Bumblebee (film)

This article is about the feature film. For the Autobot it features, see Bumblebee (Movie). For a list of other meanings, see Bumblebee (disambiguation).

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According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.

Bumblebee is the sixth movie in the live-action film series. A "reset" of the film series as a whole, Bumblebee acts as a prequel to the previous five movies, albeit taking some liberties with continuity. The film is directed by Travis Knight rather than Michael Bay, written by newcomer Christina Hodson, and produced on a far lower budget of around $70 million. The film was released in the US on December 21, 2018.

When Bumblebee is sent to Earth to establish a base for the Autobots, he finds himself hunted by both Sector Seven and the Decepticons. With his memory and voice lost in battle, he is found by Charlie Watson, a young woman in search of a direction in life. The pair work together to try to discover who Bumblebee is and why he's on Earth, but ultimately they'll find themselves with the fate of the planet in their hands...

Synopsis

War rages on Cybertron, and things look bad for the Autobots. Contact has been lost with the front lines, and Ratchet, Arcee, and Ironhide are pinned down under Decepticon assault until Optimus Prime arrives to momentarily repel their foes. Prime looks for scout B-127, who arrives only a moment after. The Autobots fall back to a launchpad, and Prime instructs the Autobots to board escape pods and flee from the planet. He also gives B-127 a secret mission: go to Earth, a well-hidden planet Prime has identified, and establish a base for the Autobots to regroup and strike back. As the Seekers under Shockwave's command begins attacking the launchpad directly, Prime leaps into the horde of Decepticons to buy B-127's pod some time to escape...

The year is 1987, and Agent Jack Burns' team of Sector Seven agents emerge victorious from a mock battle after leading the other team into an ambush. As Burns good-naturedly chides his unlucky opponent, however, an unknown projectile appears overhead and plows into their midst. Many agents are injured, and Burns, believing his team to be under projectile assault after confirming that no other military practices using live ammo are occurring nearby, immediately calls for backup... upon which he comes face to face with a giant yellow robot rising from the crater. He immediately orders his forces to give chase, and the robot flees after scanning and transforming into a nearby military jeep. Even though the military attempts to capture him with harpoons and machine guns, the robot evades them and emerges into a clearing leading to an empty mineshaft. Burns gives the order to cut it off from escaping into the mine... which one of his soldiers executes by blindsiding the robot with his own jeep. However, the robot begins to talk to them in English, assuring them of his peaceful intentions and that he is not here to hurt anyone. Burns orders the soldiers to stand down... only for a jet to appear overhead. Burns is baffled that the Air Force was alerted this early, but the robot corrects him - the jet is in fact a Decepticon, who bombards the clearing with missiles and swoops in to attack the yellow bot!

B-127 puts up a valiant effort against the Decepticon Blitzwing and even manages to damage his opponent's flight systems, but is soon subdued and dangled over a cliff. Blitzwing interrogates the scout about Optimus Prime's whereabouts, but the scout valiantly refuses and asserts that he will "never talk", a move that prompts his foe to "make it official" by ripping out his voice synthesizer. Badly injured, he is thrown off the cliff and prepared for execution... but uses a moment of quick thinking to rip a missile from the Seeker's arm and shove it into his chest. B-127 takes advantage of the Decepticon's momentary confusion to kick himself away before opening fire on the missile, detonating it and killing Blitzwing. As he limps away, Burns watches him leave trapped under a destroyed jeep. The Autobot limps to a riverbank before collapsing from his injuries, his memory cells critically damaged. His systems scan a nearby VW Beetle before he finally fades away to unconsciousness...

Charlie Watson, a 17-year old girl one day away from becoming 18, awakens from her slumber. After dealing with her annoying younger brother and the news that her mother will be marrying her new boyfriend, she bikes to her job at a fair where she is utterly humiliated by Tina and her posse for having no car. She visits Uncle Hank's junkyard after hours to clear off, but discovers an old VW Beetle under a tarmac after accidentally knocking over a series of motorboats. She finds the key in the ignition and tries it on, but is surprised when the car emits a high-pitched shriek...

Somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter, Decepticon hunters Shatter and Dropkick interrogate Cliffjumper about Optimus Prime's whereabouts. The Autobot remains resolute, which angers his interrogators... until B-127's signal, activated on Earth by Charlie, reaches the three Transformers. The two Decepticons agree to go to Earth and hunt down B-127 instead... but not before Shatter vertically bisects Cliffjumper, killing the Autobot.

In a trailer park, dysfunctional couple Ray and Amber argue, among other things, Ray spending their rent money on purchasing a tricked-out new car. Their spiel is interrupted when a meteor crashes mere feet from them... thankfully to Ray, missing his new car. He's not so lucky when a second one falls, however, as it obliterates both his prized car and the trailer they live in. Headlights shining from inside the inferno give the irresponsible man some hope... until Shatter and Dropkick reveal themselves and transform before them. Dropkick kills the unlucky Ray before the Decepticons drive off to the West Coast following B-127's signal.

Quotes

"I'll never talk."
"Is that right? Then let's make it official."

—Bumblebee and Blitzwing, right before the latter destroys the former's voice box.

"They literally call themselves Decepticons. That doesn't set off any red flags?"

—Agent Burns doesn't trust the giant alien robots.

"Look, I know what you saw is a little crazy. I can explain. ... Yeah, I can't explain, but here's the deal: If you tell anyone what you just saw, I'm going to have to run you over with my car."
"...Jeez!"

—Charlie and Memo

"You think these little chains can hold-"

—Dropkick before being sliced to pieces by said little chains.

"My name... is Bumblebee."

-Bumblebee asserts his new name to Optimus Prime.

Characters

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Bumblebee (Dylan O'Brien) Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) Arcee (Grey Griffin) Wheeljack (Steve Blum) Cliffjumper (Andrew Morgado) Brawn (Kirk Baily) Ratchet (Dennis Singletary) Ironhide	Shatter (Angela Bassett) Dropkick (Justin Theroux) Blitzwing (David Sobolov) Shockwave (Jon Bailey) Soundwave (Jon Bailey) Ravage Seekers Starscream Thundercracker Skywarp Decepticon soldiers (Kirk Baily)	Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) Sally Watson (Pamela Adlon) Otis Watson (Jason Drucker) Ron (Stephen Schneider) Sector Seven Jack Burns (John Cena) Dr. Powell (John Ortiz) General Whalen (Glyn Turman) Seymour Simmons (Nick Pilla) Uncle Hank (Len Cariou) Craig (Kollin Holtz) Tina (Gracie Dzienny) Tina's girlfriends (Isabelle Ellingson, Mika Kubo) Sheriff Lock (Fred Dryer) Ray (Lenny Jacobson) Amber (Megyn Price) Charlie's Dad (Tim Martin Gleason) Bill the Mechanic (Antonio D. Charity)

Continuity notes

• While Bumblebee is nominally a prequel to the rest of the live-action film series, and includes set-up for several elements of those films, it ends up incompatible with those films in several ways (even considering the films' laissez-faire approach to continuity), leading many a fan to consider it a "stealth reboot" in the vein of X-Men: First Class.
  • Most obviously, the film completely throws out The Last Knight's premise that Bumblebee and the Autobots were active on Earth during World War II, showing Bumblebee's initial landing on Earth in 1987. There's no No-Prize for this one — just go with it!
  • Sector 7 seem completely unaware of the Cybertronians and consider their meeting with Shatter and Dropkick to be "first contact"; this runs counter to the original movie, which established that Sector 7 took custody of "N.B.E.-01" in the 1930s. And yet, Megatron is not among the Decepticons seen in the film's Cybertronian prologue, omitted precisely because he's supposed to be frozen on Earth at the time it takes place.
  • Similarly, the film makes no mention of the AllSpark; Bumblebee is sent to Earth not as part of a search for the cube, but to establish a fallback position for the retreating Autobots—though this, at least, is not especially incompatible with the first movie.
  • Optimus Prime and the other Autobots are shown arriving on Earth at the end of the movie, despite the fact that the first film showed them first arriving in 2007. It's quite possible that they left as part of the interplanetary search for the Allspark mentioned in the first film's prologue, only to then return when Bumblebee discovered it had been on Earth all along, but like we said, this movie doesn't mention that.

Transformers references

• The concept of Cybertron falling to Decepticon hands and the Autobots initiating a mass exodus originates from the Aligned continuity family, although in this case the mode of escape is individual escape pods instead of a single gargantuan starship.
• Optimus Prime's entrance in the Cybertron battle is a direct reference to his infamous leap into battle from The Transformers: The Movie.
• In keeping with original movie, Brawn is downed by a shot to the shoulder during his cameo.Except this time he survives, seen among the Autobots getting into the escape pods.
• A snippet of The Touch plays when Bumblebee is 'encouraging' Charlie to dive from the cliff.
• Like his Aligned counterpart, Cliffjumper is the first casualty of the main Autobot cast.
• Bumblebee launching himself at Dropkick seems rather reminiscent of one of his combo moves in Transformers: Devastation.

Real-life references

• Uncle Hank and Charlie's family were watching ALF, a sitcom from the 80's about an alien taking refuge in a human home. Fitting.

Tie-in material

During the lead-up to the release of the movie, IDW Publishing released the four-part comic mini-series Transformers: Bumblebee Movie Prequel, detailing an adventure set in the 60s, during which Bumblebee works with British intelligence to foil the plans of a group of Decepticons, including Blitzwing.

Theatrical posters

• 
  Yellow-black,
• 
  yellow-black,
• 
  yellow-black,
• 
  yellow-black...
• 
  Ooh, black and yellow!
• 
  Yeah, let's shake it up a little.

Development details

• March 27, 2015 — Paramount Pictures negotiates with Akiva Goldsman, hiring him to create a "writer's room" with the intention of building a cinematic universe. Goldsman goes on to hire a number of writers over the next few months: Steven DeKnight (Daredevil), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man), Christina Hodson (Shut In, The Fugitive), Lindsey Beer (Dig), Zak Penn (Pacific Rim 2), Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Lost), Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man), Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down), and Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Involved in the pitching process are Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Brian Goldner, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, and Don Murphy.
• October 3, 2015 — During his keynote speech at the MIP Junior Conference, Hasbro Studios's Stephen J. Davis notes that the writing team has come up with film concepts for Transformers 5, 6, 7, and 8.

  

  "My sweater is Ralph Lauren, and I have no pants."

• February 12, 2016 — At ToyFair, Hasbro reveals the projected release date of Transformers 6, along with those of its predecessor and Transformers 7, as well as the fact that Transformers 6 will focus on Bumblebee.
• December 29, 2016 — Lorenzo di Bonaventura names Christina Hodson as the screenwriter in an interview.
• March 3, 2017 — Travis Knight is appointed director.
• May 26, 2017 — A poster at Licensing Expo 2017 gives the name of the film as Transformers Universe: Bumblebee.
• June 10, 2017 — Hailee Steinfeld reveals in an interview that she's been cast in the film.
• July 11, 2017 — Jorge Lendeborg Jr. is reported by The Hollywood Reporter to have been cast as the male lead.
• July 13, 2017 — More actors including Jason Drucker, Abby Quinn, Rachel Crow, Ricardo Hoyos, and Gracie Dzienny join the cast.
• July 23, 2017 — Pamela Adlon joins the cast.
• July 31, 2017 — John Cena is announced as a cast member. Also Bumblebee is a Volkswagen this time. The film is pushed back to December of 2018. Production begins, with the filming going under the codename "Brighton Falls".
• August 6, 2017 — Hailee Steinfeld reveals on Twitter that her character's name is Charlie Watson.
• September 9, 2017 — At HasCon 2017, di Bonaventura discusses some hints on the film, including that the movie is set in 1986.

  

  "You like jazz?"

• September 12, 2017 — Actor and stuntman Rory Markham reveals on Instagram that he is playing a Sector Seven agent named Adams.
• September 20, 2017 — Travis Knight reveals the first Decepticon vehicle mode in the form of a 1971 Plymouth GTX.
• October 2, 2017 — Peter Cullen has a role in the movie.
• October 26, 2017 — John Ortiz is revealed to be a cast member.
• November 12, 2017 — A wrap party for the movie reveals the movie's title as Bumblebee: The Movie.
• December 11, 2017 — Martin Short is revealed to be doing some voice work for the film.
• December 29, 2017 — A "first look" photo is released showing Hailee Steinfeld and Bumblebee's Volkswagen alternate mode.
• January 28, 2018 — During an interview at the Grammys, Hailee Steinfeld suggests Bumblebee may sing during the movie.
• February 16, 2018 — At Toy Fair 2018, Hasbro states that the film series will be reset after Bumblebee: The Movie.
• April 24, 2018 — Footage of the film is shown at Cinemacon.

"Thanks for the coffee. Sorry, I couldn't finish it. If I did, I'd be up the rest of my life."

• June 5, 2018 — The official teaser trailer is posted by Paramount Pictures, also revealing the film's title has been shortened to just Bumblebee.
• June 6, 2018 — Charlie Adler reveals he is not in Bumblebee.
• June 8, 2018 — Starscream is initially stated to be in the film in a blog post on Paramount's parent company, before his name is later scrubbed from the post afterward.
• July 13, 2018 — Entertainment Weekly reveals Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux will voice new Decepticons Shatter and Dropkick respectively.
• July 20, 2018 — A Bumblebee panel at the San Diego Comic-Con 2018 reveals more information on the film, such as details regarding the characters. Also John Cena dressed as Bumblebee.
• August 26-30, 2018 — David Sobolov confirms he is part of the cast of Bumblebee as the voice of Blitzwing.
• September 22-23, 2018 — Three teasers were released on various platforms with many different languages, revealing Soundwave and Ravage's appearance in the movie, as well as Optimus Prime's design. Additionally, shots were revealed of the three Triple Changers in the movie, as well as Cybertron.
• September 24, 2018 — The official trailer is uploaded by Paramount Pictures' YouTube channel, revealing (among other things) Shockwave and the Seekers' appearances in the movie. A second international trailer is released showcasing some more scenes. An interview with Travis Knight on the new trailer is also published, revealing Wheeljack's appearance in Bumblebee.
• September 27, 2018 - Before a special showing of the animated movie, another interview with Travis Knight and Hailee Steinfeld was seen AND a brief scene of Charlie and Bee's first interaction.
• November 13, 2018 - Bumblebee is rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence.
• November 23, 2018 - A new trailer is released showcasing some new scenes, namely, Bumblebee's Cybertronian robot mode. Another trailer is released animated with...Play-Doh.
• November 27, 2018 - A new featurette demonstrates the more G1-inspired designs of the Transformers, including a proper look at Optimus's model and brief shots of Arcee, Ratchet, Ironhide, Wheeljack and Cliffjumper.
• December 2, 2018 - Lorenzo di Bonaventura confirms Dylan O'Brien as the voice of Bumblebee.
• December 4, 2018 - New footage of the movie drops, showing Soundwave's voice, as well as many new shots of Cybertron and the battle between Bumblebee and Blitzwing.
• December 8, 2018 - Special early screenings of the film take place in specific areas. Fans who attended are given free Tiny Turbo Changers toys, and short behind-the-scenes featurettes are shown before and after the film.

Changes before, during and after production

• Travis originally intended Megatron to make an appearance during the opening battle, however as Transformers had Megatron frozen on Earth at this point in time, he ultimately didn't make an appearance.

Notes

• During production, the film was referred to in presentational material under a variety of names including "Transformers 6", "Bumblebee: The Movie", "The Bumblebee Movie", and "Transformers Universe: Bumblebee".

Foreign names

• Japanese: Bumblebee (バンブルビー Banburubī)
• Cantonese: Daai Wong Fung (大黃蜂, "Bumblebee")
• Hungarian: ŰrDongó ("Space Bumblebee")
• Korean: Bumblebee (범블비 Beombeulbi)
• Mandarin: Dàhuángfēng (Taiwan, 大黃蜂; China, 大黄蜂, "Bumblebee")
• Russian: Bumblebee (Бамблби Bamblbi)

External links

• Bumblebee on Wikipedia
• Bumblebee on IMDB