Steven Caple Jr.'s Transformers: Rise of the Beast and seventh installment for the live-action franchise functions as a reboot, sequel, and prequel.
Is Transformers: Rise of the Beasts a sequel to Bumblebee? Really, the eighth Transformers movie simultaneously functions as a franchise reboot, sequel, and prequel. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts of course follows the production of Michael Bay's quintet of Transformer movies, varied in success, and a lone Travis Knight Bumblebee franchise adaptation that served more as a spinoff than a direct ode to Bay.
This is very much a new direction for the franchise, as Rise of the Beast's cast of characters and storyline softly disrupt familiar Transformer's continuity in key ways. Along with a pivotal regression in the setting of time, Rise of the Beasts also resets the recognizable Transformers concept to include Hasbro's Beast Wars narrative - an era in the whole of the Transformers franchise that depicted confrontation between animal Transformers. And crucially, Rise of the Beasts' function as a Transformer's reboot, sequel, and prequel can bring a successful reinvigoration of the franchise.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Is A Bumblebee Sequel
Despite Hailee Steinfeld's disappointment that Rise of the Beasts isn't a direct follow-up to Bumblebee. Set in the '80s, Travis Knight's Bumblebee was an attempt to reboot the franchise by setting the clock back from the Michael Bay Transformers period to decipher the origin story of Bumblebee. The combination of Bay's poorer late installments and the potential in Knight's film as a franchise sequel made Bumblebee a general success. By the time of Bay's last movie, the franchise was reduced to heavy action between the Autobots and Decepticons, and while it made due on excitement, it lacked the genesis between robots and humanity, the vigor of a well-developed story, and the wholesome characteristics of Bay's original Transformers movie - all aspects that Knight's Bumblebee reintroduced.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts follows Bumblebee as a sequel. Rise of the Beasts is set in 1984, continuing Knight's reconstruction of the franchise that recommences the Transformers timeline to make room for new films that won't have to rely heavily on Bay's approach. If it proves to be successful, Rise of the Beasts could indeed reinvigorate Transformers with longtime audiences and its promise at the box office.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Is Set Before Michael Bay's Movies
Because Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is set in the 90s, the story comes a couple of decades before the events of the first Transformers movie and the journey of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). Of course, the campaign Witwicky shares with the Autobots eventually passes over several years and a handful of movies before leading into the accounts of Cade Yeager (Mark Whalberg) and Bay's final Transformer films. But, Rise of the Beasts predates all of to tell a different story.
With this opportunity in time and subsequent separation from Bay, Caple Jr. is able to initiate new (never-before-seen in Transformers live-action) robot factions - the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons - and a fresh antagonist. The introduction of new species of Transformer and the planet-eating villain, Unicron are especially refreshing after several years of the recycled war between Earth and Megatron.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Is Still A Franchise Reboot
Although Bay has been confirmed to be involved in the production of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts still, there are several, subtle indications that it is a fresh start for the franchise. Rise of the Beast's Unicron retcon is a huge indication of that reset. Bay's Transformers: The Last Night described Unicron as the planet Earth, wherein Earth formed around the villainous entity, but Rise of the Beasts reimagines Unicron as a threat on the hunt to destroy Earth.
On top of that, Rise of the Beasts contradicts the Transformers' timeline more generally, synching up more with Bumblebee's new timeline even without explicitly following it. Those sizable revisions make Rise of the Beasts movie serve as a more assertive step toward a franchise reboot than Bumblebee.
Key Release Dates
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Release Date: 2023-06-09
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