Is it? Complex designs aren't neccessarily visually more attractive or bought by the human eye as more realistic looking.

A design can be overbusy, and that can heavily detract from something, as can it being SO overbusy that it appears to cheat.

Ultimately nanotech may as well be magic for how it looks onscreen.

Phazer

 

Kids, adults who grew up with Transformers are iffy, some like it alot, some hate it. Kids of today and adults of today from who ive shown and talked to love it. Its the future.. Chicks dig em..

 

The thing I like most about the designs is that they *can't* be figured out just by looking at a flat, still image of them. As 20-30 foot tall machines they aren't limited by the miniscule scale the toys had and thus are capable of having far more moving parts. When you get to such large scales there is no reason to have the bulky, unyielding, car parts make up the majority of your structure. Instead of having one single, solid car hood that sticks out 4 feet from under your chin, you can begin to break it into smaller pieces that overlap each other creating a far more flexible, and durable, design.

Not to mention the fact the the internals were considered and change between modes as well, something rarely if ever seen in the toys. Parts from the insides of the car are visible as pieces of their robot modes, illustrating that the designers put far more thought into these transformations then the average TF fan has done.

Anyways, it seems no matter how you cut it the majority likes the designs, at least a little bit.

 

Hey im not disgruntled, just disappointed at most. The movie could be good, might not...either way its not a huge deal to me. My favorite thing about TFs are the toys followed up by the G1 cartoon. And if the movie is not good, there will be plenty of good movies out in 2007 that I can enjoy.
Ignorant? well maybe I dont know everything, but I know better than insulting a person based on his opinion of a movie.

 

  Guess your daughter's used to Primes that DON'T have exploded parts on them.

 

Your opinion of the movie is just that, your opinion, and I would tally it in with the "unfavorable" opinions already expressed. At no point have I ever insulted ANYone based on their having concerns about this movie, as it would be rude and pointless to do so. I only questioned your choice to form a solid and ill-informed conclusion that the movie producers don't know what they're doing, based on evidence to the contrary. In no way does that make you less of a person, or on any level not equal to my own.

But your knee-jerk reaction to suggest that you're being insulted or talked down to speaks volumes about your ability to consider that you might be wrong about the popularity of these designs. This is not, nor has it ever been a debate involving an "us vs them" situation, where one side could be right or wrong. However, there is a tendency among several disappointed fans on these boards to try and turn what amounts to "chill out" into some sort of personal attack whenever someone questions an extreme statement they try to make.

Your statement of opinion is valid and worthwhile. When you state this as fact, you are being ignorant of the information presented to you, biased in favor of the less than 50% of respondent children who do happen to share your opinion (5.5 vs 4.5 at the time of your post), and clearly demonstrating a disgruntled attitude toward both the designs and the professionals making this movie.

Extremism and a lack of tact is the problem here, not unfavorable movie opinions. It's also what has essentially left us with only "we like Cullen" as the single thing that the producers could determine from a group of literally thousands of fans like ourselves. You'd do well to recognize where the root of your disappointment is, because maybe then we can cooperate as a fanbase to get some results from Hasbro in the future, instead of looking like immature tools who each seem to think they know what's best for millions of consumers and moviegoers.

 

I will say that I am not confident in the direction that the film is taking, nor do I like many of the decisions made THUS FAR. Do you want a list? Are you suggesting that we propose our thoughts to Bay in an organized manner or do you simply have an issue with the people who do not agree with you?

 

Specific points can be discussed, and you'll probably be surprised to find we agree on many of them.

Yes, I suggest that, though it's a bit late in the game. I also say that if we had been able to do that earlier on, there wouldn't be so many disappointed fans now who didn't get their way.

No, I do not have an issue with people who don't agree with me. I can point you to several examples where I've openly thanked concerned fans on these forums for carrying on a polite and rational discourse.

 

Ya know, even if he was disgruntled, he would have plenty of reason to be so. And though he does admit to being 'ignorant', all of us, whether we like the designs or not, are just as ignorant to a certain extent. About the only thing he did wrong was state an opinion as fact.

Even the poll I posted can't be used as a fact because, as it was pointed out by others, it did have many things wrong with it. But in my *opinion* it is very close to the truth that the majority are at least ok with the designs, despite the much more vocal minority. Personally I like Prime, BB and Blackout a LOT, but there are still things that could be changed. And as for SS and Megs, I honestly think they have crappy designs. Mainly because from what I've seen, they don't reflect any of either of their previous incarnations in any way. OP can still be seen as OP, BB still has a similar concept between the original BB and the movie one and Blackout is a 'new' character in a sense so it didn't have any real base material so it didn't have to be held back. If they kept him as Soundwave *then* I'd have a problem, but a simple name change can do wonders in the TF world.

But Megs and especially SS seem to totally ignore any original concepts in favor for pushing that more 'evil alien' feel. It's not their designs themselves that bother me, it's just the designs don't fit who they're supposed to be IMO.

Anyways, point of this post, we all fanboys so no need to get snippy with each other. No matter what 'side' of the fence you're on.

 

Cant fool a kid that has never seen Optimus? A good portion of younger audience is either separated from Transformers or has never had experience. MOST of them (since the shows have died out and are not in any normal time slot that they would readily be exposed to them) have never really SEEN the Transformers.

And yes we know this. UNLESS their parents have explicitely introduced them to the TF, they most likely would not have seen them and passed up the toys at the stores (yes the TF toys are not as popular as other robot toyes). And how do I know they most likely would not have seen them? Because kids will watch what is on TV after school or at times their parents say .. (for the most part). The Transformers are NOT on regular TV in ANY of the popular time slots.

Soo since most of the TV watching kids would have VERY LITTLE or NO experience with the TF. How the hell are they supposed to instantly know what Prime looks like?

 

They definitely look overbusy on paper, but when they're 28 feet tall on screen and half their details are lost to lighting and fast-paced movement, I think it'll balance out nicely. There are thousands of car parts that don't get included in the 1:24 scale Alternators; I think excluding those parts from a life-size Transformer would be a mistake. In the context of the film, they should look great, despite looking like a trainwreck on paper.

 

I disagree - on film these parts will either move seperately, in which case the overbusyness will look even worse, or they'll look like textures on flat rendered model, which will look completely rediculous.

These designs omit thousands of car parts just as much as the Alts do. It's a mistake to think they have plausible entire interiors and engine blocks etc. They won't, without subspace cheeting or morphing of the models.

Generally speaking a design will look better on paper than it does on film.

Phazer

 

Going by that rationale it's impossible to bring Transformers to the screen in any guise.

 

Err... no it isn't. For a film a TF realistically needs to have seats for drivers, sure, but it doesn't have to have a fully realistic engine under the hood or as much boot room as a real car, just as Alternators don't.

Some people have tried to argue these designs will. But without morphing that pretty clearly doesn't work.

Phazer

 

Have you seen them change? Have you figured out where each and every part fits and merges and twists and turns into each other? No? Thought so.

Simple designs work, for toys. Complex designs work in films, especially when dealing with highly complex mechanical beings. The movements come in layers, at first you notice one part, then the next, and so on. Each time you see it you notice a different little piece each time.

Just because 90% of it's body isn't made up of *external* car parts doesn't mean it's A) Not a transformer B) A bad design or C) 'too busy'. It just means they put a little more effort into the designs then what people are used to.

 

Don't need to. Blackout for example has far too much robot mass to allow for what is essentially a hollow box to be formed out of his kibble, which is what's required for him to have the amount of transport space that vehicle actually has.

So, either it doesn't really have that space, or the transformation mass shifts, or both.

Nor have the designers, IMO.

That's nonsense frankly. A good design stands out as a good design in all mediums. Toys are actually, given they're 3D representations, where bad design shows up.

No, being too busy makes them too busy. Being too busy makes them a bad design. And there's certainly not "more effort" being put in, because if there was we'd have designs that wouldn't require what will either look like morphing or actually BE morphing to work.

Think of the teaser. Did anyone think that transformation of the logo worked on film? It didn't.

Phazer

 

Phazer, the filmmakers have stated there will be no cheating or mass-shifting in their transformations.

Do you find Masterpiece Prime too busy and complex? Surely you acknowledge the difference between World's Smallest Optimus Prime and Masterpiece Optimus Prime. There's a 12x difference there in size, which allows for a far more complex, far more detailed robot. And surely you understand that if you blew world's smallest prime up to 12" without making him more complex or detailed, it'd be one lame-ass robot toy. So why would you expect the 28 foot film robot to look like a 1 foot Masterpiece Prime?

 

Absolute rot. Until we see him transform, there is NO way of knowing that. Unless, of course, you know something we don't.

In your opinion.
in fact, let's all take a second to remember that phrase, shall we?