#bumbebee

Waited for  @needs-to-stop-looking-at-valves to finish her RiD15 Reasons I like series to post this, yay ~ When I finished the show on my own I made a post about the villain situation and how it really lacks one big bad guy. I am a decepticon lover as yall know, so of course the lack of really good bad guys is annoying to me.

Now however I think a little differently, in which I don’t think a really big bad guy would fix parts of the show, and instead wanna focus on what I think the show tried to do.

And with tried I mean shoe-horned into the last two episodes in an attempt to be “deep”. Spoiler, it didn’t work. 

But it’s still worth pondering about!

So what they did is having those five decepticons be the new cybertron council (disguised as autobots) Cyclonus, Cyberwarp and three others so unimportant that they dont have any lines or names. (but they needed five because the season is called combiner wars)

Cyclonus was the boss of the squad who’s goal was destroying earth, take over Cybertron and get Megatron back to lead the decepticons. 

I talked about why the whole “getting Megatron back” plot of RiD15 is dumb in my previous post btw, not gonna repeat that.

Cyberwarp on the other hand has her doubts about all that, caring about other people and in the end going against Cyc, stating her wish for peace between decepticons and autobots. 

And now of course this whole thing will feel really cheap, given that it’s a sentiment by one character who only appears in two episodes in a 71 episode show in which peace was never a theme.

But it could have been! And it would have worked well with the premise as well!

Now sit back and imagine:

Imagine various decepticon armys feeling the loss of their leader, or worse, the betrayal of their leader as he abondons his cause, their cause.

Decepticons who are at a loss of what to do with their lives now, because they fought a war for so long only to lose and be exactly at the place where they started. At the bottom of society.

You’d think a lot of them would not take this well. A lot of them would still want to wage war and fight for the thing they believed in for millions of years.

Instead of just every day criminals, the cons of the show could have been former soldiers who refuse to let the past go.

Who want Megatron back as their leader because he gave them a sense of purpose. 

The attempts at getting to contact Megatron would read differently - it would be done by decepticons who don’t just want to wreak havoc, it would be done by people who desperately want their sense of purpose back, and previously that sense was fueled by their leader. 

I mean Soundwave was always loyal, it makes sense for him to really wanna get back to his leader to finish what they once started.

Cyclonus’ trait in G1 was loyalty as well, so yeah, he too would really want his leader back, someone to look up to, someone who will keep the decepticons and their cause together. 

Without Megatron, they all feel lost.

And this is were Cyberwarp comes in - she recognizes this. That the decepticons aren’t evil by default, that they only crave violence and war because that was what they had lived for for ages. That they refuse to live in peace because war has been been their only purpose.

And she’d recognize that all of that is meaningless. That the violence will never make them feel whole again. That they need to grow out of the past and look to the future, to find a new purpose in life.

And this is what I am sure the writers tried to tell us with her character. 

And the whole show could have had that theme - the show is about hunting down escaped criminals, but with that theme I explained the show could have gone into a different direction than just cop show.

It could have been about seeing the humanity of all the deceptions. Why they took on the brand of decepticons and why the refuse to leave it behind. Steeljaw’s main goal was a decepticon utopia, and that plot could be turned from generic world conquer quest to something a lot deeper - it could be about the fact that he feels that the cons have no place on the new Cybertron, that he feels like he has no place there and just wants to live in a world he fought for in the war.

All con’s could have similiar stories to them! Becoming criminals not because they are simply evil, but out of anger and frustration at a world that left them with no purpose.

And the Bee team’s job could have been to make peace with them! Empathize with their pain and understand that incarnation will not fix the problem they have, but understanding and kindness will.

And the really bad guys would be those who refuse the kindness. 

You know I hate the Predacon Rising Movie Megatron, but him being in this show wouldn’t have been bad in this context - he could show up as an actually good mech now and try to make his once loyal followers see the errors of their shared past. 

Not come back as an autobot per se, just as himself, but in an attempt to fix what he himself has done and help those who still suffer from it. His own soldiers who once found a purpose in him and who lost that purpose now.

He could try to show them that they don’t need a war, that they can find a purpose on their own.

PG-13, 114 minutes, directed by Travis Knight, written by Christina Hodson

Notable performers: Hailee Steinfeld is charming in everything and if you disagree, you should check your priorities. 

How to watch: Stream on Hulu or rent digitally on major video platforms, as of March 2020.

Why you should watch it in general: It’s got a little bit of 80s nostalgia, but with some big budget fun from 2018 digital effects. 

Why you should watch it while you’re stuck at home: It’s a decent distraction from the anxiety of the pandemic. 

Does the trailer do it justice: Sure, why not?

Is it part of a franchise: Yes, but it’s probably better if ignore that fact since it kind of spits in the face of the timeline as established in previous movies, also, this was designed as a soft reboot and totally works as a stand alone. 

Have I seen it before: Yes, I watched it on a plane, and I was still impressed with it - imagine watching it comfortably and how impressed you’ll be!

It takes place in the late 80s and then they do some stuff that makes you go “uh, I don’t think that would have been a thing…?”, so you kind of have to be willing to suspend some disbelief in terms of reality. (Also, I mentioned above, this movie flies in the face of “facts” established about the Transformers arrival on Earth as laid out in some of the other movies - but in those movies, some of those facts are already in conflict, so get over it.) Basically, Hailee Steinfeld is a charming teenager who “gets a car” which turns out to be Bumblebee. Bee is on the run from Decepticon forces when he teams up with Steinfeld’s character. Fun action sequences ensue. 

It’s a Transformers movie - you’re here for the spectacle, not for a cogent plot. Just let it wash over you like a warm blanket.

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