Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Stumbles into the Age of the Black Girl Genius
A.K.A., the writers almost had it right with Elena Wallace.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has landed in theaters nationwide, bringing new Bots, new enemies, and (finally) some racial diversity! (No spoilers until noted!)
In 2017, I published a blog about the growing presence of brilliant young Black girls in movies and animated comic series. The defunct blog Pretty Brown and Nerdy represented one of a handful of spaces where writers of color could explore their interests and share their opinions and insights in a field so thoroughly dominated by white men.
While I’ve taken a step back from publishing work on popular culture since earning my graduate degree in engagement journalism and working in racialized disinformation research, I wanted to re-up my piece on what I then called the Age of the Black Girl Genius, and add my thoughts on our newcomer, Elena Wallace.
I am a huge Transformers fan. I remember the toys and the shows, and I even opened the popular 3-D attraction as an employee at Universal Studios Florida in 2013. (I didn’t work there because of Transformers, but WOW, what an unexpected realized dream!)
Enter Elena Wallace, our Black female lead, played by the beautiful and talented Dominique Fishback.
Elena is the newest iteration of our “Black Girl Genius.” Her Marvel predecessors are comprised of brilliant tech-heads: Princess Shuri, aka the new Black Panther; RiRi Williams, aka IronHeart; and Lunella Lafayette, aka Moon Girl. These young women make it known that they shouldn’t be underestimated. And Fishback’s Elena is no exception.
[OK MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD]
Following her frazzled entrance, running to work with coffee and a dress in tow, Elena Wallace is revealed to have a brilliant archaeological eye. She is also disregarded and taken advantage of by the powers that be, i.e., her boss, Jillian, a familiar experience for people of color frequenting predominantly white (or at least racially homogeneous) work environments.
She delivers humor, displays her intellect with ease, and maintains a colorful solo commentary in her effort to uncover the truth about this mysterious artifact. What excellent groundwork for an attractive, multidimensional character.
But the moment she and protagonist Noah Diaz, played by Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos (after his twenty minutes of backstory), land on screen together, her character begins to fade into the background.
As much as I appreciate the presence of a Black female lead in one of my favorite franchises EVER, and one that isn’t typecast into a misogynoir-istic trope, I can’t help but notice three ways the writers missed a great opportunity to uplift an amazing character.
Who is Elena Wallace?
Quite suddenly, after she meets Noah, we only witness Elena’s personality, drive, and motivation in meager glimpses, which serve as moments for other characters to shine or for the story to progress.
It is a shame that she lacks character development and emotional depth outside of being a plot device for Noah and even a handful of the Autobots and Maximals.
When the Bots decide to go to South America, Noah delivers this whole argument about why he needed to go along, in addition to an unexpected low blow to Optimus for losing Bumblebee.
When Airazor and even Arcee turned to Elena, the girl whose expertise is actually needed in this world-saving adventure, her character’s lackluster response had me rolling my eyes into the deep: “Yeah.”
WHAT DO YOU MEAN “YEAH?!”
What happened to the high-energy, excited historian turned risk-taker we witnessed not 20 minutes earlier!?
Perhaps she was in shock from the museum firefight, and the presence of giant autonomous robot aliens is unsettling the first time around. Still, Noah’s character seemed fairly adjusted after his high-speed car chase with Mirage to maintain his characteristics and personality.
We also don’t see Elena at home, living her life, or even just walking down a Brooklyn street in the first sequence, as we did with Noah. Which is arguably okay since he is the protagonist. But as the deuteragonist (which I think she started out as), she earned at least a montage of backstory beyond her work life.
We hear briefly about her father during their transit to South America, which, in all honesty, was a beautiful moment and one of my favorites throughout the whole movie.
Elena, clearly afraid, starts singing TLC’s Waterfalls, a solid homage to the era. Noah, showing his caring side, as he naturally does for his brother, invites Elena to talk and share something about herself the first time we have the opportunity to know who she is.
The audience learns that Elena's father, presumably a Black man and one who was brilliant like her, is deceased. How amazing is that? How rare is that?? To have a Black man described not as absent, imprisoned, or some other stereotyped characterization but, in fact, described as a good man? STUNNED.
Given Noah’s full grasp of the story’s emotional load, this morsel of humanity for Elena was a welcomed shift, and I wanted more:
What’s her relationship with her mother, then?
Can we get a flashback sequence?
Will the Bots ask more about her? I mean she’s only the key to finding…the key (😅), is this seriously all we get? (The answer is yes and I'm furious).
But alas, we were left hungry. That is the first and last we hear of her family. There is no conversation about who she’s protecting, and there is no mention of siblings, boyfriend, or girlfriend. After this fond moment, Elena returns to being a one-dimensional plot device.
It's such a shame.
What’s Driving Elena?
From the start and throughout most of this movie, we see two characters’ true motivations, Noah and Optimus.
Noah is driven by the needs of his family, specifically his younger brother and his precarious health condition. The fact that his decision to sneak into the museum hinged on the prospect of money was a well-crafted character flaw, in my opinion, and one that helps the audience understand his motivations more succinctly.
Noah was willing to sacrifice everything to protect his family. This is not an unusual drive and makes perfect sense for his character.
Optimus, forever a one-note song in the “robots in disguise” approach from the earlier movie trilogies, actually had some honest character development. His loss of Bumblebee and what he deems as a mistake in trusting humans add depth to his character.
The audience gets to witness his growth and apprehension, learning with him as his motivation to only protect his Bots shifts by the movie's end.
Optimus Primal and even Scourge had some clear drives, albeit one-track: “protect the key” and “get the key.”
Was there no room for clear motivation for the only other human lead?
Why did Elena join the fray? It was clear in the museum that she was willing to give the key to Noah and dip, which, let’s be real, is a very human response. What changed her mind, exactly?
We can assume she said yes to saving the world because she presented herself as a selfless person when she allowed her boss to take credit for her work. We can (also) assume she weighed the impact of pushing back at that moment and chose to let it be for the sake of her job.
But that didn’t have to be true for her character, not when considering Noah’s motivations and his decision to betray the Autobots WHILST IN THEIR PRESENCE and literally INSIDE Stratosphere.
The boldness, I tell you!
We get a rather long sequence of Noah returning home to say goodbye to his younger brother. I’m not knocking down this second healthy dose of his moral compass and driver, but where was Elena’s sequence?
Couldn’t she get three minutes of a montage, the audience watching her race into her brownstone, snatch up her favorite jacket, and dash past her college roommates vegging out in front of the TV?
No long shot of Elena on the phone with her mom, getting twisted in the cord while telling her about this great but super secret expedition she’s joining while stuffing her story-driving notes into her bag?
No Arcee or Airazor outside her window learning more about this girl who cracked the code and found the location of the long-lost key, both the Autobots’ only way back to Cybertron and the Maximals one way at preventing the destruction of multitudes of planets? SERIOUSLY?!
You can argue that this is typical of a Transformers movie: a white male lead with a female sidekick/love interest that gets tossed around a bit but is generally there for the eyes and entertainment of the white male audience, the tired Michael Bay recipe.
The story could’ve (should’ve) continued down the path paved by the notable and beloved Bumblebee movie, the predecessor to RotB, by following a strong female character, but no. Instead, it chose to align with the played-out trope of “weird boy (or, in Charlie Watson’s case, “girl”) finds themselves in a special car.”
Where is the care for Elena?
Elena is not the franchise's “traditional” female costar, and they made it quite clear that she wasn’t the love interest.
There were no sentimental moments between the characters, no angled cameras or lens flares that highlighted her frame, clad in tight jeans or booty shorts and heels. Instead, she was wearing far more appropriate jeans and boots.
Elena didn’t wait to be saved when Scourge and the Terrocons rolled up on her at the museum; she hauled ass down the stairs and left homie to fend for himself.
Brooklyn-style is “What are you waiting for? Run!”
After deciding to join the crew, she came prepared in a “let’s save the world from a giant planet-eating robot god” outfit, and I’m not hating it. This is a MASSIVE improvement from the over-sexualization of Bay’s female characters.
Elena didn’t end up with massively torn clothes, revealing skin, and normally covered areas of the body, either. She had bloody scars and scratches. Thank you! Realism.
She also wasn’t put in precarious positions that took away from her intellect and capability as a full player in the battle of good vs evil.
But why should the lack of potential love interest and “damsel in distress” angles prevent her from being shown in a softer light?
Now, I will give credit where credit is due.
Noah’s character shows Elena care and some affection when his selfish decision to destroy the key nearly costs Elena her life (!!!)
I know I held my breath when she was snatched up by the possessed Airazor. The audience was fully aware of Scourge’s disregard for life following Bumblebee’s demise, so Elena was in life-threatening danger. And it was unclear if the Autobots would rescue her before she was in the hands of Unicron’s ultimate destroyer. Talk about sudden high stakes!
It’s not often that Black characters, especially younger Black women, are handled with care and affection. So after reaching her, seeing Noah just holding Elena’s face in his hands, expressing concern after being Terrocon-napped was a needed shift for the audience. It took a whole moral climax for the writers to showcase her deserving of concern, softness, and attention.
It was IMMEDIATELY ruined, however, when her very next line had NOTHING to do with her extreme trauma of being torn from the earth and witnessing Primal snuffing out her friend in front of her.
Like no guys, the question was “Are you okay?” not “Where’s the key?”
Elena deserved a moment to process and express the chaos of the moment along with the audience. Was she hurt? Was she devastated? Was she in shock?!
The audience already saw Scourge with the key; we can assume that Noah and the Bots will make that logical deduction upon arriving on the scene themselves. Elena can have five seconds to recoup without needing to drive the story.
To turn so quickly from Airazor’s demise and the emotional connection Elena was developing with the Maximals, this dismissal was borderline disrespectful.
Bonus frustration: Undercutting Elena’s Efforts
My last point of frustration comes from the impact Elena’s character has at the height of the climax. Most female leads in Transformers films have some mad dash to the finish line, some desperate effort to remove a thing, plant a thing, turn on a thing, or, in this case, turn off a thing.
It’s fine; it’s a formula, and we ain’t mad at it.
HOWEVER, how DARE they have Elena figure out literally EVERYTHING they need to both find the key AND stop Unicron, force her to scale around an actual fire pit, and do the work of turning off the damn thing (with MINIMAL help from the Bots, unlike Noah), ONLY FOR IT TO BLOW UP seconds later.
….. Excuse me….
One could arguably ask what the point of Mirage going up against Scourge was if the writers were just going to scrap Noah and Elena’s entire mission.
I can see the argument that Mirage’s sacrifice was a plot device for Noah’s Autobot Power Ranger suit, but good lord, Elena’s whole motivation, and in this case, the pinnacle moment of her character, was destroyed, with her nearly with it.
After that, her character became expendable and unnecessary—literally. She has zero on-screen lines after that (I’m pretty sure). We never see her say goodbye to the Bots or even know if she stays in contact with them.
The only glimpse we have is what Noah sees, a 60-minute interview on a small television set, complete with the assumption that she and Noah are no longer in contact because he seems (albeit proudly) surprised to see her.
What the what??
Even after establishing that they’re basically neighbors (I believe Flatbush and Bushwick?), it’s absurd to be left with the notion that they aren’t forever connected by that experience or that they didn’t at least meet up at “Tony’s Pizza” on the corner.
To my knowledge, in no other movie in the Transformers franchise is the female lead just abandoned by the story…
Finally, the Kicker
Elena Wallace is a true unicorn in the series.
She’s smart and capable, and she was not in the story by accident. She solved puzzles, answered questions, and fulfilled the mission for the right and just reasons. The fact that she almost paid the price for Noah and Optimus Prime's selfishness and held no grudge against them speaks volumes about her character.
And I’m gonna say it.
Why wasn’t Elena the main character? She had all the hallmarks of Sam Witwicky: appealing, funny, and not yet sure of their place in the world but growing into it.
She had a comparable lost father backstory, like Charlie Watson, and a similar cleverness of character.
A gentle push (or thrust) into the world of the Autobots, and Elena, too, would realize her true potential. But that storyline was Noah’s.
Apparently, you can’t have two meaningful characters in one Transformers movie.
I will always love this franchise. And I’m so happy to see Dominique in this role. She’s really pushing the bar on what it means to be a Black female lead in a major action-packed movie beyond the tired Black woman tropes.
But her character's lack of care, consideration, and overall storytelling also speaks volumes about how much diversity, equity, and inclusion work is still needed in Hollywood.
