I still laugh every time I see that part of the animated movie where somehow the entire Decepticon team can fit inside Astrotrain.

 

Goofiness is part of the Transformers heritage.

No shortage of goofiness within G1. Seems like a lot of episodes were just a string of punchlines.

And in Beast Wars, which everybody lauds as the pinnacle of mature Transformers writing, there was an episode where Rhinox wins the battle by FARTING.

I could name plenty of other examples, but Transformers doesn't have to have people crying and squirting blood to make it good. Comic relief is often the savior of the action movie.

 

Yeah, I always wondered about that. I'm not sure how he ever got off the ground, much less left Earth's orbit. (And then, after all that, have to jettison weight in the cold weightless vacuum of space.)

Oh well, I suppose that it's a lot like all the Autobots driving up into Skyfire's ass so that he can fly them to South America. (Who knows how they got to Antarctica to rescue him so he could make that flight in the first place?)

 

Not sure about a G1-inspired movie but I would love to see what Del Toro could do for Beast Wars. I'm sure the fandom would suffer a massive brain hemorrhage by all the bizarre changes but, damn, it'd be awesome.

 

If you bothered to read the prequel things they seemed to explain pretty well why the Allspark was needed. I never said they had a massive arc. I know this was written as a one shot movie with the hopes that maybe they'd do sequels and flush everyone out more.

The Allspark is the 2007 version of the energon cube, just because it's not glowing pink and full of oil to fit your needs doesn't mean it's not a cube. People involved with the movie have called it the allspark and energon cube in interviews, the thing is interchangeable. I'm sorry you can't get past the G1 definition of an energon cube to see that.

So classics can be an evolution of G1 but the movie cannot? Who's making things fit their argument now? I'm more confused about Armada, Energon and such on who's who than the movie. Ironhide hardly screams Ironhide in any of those series'.

Who said Bays' movie was the pinnacle? I certainly never said that and I didnt see anyone else in here say it.

At least Bay didn't have, as people in here pointed out, DEvastator standing up inside friggin' Astrotrain. Will you like ROTF if Megatron returns as a ghost? OR maybe Blackout trolls around town half put together because his critical components are in tact  

Exactly how much time did you want them to spend explaining the Allspark? They had two hours to introduce characters, get the climactic fight and end the movie. Where exactly would they spend time talking about the Allspark's history when NONE of the TFs know about it. Backstory on Ratchet is he was part of the council or whatever that studied the Allspark and couldn't determine why or where it came from.

No, the thing I have against the cubes is that it's 20+ years old, it's over and done. If I wanted to watch a Transformers movie about energon cubes and plundering Earth for material to take over Cybertron again I'd watch the cartoon.

 

Whoever controlled the cube would return to Cybertron and win the war. That's why Megatron wanted it, so he could rule Cybertron. Prime needed it to end the war and rebuild Cybertron. So yes, they'd "do some superhero thing and fly back home" only they'd do it on the Ark orbiting Earth.

 

jericho, you're my hero
flawless victory


anyway, back on topic, transformers is the type of movie that can only be done by a big action directer with little to no regard for the laws of common sense an/or physics
michael bay is this man
armageddon
pearl harbour
bad boys
the rock
crammed tot he brim with explosions and action and all sorts of esacapist fiction that practically screams the style of transformers. someone like Spielberg could do a good job directing, but it would have an entirely diferent aesthetic to it, not neccesarily for the better.

also keeping in mind that this is the ultimate toy commercial, and dark broody toy commercials don't exactly sell that well

 

Heh.

The other problem with Energon Cubes is you never once saw the Autobots making any, "drinking" any or going after any. That right there is dumb, it makes it sound like the Decepticons are the only ones who need energy to survive.

 

Maybe they could have cut out the computer experts all together and that would have given more time to explain things.

Since Prime seemed the main source of information in the film perhaps they could have borrowed a page from Star Wars where Ben is attempting to explain the Force to Luke. Really didn't give you all the answers but it did provide something to build off of.

Even though the Transformers didn't have all the answers themselves you'd think they would at least have myths about something so important. We didn't always know that we came from monkeys, but that didn't stop people from coming up with stories to explain where we came from or how time, space, and everything came to be.

 

Considering sequels are being made, and a shrapnel of the cube was left... I'm going to lean on they'll cover this later similiar to what SW did.

As for the cube itself and not energy...
Well to be honest, both can still be used. The cube brought things to life, not just gave things power, though that was also a possibility. Once megatron takes over all earth tech with the cube, he can pretty much take over all the power facilities he could ever want or need. Keep in mind the low number of decepts was seemingly handled as a borderline scouting and recon rescue insertion team. And less as an invading force as of yet. Even in G1, they landed on earth by accident, while they did leave to find new sources of energy, the nemesis interruption never let them get quite where they meant. The war on earth in toon and movie, was accidental at the start.

The cube itself leaves a wide array of doors still open for interpretation as well that can easily be explored indepth slowly. Or allow for more depth with the remnants.

Personally I think bay needs to finish out through at least a 5th movie before we should even consider a new director. Much in his vision can still be explored. We've only just been introduced to it. After we see how they deal with being away from home and it's resources will we really know how they ration and from what.

Nolan I don't think would be a good choice, Boll scares me on any property now, Schumacher still gives me bat nightmares, Shymalan's only twist he can do now to surprise people is not have one(plus he probably would have had the cube transform into a bot and run away right at the pivotal moment), and Spielberg while I like he was on board with this, too much in his hands worries me it'll be too much like Batteries not Included and war of the worlds. While batteries was AWESOME, WotW was not. Bay seems to be the perfect fit for now, and the screenwriters/script writers seem to be getting their feet in deeper with each pass through. Short of Whedon, Bay, Cameron, and Spielberg working together, I'm not sure how much better this could have been with other directors. Well, 2 of 4's not bad.

Though to be honest, I'd really give them major props if they make it to a movie 4, and then add Whedon for a 4-5 to really give the bots more, character. While still keeping bay for the action and everything else. Whedon just seems to have a better characterizing flair with stuff, especially when a situation is pre-established. Though for early on we really needed that situational, new to earth comedy that we did get. I just hope that doesn't become overplayed in the same manner, as that would get stale fast.

 

Please God no 5th movie. I've always heard it as Bay wanted to to a trilogy and in the final movie would introduce Unicron.

As for Prime explaining it more, well he explained it as best he could in the short amount of time given. Again, if someone needs more of an explanation they need to read the prequel material.

EDIT: Why would Weldon do a better job than Bay? How many 300 million dollar films has he directed? Actually, how many successful films has he directed.

 

Ouch 3 Bay movies will be more than enough I'd hate to think about the sharks he'd need to jump if he goes past 3.

Plus I know he says things like 5, 6, 7, or more films but unless you are Lucas most directors want to go out and do other things rather than spend the rest of their life around one property. Even if he managed a Transformers movie every other year that's ten years directing nothing but Transformers movies to make 5 of them.

If they really want to keep the franchise rolling instead of burning itself out then let Bay do his three and change production teams to freshen up the franchise.

 

Are YOU kidding me? Stephen "The Mummy" Sommers?!? This is the director that is putting together GI Joe? Stephen Sommers who is officially been labeled as a Hack Director and seems to revel in being so. The same director who turns in Sensless flicks like the Mummy Two in which a silly action scene involving an Egyptian Princess ( who apparently is an outstanding Wu Shu artist) fighting it out with a rival using Japanese sais! The same Stephen Sommers who has talented actors like Hugh Jackman and Kate Bekinsdale run through horrid drivel disguised as dialog ( Hugh Jackman got such horrible reviews that it almost got him knocked out of the Spotlight and Hollywood if it weren't for Nolan (The Prestige gave Jackman glowing reviews) and had Kate Beckinsdale jumping between English marm and Romainian accents (Yes, film directors have absolute control over this!) in Van Helsing. I clearly remember the audience laughing out loud at the so-called acting and line delivery, especially during scenes involving Dracula. I would consider Sommer's action movies camp ( I'm being ABSOLUTELY POLITE AS POSSIBLE in using this term) if it weren't for the for the fact that Sommers is oft quoted as saying he directs exciting and intense adventure and action movies. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with camp as long as its done right. Quinten Tarantino and Michael Rodriguez admit to using much in there collaborative projects ( Sin City anyone?) There is NOT in ANY one of Sommer's movies an action sequence that is not only predictable, but completely jumps the shark to the point of laughter. Since his directing and dialog are terrible, he has his movies rely heavily on special effects, NONE of which are convincing. His worst movies ( hard to choose between any of them) try use grand sweeping effects with very little lighting effects so that werewolves and his Mummy villians appear SO CGI that they looked as if they were superimposed out of my X-Box 360 onto sets that actually look like soundstages. (And yes again, the director has control over this). If I had to choose between Bay and Sommers for GI Joe, I would say Ridley Scott ( Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Man on Fire; but then we would see an actual war film; not for children's eyes). Since I can't have GI Joe filmed as a war film, I would would gladly take Michael Bay Any Day. As far as action movies go NOBODY ( James Cameron is INFAMOUS for going WAY over-budget; T-2 despite its success actually only broke even for the longest time and is one of the many reasons Carrolco as a studio has gone the way of the dinosaur) and I mean NOBODY delivers MORE   FOR THE BUCK than Bay!
And.... now that I know Sommers is directing GI Joe, I can scratch that movie of next years list of movies to see.
What is it with GI Joe? Why is it the ONE toy that actually OUTSOLD Transformers during the eighties seems to produce rather inferior product whenever it is translated to media outside of toys when compared to Transformers ie Transformers '86 movie to GI Joe '87 movie, TF comics vs. GI Joe comics, the latter cartoons like GI Joe reloaded and Valor vs. Venom when compared to TF Animated, and now it seems, the movies etc? NOT Criticizing, JUST Wondering.  

 

I'd sure hate to see you when you ARE criticizing...

 

And if I have to be dependent on another source of information outside of the movie itself to understand what the big focus of what all the Transformers are after, that suggests the movie has done a poor job of properly explaining it's McGuffin. The point is that this information should already be conveyed in the movie itself without the reader having to go through other channels.

Energon itself doesn't create life. It's just converted energy made to be compatible with Cybertronian life forms and Transformers in general. A better comparison to a G1 artifact would be the Creation Matrix like in the Marvel Comics (though I don't believe the Creation Matrix was the only thing that was capable of repairing/creating new Cybertronians).

People involved with the movie may have indeed referenced the Allspark as "the Energon cube", however, to my knowledge, that was a working title only and never made it into the film. The closest you ever got was the Allspark being called "the Cube".

Also, I have no problem with energon itself having been used outside of cube format. After all, the cubes themselves were simply storage containers and not energon themselves. Superlink really did this well emphasizing the military uses of energon through weaponry, and I believe Beast Wars had raw energon desposits in crystalline form (ironically a Season 2 G1 episode had this).

Well, Classics itself is stated to be an alternate continuation of the Marvel US Comics run right off the bat. Aesthetically the 2007 movie cannot be considered an evolution of G1 because it essentially reinvents the wheel as far as how everything looks, and I'm talking robot modes. Giving Transformers strange things like "toes", making Bumbles look like a sad Pug with a pacifier in his mouth, or giving Screamer that abomination of an appearance that they did. See, Classics has just enhanced what has always more or less existed, and that goes for most other series sans the Western Beast Era series. You can see how the newer designs are more complex, articulated, and just better planned than that of the old boxformers.

The 2007 movie on the other hand tries to reinvent the wheel from scratch using as minimal references of what came before and negating the history of nearly every series (and I say again, sans Western Beast Era) from which the Transformers visual aesthetic has been established. This is not an evolution.

The Ironhide example you posted is a specific example. If you want to resort to that, than I'm going to tell you to look at every version of Starscream sans Machine Wars Starscream and any other non-mainline version. What I posted was in reference to the aesthetic as a whole which is a generalization.

Okay, in your humble opinion, what do YOU consider to be the pinnacle of Transformers fiction.

So, this is the best you can do to defend your argument, is resort to the animated movie's shortcomings (of which there are more than a few) rather than say what's GOOD about the 2007 film. And you pick such absurd points of contention such as Devastator standing up in Astrotrain. Of course that's ridiculous, but what makes your comparison worse is that Devs in A.T. doesn't really have anything to do with the story of the animated film. It was on screen for all of but three seconds. This is grasping for straws.

The Animated movie was about the Autobots fighting the Decepticons in the beginning, to coming under threat from Unicron, to then vanquishing their foes and saving Cybertron, not "how can Devastator stand up in Astrotrain".

The 2007 movie was about the Autobots and Decepticons in a race to retrieve the Allspark.

Please limit your argument to the more relevant points of contention.

As for Megatron returning? I probably won't like ROTF no matter what form he's brought back in as I seriously doubt that the movie will be any more enjoyable than the first. But I may very well be wrong.

Also, again, you're grasping for straws. Unicron was reactivated by Scourge in S3, but couldn't do squat because his body had been destroyed. His CPU was intact for the most part, so he wasn't completely dead. Also, considering his head was in ORBIT around Cybertron, gravitational pull isn't as big an issue as say Blackout "trolling around Earth". Theoretically, Blackout could still function in some capacity, though I'm not sure as to how mobile he would be.

I'm thinking a good five or ten minutes would've sufficed. I mean, that's how long A New Hope took when Obi-Wan was explaining to Luke about the Force, the Jedi, and Vader. The Fellowship of the Ring took about a comparable amount of time to explain the One Ring.

And also, by citing that they didn't have enough time to introduce the Allspark's backstory, you're giving credibility to the thought that maybe it shouldn't have been introduced at all in this movie, but that it might be better to have saved it for later, when weren't already busy with more important story elements such as introducing our heroes and villains.

Well, that's your prerogative, but doesn't negate that other series have made the war for energy the premise. Beast Wars pretty much starts off very similar to the original series in that it's initially all about energon until more elements come into play LATER and AFTER the FOUNDATION has been established. They didn't just delve right into the Vok or Megatron's plan of eliminating the crew of the Ark until later.

 

Sorry 'bout the rant there, Velcro. But whenever I see Sgt Slaughter actually "take on a hundred Cobras and send them on the run" while smashing Serpentor through stone walls or Joes wearing sports Jerseys while dodging lasers and grenades while nearly breakdancing, all of a sudden, Megatron turning into a gun so Someone Else can shoot him, (ironically, it's usually Starscream) just no longer seems well....so far fetched.  

 

That still isn't as bad as the episode where they have Snake Eyes dancing to that generic music they used in Spiderman and every other cartoon of the period. Dance it would seem is not a ninja skill.

Or the Ewok looking things the 'noks used to take over the Joe space station, because you know being in a biker gang makes you the perfect people to send on a space mission.

Or the Cobra La battle cry.

Ouch or just about anything from Sigma Six like King Tunnel Rat the ninja.

Great toys and great comic book, but boy Hasbro sure seems to have it out for GI Joe in every other form.

 

Are you serious, SW took more time to focus on the Force than TF did on the Allspark? In Obi-Wan's hut all he said was the force binds us, blah blah blah. Maybe two minutes of screen time, tops. "Vader was a pupil of mine before he was seduced by the dark side." What's that, 30 seconds of dialogue?

Devastator standing inside Astrotrain was one example of why G1 is hardly the pinnacle of anything TF. Sure it was cool when I was 5 but now it's rather stupid. Hound going to a museum with Spike and fitting inside, seriuously? Starscream finding old war vehicles and they magically turn into machines? I could go on and on why G1 is rather weak now. I still love it but that doesn't make it any less sad at times.

And, you asked for more examples of why the energon cube story is weak, I showed you. Not once did we see the Autobots ever obtain or attempt to obtain energon. At least this movie has one object that BOTH sides wanted instead of making it out to be that only the Decepticons needed energy to survive and the Autobots never bothered to make or "drink" those pink cubes.

I get it, you hate the movie, so don't waste your time on the sequel and be done with it.

 

Sorry to have gotten your panties in a bunch.

 

if we could get back on topic instead of going off on the g1 cheese tangent that would be great
you're all making good points, some more valid than others, but it's not contributing to the idea of the thread any more so much as just ranting