Charlie Watson
From Transformers Wiki
| The name or term "Charlie" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Charles (disambiguation). |
- Charlie Watson is an Autobot-allied human from the Bumblebee portion of the movie continuity family.
Charlie Watson is your average teenager going through some things — she's still recovering from the loss of her father, and the fact that her mother already has a new boyfriend isn't helping matters. She tends to bury herself in her two main passions in life: music, particularly the music of The Smiths, and her attempts to finish restoring a Corvette that she and her father had been working on before he died.
Contents |
Fiction
Movies
Bumblebee film
- Actor: Hailee Steinfeld
- Voice actor: Tao Tsuchiya (Japanese dub), Zhu Rongrong (Chinese dub), Anna Theimerová (Czech, trailers), Barbora Šedivá (Czech, movie dub), Camille Timmerman (European French dub), Célia Gouin-Arsenault (Canadian French dub), Victoria Frenz (German dub), Sumriddhi Shukla (Hindi dub), Szonja Rudolf (Hungarian dub), Emanuela Ionica (Italian dub), Moon Nam-sook (Korean dub), Weronika Humaj (Polish dub), Amanda Manso (Portuguese dub), Irene Miras (Spain Spanish dub), Alicia Vélez (Latin-American Spanish, movie dub), Lupita Leal (Latin-American Spanish, trailers), Punsikorn Tiyakorn (Thai dub), Zeynep Er (Turkish dub)
In her younger days, Charlie was a member of her school's dive team, until the death of her father turned the group into an unpleasant association and she gave it up. To honor her father, Charlie dedicated herself to finish restoring an old Corvette the two had been working on, using money from a job selling hot dogs at the local fairground in Brighton Falls to buy parts from Uncle Hank's auto repair.
The day before her eighteenth birthday, she started off by throwing out her old diving trophies. During her working day at the fairground, she accidentally spilled drinks all over Tripp Summers, earning her a mocking from Tripp's girlfriend Tina and her friends. While searching for spare parts at Uncle Hank's, she stumbled on a derelict Volkswagen Beetle. Though intrigued by the vehicle, she was unable to get it started. Upon returning home, Charlie found her latest haul of spare parts were insufficient to finish fixing the Corvette and, despairing, she went to bed.
Though Charlie had hoped for some good hard cash as her birthday gift so she could put the funds towards restoring the Corvette, on the morning of her birthday she was presented with a pair of disappointing gifts: a flower-patterned helmet (her mother had heard that riding mopeds without one was unsafe) and a book on smiling more from Ron. After stewing in her room for a while, she headed to Uncle Hank's, prepared to make a deal for the Volkswagen, only for him to simply gave it to her. After spending hours on the Beetle, she was able to get it running, bringing it back to her garage. As she tided up, a piece of machinery fell out from under the car's undercarriage prompting her to investigate, where she found an inert mechanical face. Shining her light on the face caused it to activate and the Beetle transformed into a robot. Though initially afraid, Charlie quickly realized the robot was just as afraid of her, as well as suffering from muteness and amnesia. With him unable to tell her anything, Charlie dubbed him "Bumblebee". The next morning, Bumblebee had gone missing, taken by Charlie's mother so she could get their dog, Conan, to the vet. Charlie was forced to chase them down on her moped where she insisted on driving Bumblebee herself. She later took Bee to a beach so he could practice disguising himself to keep himself a secret. When she noticed Bumblebee's chest sparking, she tried to fix it only to wind up activating a holographic recording of another of Bumblebee's kind, the message letting Charlie know Bumblebee was hiding from a war. Back in the garage, Charlie transplanted the Corvette's radio into Bumblebee, allowing him to use music as a way to express himself (being offended at his dislike of The Smiths). During the ensuing celebrations, however, Memo burst in, intending to ask Charlie on a date and seeing Bumblebee. Charlie quickly swore the boy to secrecy before taking him on a drive in Bumblebee the next day, where Bumblebee showed off his new form of radio communication. The trio ended up on a cliff at the sea edge where Tripp was intending to dive in and daring anyone to join him. Despite Bumblebee volunteering her, Charlie was unable to bring herself to dive, earning scorn from her peers, especially Tina. Memo and Bumblebee convinced Charlie to get revenge on Tina, the trio TPing Tina's house and egging her car, only for the tomfoolery to go pear-shaped due to Bumblebee's inexperience with human pranks and underestimation of his own strength, eventually resulting in Bumblebee taking Charlie and Memo on a police chase.
Figuring it would be safer, Charlie left Bumblebee at home the following day while she went to work only for Memo to call her to come home. When she arrived, she found Bumblebee had accidentally trashed the house after venturing in from the garage. Though trying to repair the damage, and prevent her mother from seeing it, the house's wrecked state was soon found out which led to an argument with her mother, and her and Memo leaving in Bumblebee to cool off. As the trio raced through the countryside, they were surrounded by Sector Seven. Though the human teenagers were initially willing to make peace, Sector Seven's rough treatment of them convinced Bumblebee to grab Charlie and run off. As the two began escaping, the Decepticons Shatter and Dropkick arrived and began attacking Bumblebee, who, still suffering from amnesia, was unable to fight back. As Charlie tried to help her friend, Bumblebee was stunned by Sector Seven's electrical weapons, with Charlie's proximity to him meaning she too was affected. Unconscious, Charlie was taken back to her house where she awoke to find Agent Burns telling her parents that Bumblebee was a government weapon that Charlie had unwittingly come across. Though she tried to defend herself and tell the truth, Charlie's mother sent her to room. Determined, Charlie snuck out, collecting Memo and enlisting her brother Otis to cover her escape so she could go and find Bumblebee.
Though Bumblebee attempted to keep Charlie away from the fight, his battle with Dropkick soon soon spilled over to her hiding spot. As she ran for cover, Charlie noticed Shatter had nearly finished the transmitter. Commandeering a crane, Charlie climbed onto the tower where she began prying out its power cell only for Shatter to target her. The Decepticon's attention was soon drawn by Agent Burns in a helicopter and Bumblebee himself allowing Charlie to stop the transmission while Bumblebee killed Shatter by flooding the dry dock, only for he himself to be caught in the current. Overcoming her doubts, Charlie dove in after him, managing to wake Bumblebee who carried her to safety. At Agent Burns's urging, the two fled the scene before more Sector Seven forces arrived.
On a hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, Charlie and Bumblebee said a tearful goodbye where the scout revealed his trans-scanning abilities and adopted a Camaro alternate mode, driving off to meet his fellow Autobots. Returning home, Charlie reunited with her family and Memo (though they weren't at holding hands level just yet). Inspired by her experience with Bumblebee, Charlie threw herself into working on the Corvette, eventually managing to restore it completely. Bumblebee
Rise of the Beasts film
Seven years after parting ways with Charlie, Bumblebee reminded Optimus Prime of his friendship with the human to ease his leader's distrust on humanity. Optimus believed in Bee's testimony but remained skeptical that other humans could do any good for them. Rise of the Beasts
Bumblebee Vol. 2 Retro Pop Highway figure online description
| “ | Perfect soundtrack for cruisin' down the open road in my VW Beetle | ” |
| —Charlie, Human Ally Magazine | ||
Charlie's positive opinion on the Bumblebee Vol. 2 Retro Pop Highway cassette mixtape was published on the Human Ally Magazine.[1]
Bumblebee's First Life On Earth
- Voice actor: Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese)
Toys
Studio Series
- Bumblebee (Multipack, 2018)
- Movie: Bumblebee
- ID number: 15
- A static figurine of Charlie wearing a shirt with the Bumblebee logo is included in a two-pack with Studio Series 15 Bumblebee. Unlike the movie, Charlie features a short haircut.
Buzzworthy Bumblebee
- Bumblebee (Deluxe Class, 2020)
- Series: Studio Series
- Movie: Bumblebee
- ID number: 15BB
- The same figurine was re-released with Buzzworthy Bumblebee Bumblebee, with no discernable changes.
Merchandise
Hollywood Rides
- Volkswagen Beetle Bumblebee & Charlie (Scale 1/24 Die Cast Vehicle, 2018)
- A figurine of Charlie is included with the non-transforming 1/24 scaled die-cast replica of Bumblebee's VW Beetle mode released by Jada Toys. It hews closer to Charlie's movie appearance than the Studio Series version, featuring longer hair and more accurate clothes.
Notes
- The first Studio Series multi-pack containing Bumblebee and Charlie had the working name "Rebekah's Garage". Whether this means that Charlie was named "Rebekah" earlier in development, or if "Rebekah" is one of Hasbro's internal code names, is unknown.
- In Rise of the Beasts, Charlie is only alluded to in a brief conversation between Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. An additional scene would have featured Bumblebee showing Prime a polaroid picture of him and Charlie together, but this moment was deleted during production. The Latin American dub of the film, meanwhile, actually has Optimus mention Charlie by name during their conversation.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Charlie Watson (チャーリー・ワトソン Chārī Watoson)
