MovieChat Forums > Bumblebee (2018) Discussion > They finally make a good transformers mo...

They finally make a good transformers movie...


and it bombs.

Ha. No wonder we get so many crap movies.

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Bumblebee probably fell victim to Transformers fatigue. There have just been too many of them, and too many of those have been bad.

Some interesting insight here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/12/27/bumblebee-transformers-box-office-aquaman-mary-poppins-spider-man/#3ab0b4a26fe2

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Good point. Kind of like Solo and the SW movies. It was far from the worst, but it was the first to bomb.

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I think Bumblebee is a better movie than Solo by a fair margin, but yeah, Solo's box office was largely the result of fan backlash over TLJ.

Who knows, perhaps Bumblebee will have legs that keeps it in the theaters for a while, and then when it hits home video it will do good rental and sales numbers. But honestly, despite all the skilled craftsmanship that obviously went into making the film, I found the story dull and uninspired. It was just a little too simple and predictable, with little in the way of surprises.

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It was a fun and enjoyable movie, but I saw Spider-Verse the next day, and it basically made me forget I'd even seen Bumblebee.

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Spider-verse sucked donkey balls.

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I don't recall a donkey. Is that similar to Spider-Ham?

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That was the only part I liked about the movie. I mean it was Stupid because Spider ham is completely stupid and I always thought it was just a spoof not a part of the marvel multiverse BUT it has made my Spider-Ham #1 which I bought on a whim as a kid.....go from a Dollar to about 40-50 bucks....😄😄😄

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Nice!

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I think I saw possibly 2 advertisements for this film on tv in it's entire runup.

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Really? I saw ads non stop. Every commercial break. All over facebook. Anyhow, they're making a sequel so it must have did pretty good.

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Don't use Facebook maybe that's why...

Ok sequel, cool.

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Well after a slow start, Bumblebee seems to have finally rallyed a bit, and now sits at $455million worldwide, which whilst its not stellar numbers for a Transformers movie, its at least not flop territory and this is what it might take to reinvigorate the franchise as people slowly come back.

It was $82million cheaper than Transformers: The Last Knight and certainly the advertising budget doesn't seem as big as that movie either, so Bumblebee has made a decent return.

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No bomb here
https://deadline.com/2019/01/bumblebee-crosses-400-million-worldwide-box-office-next-for-transformers-franchise-1202538143/


When you made this post, Bumblebee at that point had at least earned quite a bit more than its production budget. So even though it appeared to be underperforming, it wasn’t a complete bomb or anything. Fast forward to a month later, and Bumblebee is now officially profitable at $455+ million.

I suppose the movie started out slow in what was seen as a seriously packed December. But lo and behold, in the end it became a very leggy movie. It might’ve not done so impressively domestically, however surpassing $100 million and coming close to the last Transformers is something it did accomplish. So, not a bad result all things considered! And as one might expect, its international success (particularly its China performance) is the main reason the movie can be considered a modest hit. It has yet to even open in Japan.

All in all, I doubt most people expected Bumblebee to experience the same kind of box office success as the previous Transformers did. While things looked promising for it from a filmmaking standpoint since the beginning, the fact is B faced an uphill battle from the start, e.g. Transformers fatigue, being smaller in scale+different in many aspects, having some real BO competition and etc. Despite all this, the movie rightfully received tons of praise, its word of mouth was good enough, and ultimately it performed reasonably well. Hell, a sequel to this movie is already in development! So well done, B and Charlie!

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That's good.

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Yet I KNOW you've watched ALL FIVE of the previous films.

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I don't think it was that great. It targeted 10 year old kids. It's still below average, nothing new or exciting, just another filler.

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The uncool majority disagrees.

No, this isn’t a groundbreaking movie by any means. Mind you, no one is claiming such a thing. However, it IS a welcome change of pace for this franchise. Unexciting? Perhaps it was low on the action, but that’s what it was rightfully going for. With Bumblebee, the studio and filmmakers made the right decision by wanting to set this movie apart from the Bayverse. And yeah, they certainly accomplished that.

Targeted at kids? Like, the old Transformers were? Well, I’ll tell you what. Bumblebee’s family-friendly tone was far more preferable to the crassy, unfocused, and spiritless Bay installments. Bumblebee had a story, depth, a sense of purpose, strong performances, and it was actually well-made. Can you say the same thing about the previous Transformers? I’d beg to differ. Although I suppose B didn’t feel like the quintessential Transformers movie, focusing on characters and story rather than action felt super appropriate. Audiences clearly grew tired of the bombastic and style over substance Bay movies, so it should come as no surprise why people who were never even into this franchise embraced the quieter, nostalgic, character-driven and heartfelt Bumblebee. What’s more, Travis Knight’s direction absolutely made Bumblebee standout and it was far from average. Oh, and when the action does come, it feels necessary.

So... “filler”? To each their own. But many will agree that it is the exact opposite of that. At any rate, while some didn’t see what all the fuzz was about like you, evidently a lot of viewers did. This was the first critically acclaimed Transformers film and it is because of some very good reasons.

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This was a not a Transformers movie but, a "coming of age teenage drama", and a particularly drab one. Apart from 2 mins, in the beginning, there's absolutely no action. It again starts at 95 mins mark and ends abruptly after 5 mins to show she can still fucking dive.

When I watch a Transformers movie, I don't want to see a robot acting like a puppy for 100 out of 114 mins.

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The original cartoons/comics weren't war porn. They existed to advertise the toys. And all they could do is change between android & automobile. They were created by the Japanese, who were war weary in the aftermath of WW2. So they made civilian vehicles the heroes. The Autobots humanity was their saving grace when outgunned by the militaristic Decepticons. Optimus was written like a father figure with Bumblebee as his loyal sidekick & link to the human world.

The Bay movies were fine for what they were. This one was more in tune with the source material, though.

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There was nothing good about this movie, unless you're 12yrs old or younger.

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