I think this is one of the few times the toy looks better than the CGI model. SS Bee has better proportions and looks badass, especially with the mask on, despite the fact his alt mode is a weaksauce VW Beetle.

 

I respect and understand a lot of what Bay was trying to do, but some of his statements in this video seem very narrow-minded. Especially the statement about how he 'wishes he could show us how lame the classic designs would look on the big screen'.

I actually don't think the classic designs would work well in Bay's movies. I wouldn't want to see the 2007 movie with G1 designs. Bay's designs fit the tone and story he was going for. I have no problem with him wanting to do his own thing. What I have a problem with is him acting like there's 'no way' to bring those designs to the big screen. Obviously he was proven wrong 11 years later. I'd argue he was proven wrong before he even made the statement, considering there were other movies with 'corny' retro designs that worked. For example, Raimi's Spider-man movies.

 

I just realize starscream is listed alongside with blitzwing, so the seeker in the cybertron scene was indeed him?

 

The article also mentioned Blitzwing as cassette tape condor  

 

This was a fantastic read.

I've never read any interviews with Bay for the Transformers but even I can sense the huge shift in directing style and the approach that both took with their films.

The sheer number of times Knight says that all of the robots are characters shows what his focus was for this movie. These robots are going to be a centerpiece for the film and not just something that revolves around the human actors and causes explosions.

I had to laugh though at the beginning when they cited Camaro Bee as more "Top Gear friendly."

If anyone actually watched the original Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson, you would know that they think Camaros are for redneck hillbillies who go around murdering people.

Still a very good read and gets me optimistic about this film and the hopeful future that this new continuity will bring.

 

I think Bay mis-characterised what fans wanted. I don't remember a single person crying out for bendy panels and liquid metal faces. I think most reasonable fans concede that certain aspects won't translate directly to live-action. The creative challenge is in finding ways to make things work and weave enough of the original into the final project that it's recognisable and something fans can embrace while still being believable and exciting to the wider public. Not an not impossible challenge.

 

And that's what we got with Prime and others. But that was his main complaint on the cartoons. There are things that can't translate from toon to live. This is a conversation that's been done to death since the movies started on what exactly he meant. Which was directly "toon physics that don't translate to live mediums."

That's where most kept jumping down his throat about too, to the point it led to the AOE nanobots. So maybe fans need to calm down some on this before their screeching for what they want is what leads to a worse mess.

For example, AOU of avengers, tried the bendy metal thing fans say they want. It led to the most vocal outcry of 'ew' on design movement. Now granted on Ultron it looked especially weird, but it did prove the point of how bad a design choice that is.

 

While I understand what Travis is saying with the design thing I can't really agree on all of it because there is such a thing as making a design too simple. If not careful it could result in the character looking out of place and cartoonish but not in a good way. Which is why I'm not that big a fan on how the G1 designs on the Cybertron scene look because they feel out of place in a movie that's meant to be more grounded visual wise whereas Bee,blitzwing,Shatter and Dropkick do feel more grounded to realty. Doing regular animation is where simple works the most but even then there are risks of making things look too simple and plain such as how people have gripes with how the designs came out for the characters in The New Batman Adventures series when compared to the original Batman TAS designs.

Not to mention that certain changes were made because of technical difficulties when the first movie came out like the reason why Ironhide wasn't red because at the time red was hard to capture on film same goes for how Optimus is more blue then red with the flames making up for it so we should take that into consideration.

 

Well I mean from what people said about the test screening the cybertron scenes were just recently added so the CGI wasn’t finished in the trailer

 

“Rumble shakes the Earth.” What the fuck.

 

Starscream confirmed?

 

I changed my settings, try it again.

 

He isn't meant to look badass, he's meant to look like a big chubby ball of metal fluff you can hug.

 

I think they should have paid more attention about how they postioned Bee on the cover,and it looks like the wizard is pointing it out. 

 

That is standard for the SFX magazine to have at least one character cover the lower part of the F.

Anyway, the article looks great.  

 

Reminds me of when some Disney movie (Lion King I think?) spelled out SFX in the sky, and people mistook it for the other word