Well, if the "human element" is going to be the main focus of the story AGAIN, then I just hope the toys are great and the 'bots get some good lines. The "human elements" can go die in a hole for all I care, Wahlberg included!

 

just FYI, in science fiction, many times it is appropriate and better to focus on non human characters and give them human like qualities in order for the audience to sympathize with them and also to examine the details of the human condition from an outside perspective.

if this is going to be the same nonsense as the first three movies where the robot characters are sidekicks or macguffins, count me out, not interested. I would much rather see the robots struggle with the different personalities among themselves rather than marky mark trying to save his daughter.

 

You people just don't get it do you? These movies will always be like this until either CGI gets cheaper or Paramount gives them a 1 billion dollar budget. Many times in science fiction, the action doesn't take place on earth, but Transformers does, which means there actually does need to be a human element. Like what was said above, it's better than a whiny, "no no no" screaming college kid complaining about life. If you expected anything other than some human integration, your nuts. But I'm sure you'll end up breaking down and see the film anyway.

 

I Know, lol! It's like: "Let me just disrespect the man who this guy is working for now and his movies, which in my opinion suck." If I were Marky Mark I would not answer his questions.

 

Thank you. Someone who gets it and can shut them down!   You are marvelous, friend.

 

lol first off i have not actually paid to see a transformers movie since the first one, and I have not yet seen the second, and don't plan to.

second, I never said there should not be humans. I woul djust rather that the humans be the sidekicks and not the main characters. lol reading is fundamental.

I see no reason why in the third film shockwave, starscream, and megatron could not have had a brief conversation. LOL shockwave did not even speak. one of the most intelligent characters in transformers lore got reduced to a mumbling thug. please just admit that that is bull$hit.

 

Gotta say, I like this guy. Maybe he will be the heart of a good movie. I am hopeful. He was so funny in The Other Guys.

 

I completely agree with the lack of character development, and not even getting to know Shockwave or his motives properly, but there is a VERY good reason why they don't do 'conversations' as such. The movieverse transformers are very intricate. When they have storyline conversations, the camera is up close so you can see it all - This = Rendering time = BIG MONEY. The driller bot itself took ILM's entire server farm to render.. that kind of dedicated rendering costs money! The more they spend on conversation, the less they have for robots fighting and buildings falling... things Mr. Bay likes to do. If someone could completely fund it properly, then I'm 99% positive they would give us the film we want... it just costs too much. Sucks, but it's a business.. gotta be profitable!

 

If you actually watch the 2nd and 3rd films Megatron, Starscream, and Soundwave DO have conversations and there IS Robot on Robot action.

Edit: OOPS! you meant SHOCKwave and not SOUNDwave, My bad.  

 

Guys, guys! All this arguing is for naught....the movies SUCK and this one will be no different.

 

*tries telling people that arguing is useless yet adds bloated opinion to actually fuel the fire instead of getting rid of it*

Yeah, you're a big help.

 

They're extremely human!

I don't know what it's like to be a living trash compactor in love with a scouting droid. But, he loves her despite his programming, and the pursuit of love and nature vs nurture are very human themes.

To start off, Transformers have body language. Even inhumanoid Transformers are capable of this, look at Beast Machines.

Secondly, they have expressive eyes and faces, and the ones who don't are lacking those for a reason.

And, most importantly, they have voices! If all else fails, they can TELL us how they feel.

And, you just have to find the human elements. A four million year war might be a bit hard, but longing for home, the desire to protect others from evil, especially evil that the protector has suffered from, and regret are all very relatable ideas.

And, depending on the robot, personal vendettas, assorted small or short term goals and patriotism are also things humans deal with.

It's not that hard. You don't need to be James Roberts to pull it off.

 

I like the movies.

 

Exactly. Because Wall-E is a well written character with the intent of us the human viewer connecting with Wall-E. I'm going to establish why I feel the Transformers as per the Bay movies, aren't.

My dog has body language. I can tell by his body language and his ear position, as well as his tail what my dog is feeling and what he probably wants. He emotes to me with his vocalizations, which adds to my interpretation of his feelings. I love my dog, and he's a part of the family.

My point with this is that...yes...living things emote. But that doesn't make them RELATABLE to us. Do you relate to a tiger? Tigers emote pretty well. Howabout a pig, or a horse? Octopus are some of the most emotive creatures in the ocean yet can you say you relate to an octopus?

Which violates a core tenant of GOOD storytelling, "Show not Tell." If you have to TELL your audience what X feels or thinks, then you simply aren't doing it right. Any cursory study of good literature will show you what I'm talking about. Hell, best movies, games, books, and comics are good because they show us emotion, rather than telling us what we should feel.

These are all great emotions if you actually feel them. I've given each movie 3 goes just so I could ultimately finalize my thoughts on them. I ain't just some mindless fan or hater. I'm pretty serious when it comes to critique and analysis. I'm not a pro but I think I know what I'm looking for, what I'm feeling here. If the Transformers felt any of this stuff then I couldn't really see it. Perhaps Sentinal Prime was the only character that was overtly relatable. He was homesick and he wanted Cybertron back.

The problem is every other character. We never felt for their struggle or how the war has made them weary. In fact the whole thing just felt business as usual. The Autobots wanted to defend Earth but as it stood it just felt like any other warzone for them.

We don't see the Autobots deal with grief or mourn. WE don't see the the effects of killings and trauma upon them despite the fact that they're intended to have emotion. We never see any Autobot grieve for Jazz. It's as if he was just an expendable nobody. What about Ironhide? Optimus never enraged or shed a tear for him, despite them being best buddies for a long time.

The audience shouldn't have to "find" emotion. The point of emotion is there to hook the audience in the first place. Again I refer to how IDW does this. They portray the Transformers in a very human sense. There's strife, there's grief, despair, joy, happiness, desire for recognition, acceptance, all those things and more. They run the gamut and each character feels distinct and different. THe best part? You don't have to "find" this. It's just there and we see it from start to finish. We feel for characters in IDW. We feel for Megatron in his Spotlight when he sees his legion battered and invalid.

I can hardly say the same for the Transformers characters in the Movies. They're either stock heroes or stock villains, and very few of them, if any, deviate from that.

It's not hard at all. However, I think there's too much going against the movies at this point. I think by choosing to continue after 3 rather than starting afresh, Bay shot himself in the foot when it comes to writing the robots better. The robots will need a change in personality that will be probably very different than the portrayals in the other movies that it might be a disconnect. It will be sort of like how even though GI Joe Retaliation was a sequel to GI Joe Rise of Cobra, the characterizations and the personalities were so different that it felt much like a reboot.

TF4 was an opportunity to really set a new path but I think it was ultimately squandered with a continuation rather than a reboot. A more Transformers centric story will necessitate a re-boot or retelling the story at at time before it came to Earth.

 

Woah! I think we've got a fatal misunderstanding here, because we're on the same side of that fence. I'm pointing out ways that the movies could be better, not saying that the movies are the way I'm suggesting.

Indeed they do. Perhaps the word "relate" is unfitting. You need to empathize with the characters, to understand them and be in their heads more than you need to be in the same mindset. For instance, the Punisher is insane, a terrible human being. But I empathize with him and his plight.

Yes, but good dialogue is a form of showing.

When I said "tell" I didn't mean it in the same sense as in that usage.

Definitely.

Absolutely!

AMEN!

PREACH IT BROTHER!

Indeed.

Transformers 4 is a soft reboot. And I don't think Bay is any more interested in making the Transformers good characters this time around than with the first three. He's sort of self-satisfied about it. I think he genuinely believes his movies are doing a good job with that.

Yeah, you've still got the issue of Psycho-Bots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of tin-foil with anything in this continuity.

I don't want anymore movies in this continuity. If they gave it to anyone other than Bay the first thing they would do is reboot. I genuinely believe reboots should be saved for continuities that are utterly unsalvageable, and Bayverse certainly is.

 

I just hope he's actually right. I would like to enjoy one Transformer film.

 

Practically every adaption of Transformers has found a balance between the human and robot element - keeping the robot element the focus. Sure we can have moments of character building for the humans or maybe every now and again a small focus on them - but it is not what we watch Transformers for.

The shows managed to find a balance between the human element and the transformers element and was always at its heart a story about humans being caught in the war - not how it affects them and their lives. Its about time the Transformers films found a better balance.

People wouldn't have minded a Sam Witwicky character as much if he didn't waste so much of the movie and detract from the robot characters.

TF:AOE seems to have at least part of the focus in the right direction - teaming up Cade with Optimus - but it wont be enough if the focus is always on the humans.

The core of the story should (As it always has been) be about the Transformers and their war. The emotional side of the story can come from how this affects those who fight (Autobots) and those who get caught in the middle (Humans)

Given its essentially a reboot with no human returning cast and almost complete redesigns for the robot cast - I doubt anyone is hoping to see more of the human element. Only thing people want to know is about the robots, battle scenes, Autobot cast, Decepticon cast, toy images.

Granted we don't mind receiving news about the humans - however Transformers fans generally expect the focus to be on the Transformers. Its a film series made to 'sell toys' and 'make money' and they are keeping the Transformers off screen or doing nothing for at least 3/4 of the film (In the case of TF2007, ROTF, DOTM)

---

In the case of TF:AOE we have a virtually fresh start - and it seems to have some potential with the Cade/Optimus situation - yet already knowing the ending I find myself questioning just what they will actually do with the characters through the film.

Ending provided for reference;

Spoiler

- Cade lets his daughter date her boyfriend who proves through the film that he can protect her
- Cade's daughter and her boyfriend go into hiding for protection
- Optimus leaves to avoid putting Earth at risk

With Cade's story arc he just seems to be going from someone whose worry about his daughter forces her to lose her freedom (Demonstrated by not being able to date)

With the daughter it seems to be the obvious 'Disobey father, then realise he was right' situation with her finally accepting her dad was just trying to protect her.

With the boyfriend it just seems to be proving himself to the daughter and the father and he likely does this by saving them.

With Optimus's story arc he just seems to be going from someone who is worried about his team and how much he puts Earth at risk and ends up

Spoiler

leaving

to avoid putting them at risk.

With bumblebee he likely will become leader of the Autobots - given he is a marketable character in order to attract people to the potential fifth movie. He's had minor character development over the last few films - so I presume here he'll be shown capable of looking after the team.

... Just seems a little weak on the development of characters and pretty predictable.

 

I think we're off on a good start. I agree that we could be better on the terms we use and I'm glad we've got that discourse going on!

I'm a little more cynical about Bay. I don't think he likes or cares about Transformers as much as he says he does. As far as I'm concerned, he's only interested in the superficial elements of the Transformers...the war, the combat, and the melodrama attached to war themes. I think he sees the Transformers more as living weapons with basic concepts of emotion. Personally, looking back at it now I think this was evident in 2007 but more and more apparent as the movies went on.

I think this was the plan from the beginning as the Transformers allow him to do what he does best...action scenes. I'm dubious of the idea that he had a higher concept for the characters that only failed in execution.

 

I just don't give a fuck anymore. For all the god damned guff they made about the Autobots faces, all the moving parts and having them talk and shit, somehow I ended up getting more personality from Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka in Pacific Rim.

So you know what, good for you Mark, hope you had a ball of a time and you and your kids enjoy the end result. Me on the other hand; brand loyalty assures at least a single viewing (after all I can't rip the movie a new arsehole if I haven't seen it) but I'm having trouble working up any enthusiasm. Maybe the teaser/trailer will change my mind.

 

This movie... Will be a revolution to cinema...

Fuck it. I'm out.