Well uh, that isn't always the case. Me and my best friend went to go see Batman Forever in theaters and there were some old ladies sitting next to us who cheered very loudly and enthusiastically when Batman suited up. It was both funny and uncomfortable for a couple of middle school girls.  :

As for the answer to this, its obvious. As others have said, characters have a certain look people expect. You can streamline, you can modernize, but don't change them to be completely unrecognizable in looks and don't butcher there personality.

That path leads to disaster.

 

I don't have much of a problem with change -as long as it fits and respects the established ground rules and established characterization/character details that preceded it-and even better, if said change enhances the aforementioned.

However, change just for the sake of change, and thinking that idea automatically makes an equivalence to the idea of fictional beings who can transform into other things, is not a good thing, in my opinion.

 

And serving myself is merely what I'm doing. I want the characters to evolve and be different, because that's what I derive enjoyment from. And it's similarly aggravating when people suggest such change is bad because the characters need to remain recognisable.

 

Like Kevin Michael Richardsons The dreadlocks Joker in the Batman series?
It wasn't actually a disaster, but in my opinion one the best, weirdest and different and unique incarnations. So that path is not always a disaster

 

But you could tell it was Batman

 

I would argue that the kind of seriousness that a transformers film or series would be served well by isn't the kind of seriousness that the films have attempted so far nor is it a kind that is at odds with bright colours. I'm not married to the exact G1 style but bold and clean designs work much better for what is ultimately a pretty goofy concept aimed at children. Why would silliness or camp be undesirable qualities in a franchise famous and beloved for characters named Devastator, Swoop, Apeface and Bumblebee?

 

I don't mind a modernized design as long as it respects the spirit of the source material and keep the characters recognizable, something that the Bay movies failed at. If I watch an adaptation of a series that I love it has to evoke a sense of familiarity, if I want something entirely new I simply go for a new franchise.

 

You kind of make it sound like the only two choices are zero change on anything Transformers or throw everything out except of the list of names you have to chose from. That the only choices are Megatron must be a mass shifting pistol for all of eternity or everyone has to have a random number of limbs and eyes because they should never look like any past designs.

But it seems like there is a vast middle ground that has it's fans. Animated decided that a radio as an alt mode just didn't work for Soundwave any more but they did decide that the color and a masked face were cool things to keep. I don't see people being upset about Iron Hide being a pickup truck as much as they are upset that the design should have been red and the helmet ridge should be easy to make out. Every cartoon series saw the addition of new characters so there seems to be an openness to the idea that you can bring on new characters when the existing character just don't fit right. That's how we got Lugnut in Animated because there wasn't a Decepticon that fit what the show needed.

I don't think we can even say there will never be a place for massive design risks but I'm not sure that the big budget flag ship action movie is the right place for getting crazy. Beast Wars was a radical design change for the series but a cartoon was a good place to take that chance. It's kind of like the superhero business. The big movies are not really the place to take too many chances with Batman but the comic books are still a great place to try something crazy. It's why some comic books arches are on the list of stories that will get adapted into the big budget movies but there is that list of arches that will never make it to the big screen. Doesn't mean creativity is crushed because the big movies are not always the best place for something.

 

More or less the same reason why people want Batman looking like Batman and Superman looking like Superman. Jazz and Pre-AoE Optimus are ones of the preciously few Bayverse designs bearing any kind of semblance to their classic look.

 

Sure. I just merely disagree with the assessment of the attitudes of many. You can make an argument that IDW changes a considerable amount of character elements for a metric ton of characters from G1, yet IDW writers and artists still choose to keep elements that remain "true" in a sense that they're still recognizable by older fans. While I don't really like IDW for unrelated reasons, that has continually been the appeal of it, has it not? To stay largely connected to G1 yet still be it's own thing, it's own story.

IF you really read the thread, the majority of comments aren't even suggesting that we be "G1 or bust." It's just so that the characters retain some element that makes them recognizable. I think Ash of Carolina really hit the nail on the head here. It doesn't NEED to be G1 or completely incomprehensible alien. There can be a middle ground. Ironhide can be a truck, but he could at least be red, just as an example.

 

I see.

So you’re upset that you might not get to see any more of the same stuff you’ve been enjoying over the last 10+ years.

And now it might be changing away from that.

The Bayverse that people don’t seem to complain about when they demand change when exploring new boundaries even tho it’s lifespan has gone past a decade will still dominate the screen time while the fresh new take on existing characters will only show for probably just a few minutes.

 

Heck, even the JJPrise was identified as the Enterprise

 

Don't care as long as an entertaining movie is made, and the robots are enjoyable for what they are.

I'm not saying I don't prefer some designs to others, but it's never been a deal breaker, and even some film designs that first weirded me out, like the Stupid Drones on Lockdown's ship, have grown on me.

 

Completely G1 for me! .. or more or less! My massive fangirl...ness? Came out when I saw Shockwave and Prime on the recent BB trailer

 

I'll have to disagree on that, as I see a movie franchise like this as an excellent platform to come up with bold and fresh ideas that can truly be groundbreaking.

Science fiction films are aplenty. Ones with robots are fairly common too. But whereas characters like Iron Man or Robocop are constrained by their human-based nature, the very concept of Transformers opens up a world of possibilities.

They can basically be anything. And I find that potential somewhat hamstrung.

For example, it means Starscream cannot be a B-2 bomber, because he'd have to be black and fans won't be able to recognise him without shades of red and blue.

It also leads to the rather ludicrous scenarios we've seen in the films where the Autobots, despite being hunted by various parties, still retained the same flashy vehicle modes. I mean, if you're on the run, the logical thing to do would be to switch vehicles (as Optimus did at the start of AoE). But for the most part that's off the books because people won't know it's Optimus if it's not a blue and red semi, or Bumblebee if it's not a bright yellow sportscar. Not much of a robot in disguise there.

I'm not saying make Ironhide an eight-legged spider. But if they were to lose his helmet ridge or change his colour, that's a good evolution for me. A person wouldn't wear the same clothes for 30 years any more than a fictional robot character with the ability to transmutate into whatever machine they scan, keeping the same paint job all that time.

I felt the Bayverse characters (at least those in the first trilogy) struck a nice middle ground. They were creative updates on the characters, and some really pushed the boundaries. Which I can't say the same about for the Bumblebee movie, with regards to the Cybertronian scenes.

Maybe it's not entirely 'G1 or bust', but there's certainly a 'G1 or it's not so good' kind of vibe to it.

In my view, there hasn't been any truly amazing robot designs since RoTF. Almost everything since has been the standard, bipedal humanoid (but to be fair, Sentinel Prime, Shockwave and Hot Rod looked nice).

Just a quick look around Earth, and you'll find there's almost no other species like us. Even our closest relatives, primates, don't fully walk upright. So what are the chances that an alien life form from halfway across the galaxy, turn out to be carbon copies of us, only bigger and with metal instead of flesh.

 

Ya never know- forms similar to ours might be a requirement for technological advancement

 

No way to prove or disprove that, but I would think that the odds of lifeforms evolving separately across a distance of millions of light years having the same basic shape, to be astronomically slim.

 

I'm trash but...

I liked Movie Ironhide and the way he looks.

I liked Starscream and Soundwave's designs in Transformers Prime.

 

There’s a lot to be said about opposable thumbs and standing upright

 

You could say there's no other lifeforms on Earth like (insert species here.) And lots of them are more amazing.