The 2007 film kinda broke the usual patterns for how humans are introduced to the Autobots. Usually either humanity meets the bots first and so when the cons arrive, the Humans already see the bots as friends and allies. Or, they meet the cons first and are almost immediately helped and saved by the bots. Meanwhile bayverse starts with a Decepticon destroying a military base, killing a ton of people...and the bots don't show. The autobots don't show until half way through the film and even then, they don't actually fight the cons until the final act. Like Optimus in the films opening of the Cube floating through space literally says "but we were too late." The Autobots were too late and now the conflict of the first half of the film isn't decepticons vs autobots. Its Decepticons vs Humanity.

It's Humans having to save Human survivor's from Scorponok. It's Humans having to predict the cons next move, all the while not even knowing what the cons even are. It's Humans having to deal with and stop the cons hacking and stealing information. The Autobots were <i>late</i> and so the larger Human characters, for a moment, had to stand alone and defend themselves from the cons. And this has the lasting consequence that the Humans in bayverse do not look at the Autobots and see friends. Humans in other continuities who have met the bots first or were saved by the bots around the same time that they're introduced to the cons are able to easily be like "ah okay, theyre the good robots and those are the bad robots." But because bayverse has Humanity dealing with the cons before they ever meet, when the bots do show up it's more of "these are the bad robots and those are *looks at Autobots*... the other robots".

And thats the concept that I find so interesting. The Autobots were too late and thus were too late to save their relationship with Humanity.

Now, saying that, I will acknowledge that a lot of bayverse has the vibe of "ugh 🔫🇺🇲AMERICA🇺🇲🔫" and for Bays fetish for the military and explosions. And so a lot of the choices and writing made for the 2007 were probably surrounding that. And Humanity turning against the bots and just not being really friendly with the bots at all was probably just for the drama and just to add more conflict rather than any sort of exploration of Humanity's relationship with the bots.

However, I think you can acknowledge that way something is in a story is influenced by the creators in real life and still be very interested in how those influences actually look in the universe and how characters are influenced by it. So yes, the 2007 has a unique focus with the Decepticons vs American military because of Michael Bays personal interests but that doesn't change that in universe, the Human characters are forced to stand against the cons without the bots in a way that Transformers continuities don't tend to do. And how that change will effect the Humans relationship and dynamic with the bots.

And when the Autobots do finally show up and fight the cons, it's not outside a small town or in a field or somewhere else isolated. It's in a heavily populated city. This is Humanity at large's introduction to the Autobots...and it's to the bots and cons completely decimating a Human city where very clearly, a lot of Humans are killed. So of course the Humans of bayverse are extremely cautious, theyre distrusting and even outright hostile. Like...I want you to think about every bayverse film and how in every one, a Human city is destroyed. How many Humans lives are lost collectively in these movies.

"Oh but all the Humans that the Autobots have to deal with aside from Sam and his current love interest are selfish and greedy backstabbers, so clearly it's the Humans at fault here." The majority of Humans that the bots have to deal are not a good representation of Humanity of a whole. This is why I think the introduction of Cade Yaeger and his friendship with Optimus could have been so interesting because unlike the politicians and businessmen and military men, people is high positions of power that can be used to manipulate that Optimus has previously been working with. Cade is a random smuck who lives in the middle of nowhere, he has no power or influence to his name and everything he knows about the bots has been things he's read and seen in the news. He had the initial introduction to Cybertronians as a whole that the rest of Humanity had. And that would have been the events of the 2007 film, mainly the final big fight in the city.

https://discord.gg/PC2qqks