Ep. 53 - Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to episode 53 of The Complete Works Season 3. Yeah, I think that was my favorite movie. I'll put that 10 times on my top 10. Can't wait. Yes, you heard it here for us, folks. One or seven, getting Mike's number one movie and his number two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and 10. But today, you never know, today's movie might make the list. It's a hell of a dream. It could be on there. It is possible. So a few weeks ago on Mike and Mike go to the movies,

[00:01:42] we talked about a little movie, Hellman's by Michael Bay, a name synonymous with big action blackbusters and tons of explosions. Michael Bay's Transformers was a mega hit. Do you remember where you were the summer of Transformers, Mike? I don't specifically, but I was watching Transformers,

[00:03:01] that's for sure.

[00:03:02] Yeah, I mean, I think everybody saw it.

[00:03:04] I mean, granted, you know, I think we have to flash back

[00:03:06] to how old we were when this movie came out. Well, yeah, I couldn't think of the phrase. That's exactly it. Like the perfect encapsulation of the destruction of artistic quality in cinema and all this stuff. Catching a billion dollars. Yeah, all right, cool. So 2009 saw Transformers revenge the fallen. 2011, Transformers dark at the moon.

[00:04:21] 2014, Transformers age of extinction.

[00:04:23] And 2017 saw Transformers the last night.

[00:04:26] All five of these movies't directed by Bay was released, which was Bumblebee, directed by Travis Knight's. And rather than try to ape the excesses of the Bay Transformers movies, Bumblebee goes smaller in scale, it takes place in the 1980s, it only focuses on a couple of characters,

[00:05:40] specifically Haley Steinfeld and her relationship with Bumblebee.

[00:05:43] It also changed the designs of the Transformers,, Lebofen never had the laminated Romeo and Juliet law in his pocket, you know? Yeah, so there's that. Maybe the most infamous moment in the entire Transformers series is, yeah, I believe that's in Transformers 4 when yes, Mark Wahlberg is like, hey, why you dating my daughter? She's underage and the guy's like, well, and he has like a law in his pocket, pulls

[00:07:00] it out and tells him exactly the age of consent laws.

[00:07:03] And it's like, this is weird.

[00:07:04] Pretty weird.

[00:07:05] Yeah, again, I never saw that movie.

[00:07:07] Maybe it plays different in context. That's crazy to think about that's weird right why are there so many of these movies? There's so many of them and so many of them are garbage, but Studio was we're banking the audiences would still turn out for transformers and since Michelle yo voices a transformer We have to talk about Transformers rise of the beasts

[00:08:23] For centuries our kind estate hidden on earth Stop! Stop! Stop! This is not our war. Optimus, we must trust each other to protect the whole we all share. How big can this guy be? Uh, he eats planets. So, like, way bigger than a planet.

[00:09:46] In the end,

[00:11:00] everything you cared for, That's a little bad, let's go! Yeah, baby! So Michelle Yo stars and Transformers rise the beast as air razor, a maximal transformer who is shaped like a falcon. The other Transformer voices consist of Peter Cullen returning to the role of Optimus Prime, basically never left since the 80s. Iconic voice. Truly like once they replace Peter Cullen like once he's too old to do it or dies or something,

[00:11:04] it will be a sad day in Transformers Land.

[00:11:06] They gotta stop once he's out, basically. Really good homework prep for this movie. Yes, yeah, that worked out. And then there are the humans in this movie. Yeah, I guess. Anthony Ramos from Hamilton and in the Heights, he plays Noah Diaz, an ex-military guy, trying to support his family in Brooklyn. Dominique Fishback from the Dus and Judas in the Black Messiah, she plays Alain O'Wallis, an artifact researcher.

[00:12:22] Luna Lauren Vallez from Dexter and the Spiderverse movies,

[00:12:25] she's Miles Morales' mom in those movies.

[00:12:27] She plays Brianna Diaz Noah's mom. show and The Flash, along with four other writers, Darnell Matei, Josh Peters, Eric Hobart, and John Hobart. It was directed by Stephen Cable Jr., who is best known as the director of Creed 2, which was his previous film, which was released five years earlier. The movie was released on June 9, 2023, and it was the only major new release that weekend,

[00:13:41] but it only managed to open at number two at the box office.

[00:13:44] Wow.

[00:13:45] Yes. Yeah, I got the murmuring of approval, you know. Yes, no, you should go see past lives. It's fantastic. I will say when I saw past lives, I saw it in the Roxie Annex, which is the smaller section of the Inuit Theatre in my house in Missoula, Montana, where I also work. That's a 25 seat theater. It was totally packed. The girl who sat down next to me,

[00:15:00] like I could hear her like heavily sighing the entire movie.

[00:15:04] And then as the movie ended, when it finally ended, uh... the michael bae directed at what sequels have you seen have you seen any of them i've definitely seen some of them like more than one movie but not sure which one for sure dark of the moon is one of them right that's a third that's the third one yet i probably also saw the first three actually i might have seen all of them honestly it did these have all they think you saw all five

[00:16:21] they have big just like oh this is on

[00:16:24] and kind of like you just like scanning and like, but so why don't anybody remember them? Right? Like in the other, like, I remember, right? It's all a lot of the first one is about like them being discovered or whatever, right? Or coming to Earth or some shit. So yeah, I remember. Yeah.

[00:17:41] And I think, again, it's been so long since I've watched any of the Michael

[00:17:43] Bay Transformers movies, but I think it's almost like a recurring bit where every movie is like,

[00:18:51] This was the one series seasons or whatever arc of Transformers that I was watching because I was in that you know, 10, 11 or whatever ever old I was at the time. Like the original Beast Wars cartoon.

[00:18:53] The cartoon.

[00:18:54] Yeah.

[00:18:55] Watching that.

[00:18:56] And have you ever gone back and watched any of that recently?

[00:18:58] Because it is just the funniest, worst computer animation of all time.

[00:19:03] Yeah.

[00:19:04] Yeah.

[00:19:05] But at the time when it came out, I was like, this shit rules.

[00:19:07] Like it just, but OK, yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:20] These are the things that are going to happen to this movie.

[00:20:22] Sure. Yeah.

[00:20:22] Sure.

[00:20:23] I'm not sure if it's like a huge win for him to figure it out for Transformers Rise of the Beast.

[00:20:26] No, not for Rise of the Beast. I was hoping to find the time to watch it like just, you know, after everybody went to sleep or something and I could just watch Transformers rise to the beasts alone like a 2 a.m. Or whatever That didn't really happen and there was just it was such a busy weekend So instead what happened is on the flight back flying back from New York to Missoula I ended up watching Transformers rise to the beasts on the plane

[00:21:45] And so you know in the Delta Airlines like suite of movies you can choose from they had the screen

[00:24:20] Transformers rise to the beast was one of them. It was like okay it's like crazy long, but I just kind of was like, all right, I'm fed up with this now. You know, I did like that the movie, the bumblebee did this too, I think, where it kind of like more embraces being like, hey, this is based on a cartoon for kids. Let's ground. And I'm not saying I didn't like 600 ground, but I liked ambulance, that ambulance is pretty good. But I think people do also a little bit forget that Michael Bay was like, he was a fairly well-known director,

[00:24:21] but I think Transformers is what made him

[00:24:23] like a pretty big name, like a household name.

[00:24:26] You know what I mean?

[00:24:27] I don't know. had anything into what his reputation and stuff was before that. But for sure, you're gonna make five movies and four of them make a billion dollars. Like might as well stick around. You might as well be the biggest director of all time at that point, right? And so he became, I think, a much more well-known figure as a result of the Transformers movies.

[00:25:40] And all that is to say, I think his style

[00:25:41] is so intrinsic to the Transformers movies.

[00:25:44] Like for good or bad, right? is that what's gonna happen? I don't know. Is there some revisionist history happening here? Are we gonna turn out to be really big fans of the day transformers? I'm down to get on the forefront of that cultural reappraisal. But yeah, so yeah, rise to the beast though, just feels like it's, yeah, I think a sanded down bay or just like an imitation of bay.

[00:27:00] I don't even know if they're really going for that,

[00:27:01] but just like, this is the things

[00:27:03] that have to be in a Transformers movie, right?

[00:27:06] Without any of the mayhem or whatever artistic vision and replaces it with 90s hip-hop needle drops. Is this anything? I guess that's something. I don't know. And that's really it. That's got all it's got going for it. Yeah. So that is unfortunate. But like I said, I think the first hour or so,

[00:28:20] I was kind of in and then it just kind of gets gr scenes with the Transformers. I think the prologue is pretty cool. Like the prologue scene, which is like the scourge defeating like the head maximal and Optimus Primal becoming the new leader or something of the Maximals. Just like very fun like Saturday morning cartoon stuff. Like that felt like, you know,

[00:29:41] this feels like I'm watching the 80s cartoon.

[00:29:43] Right.

[00:29:44] I'm watching a cartoon and it's cool.

[00:29:46] Yeah.

[00:29:47] And then, you know, then don't know, it just felt weird. Yeah, they kind of tried to make him like, oh, he's an electronics whiz. So he can be helpful in some way. Yeah, exactly. And then the girl is like, oh, she knows the artifacts. Right? So it's like, okay, well, good. That's, it's good that she's here.

[00:31:00] But like, yeah, once the battle starts,

[00:31:01] it's like, all right, there's not much you guys can do.

[00:31:03] And they have to kind of figure out a way

[00:31:04] for him to be involved in the action where like, you know, there's, there's some fun to be had. I think the first real action set piece, the Anthony Ramos in the car, in the Porsche that becomes Mirage, is pretty fun and inventive. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I don't know. It feels weird. It's one of those things, I don't know if it's really a prequel thing or whatever. I don't know. Maybe it's one of the, it's these movies,

[00:32:20] the Transformers movies, but like, you know,

[00:32:22] we have to spend all this time setting,

[00:32:23] like learning what Transformers are again.

[00:32:26] You know?

[00:32:27] That is a weird thing.

[00:32:28] It's like it's like it distinct characters. By the time you get to the second half, there's a lot more that's kind of get introduced to the point where it's like, they walk on screen and being like, oh, I'm wheeljacked or whatever. And you're like, cool, I don't know. And you're here to die, neat. Yeah, that's how that goes. Yeah, I don't know. I think, yeah, for the most part,

[00:33:40] it's like just the four Autobots in that first half or so.

[00:33:43] And then the four were a scourge in his henchmen, basically.

[00:33:47] Yeah.

[00:33:48] But then the Maximals get to, But no, I mean, she's cool. I don't really remember anything with the beast, the back solos, as far as like having a favorite character or something from the TV show. I don't, other than I think the cheetah is probably the only one that I like recognized or remembered. So there's that. So her being erasers, like, okay, yeah, it's cool.

[00:35:00] It's Michelle, you know, she seems to be the kind of

[00:35:02] like most wise and important one,

[00:35:04] other than I guess Optimus Primal,

[00:35:06] but he seems to just be like the strongest actually she does a pretty good job. I have to admit, as soon as she started talking, I had a big smile on my face just because, oh, it's Michelle, he has a robot voice coming out of a falcon, that's neat, that's cool, that's fun, that's cool. And so yeah, she's in the prologue and then she disappears for a while, you're kind of with the Autobots and stuff. And then she ends up meeting up with the Autobots

[00:36:20] and she is kind of the main maximal for a while.

[00:36:22] Like she's the one that leads them to South America

[00:36:25] where they have to find the other half of this key.

[00:36:28] How many times has the Transformers movie a pre-giant battle that's them, the Autobots and Decepticons, before they scan the cars, right? So they just look like regular robots, not shaped like cars and stuff. Yeah. That's pretty cool for what I remember. Okay. Unless I've been fully invented of memory, which is definitely- Once I finish pirating Transformers 2, we're gonna figure this out confirms. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, Michelle,

[00:37:40] I mean, she's definitely doing a good,

[00:37:41] it's better than Pete Davidson just doing Pete Davidson.

[00:37:45] So when Pete Davidson first right? He's just like, hey, and everybody, like literally every woman loves him, so that's exciting for him. But, oh, body's body's body's body's. It's kind of really the only movie that's here. Okay, yes, yeah. And he's pretty solid in that. He's fine in that. That's like playing on his own image a little bit. And yeah, that, yeah, I don't know. Pete Davidson, so Pete Davidson, here's my relationship to Pete Davidson. I don't know him personally.

[00:39:00] But, so I'm a pretty huge SNL nerd.

[00:39:03] I think we've talked about this in the podcast a little bit,

[00:39:04] right?

[00:39:05] Probably.

[00:39:06] Yeah, it's one of the points.

[00:39:07] On Michael McGoade of the movies, That was an irrational thing. I didn't do the work to become a comedian to then cast an SNL. Like that's crazy. But it was just like a weird, anytime someone was younger than me, I was like 20 and he was like 19. Like it was like, it was just like, ah, this is infuriating. But he won me over very quickly on SNL. I thought it was really funny in those early years. And then he had like a lot of like,

[00:40:20] ups and downs, a lot of like,

[00:40:21] drug issues and went to rehab and all that stuff.

[00:40:24] But I do think he was very funny on SNL for a long time.

[00:40:27] And then he dated Ariana Grande. Yeah, exactly. Like that's, it all went downhill for me. But there is some very funny Pete Davidson stuff out there. He went on tour with John Mulaney once and like they did like a kind of dual show together and then it was, I know a lot of people who went and said it was really funny. So yeah, I don't know. But Pete Davidson's in this movie. He plays Mirage. He gets really annoying.

[00:41:40] Not a fan of his stick in this movie.

[00:41:41] He was also in Fast X this year, if you recall that movie.

[00:41:44] If you recall that, Mike.

[00:41:45] Yes, that's right.

[00:41:46] That was really weird.

[00:41:47] That was very strange. jumping in as AirRazer and her voice, like, hey, it's very rare that you get a female voice out of a transformer, I think. True. And this movie has a couple. Look, they've tried to diversify it a little bit more in this movie, especially. But I think Michelle, I don't know, having her voice in the mix helps out a lot. And I think gives it a little bit more gravitas.

[00:43:00] And she gets to say fun lines about the Autobots

[00:43:03] and the Terrecons and all that stuff, which is fun.

[00:43:06] That's cool, yeah.

[00:43:07] And then the movieumblebee movie, it might have like a thing, I saw it five years ago once. I think there might be a prologue in the movie where he might talk and his voice box gets destroyed. That would make sense. It's something along those lines. But yeah, most of the movie he just has, you know, the radio dialing thing. And you know, it's weird too.

[00:44:20] In, from what I remember from the Michael Bay movies,

[00:44:23] it's the radio in the car that he is.

[00:44:25] And in this one, it's just movie quotes.

[00:44:28] It's like, idea that like in Mirage's dying breath, air quotes, he like builds himself around Anthony Ramos

[00:45:43] and makes him like a mech pilot.

[00:45:44] So like you are a transformer now, basically.

[00:45:47] Yeah.

[00:45:48] He's mega man. for the Transformers movies to do because presumably, like, I'm thinking specifically of the X-Men movies where the X-Men prequels were like, okay, first class of the 60s, J.C.C.C.C.T. past the 70s, Apocalypse 80s, Dark Phoenix at the 90s. Like, they were all 10 years apart. And they all had the same actors playing the roles who all looked the same. Yeah. And I remember that being like a weird thing

[00:47:00] around the time you got to Apocalypse.

[00:47:02] But the Transformers movies,

[00:47:04] you can swap out those humans, it's totally fine.

[00:47:06] And the robots are ageless.

[00:47:08] Yes. and stuff, so yeah, you gotta mind controls her into finding information about where they're going and all this stuff, and then also, yeah, attacking the Maximals, and so they have to fight amongst themselves in this real tragic sad moment, you know? Michelle, yeah, it dies. Absolutely, and yeah, like we said, it's the only death in the movie that really sticks, which is unfortunate, but it does mean we can add that

[00:48:20] to the Michelle Yo on screen deaths.

[00:48:23] True list.

[00:48:25] You look at the Bitaw So, we'll see what happens. Yeah, we haven't watched it yet, but just from the vibes and in like a stunt casting kind of way. I assume she's the one that dies, but we don't know. I feel like it is, but we'll see. It could be a surprise. So how do you think this fits into the Michelle Yeo roles that we've seen so far, Mike?

[00:49:41] Well, I guess this all fits into the whole position of authority

[00:49:44] kind of thing that we've tracked lately.

[00:49:46] Also, like's positive fury, and now it's Transformers Rise of the Beast. And I think the pattern there is, like, yeah, get that bag, get that money. I don't think she's signing up for these movies for like the acting challenge. I think they are for the money and good for her. Yeah, yeah, but the role also post lockdown and stuff.

[00:51:00] And I feel like just kind of everybody

[00:51:02] was like record a ton of voice roles while you can, I guess,

[00:51:06] while you're home and you can't go out and be out on set

[00:51:08] and stuff.

[00:51:08] I have't know. That's a producer name that I like just know for some reason, but like really it's, you know, I guess it's because he produced these movies.

[00:52:20] I mean, it looks like he's,

[00:52:21] it was also involved with like the Matrix and Harry Potter.

[00:52:23] Like he, like he worked at Warner Brothers for a long time.

[00:52:26] And that's like where, adventure has been about. Yes. And it's I like that when he gets up and hits the like thing on the wall. It says like a real hero award. That's that's the thing he turns so that the wall falls away and it's like this

[00:53:41] big hanger like at the end of Indiana Jones hands him a business card and when he

[00:53:46] looks down on it, it says like G.I.G.O.

[00:53:47] program or something like up on this.

[00:55:01] That's my guess.

[00:55:02] Or if they do, like if they make a GI Joe movie

[00:55:04] that has Transformers in it, oh, that's cool. But in here, but now in 2023, it's like, oh, this is a, here's our phase two eight movie planned with three TV shows and Italian comic books.

[00:56:21] And it's just like, oh my fucking God, what's happening?

[00:56:23] Yeah, this also feels like it should have been

[00:56:24] the post-credits scene,

[00:56:25] because there's post-credits scene to this movie.

[00:56:27] I can't believe it was like, I wonder if it's G.I.G.O. And then I clicked on it and it was... It's the shortest ending explained article of all time. Yeah. It has G.I.G.O. Yeah, one sentence. And this feels to me like almost like the end point of like cinematic universes as like,

[00:57:43] as an experience, you know, I think it worked with Marvel for a while.

[00:57:47] It's sort of unravel. Right. Yeah. That's, you know.

[00:59:00] Exactly.

[00:59:01] And almost immediately after Barbie did really well,

[00:59:04] like a week later, like. I feel like there's a whole universe in the games that I have no knowledge of. But I'm the Mario thing, theoretically. This has been talked about. Like you can do a whole Nintendo cinematic universe, you know. Then you end with the Super Smash Bros crossover.

[01:00:21] The templates right there, you know, I mean, here's the thing. I went to the Ninja Turtles movie by myself. Right, exactly. But that felt less weird to me. I think there was like a quality expectation where I was like, if I can expect the movie to at least be decent, I won't feel that bad. Mario, I wasn't expecting that much from.

[01:01:41] Mario is a perfect plane movie.

[01:01:43] I, it was in and out 90 minutes.

[01:01:45] Yeah.

[01:01:46] It's filled with just thing. I don't know if they'll follow up on it. I don't know what the future of Transformers is on film. Or actually I do know, because there is a movie coming out next year. What? And I think we talked about this in the Transformers the movie one. It's an animated movie. Oh yeah, that does sound familiar. Yeah. So it's an animated prequel set on Cybertron,

[01:03:00] which is called Transformers One.

[01:03:03] And I would expect it to be similar to

[01:03:06] in style to the Spider-versus or Change Mutant Turtles, AMP, or whatever the fuck it is, the producers, whatever. We're like, this is our final offer. And Sag was like, nah. Because it totally excluded all of the AI stuff they were demanding. Yeah, I think the final offer was like, we want to be able to use your like this after you're dead for free. For forever, yeah. So, and they're like, no, thank you. So I think there is hope that it's coming to an end fairly soon.

[01:04:24] I think the thing that people hosted by AirRazer this week, that would be pretty rad. If they could actually just do the CGI robot Falcon and have Michelle you voice it, be cool. They could bring back the Falcon Air, which is one of my favorite sketches.

[01:05:42] I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about.

[01:05:44] Real SNL has loved that one.

[01:05:46] I'm a Will Forte fans.

[01:05:47] Know what I'm not director of Michael Bay. I don't think I knew that wasn't Michael Bay. Oh yeah, no, he does cameo in it. He makes a cameo appearance in the movie, but he did not direct it. Instead, I forgot the names of the guys, but it was actually the directors who directed the Batgirl movie that was shelved. Oh, interesting. And also worked on the Ms. Marvel TV show

[01:07:00] and stuff like that,

[01:07:00] but they directed Bad Boys for Life,

[01:07:02] a movie that I thought was pretty solid.

[01:07:04] I liked Bad Boys for Life,

[01:07:06] and I actually kinda liked it more

[01:07:07] than either of Michael Bay is missing, weird. Here's a three star review from Emma, the fate of the entire world resting your shoulders and your greatest ally is Pete Davidson. Yeah, who gets real annoying real quick?

[01:08:21] Yeah, exactly.

[01:08:23] Here's a one star review from Trace Savour.

[01:08:26] Admire or loathe the Bay Transformers films, Here is a three and a half star review from Kyle. Michelle Yeo is a transformer. What? She's got an Oscar now, she's ready to cash in, respect. This movie was actually a lot better than I was expecting. Here's the going in with low expectations. Pretty entertaining throughout with some cool action sequences. So you know, yeah, basically. Sometimes you've got to take the small victories, you know?

[01:09:40] Yes, definitely.

[01:09:41] And I got one more review here, Mike.

[01:09:43] It's a one star review from Megan Bichel.

[01:09:46] My entire life, I reinstalled Candy Crush and played it during the movie. Oh my God. Wow. What a journey we've all been on. Yes. Center into a Candy Crush relapse.

[01:11:02] That is what Transformers Rise of the Beast has done.

[01:11:06] And I think we can end it right there, Mike. No O in the word works. And you can find the rest of our podcast and wrap your press alongside many other podcasts, what kinds of comp books and movie news, no, that good stuff. Our theme song was created by Kyle Cullen, who reached your own podcast themes at Kyle's podcast themes at gmail.com. And our logo was designed by Mac V or at Fearless Guard on Twitter. Join us in the next week on Complete Works because guess what?

[01:12:20] It's the last episode of season three other than the Michelle Yo finale episode.

[01:12:24] Of course.