Well That's Just Prime! - A BW Movie Has Been Pitched by HASBRO

[Nurann]

So HASBRO has implied that they are looking at doing a BW Movie.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-t ... 0-6473100/

James Vanderbilt is pegged as being on the BW project, but no cast, directors, or timeline have been hinted at yet.

Thoughts?

[Wintersong]

I actually have a friend who knows someone on the production team for this (and the Hasbro Cinematic Universe that’s actually in the works). It’s in the process of being worked on according to him, so it’s looking like this may very well be coming out in the next year or two.

I don’t know for sure, but I’m hoping this will happen since us fans having been asking for years now. This and Bumblebee 2 are slated to come out eventually plus more works for G. I. Joe and I think my friend mentioned MASK.

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

Because of this news, Beast Wars was trending on Twitter on Monday. It climbed from #15 to #9 in a just a couple hours. The last trend I saw was Tuesday morning at 5 am ET at #13 with 5,514 tweets (a couple of those being mine). I thought it was the coolest thing. I never thought I would see my favorite TFs series trending on social media. I took screen shots to document it. XD

I'm excited and skeptical at the same time. I want it to be great so that people don't leave the theater (or possibly a streaming platform) disappointed or disgusted, and that they may be drawn in to the 90's cartoon and hopefully enjoy it. On the other hand, if it's terrible, we'll always have our 90's version with the incredible writing and phenomenal voice acting, and we can pretend that the film never happened. And speaking of the acting, I would really, really want them to have the original voice actors in this. In some way, if not reprising their roles. I mean, these guys and gals are pros, and they can develop dozens of different voices, so they could just as easily be a part of the movie as a different character. They deserve to be a part of it. Also, no humans in the film. Anthropoids or cave people, fine, but enough with the overwhelming human interference that Hollywood saturated with in the previous films. Some ideas that have been tossed around by fans focus a little bit on opening the film with the involvement and theft of the golden disk on Cybertron. I dig it. Some have suggested using an alien planet similar to Earth but not actually on Earth so there could be a lot more ideas to work with and make it more original than the cartoon. Some mentioned basing it off of the BW comics (the select few that are out there). Heck, our RPG here has had some great ideas that we played out! Some mentioned falling into the TransTech idea, or that it could take place between BW and BM. Other questions still stand out: What kind of animation? Live action? Organic looking beast modes or more robotic? Who knows. It has the potential to be as good as Bumblebee was, or even better. Unless people like the 90% action and 10% story/character development kind of movie. XD I prefer 50/50 with a hint of comedy thrown in.

I hope that Vanderbilt stays true to the source material. It would be even better if he was a fan of the '96 show. Since he's fairly young (about 45), my hope is that he'll take the fans to heart and consider what we would be looking for in this film. I liked some of his movies, but others fell short. Fingers crossed that he does it justice, and that it's headed by a decent director. ...And they should hire some of us and the original BW show/comic writers as consultants.

It’s in the process of being worked on according to him, so it’s looking like this may very well be coming out in the next year or two.

It would be pretty great if it came out in 2021 when BW turns 25.

[Beastbot]

Gonna hit you guys with a big dose of skepticism here. Sorry.

And speaking of the acting, I would really, really want them to have the original voice actors in this. In some way, if not reprising their roles.

I think the only ones who have even the remotest chance at this are David Kaye and MAYBE Garry Chalk because of their previous experience acting in US (not Vancouver) productions. Well, and I guess David Sobolov since he did voice hi-and-die Blitzwing (and again, also now has a role in voice-acting in US productions). And even then I think Chalk could maybe grab a cameo; given the Hollywood mindset I think there is a 1% chance he actually gets to play a guy with the name of Optimus; no, they're going to want a bigger name than Mr. Chalk for the big hero. Since they're putting more characterization into the actual Transformers now since the BB movie, they're giving a bigger emphasis on who they're casting for the voice actors (hence the robot with the most lines in the movie, Shatter, being voiced by Angela Bassett).

Also, no humans in the film.

I cannot possibly see this happening in any form whatsoever unless this is a very small-budget, CGI direct-to-DVD kind of movie (in which case ignore my thing about the voice actors). If this is a normal theatrical release, nope nope nope nope nope. It will be far too expensive to have realistic CGI with humans not taking up a good dose of the screen time, and human stars are often a major draw for "on-the-fence" viewers who may not fit your typical sci-fi geek persona. And it would have to be a somewhat significant human star, as well, and because of that they would have to have decent screen time. (Hence Shia in movies 1-3, Wahlberg in movies 4-5, John Cena and to a lesser extent Hailee Steinfeld in BB movie.) Also because Hasbro is going in the relatively smaller-budget direction of the BB movie reboot, that will mean even less CGI.

Remember the Kenner comic that came with the original bat Primal and croc Megatron, where it was present day and they just had beast modes? I think chances are VERY high it's something similar to that. Normal Transformer movie plot but the TFs are roughly human-sized and become organic animals. (Using smaller characters would also lessen the size of the explosions and stunts needed to be done, which would also cut down on costs, which is another reason I think Beast Wars stood out to Hasbro as a good idea for one of the next movies.)

Given that they changed so much from G1-- a series with a much bigger fan base than Beast Wars-- when they made the first Transformers live action movie and that worked well for them for 4 movies, I would absolutely NOT expect the Beast Wars movie to share much more with the TV show other than some of the characters names/alt modes/some general design cues, the general robot-to-animal-in-disguise concept, and it being on Earth.