This.

It can work, but honestly, the movie designs are milestones and visual poetry. I dont want them to change.

 

The official design fits Starscream perfectly fine. It fits the movie 'seekers' ( toy version TC & SW ) perfectly fine.

In fact, it is THE most refreshing design in years. The kite wide design allows for extra range of motion of his arms to tear through enemies. The Reign of Starscream book shows this very well, as did the aerial scene vs the F22 squad in TFTM 2007. Heck, even the Leader Class toy perfectly illustrates this genius design feature, showing that the CGi design of the huge collarbone sections of this design, is in fact very feasible and logical in tangible form.

And this fits him very well because he's a character to rip through his enemies relentlessly, unlike Megatron who'd be hesitant and/or using a shooting method. The kite shape, augmented with the thrusters on his back and without any redundant mass/kibble on his legs, he's very able to glide through the air.

Anyway, I am glad to NOT be a person who's kind of stuck on one single or only a few design aesthetics; I love most of it, ranging from G1 to TFP. TF fanlife must be a bit tougher if one can't accept a movie design, for example.

 

No, its really easy actually.

 

ok, but then all the fanrage about this design is all just hot air too.

 

It's not fanrage, we're simply saying that we do not like the design choise for a character.

Now this:

"MOVIE STARSCREAM'S DESIGN IS THE WORST PIECE OF SHIT THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO TRANSFORMERS!!!! IT RUEND STARSCREAM FOREVER! IT RAPED MY DOG AND THEN USED IT TO SET MY HOUSE ON FIRE! FUCK YOU MICHEAL BAY FUCK YOOOOOOOOUUUUUU!!!!!!!"

^ That is fanrage!

 

ah c'mon... years have passed since the initial reveal of the main designs for the 2007 movie. It's still fanrage hot air...; just a little cooled down after these years.

 

Its discussion, and since the movies have ended for the moment, and TF Prime is on a break, we find ourselves revisiting old thoughts, ideas, complaints and curiosities; of course its hot air.

I didn't like Starscream's design, or Megatron's for that matter. I though that Jazz was one of the best designed Autobots, that Brawl and Blackout were pretty much both awesome on two legs and I thought Rampage was about the stupidest fucking thing this side of Europa.

And Gundams are a bad comparison, as is most mecha since most of them have human pilots and therefore the proportions, range of motion etc are designed to mimic humans as close as possible.

 

Yeah, the other dude brought that Gundam statue pic into this thread.

Anyway.... I've been a fan since early 80's during Diaclone/G1 time... then as TF's died out in EU by 1990...I lost interest. Then came back to the fandom in 2007 because I found the movie designs to be most refreshing.

 

To be honest, my favourite detail of Movie Star's design is his eyes. It's how they brighten or darken depending on what he's doing, and it stands out against his grayish colours. When he's taunting Sam and Carly, his eyes are wide and shining bright, like a kid in a toy store; he's so delightfully exuberant, and his shiny eyes emphasize that. When he's going to destroy the Xantium, they're darker, and then go totally black before he transforms. It's foreboding, ominous; an unholy predator swooping down on its defenceless prey. His eyes are just so expressive to his actions, similar to Bumblebee, and I adore that optical detail on this massive killer jet robot.

Damn, I love his eyes  

 

I still think, that will the judicious detail the put in all the eyes, they could have left Optimus Prime's mask up all the time. ILM would have made it work.

 

The eyes are the single best thing about the movie aestetics. They were made so expressive I didn't believe it could've been to that extent. That's why I'm also kinda annoyed that they gave Optimus a face when his eyes telled at least 20 times more emotions that his facial expressions.

And that's true for pretty much all of the transformers. After all the talk about how they wanted to make their faces expressive in the end the faces really didn't show nearly as much expression as their eyes did...

 

It's cool that Bayformers Starscream also has the "vents" on the sides of his head, just like most (if not all) of the Starscream head designs. They're merely more angled/smaller, rather than "chunky vent blocks sticking to his cheeks".

 

It's surprising how many Starscream-esque details (the vents and the two ridges in particular) his head has when it was originally designed for Megatron.

 

That is surprising, actually.

No wonder Megatron calls Screamer a sycophant; the guy's got a head based off his old models!  

 

The oxygen mask to the helmet would have worked for a character like Thundercracker or Skywarp. They are usually shown as rather thuggish or as the stooges for more powerful Decepticons so they don't need much in facial expression to pull that off.

Since Starscream was going to be one of the few Decepticons to get much in the way of lines he could have really used some facial expression. As Gordon_4 pointed out Prime had a retractable mask so I'm not sure why Starscream's had to be stuck on.

 

Anyway, the startpost is asking whether a simplified movie aesthetic would work. It doesn't ask for changing the core nature of the design aesthetic.

With that said, I present this :



It's basically the official artwork on the official DOTM deluxe toy packaging, albeit simplified.

I think many of the FOC game designs are busier than the picture above.

 

The picture above looks terrible. Really, really fake. Even without that marker-esque outline around it.

 

Yeah.

I also find it fascinating that since that head was originally intended for Megatron, it actually makes a pretty good "Bay-ified" G1 bucket-head design.

 

they make it somewhat harder to replicate in toyform but i love how they look in the movies

 

You know what, I have to agree Meta777.