New ‘Bumblebee’ trailer transforms Generation 1 nostalgia into big-budget reality

This is a week of Unicron-sized proportions for fans of Transformers: Generation 1. Not only is the 1986 animated classic The Transformers: The Movie back in theaters for one night only this Thursday, but now, Paramount Pictures has unleashed its latest trailer for the highly anticipated Bumblebee film–featuring shots of G1-accurate versions of Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Ravage, Shockwave and Decepticon Seekers (looks like Acid Storm and Slipstream to me)!

Transformers fans… I think we’re going to be OK. Surely, I wasn’t alone when I heard Paramount was making a Bumblebee flick spinning out of Michael Bay’s embarrassing and seemingly never-ending Transformers film series. But the more we heard about director Travis Knight’s soft reboot–from its ’80s setting to its Spielbergian feel–the more appealing a film starring the silent Autobot sounded.

Then that very promising first teaser dropped and we saw a jet transform into a Decepticon that looked very much like the Starscream we all know and love. Though this red-and-gray Cybertronian turned out to be Blitzwing, it showed the filmmakers were making a concerted effort to bring the Transformers’ designs back to the same roots that made them so successful in the first place.

Here, let me quickly show you what I’m talking about.

So, this was the original Soundwave children of the ’80s initially fell in love with.When it came time to bring pop culture’s deadliest cassette player to the big screen in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay turned Soundwave into this:Yeah, I don’t know what I’m looking at either. When Bay had a second chance to do Soundwave justice in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, he turned Megatron’s right-hand robot into a… Mercedes?Now, let’s take a look at the version of Soundwave that appears in today’s Bumblebee trailer…

Bumblebee will be in theaters this Christmas. Let us know what you thought of the new trailer–as well as which other classic Transformers you hope to see in the film–in the comment space below!