History of the Bayverse: introduction

An introduction to my writing project, a fan-made history of the Bayverse.

Introduction

It was around May 2024 when I saw the live action movies of the Transformers directed by Michael Bay for the first time in 8 years. I had caught glimpses of the other movies in the mid-2010s, particularly from 2014-2017, and had a DVD for Age of Extinction which I used to watch regularly back in those years before streaming became the norm. Eventually I had lost interest in the franchise for reasons initially unbeknownst to me, but once I got back into the franchise again in 2024, I understood. This is a franchise based around toys and selling toys, and the company behind it, Hasbro, very seldom sells them around New Delhi, the city I call home. The original 1984 show, and many subsequent pieces of media, were made to give life to the very toys that children adored and loved, with writers often doing the best to make a backstory that is compelling and yet palatable for their audience. I viewed the Bayverse movies only from the perspective of entertainment, not truly realising what made them and other pieces of media so special to the fans. But it truly dawned on me in 2024 as to why people truly adored this franchise, and though even in that year Transformers toys were not sold, I could empathise with others as to why the shows, films, and comics based around the toys they had since their childhood were so very cherished by them.
Oddly enough, I rediscovered transformers again through power scaling, a community I am relieved to have now left. I was particularly interested in characters of great cosmic capacity, be it Scarlet King of the SCP universe, Yog Sothoth of the Cthulhu Mythos, or Sun Wukong of ancient Chinese mythology. But one character particularly stood out to me, Unicron. I was astonished by a Transformers character being on the level of consuming planets, embodying platonic concepts, and rivalling literal gods, considering my only experience was them being able to be levelled by the US military. Eventually I learnt more and more about the franchise, getting to know the popular characters, watching some of the shows such as the original 1984 one and Beast Wars, and checking out comments sections to bear witness to people's perspectives within the community. But once I saw the first 3 Bayverse movies, I was blown away by them. They were extremely entertaining films, a complete contrast to some of my favourite films (Goodfellas (1999), Jaws (1975), Inception (2010)). Yet I could appreciate these films as the raw pieces of entertainment that united people all over the globe in enjoying and appreciating them, beyond merely the lens of how objectively good these movies were. The truth is that Michael Bay had revived transformers, and some of the fans' most beloved continuities like Transformers Prime, Skybound, IDW, and War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron, and Cyberverse would simply not exist without the Bayverse. I would go so far as to say that the Generation 1 show would remain buried for the modern generations if Transformers as a whole wasn't made aware to them thanks to Bay.
But the truth? People hate these movies. Be it the lack of actual transformer screen time, which lead to messier plots and constricted character development, the overly detailed designs, and the "Bay-isms" in regard to the overuse of explosions and female actors being used as eye candy. The very fans of the franchise despise it despite what it's done for the franchise, for reasons largely coming down to the intense budget and time needed to render the characters resulting in far lesser screen time for the Transformers characters compared to other franchises. You can go onto twitter or Instagram, any day of the week, and there is always a loud horde of people hating on the Bay movies and undermining its importance to the franchise. Even on YouTube, there are countless video essays speaking ill of the Bayverse and seldom do people opposite it in the comments section. Understandably so, most fans of the films would either outright ignore such content or understand why one would feel the way for these movies that they do feel.
But I've seen potential for more in them. I think the characterisation of Megatron in these movies was quite unique in its heroism, regardless of him being too weak in films after 2007. I also thought the designs were quite good, maybe a little more colour could've been used but individual designs for some of the characters were refreshing takes on them that took some deviation from previous designs. If I took away every limit, be it of actors, sets, special effects, computer-generated imagery, movie run times, and cinematography, but kept the settings and its characters, I thought I could make a story that would be far more appreciated by the community than the current Bay films are as of right now.
I've already made videos with the decepticon cast extensively on my YouTube channel, giving many of them voices based on my own interpretations and sometimes including characters from other franchises such as Warhammer 40k, Lovecraft, and The Silmarillion. Even though it is definitely not on the level of reimagining these characters, it has provided plenty of laughs to thousands of people and dare say made them appreciate the Bayverse better or see it through a different lens. I will like to delve further with my interpretations of these characters with this project.
I am very well aware that there are tie-in comics which detail some of the canon of these movies. But I believe they aren't expansive enough, not ambitious enough, and though I recognise the efforts of the writers behind the comics, I would still want to make my own take on a backstory to the setting and go above and beyond with how these characters will be portrayed.
I will be keeping only the 2007 movie as the completely canon film, and will only sparingly use characters and elements from later films, with none at all being used from the 2017 film. I am doing this not just for creative liberty, but to also build a solid canon before I do my own personal rewrite for "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
. I understand that this might upset some looking forward to a good conclusion that leads onto the first 3 movies, but I hope they enjoy this piece of writing nonetheless. I would like for viewers to mainly use their own imagination for how characters would look like having some Cybertronian alt modes as opposed to earthly ones, but I am open to working with artists if they are interested in doing so.
With all of this in mind, I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapters, and are eager to see what I have in store.