that they would try to find the right balance between representing the GI Joes and the Transformers.This approach could do wonders for the franchise's future, as the heavy focus on human characters has so far hurt the live-action films.

As the title of the franchise suggests, Transformers It was always supposed to be about the anthropomorphization of the central robotic beings.While there are also human characters in the original animated series, the early film adaptations of the toy franchise never shied away from exploring the emotional depth and human traits of the Transformers. Almost all of the live-action films made the robots seem like simple war machines that humans could use to protect their planet. This made the Transformers characters much less relatable and the films no more engaging than other generic action films.

Transformers should have leaned more towards the robot angle years ago

Michael Bay's movies weren't that popular a long time ago

When Steven Spielberg first imagined a Transformers In a live-action film, he wanted it to be about a boy and his relationship with his anthropomorphic car. His original vision would have honored the way the animated series portrayed the robotic characters. However, when Michael Bay took over the franchise as director, he focused less on humanizing the robots. Since the first Transformers The films were box office hits, Michael Bay certainly did something right and deserves credit for giving the franchise more mainstream appeal.

At the same time, however, Michael Bay's films also experienced a significant decline in box office numbers and critical ratings with each new installment after the third filmThis drop in the franchise's numbers should have been a solid indicator that the director's initial approach wasn't working out too well. Following the decline in global earnings for the live-action films, the franchise should have experimented with focusing more on the central robots' point of view.

The live-action Transformers movies will never focus entirely on the robots

Focusing solely on 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 skyrocketwhich prevents them from generating profits at the box office. They need human characters to keep their budget relatively low and create an identifiable entry point for new audiences. However, even if it is almost impossible for the future Transformers If live-action movies focus solely on robots, they can at least try to balance their screen time with humans.

This balance, as Transformers OneThe critical success of the series proves that live-action films will be able to present a deeper exploration of the human motivations and tendencies of robotic characters without compromising the budget. Hopefully, future installments in the series will Transformers The live-action franchise, including the GI Joe and Transformers crossover, will learn valuable lessons from Transformers OneRather than following the first live-action films, they are expected to mark the beginning of a new narrative direction for the franchise, one that honors the spirit of the original lore.

• Transformers

  Transformers is a multimedia franchise consisting of films, television shows, video games, and comic books. 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 film in the franchise was released starring Shia Labeouf.