No, I would have not. And not because I don't think it's a good idea, but rather — as a hardcore G1 fan — I would have never been able to look at the material objectively enough to think of a drastically different way to go about things. And I think that's what's GREAT about what we're getting. It brings something few of us ever thought of, or could have come up with on our own. Just like G1. I could play an Alternator's transformation back and forth in my head endlessly. But I have absolutely no idea what the movie robots will look like moving, transforming, emoting, etc, and that's the fascinating part. It makes me feel in awe the way G1 did when I was five, and that...THAT I think is what I'm glad the filmmaker's tried to do, instead of just conforming to our 20 years of preconceived notions for what a Transformers movie would/sould look like.
But in turn it's pissing a lot of people off, so how exactly is it worth it? What you said would only be valid if nearly all fans liked the new aesthetic, but they don't, not even most. It irritates people when others talk of the movie as being something wonderous for everyone when it's obviously not to them. We've never seen alternator like aesthetics in live action, nothing resembling "traditional" Transformers. That in itself would have been plenty amazing. More complexity and it being different to what's gone before in ways that weren't obvious to think of doesn't make it good. Basically, the new transformations are folding up a vehicle into a robot. It's not THAT imaginative.
It's called 'Distinguishing yourself from the crowd'. The entire point would be to be different from your typical anime robot. In any case, you're misreading me there. I meant they'd be more skeletal as compared to the original G1 type style, not compared to the current movie images. That's the question, isnt it? So far the movie is testing VERY well, so I dont think it's as much of a detriment as you might think. ...It's also what ALL transformers do, so I'm not sure why the need to bring it up as a point. The new Movie style just folds them up with more intricate motions.
Personally I think the movie designs are more anime. I swear, the new Megs is your typical genaric anime monster. I've been saying that for months, and every new image I see of him, I'm convinced if it more and more.
And to add to that notable people in the fandom; Rik Alvarez, our own Tony Bacala and Ryan Y. of Seibertron.com saw 25-30 mins of preliminary footage and were impressed. In fact Ryan prior to viewing the material was STRONGLY vocal about it. And after viewing said material he said the following & Sound to me like aesthetic aside this movie IS generally well recieved now. And that the fandom in general is more accepting of it due to positive reviews then they were a year or so ago
... but they already are since they're made out of car parts. That's always been what made the look of TFs unique, or at least the TFs that were like that, which is why the movie aesthetic fails for many people - only Jazz and a couple of others really follow that idea anymore. They don't look more unique - like was said, they have a general vibe of being General Grevious clones. Plus, if they wanted to make Transformers in general stand out more, they would have fed more off what made them more unique in the first place. TFs are meant to look Gundam/Macross like but with car parts for armour. You can see "Well that's old", but we've never seen that kind of giant robot in live action with this level of technology. So it's not "old" at all. I would be all for trying these kind of new designs AFTER we've gotten to see what Transformers look like in high quality CG. No, older TFs are "engineered", it's hard to explain, but their transformation is much more mechanical than the movie ones. Except for Jazz, he doesn't seem to do much folding. Yeah, the designs are influenced by anime monsters, but not anime giant robots. This is kind of the problem. Though there's also strong element of "fuck japan, hollywood rules" in the way they're going about it too, which I dislike. The seem to be purposely disregarding the Japanese way of doing things, and they'd probably know how to design a real life alien giant robot better than anyone. Ryan was mainly vocal about the way the production staff was going about it, and some of the more inane decisions like Apescream and ROCKLORDS, a bit like me I guess. His boards were actually very pro-movie for quite some time, and banned people if they were anti-enough. It's only more recently it's turned. What, because Ryan accepts it? Come on, this is like when people say how a family member was converted from being a druggie to fundamental Christianity(another drug) by Falwell, so that makes him an okay guy. Ryan is a bit of a nutjob, he was never the most vocal against the movie. If I see someone like Covenant saying "Whoa, I was wrong", then I might reconsider. I expect he's banned from most places by now, though. I used to read his posts a lot on the movie boards. I don't think you realise that even I'm really looking forward to the movie. I want to see this movie. I hope I enjoy it. BUT it doesn't make the things that annoy me go away. If anything it's more annoying marring an otherwise great movie with some poor designs and plot ideas than making it generally average. But positive revies don't change the fact that Starscream is an ape, Ironhide's legs are made out of a scrapheap, and Prime's lips are made from too much collagen. He has rape claws instead, so it's all fine and dandy. I must admit he does look an awful lot better in that shot than in the CG Renders. But he still looks more like some crazy monstrous drone than the leader of the Decepticons. It's worrying. Megs looks a lot like an EVA, actually. But I never really considered those "proper" anime giant robots, they're far too organic.
Accurate or not, I'm just so damn bored with seeing the same Starscream, Ironhide, and Prime in 500 figure, statue, and comic book variations. Starscream is like the Rx-78 of Transformers. Blah. Change is good. Even Gundam mixes it up with some bizarre stuff like For the Barrel and then of course Turn A Gundam.
What? We've had several new Starscream designs, all of which have been accepted by the fans as a whole. Just not this ape-like one. Change isn't inherently good when it comes to iconic characters. If anything, it can be damaging. You're missing the areas in which change is actually good. I don't know why people have such a problem with familiarity. I guess that AEC did something to people that made them like that. You won't find it the same way with comics fans. The changes generally have to be put in a book with "Ultimate" in the title, or not happen at all.
Not trying to be snarky here, but you obviously havent seen many mecha series if you believe this. There are tons of anime series that involve transforming robots, and most of them 'share' the same aesthetic with Transformers. Look at any of the Brave series for a quick example. Considering the Transformers were originally a mix of different transforming robot toylines, it's not like they really didnt have a unified 'look' in mind for the things to begin with. You know, I keep hearing this, but no one ever seems able to point to an anime series that resembles the Movie Transformers. Considering that the Transformers line is, in general, about as anime generic as you can get this sort of statement always amuses me. I LIKE anime mecha, but I think you need to have a large set of blinders on if you cant see how much the original Transformers line shared with other anime mecha.
For me, I'd try to make the designs look as close to the G1 designs as best as I could. I want my fellow TF fans to feel that the live TF movie pays homage to the franchise they all come to know and love.
It moves the franchise forward, keeps it from getting stale, and potentially opens the franchise up to new members. If you bank on a new direction, lose 2 fans in the process and gain 10 new ones, it was a good move. Not really. Thanks to the very talented Michael Smith, here's your sought after live-action Alternator. ILM & Bay's work takes the spectacle about 10x that level of intricacy and complexity, actually building the robot from a car instead of wrapping a robot in a car. What Michael Smith did is the best fan art I've seen, but why should ILM stop at fan art quality when they're contributing to a $145m film? It's a level of technical complexity and eye candy that cannot be seen anywhere else; thusly, it's worth the $8 for Joe Popcorn to have a lookie.
Well specifically, I meant Megatron looks like your genaric anime monster. The others not as much. They just look bad. But when it comes to Megatron, yea, that's all I see. And on a slight side note, the other thing that bugs me about him is that, if I didn't already know Megs turned into an alien jet, (scoff) I wouldn't know he turned into anything at all. I doubt any of us would be able to tell.
Can we be clear on the fact that Michael Bay didn't sit down and draw these things man, that partciular accolade belongs to the team at ILM. I'll be honest, if I won some kind of contest and got to go to a premiere with the stars, first thing I'd do is ask for the design team's studio and bring them beer and pizza, sod hanging out with Bay.
Is it really neccesary to hurl insults like that? Remarks like that are why these movie threads ALWAYS go south....Because of baseless insults like that For the most part this thread's been civil BECAUSE of the lack of insults. And it would be nice to keep it that way
