The Best Sci-Fi Prequel in the Last Few Years Is a Streaming Sensation

If you truly love something, you must learn to walk away from it; that's what Transformers fans were prepared to do after watching Transformers: The Last Knight, the worst-reviewed and most commercially unsuccessful film of the blockbuster franchise. And that's precisely what director Michael Bay did as well, handing over the reins of the sci-fi series to someone who could bring a fresh perspective to it after an increasingly stale set of films. The studio picked Travis Knight — an unlikely choice, considering his background as a stop-motion animator — to helm a prequel, Bumblebee. Released in 2018, the movie achieved the unthinkable, bringing Pixar-level emotional heft to a franchise that had largely been targeted at teenage boys under Bay's supervision. Bumblebeeremains the highest-rated installment of the (live-action) series, and it recently witnessed a surge in viewership on streaming.