Jumping The Sharkticon: Five Reasons Why Transformers Needs a Reboot

So Michael Bay's giant effing robot finale Transformers: Dark of the Moon is about to drop on Bluray. While not anywhere near as bad as Revenge of the Fallen, is still a big bloated mess. Hasbro and the movie's producers are no doubt planning their franchise's next move and they have pretty much indicated that they will continue the existing story and not do any kind of a reboot, which is sad because I remain convinced that a good Transformers movie can be made. According to the producers, if it's not broke (i.e. unprofitable) then don't fix it.

Well, producers, here are five good reasons to reboot:

1. Robots in Disguise?

The central appeal of Transformers is that it features robots that secretly live among us disguised as vehicles and other everyday devices. In the Michael Bay Transformers continuity, there is no longer any need for the Cybertronians to be in disguise. Their existence is a badly kept secret as they have a habit of getting into huge brawls in the middle of heavily populated cities and have tried to destroy the Earth twice, even broadcasting their existence on TV in Revenge of the Fallen. At this point, there is not really any reason for them to even have vehicle modes, which negates the whole Transformers concept. They might as well call the fourth movie Monoformers: Robots in the Open. Reboot.

2. The "Narrative" Has Painted Itself Into A Corner

Michael Bay probably wasn't overly concerned about a fourth movie in which he was not going to participate. His sole concern was to conclude his trilogy in the biggest loudest, trilogy-endingist way possible, and to that extent, he succeeded. So where do you go from a movie that destroyed a major American city, killed off one of the central characters and the main villain of the entire series? What's that, you say? Unicron? Personally, I am not excited about the prospect of a live-action Transformers: The Movie. Reboot.

3. Rebooting Is The Transformers Way

Transformers has survived for over quarter century through clever management by Hasbro, who have been savvy enough to re-invent the series on a regular basis. The property is constantly evolving, taking the best elements of previous continuities and media and constantly refining itself into something better. Michael Bay's Transformers is not even close to being the best incarnation of the franchise. I'd love to see a Transformers movie that incorporates some characters and story points from Beast Wars or Transformers Animated. Reboot

4. Save Yourselves Some Money

Hire a young director with a passion for the franchise and a background in effects and storytelling and a cast of unknowns who will work for cheap. Please don't hire a mini-Bay like Brett Ratner to crank out the same kind of movie.

Save some effects money by simplifing the overly-complicated robot designs. A good middle ground between the simple G1 characters and the movie designs is the new Transformers: Prime series. It's time for a new aesthetic for the movies, in which robot characters are so complicated that they are often indistinguishable from one another. There's no reason for the Cybertronians to be hyper-realistic and made of tens of thousands of visible moving pieces.

My last money saving tip: don't hire anyone who is going to push you into a three hour movie. The last two Transformers movies were each at least an hour too long. These are summer popcorn movies and should be no more than 1:45 minutes.

5. This Is An Opportunity To Make A Real Transformers Movie

I realize that the first movie was a risky venture. Doing a movie based on an 1980's cartoon and toyline could very easily have been a huge laughable failure. From that point of view, hiring someone like Michael Bay was smart. He brought a glossy and cool sensibility to the movies that appealed to the young male demographic but he was certainly no fan of the property. I always got the impression that he thought he was slumming with the nerds and that he was overcompensating the cool factor because he was working on decidedly geeky and kid-oriented franchise. The tone and style of his movies is very different from previous Transformers media. After all, Michael Bay makes movies about cool guys and hot chicks chasing cars and blowing stuff up, not sci-fi nerd opuses or kids movies.

Now that Transformers is a viable movie franchise you can take the risk of making a movie more true to the heart of the property. There's no longer any need to tart it up to sell tickets, people are going to be buying tickets to the next couple of Transformers movies no matter what you do but by choosing to reboot and make good movies you can have a long healthy cinematic franchise. At it's heart, Transformers has always been aimed at kids. Don't be afraid to make a really good kids movie that grown-ups will enjoy. Sure, some kids liked Michael Bay's movies too, but they probably needed a Ritalin feed during the movie.

Finally, the second two Transformers movies were crap. It's no secret. Sure, you can make a lot of money cranking out crappy movies but sooner or later people are going to catch on and that is bad for the longevity of the franchise. So Michael Bay has finished his trilogy and you now have the opportunity to say "Thank you very much for helping us create a viable movie series" and start fresh on a brand new trilogy of movies with a new director and a fresh take on the characters, story and design.

Patrick Garone
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Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl