This one actually has a chance.
I’m sick of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, you’re sick of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, we’re all sick of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. Never fear. Paramount has finally passed the directing reigns on to someone else — Travis Knight — in the first new trailer for Bumblebee.
Knight is best known for directing 2016’s Oscar-nominated Kubo and the Two Strings. He also helped out in the animation departments for Coraline, ParaNorman (which is so underrated) and The Boxtrolls.
Now, he’s headed to live action for the first time, although it looks like he’s bringing some of that sweet sentimentalism and child-like wonder that was present in Kubo and the Two Strings along with him into Bumblebee.
The film is set in 1987, long before the events of the first Transformers movie took place. Yeah, it looks like this is still in the same universe as Bay’s films, but hopefully, Paramount will just retcon all those and allow us to move on.
Hailee Steinfeld is the lead this time, playing a young teenager named Charlie, who discovers the Autobot in disguise.
No, his voice doesn’t work in this one either and will seemingly be communicating through the radio for the entire movie (which I’m really starting to get sick of) — even though the Rickrolling joke at the very end there was actually kinda funny.
Bumblebee is apparently on the run from John Cena, who is playing some Transformer-hunter who works for the government.
So far, Bumblebee looks a thousand times better than anything Bay has done with the property, and I’m slightly excited to see a Transformers movie for the first time in the past decade.
Granted, I’m not over the moon about it yet — this franchise has still done a lot of damage and it’s going to take more than one better-than-average trailer to right all those wrongs — but it looks like they’re at least trying to take this in the right direction.
What did you think about the Bumblebee trailer? Is Travis Knight the right guy for the job? What do you hope Paramount does with Transformers after this? Let us know in the comments below!