How Bumblebee’s Post-Credits Scene Retcons Michael Bay’s Transformers

WARNING: Spoilers for Bumblebee.

Bumblebee‘s post-credits scene reveals that the movie is really a retcon of Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise. A spinoff to the live-action Robots in Disguise movies, Bumblebee has been one of the biggest surprises of 2018, reimagining the militaristic action series as How To Train Your Iron Giant, with the story focus on the relationship between a teenage girl Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) and her car, a Volkswagen Beetle that’s actually a Cybertronian on the run.

At first glance, Bumblebee is a prequel to the Michael Bay Transformers movies. The film avoids including Megatron because he’s supposed to be frozen in the Hoover Dam in 1987, and at the end Bee remakes himself as a Chevy Camaro, the form Sam Whitwicky first discovers the Transformer. However, look deeper and there’s a lot of contradictions: the AllSpark, the cube that drove the Cybertronian war in the 2007 movie, isn’t mentioned at all, and Decepticon Shatter and Dropkick’s involvement with Sector Seven contradicts previous presentations of first contact.

Related: Every Plot Hole Bumblebee Makes With Michael Bay’s Transformers Films

It’s in Bumblebee‘s after-credits scene where things really get messy, however. Technically, this stinger is very near the start of the credits, coming just after director Travis Knight’s name and before the cast and rest of the crew, but it clearly serves the same purpose as Nick Fury approaching Tony Stark in Iron Man or Thanos smirking at the camera in The Avengers. This is about the future, and it isn’t the future that Transformers fans were expecting.

• This Page: What Happens In Bumblebee’s Post-Credits Scene
• Page 2: How Bumblebee’s Post-Credits Scene Retcons Transformers

Bumblebee’s Post-Credits Scene Sees More Autobots Come To Earth

Technically, Bumblebee has two credits sequences, one after the other. The second sees Charlie finally fix her father’s convertible. This was her primary goal long before she got involved in the Autobot cause, making it a proper end to her grieving character arc. Indeed, it’s the sort of thing that could have slotted into the movie proper, but was sidestepped to keep the focus on Charlie’s relationship with Bumblebee.

It’s the preceding sequence that’s of real interest to our continuity discussion, though. Picking up from the movie’s ending, which saw B-127 driving alongside a truck that looked suspiciously like Optimus Prime, it sees Bumblebee and the Autobot leader walking together through a forest. Optimus says to his trusted lieutenant that there is more to be done in the battle, before turning to the sky to see seven more Autobots burning through Earth’s atmosphere. For a short scene that exists primarily to give Peter Cullen some more time in the recording booth, it’s a pivotal moment showing that Optimus Prime has arrived on Earth and sent out a call to the other Autobots. Bumblebee‘s events are evidently the start of something bigger.

Which Transformers Could Be Coming In Bumblebee’s Post-Credits Scene?

The first query from Bumblebee‘s post-credits scene is who exactly is arriving on Earth. In the opening sequence on Cybertron, we saw Arcee, Wheeljack, Brawn, Ratchet and Ironhide all evacuate the planet on Optimus’ orders (Cliffjumper was also there, but he was killed shortly after by Decepticons). It would make sense for at least some of those five to be amongst the new seven, although that still leaves several unknowns. Given how many Autobot characters there are across Transformers media, the new arrivals could be just about anyone.

Related: Every Transformer That Appears In Bumblebee’s G1 Cybertron Battle

To narrow it down, you may think we can use the known future of the franchise and look at who turned up in similar circumstances during Michael Bay’s Transformers. However, this creates an immediate contradiction; in the 2007 movie, just three other Transformers – Jazz, Ratchet, and Ironhide – came to Earth along with Optimus. And that’s just the beginning of a major retcon Bumblebee is making…

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About The Author

Alex Leadbeater
(1121 Articles Published)

Screen Rant’s Managing Editor, Alex Leadbeater has been covering film online since 2012 and been a permanent fixture of SR since 2016. Based in London, he oversees a global news & features team based in NY, LA and beyond. You may have also seen/heard him on the Total Geekall podcast, unaffiliated YouTube channels, BBC Radio and CBC News.

Growing up in the English countryside on a mixture of Star Wars, The Simpsons and Aardman, Alex is a lifelong movie obsessive. Despite a brief jaunt in Mathematics at Durham University, film writing was always his calling. He’s covered a wide range of movies and TV shows – from digging out obscure MCU Easter eggs to diving deep into deeper meanings of arthouse fare – and has covered a litany of set visits, junkets and film festivals. He once asked Tom Cruise about his supposedly fake-butt in Valkyrie (he swore it was all real).

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