It’s safe to say that Travis Knight has not had an easy road when it comes to taking the reigns on Bumblebee. The Transformers franchise has not been particularly well received by critics and even the fans have not been best pleased with how the franchise has represented some of their favorite characters.
However when it was announced that Travis Knight would be directing the Bumblebee standalone movie, it was met with some anticipation due to his previous work (Kubo & The Two Strings) but also some skepticism due to fans being consistently let down time and time again.
Travis Knight is very much aware of this however and has taken in his stride as he is determined to make this the Transformers movie that the fans have always wanted to see, and based on the trailers that seems to be true. Travis Knight has now written a letter to put fans minds at rest:
“Few artifacts can evoke the golden, kaleidoscopic wonderland of childhood like a beloved plaything. The mere sight of a threadbare doll or a well-worn, well-loved action figure can transport us back to a time when life was new and boundless and filled with beauty and magic and discovery beckoning at every turn. A child’s toy isn’t merely a lifeless assemblage of metal and plastic and molded polycarbonate. A child’s toy is a vessel for creativity and joy and imagination. A child’s toy is something that’s deeply loved, and that which we deeply love becomes a part of us.
That’s what the Transformers meant to me. I was nine years old when the Autobots and Decepticons thundered into my world. An ancient race of enormous sentient space robots brought their age-old conflict raging down to Earth and into my imagination. They were unlike anything I’d ever seen before. And they were awesome. I spent countless hours playing with my Optimus Prime action figure, trying and failing to conjure Peter Cullen’s fixture-rattling voice as I’d lead a noble charge of Autobots across my cluttered bedroom floor. I’d collapse and reshape Megatron’s forbidding form into a deadly Walther P38 handgun, laying waste to the traitorous Autobots and looking over my shoulder for that scheming Starscream (and occasionally pretending I was James Bond). But no Transformer captivated my interest as much as Bumblebee.
Bumblebee was a humble yellow Autobot scout who took the alt form of a VW Beetle, of all things. He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t striking. By Transformers standards he was small and callow and not particularly powerful. But he was the Transformer with the greatest affinity for humanity. He was the one who was most like us. He was the one who was most like me.
At home, nestled in my room, surrounded by teetering stacks of tattered paperbacks, splashy comic books, and warped VHS tapes, I would lose myself creating Bumblebee’s stories. Together we wandered through faraway lands, grappling with the evil Decepticons, running high-wire reconnaissance missions, and racing through canyons of disused cardboard boxes. For a lonely child of the ’80s, Bumblebee wasn’t just an overworked, scuffed up plastic toy. He was fully alive. And he was a part of me.
To read the rest of this heartwarming article head over to Screen Rant.
As you can see, Travis Knight is not only determined to make this the best Transformers movie to date, but is also incredibly passionate about this franchise and this story that he has created for one of his favourite characters. It’s clear to see that Knight is very excited to be directing this project and cannot wait to show you the finished product.
Bumblebee releases on December 26th 2018
Source: Screen Rant
