The Transformers are back in theaters this week with Transformers One, the first animated movie in the franchise in nearly four decades. It’s also a big step up from many of the live-action Transformers movies, which were box office successes even when they weren’t very good films.
Now that Transformers One has arrived, we’ve decided to look back at all of the previous films to determine the best Transformers movies ever. And it shouldn’t be too surprising to see which movie landed on top and which one crashed to the bottom of the list.
It’s hard to know where to begin with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, considering that Michael Bay and the screenwriters have all kind of apologized for it over the years. There are some truly awful Transformers movies on this list, but none worse than this one. A lot of the responsibility has to come down to Bay and the screenwriters Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. They’re the ones who couldn’t even write the human characters convincingly, much less the giant robots. Someone in this group also thought it would be hilarious for Devastator to seemingly have robot genitals.
But the big reason why Revenge of the Fallen has landed with a thud at the bottom of this list is because of the twins, Mudflap and Skids. Picture every Black stereotype ramped up to 11 and it still wouldn’t come close to conveying how these two characters came off as racist caricatures in the film. Bay has said that wasn’t his intention. Regardless, it’s almost impossible not to see those characters as some very ugly racial jokes. There’s a reason why the films never showed them again.
Watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Paramount+.
One of the problems that comes up in Bay’s Transformers films is that he and his collaborators keep trying to rewrite the mythology behind the franchise. But instead of streamlining things, they turned it into an incomprehensible mess. Transformers: The Last Knight tries to shoehorn Arthurian myth into the backstory, and it’s unconvincing at best.
It is actually kind of cool to see Optimus Prime temporarily go bad in this one as Nemesis Prime, even though the film’s actual villain, Quintessa (Gemma Chan), is pretty lifeless. This was Bay’s final Transformers movie and he tried to go out with a bang. But instead the film closes on a bizarre reveal that doesn’t make any sense. That’s one of the many reasons why the subsequent Transformers movies have basically ignored Bay’s continuity.
Watch Transformers: The Last Knight on Paramount+.
For his fourth movie in the franchise, Michael Bay kind of did a soft reset with Transformers: Age of Extinction. After Dark of the Moon, all Transformers on Earth are hunted by armed forces, and the Autobots’ human allies are gone. In their place, Bay introduces inventor Cade Yeager, as unconvincingly played by the alleged human Mark Wahlberg.
The story is all over the place, as another Transformer, Lockdown, comes to Earth to capture the survivors while the franchise’s most consistent villain, Megatron, becomes Galvatron in perhaps the most boring way ever. The thing that got fans excited about the film was the introduction of the Dinobots. But in true Bay fashion, he spoiled the reveal of Optimus riding a Dinobot in the trailer and poster, and then didn’t depict the Dinobots with any personality at all.
Watch Transformers: Age of Extinction on Paramount+.
The idea behind Transformers: Dark of the Moon is that everything we knew about the moon landing was a lie, and no less than the real Buzz Aldrin (seriously, it really is him) confirms that something powerful from the Transformers’ home world, Cybertron, was on the moon. Leonard Nimoy also makes his return to the franchise as the voice of Sentinel Prime, and he promptly betrays the Autobots in favor of a full-scale Decepticon invasion of Earth.
Unfortunately, you won’t really care about the human characters, and this is the last time that Shia LaBeouf appeared as the Autobots’ friend and ally, Sam Witwicky. The subsequent films don’t even really bother to directly mention what happened to him.
Watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon on Paramount+.
Michael Bay’s first Transformers movie was his best one, but it’s far from the pinnacle of the franchise. There are parts of this movie that work really well, especially the more serious tone it has at times before the Transformers reveal themselves. And then it suddenly gets whacky as Jazz can’t help but breakdance while introducing himself.
One of the reasons why this film works better than Bay’s sequels is that it was still loosely based on the comics and animated series that came before it. The action is often incomprehensible when the Autobots and Decepticons are fighting each other, but they look good when standing still. Out of all of Bay’s Transformers movies, this might be the only one with any heart as Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) befriends Bumblebee and tries to court Mikaela Banes, as played by Megan Fox in her first major starring role.
The most recent Transformers live-action movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, seems to have learned the lesson that was never absorbed by Bay’s films. Namely that we only care about the bond between the human characters and the Transformers when we’re given a reason to care. The film goes out of its way to establish Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) as a guy who is just trying to do right by his family before he stumbles upon the Autobots. Mirage (Pete Davidson) makes some really endearing attempts to befriend Noah, while Optimus Prime is disdainful of humanity.
The film doesn’t quite get around to convincingly justifying Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) as the second human sidekick of the Autobots. But the debut of the Maximals clicked in a way that the Dinobots didn’t largely because they got to keep their personalities intact. This film also did a much better job at teasing the ultimate villain, Unicron, than Bay did in The Last Knight.
Watch Transformers: Rise of the Beasts on Paramount+.
Bumblebee is the gold standard of live-action Transformers movies, and it all comes down to the script and the cast. Setting this movie in the ’80s was the right call, and Hailee Steinfeld is terrific as Charlie Watson, a teenager who deals with her grief for her late father by putting together an old damaged car that turns out to be Bumblebee. Compare the bond that Charlie and Bumblebee form to the superficial connection that Bumblebee had to Sam in the previous films. This one succeeds because Steinfeld convincingly emotes when sharing the scene with a robot who isn’t really there.
The highlight of the film is the prologue on Cybertron, where the Autobots and the Decepticons have never looked better. John Cena also stars in this film as Jack Burns, a federal agent who distrusts both Bumblebee and the Decepticons who came to Earth to find and destroy him. This is an exciting and heartfelt film, which is exactly what it needed to be as the first reboot for the live-action movies.
The stroke of genius behind Transformers One is that it didn’t need to be in live action to tell the story of Optimus Prime and Megatron before they were mortal enemies. Instead, Orion Pax (Furiosa‘s Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Eternals star Brian Tyree Henry) are like brothers at the beginning of this film, even if they’re not always on the same page.
This is a re-imagining of the previous origin stories used in other Transformers mediums like comics, TV shows, and video games. But what really makes it shine is the way that it gives Orion and D-16 distinct points of view throughout the movie. The script makes us understand where both of them are coming from before their bond is irreparably broken by the choices they have to make.
The Transformers: The Movie may be the most magnificent toy commercial ever made. The creative team behind the original Transformers animated series used the film to usher out the first set of characters while introducing all-new heroes and villains that were coming to toy stores shortly thereafter. The filmmakers weren’t trying to make a classic, but this is by far the best of the Transformers movies because it has legitimate emotional stakes as well as an apocalyptic threat in the form of Unicron.
The late Orson Welles may not have thought much about his final role, but even in his weakened state Welles’ voice conveyed Unicron’s sense of menace and grandeur. Leonard Nimoy also lent his voice to the upgraded form of Megatron, who was renamed and remade as Galvatron in one of the film’s most visually arresting scenes. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the film’s animation are the small details, especially when Unicron eats his first world during the opening minutes. It’s just as astonishing as any anime from the era, and The Transformers: The Movie holds up exceedingly well after nearly four decades. It may be the nostalgia pick, but this is still the Transformers film to beat.
The Transformers: The Movie is not available to stream.
SAP and data management vendor Collibra are putting some teeth into a partnership that was first unveiled more than a year ago.
The two vendors are launching new integrations between Collibra’s data governance, data catalog and metadata management capabilities and SAP Datasphere, a data service that integrates data from sources across the organization.
Collibra has partnered with SAP since Datasphere debuted in March 2023. Now, Collibra’s data intelligence tools are integrated into the SAP Analytics Cloud business intelligence (BI) system, according to the companies. This new integration is generally available. Additional Collibra integrations to support SAP Datasphere models will be generally available later this year.
The expanded partnership and direct integrations signify an advance in data management capabilities for customers, which is particularly important as trusted and well-governed data becomes increasingly necessary for AI and advanced analytics, according to analysts.
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Addressing data challenges
Collibra and SAP decided to broaden their relationship based on projects and discussions with common customers, according to Mike Robertson, vice president of technology partnerships at Collibra.
“We had a number of conversations with our joint customers to understand how we could partner to help them with their data challenges,” Robertson said. “The partnership has been built from this foundation, the importance of data and helping our customers do more with the data they have.”
Collibra is working with other enterprise technology vendors to help companies deal with data management challenges, he said.
“Our customers have complex data landscapes, and we are working to find ways to make it easier for them to address challenges around governance, quality and management of their data assets,” Robertson said. “We have strong relationships with cloud providers, BI and visualization partners, data lakes and data warehouse, master data management and AI data platform partners.”
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Focus on data trust and governance
The focused integration of Collibra and SAP Datasphere provides data management benefits to customers, according to Jayesh Chaurasia, an analyst at Forrester Research.
For one, it will bolster SAP’s focus on data governance and help to ensure that all data — including data that’s used for AI — is trustworthy and well governed, Chaurasia said.
Collibra’s data governance capabilities enable SAP to offer customers a more comprehensive platform that provides accurate, governed data from various sources and lays a strong foundation for effective AI deployment, he said.
“It supports a unified and consolidated view of data assets across SAP and non-SAP environments,” Chaurasia said.
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SAP has always been a tough platform to extract the metadata from, so this integration makes that simpler and provides an edge to Collibra. Jayesh ChaurasiaAnalyst, Forrester Research
This, in turn, will provide business users easy access to trusted and governed data, which could lead to better decision-making.
“It ensures that AI models are fed with high-quality data and enables business users to leverage AI insights effectively without deep technical expertise,” Chaurasia said.
Direct integrations always help in connecting to systems and gathering the metadata, he added.
“SAP has always been a tough platform to extract the metadata from, so this integration makes that simpler and provides an edge to Collibra,” Chaurasia said.
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The expanded integration shows signs of progress that the two vendors are beginning to deliver on the promise when the partnership began in 2023, specifically for the highly regulated customers they share, according to Doug Henschen, an analyst at Constellation Research.
It will help joint customers to not only securely access and harness data from across distributed data sources using SAP Datasphere, but also to classify, improve discoverability, track lineage, and ensure policy-based enforcement of rules and regulations using Collibra, he said.
“It’s a synergistic partnership that makes sense, particularly as organizations seek to securely and appropriately use data to power new AI initiatives,” Henschen said.
Eric Avidon, a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial, contributed to this report.
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Jim O’Donnell is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial who covers ERP and other enterprise applications.
X is reportedly reversing course after weeks of refusing to comply with conditions set by the Brazilian Supreme Court that would allow it to operate in the country again. According to , the company’s lawyers said in a Friday court filing that X has named a legal representative in Brazil as demanded by justice Alexandre de Moraes and removed accounts that the judge had identified as a threat to democracy, along with paying the fines it owed. But, the publication also reports that the Brazil Supreme Court has said X did not submit all the necessary paperwork, and now has five days to do so.
The paperwork X failed to submit is that which would prove it formally appointed a legal representative in Brazil, as required by Brazilian law, according to . X named Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its new legal representative in the filing on Friday. The company has been working to restore service to users in Brazil after it was blocked at the end of August, and briefly came back online earlier this week using Cloudflare’s DNS. But, it said that this was “inadvertent and temporary.” In a statement, at the time, “While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil.”
Brazil has of nearly $1 million if they do not comply with the ban in the country. Justice Moraes also made it so users in Brazil could be fined roughly $8,900 to access X. The company’s latest move is a step toward resolving the issue and potentially bringing X back to Brazil legally.
One of India’s largest startups, budget hotel company Oyo, has reached a deal to acquire G6 Hospitality, which operates Motel 6.
Oyo says it will pay Blackstone Real Estate $525 million in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition also includes the Studio 6 extended stay brand and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
The Indian startup opened its first U.S. location in 2019 and now operates more than 320 hotels across 35 states. Oyo is dramatically expanding its North American footprint by acquiring Motel 6 — arguably the best-known budget hotel brand in the country, with a franchise network of around 1,500 locations in the United States and Canada.
“This acquisition is a significant milestone for a startup company like us to strengthen our international presence,” said Oyo International CEO Gautum Swaroop in a statement. He added that Motel 6 will “continue to operate as a separate entity.”
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Founded in 2012, SoftBank-backed Oyo’s was valued at $10 billion in 2019, but has struggled in recent years due to pandemic-related challenges, as well as criticism over practices such as offering rooms from unavailable or unlicensed hotels.
Over the summer, TechCrunch reported on a new funding round that saw the company’s valuation fall to $2.5 billion — less than its total capital raised. (Oyo has denied reporting about its lowered valuation.)
Motel 6, meanwhile, was founded in 1962. It popularized the budget hotel concept (rooms originally cost $6 a night) and was eventually acquired by Blackstone for $1.9 billion in 2012.
Meta is holding its annual Connect developers conference next week, and it’s going to showcase a bunch of expected and perhaps some surprise new VR and AR hardware — alongside what might be a heavy Meta AI showcase featuring the company’s newest Llama large language model and image generator in apps like WhatsApp.
And as Meta sunsets custom tools for AR filters, we could end up seeing a whole new set of developer tools designed to harness generative AI experiences. Perhaps it will all come together in Meta’s next big push into its alternative reality ideas (and namesake) in the metaverse, including significant Horizon Worlds updates.
However, the most anticipated products expected to appear during the conference are the successor to the Meta Quest 3 and perhaps updates to Meta and Raybans, which are very cool smart glasses. Hopefully, we’ll see the rumored “Orion” AR glasses, but we will need to catch the Connect keynote to find out.
When is Meta Connect 2024
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Meta’s Connect developers conference this year starts on Wednesday, September 25th, 2024, and ends the next day on Thursday, September 26th. The conference will kick off with the Connect keynote, headlined by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, followed immediately by a Developer keynote at 2PM ET / 11AM PT. Meta has a full program schedule on the Connect site.
How to watch Meta Connect 2024
The Meta Connect keynote will stream live on the official Meta Connect website. If you’re a Quest headset user, you can also watch it on Horizon Worlds. Following the keynotes, you can participate in live developer sessions for deep dives on AI and mixed reality on Facebook.
What to expect at Meta Connect 2024
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Expect a cheaper Quest VR headset.Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
The most exciting thing about Meta is that it holds the keys to the closest thing to mainstream VR headsets with the Quest 2 and Quest 3. The latter, however, started at a price that was too high ($500 compared to the now $200 Quest 2) and did not have a very sharp AR video passthrough. Now we’re expecting a cheaper version, the Quest “3S,” that might sell for as cheap as $299.99, according to leaks.
Meta also has other new VR headsets in the pipeline, including a new Quest 4 for 2026 and something at the pro level designed for spatial computing internally dubbed “La Jolla” for 2027. Recent reports suggest plans for the latter might now be on ice, especially as Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro struggles to gain traction. We may not see these models specifically at Connect, but other models in the pipeline may show up.
Can Meta make an even cooler pair of smart glasses?Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
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Expect an update on the futuristic Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses at Connect too. The current glasses look clean and aren’t too chonky, but they’re ripe for an iterative update, even if no AR capabilities are coming. The glasses respond to your commands with Meta AI, so expect fresh chatbot assistant experiences on the way.
Meta is also working on new mixed reality glasses internally dubbed “Orion,” which we can expect at least a glimpse of. Snap recently let us wear its new AR Spectacles, but those are developer-only, and a former Snap engineer on the project called them “obviously bad.” Hopefully what we see of Orion is a lot more interesting.
Along with Meta’s VR strategy comes expectations of new software and experiences, including the future of games on Quest. Right now, there are questions about what Meta is doing for games: it’s shutting down the Ready at Dawn game studio that made immersive 3D games like Echo VR, while casual games like Wordle are rolling in. Meanwhile, Meta recently launched an app that lets you play console games on the headset through HDMI.
Sometimes, you get your hands on a piece of hardware that just feels right. For me, that was the Logitech G502 Lightspeed Wireless – and now that mouse is reaching the end of its life, and while I won’t be hosting an actual Viking funeral for it, I genuinely am a little upset.
A fairly high-end gaming mouse with a comfortable ergonomic design and understated RGB lighting, the G502 Lightspeed Wireless has been my trusty desktop companion for more than five years, and is only just starting to show its age; specifically, the left-click switch is giving out, still registering most clicks but rendering click-and-drag operations almost impossible.
As you can probably tell from this image, my own G502 Lightspeed Wireless has seen better days. (Image credit: Future)
It’s fair to say that I’ve definitely put this mouse through the wringer over the past half-decade. Not only have I used it to put literally thousands of hours into all manner of games, but it’s also been my daily driver for work ever since the pandemic shifted me into working from home. It’s survived countless hours of frantic clicking, scrolling, and at-desk lunches (no, I’m not a ‘tidy desk, tidy mind’ sort of person).
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I love this mouse. It’s incredibly comfy under the hand thanks to the curved shape and thumb rest, and the underside features two magnetic panels that can be removed to add tiny metal weights to the interior – in other words, a little tweaking can create the perfect weight distribution for any user.
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It’s also just a good gaming mouse in general: a 25,600 DPI sensor, long battery life, 1ms latency thanks to the proprietary Lightspeed USB dongle, and 11 remappable buttons all make it a stellar choice for any genre of PC game.
Consistency above all else
As heartbroken as I might be that my reliable gaming companion is beginning to fade from glory, there’s a definite silver lining here.
See, Logitech does something that I wish more PC hardware companies would do: a certain ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to product design, meaning that I can still buy the exact same G502 Lightspeed Wireless mouse that I originally purchased over five years ago. Plenty of companies would’ve made the original product redundant in that time period, replacing it twice or three times over with new models (looking at you, Razer).
Hell, Logitech has been using the same design for its mainstream 1080p webcam – the Logitech C920 – for more than a decade, with only some minor generational improvements over the years. There’s a reason that cam still sits in the top spot of our best webcams ranking, is what I’m saying.
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Seriously, look at this beautiful little device. Never change, C920. (Image credit: Future)
The G502 Lightspeed has been replaced in our best gaming mouse list by the newer, shinier Logitech G502 X Plus, but it’s still the same excellent mouse at heart – and gamers on a budget can always pick up the G502 Hero, which packs a lot of the great design and features found in my favorite mouse into a more wallet-friendly package.
But you can’t have too much of a good thing, so while I’m currently rocking a temporary replacement from NZXT, I can’t wait to take my paycheck to the Logitech G Store to pick up an identical replacement for my beloved G502 Lightspeed Wireless. There’s only one problem, and that’s the price: $99.99 / £139.99 (around AU$150, but it’s no longer available from Logitech in Australia). Why’s it so expensive in the UK, Logitech?
I guess I’ll be waiting for a Black Friday deal… unless the kind folks at Logitech read this and take pity on a poor tech journalist. Keep your fingers crossed for me, readers!
The back of Neil Harbisson’s head and his sound generator
Sideways Film
Cyborg: A documentary Carey Born First Born Films In UK cinemas on 20 September; US to be announced
Neil Harbisson studied music composition at Dartington College of Arts in the UK. He was born with achromatopsia, so is unable to perceive colour of any kind. Not one to ignore a challenge, in 2003 Harbisson recruited product designer Adam Montandon to build him a head-mounted rig that turns colours into musical notes that he can listen to via earphones.
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