Some times a good voice actor can really pack a lot of character into only a few lines, so yea a few lines for some of the minor bots would be a cool solution to how do you fit in character without making 3 hours long or a total mess like the second Mortal Kombat film.

 

In large part it is due to the movieverse being live action. The old animated film is barely an hour and a half long and manages the develop of dozens of new characters. Its one of the animation "secrets" Walt Disney discovered when makeing his films. Animated characters can move so much faster than real humans. So you don't end up wasteing seconds of screen time every time a live action character walks across a room and such. This allows animated films to pack more story into a given screen time.

 

cuz you got 2 hours and 46 robots...

the best you can hope for to get, "repaint number 2" for example TO be developed would be in comic form lol

it's ONLY 2 hours *or maybe a little more,* so you can not develop all 46 robots in 2 hours!  

 

Erm...the animated Transformers: the movie had some 42 robots with only 84 minutes to develop them  

 

If you want character development then read the bios of every ROTF toy box...

Seriously, for the GA (general audience) this is supposed to be a summer action flick, not a laundry list of explanations and credentials. If bay wanted to he could just get a book made for it.

 

You speak the total truth. I don't know why people fail to see this and think someone can make a 2 hour movie that develops 10 to 15 characters. Star Wars accomplished this because it was a drama and not focused on action as fully as something like TF. Lord of the rings, same thing. If TF was to spend as much time talking and walking and questing, people wouldn't relate or watch it, save for us fans, the franchise would flame out and toys wouldn't sell.

Man please. Only 5, maybe 6 characters were really developed in that movie, not to mention that its a cartoon, which can totally ignore the need for any human actors.

 

I dont expect the Decepticons, aside from the Leader ones, to ever have much dialog at all. Its obvious that Bay is portraying the Decepticons in a more Kaiju manner.

However, they need to focus on a tighter Autobot group for the next movie. But even that will lead to disappointment to many as it will invariably lead to several other autobots getting the shaft.

The other problem, is that the movie, no matter who is directing, will always have a lead Human cast, so that costs time to Autobot development as well. Then you have to factor SFX costs, and its easy to understand that the Budget Priority for the Robots is to render them while duking it out instead of just hanging around a base discussing stuff and developing the characters.

 

The best way to get around the budget limitations is to just scrap CGI in favor of kaiju. Stick some stuntmen in Transformers mascot costumes and set them loose in a soundstage for Ultraman-style fights <_<

 

to be honest, 3/4 of the robots ever created for TF universe were kind of pointless and redundant of eachother...peeps(geewuners) may not want to believe it but its true...

 

  = Don't take me seriously

Oh, wait! Nevermind...
[seething jealousy] You got a life away from the internet and wouldn't know such things [/seething jealousy]

[nerd rage] Will you at least rember her name this time? [/nerd rage]

 

This will probably be unpopular, but I'll try to reasonably state my opinion on this one.

First, I really only watched G1 as a kid, and then totally wigged out when I heard about the original Bay Transformers project. I was thrilled, and it brought me back to a slice of childhood that was fantastic.

That said, for me, the average joe moviegoer and fan, I really, really wouldn't like to watch CGI robots hanging around talking about their feelings, or going through 30 minutes of 57 Constructicons development. I'll fill in the gaps myself, it's more fun for me that way. I have 2.5 hours to watch the Bots and Cons beat up on each other, and then I have to wait a few years to do it all again. TV shows with large casts can develop many of them, 2.5 hour movies aren't the place for it in my opinion.

Going back and watching the G1 cartoons, it's a wonderful laugh (not in a bad way... they make me smile). There's a lot of shooting at each other from afar (I like the samurai hand to hand movie version more), and plenty of the G1 characters were stereotypes of the day, with nothing much exciting to say. At the end of the day, the Bots and Cons were warriors and Prime was the star of the show, with the "thoughtful" lines generally. And, I know people want to refer to "mighty" Megatron, but to me he was the one always retreating and his warring strategy was always full steam ahead, you know until it's time to "RETREAT." Plus, Megs was always in it for personal power, and knows when to defer to someone temporarily when it will benefit him later. To me the movies stay pretty true to that concept.

At the end of the day, I'm glad there's not a waste of budget to have too many heartfelt sunset scenes of Prime questioning his own decisions, or too many of Spike riding in Bumblebee chatting with him.