This is the time for celebration people, "Bumblebee" has officially been labeled as a reboot for the Transformers franchise of films. This means that the continuity of the previous films has been wiped clean and the franchise will be starting fresh with "Bumblebee" acting as the new beginning of the timeline. This comes as no surprise considering its higher than normal reviews (a.k.a. it actually got good reviews) and decent box office performance.
The question on everybody's mind now is where do we go from here? Paramount is still going ahead with an animated Cybertron film, and there's also a rumored Optimus Prime film in the works. There's also the increased chance that "Bumblebee" will be getting a sequel as well, so at the time, all we can do is speculate for ideas as to where the franchise should head.
First, keep Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) as the main human protagonist of the franchise. So far she has been the most likable and engaging human character in the entire franchise. Her friendship with Bumblebee gave that film its emotional core and made it feel like it actually had a heart.
Second, we should keep these films within the time period they established. As the franchise goes on we move through the 80s to the 90s and so on. Many of you are probably asking how they can do massive plots like invasions and Unicron if we obviously didn't go through those things in the 80s and 90s. The answer to that is simple: alternate timeline.
I'll be honest, I mostly wanted to write this to explore ideas I had about alternate timelines regarding the Transformers franchise. Do you know how in the animated Transformers film from 1986 the film is set in the futuristic year of 2005 (lol) where Earth is technologically advanced due to years of cooperating with the Autobots? What if the newer films did that as well?
What if there was an attempted Decepticon invasion in 1992 or something and the Transformers are exposed to the public? After the Decepticons are driven away, we could see the nations of Earth come together to rebuild and work side by side with the Autobots. Earth is soon rebuilt into a technological superpower where people have become more unified and space exploration has increased, and you could reveal that the year is 2005.
It would be interesting to see an alternate futuristic Earth that's technically set in the past. We can see what things are different and what things stay the same. We could have fun with certain historical moments while technically not having to be "slaves" to historical accuracy. The possibilities this creates are almost endless.
These are just some quick ideas that I wanted to share with all of you. Could we see Charlie travel to Cybertron? Could we see the Transformers visit other alien planets with unique forms of life? Do we ever get to explore the "Beast Era" of the Transformers and see prehistoric Earth? I would like to hear some ideas that you can come up with. What some creative directions that you think this franchise should take?