Well, the whole bit about weak constitutions may have to apply in the movie theater's, I mean, if you see a truck or jet turn into a real-looking robot or alein, your first reaction is, omg, that thing just turne dinto a robot, know when you get to flying gun shell's and such, it can actually seem a little scary

I mean, watching pearl harbour made me feel like I was their, no to mention my great grandma seeing it, it was her 100th birthday....she watched it and balled here eye's out! Know with Tf's, actually even fathomin an alein doing that is hard to beleive, but when you go to see this on the bigscreen, it could possibley make you feel a little bit scary to see something like that happen.

Well, most of it would be, "I hope this can never happen in real life" kind of thing.

But other than that, the transformation of megatron should be pretty intense for the normal spectator.

 

a realistic alien would have multiple boobs.

regardless of gender.

 

The large bulbous eye aliens are, sort of, realistic, but alien LIFE can be realistically interpreted any number of ways. Just look at the real organisms that have lived on this planet. Lot's of possibilities there. I know both the Discover Channel and Nation Geographic have tried there hand at imagining alien worlds and life using the input of real exobiologists.

As for the alien robots, yeah the "alien" part is pretty superfluous. Even earth robots - in the primitive stage or robotics we are in right now - can have very alien designs. That's because they are designed and built from the ground up to do specific tasks, not organically grown and evolved to carry out a wide array of life processes. So alien TFs *can* look pretty much like anyone wants.

I figure the TFs change to blend in with local forms, so they may have dramatically different bodies on worlds with different life. Here on Earth, I would expect them to adopt more humanoid robot bodies, simply to make interaction easier.

 

star wars is based on true story, so i would think they got the idea of what aliens look like right. remeber all that happen a long time ago in a galaxy far far away

 

Lovin' this thread.

I think it's a moot point how realistic an alien is since (like many have pointed out) to be alien, you just have to look different. What's more important is how convincing an alien would looks. How this can be achieve can be anything from hints at parallel evolution (similarities to an earth creature's evolution) to obvious evolved limbs (a gas bag used to float for example). Old news here since others have brought up these points in one way or another.

Someone brought up bipedal aliens (especially mechanized ones); if I learned anything from Shirow, it's that more than 2 legs is a must. 4 or more is preferrable since 3 would require more brains to co-ordinate. From what I've seen and read, designers (from business to military) are finding this out too since 2 legs would require more engineering and CPU.

***

Actually what I really want to know and I think this thread is the perfect one to bring this up in: is the relationship between the humans and Transformers a symbiotic one? If so, what do the Transformers get out of it? It's obvious what humans get out of it (both in protection and maybe technology) but what would the humans bring to the table that would balance out the symbiotic relationship? (Earth's energy sources not counting.)

There's a couple of "what-if"s that spin-off of this. Since Transformers are aliens, how would their morals and emotions be different to humans? Being robots would further widen the difference, something that's even more alien than any organic alien we would ever meet (for instance, loosing a limb wouldn't be as disasterous as it would be for a human). Maybe what the humans bring to the symbiotic relationship is what it is to be human.

It's almost a Blade-runner/Dark City-ish/David Brin Uplift-ish angle to things. Maybe the Cybertronion war is at a standstill with both sides doomed to wipe each other out of existance. Maybe it's because they can't trully evolve anymore? The humans may provide the spark they need.

Just some cool avenues they can follow now that the movie is establishing a whole new TF universe. BTW a hard sci-fi based background story would be freakin' cool.

 

We would give back the matrix to prime and autobot's to better ensure our saftey from the Decepticon's, and we could create a community....or maybe a gather ing of both race's to protect and serve. More of a happy ending.

 

In most science fiction, humanity is often shown as posessing several "humanistic" traits that other species do not have. Selflessness, altruism, etc... That "adventerous spirit" and "new perspective". What do the Transformers, mainly Autobots, get from their relationship with the humans? A new perspective on the universe and their battle with the Decepticons. Perhaps they realize that there is more at stake than just themselves. The more they interact with humans (and given a sequel they will) the more humanistic traits they are likely to pick up.

 

Actually, most of Shirow's sentient robots are bipedal, aside from the fuchi/tachikoma (and it's arguable how sentient they are). His walking vehicles, on the other hand (which includes fuchikoma) are all quadruped or more. Since the Transformers have enough computing power to achieve sentience, I think they can more than handle bipedal movement. After all, what's our human brain other than a computer made of meat?

Crap, even that last rhetorical question sounds really Shirow-esque.

 

I would say the Autobots would stand to gain allies, resources, and friends in "high places." Of course which people in those high places are benefactors or not remains to be seen by how much money the studio thinks it can rake in with one or the other.

As far as I know, except for BW and BM, humans have always played some sort of role in the Autobot-Decepticon war. Even BW Megs said that humans played a vital role in the Great War.

 

I was thinking more of the military mechs, who were rediculously dominant compared to commercial and police mechs. But, yeah, TF wouldn't lack for CPU processing power. Hey, more limbs means more to fall back on if one or two gets crippled.

Man, how great would it be if the movie leads to Shirow-esque questions? That will truly make the Transformers 'real' and make it surpass the genre.

 

No kidding.

Anyway, I figure the TransFormers generally have more in common with the androids in Appleseed than they have with one of the many crab-like tanks Shirow likes to make. Standing upright on two limbs is good for tool use and is more space efficient in social settings. If they want more stability, they can switch to vehicle mode.  

 

Bipedal also means more mobility, basically the only reason why you would want a legged mech in real life.

Speaking of vehicle modes, can't waits for Skyfire and his phantom 'Guardian' mode. (If it ever happens, probably be the closest thing to live action Robotech we will ever get.)

 

GERWALK

Grr! Don't give Robotech credit for something it didn't originate.  
The Bandai mold used for Jetfire was never branded as a Robotech toy.

 

True, but it didn't prevent them from having instructions on how to transform into "gerwalk" mode and for me to forever regret not getting Skyfire when I saw it on the shelves that one time... man, that was a well built toy  s

Back on subject, would Transformers be considered a great example of intelligent design?  

 

Thnx for the heads-up!

 

There are actually a big list of reasons why bipedal robots arent very optimal design choises (Which I wont go into as it's likely a hot enough topic to start its own thread). Giant robots are bipedal because it looks cool more then any other 'realistic' reasons. There's really no reason that an alien robot should be bipedal either, except to humanise them a bit.

Whether this is a good or bad thing, hey, I like me some giant robots, realistic or not.

 

They were fine for comic releif and R2's little moments of badassery, but I want to see Prime's eyes narrow in rage when he sees Megatron crush a human to death or steal an Autobot's spark. I want to see Megatron strike an evil grin and laugh when he wipes out an entire platoon of infantry. I want to see the TFs show a whole range of human emotions as main characters, not suporting characters.

 

Ya, his mouth looks a bit too scary for my taste. While R2 did a lot with just a light and beeper, I couldn't see it working for a starring role, which is what Prime and the others deserve. Ideally, I'd like to see Prime have a removable face-plate like Primal did in his first and third forms, but I think most other fans would hate that. As long as the eyes actually move I can see it compensating for lack of mouth. The one that worries me the most is Bumblebee, but I could deffinately see that weird face just being placeholder to help the animators on his CGI face. All in all I'm sure this will be a good movie even if my ideals aren't met, I just think that my ideals of live-action TFs could make this an even better movie.