Ok. So I saw a thread about this earlier but the OP didn't seem interested in a real discussion. How do you feel about redesigns of characters that make them unrecognizable? This happens in almost every version of transformers but the movies seem to be the best example. I personally don't really like it. I don't mind an updated more modern look like Prime in the first three, of Ratchet even. Jazz too. But Sideswipe looks nothing like sideswipe. Starscream, Megatron, Skids, Arcee, Jetfire. They are also completely different. Often times when they do this they also completely change the personality like in AOE Woth Hound. I don't necessarily hate these versions of the characters, but they aren't who their names say you know? I actually enjoy JohnGoodman the bot, but he isn't Hound. What do you guys think? Is it why you hate some versions of transformers? Does it bother you? Am I just a stubborn G Whiner?

 

Sorry don't want to be rude but we just had a thread like this and it didn't end well.

 

i dont mind them making the characters look different, in my opinion they dont need to make them recognizable, its not needed, its a cool treat for the fans if they want to make them recognizable, but its not something they HAVE to do. if they want their own look for that character then go for it.

 

See ya!

 

I am aware. I thought it could be a nice topic, but that thread started out very accusation am and inciteful. Basically implying the movies suck because characters aren't recognizable. I just want to know other people's opinion and discuss it politely.

 

I know but threads like these tend to start an uproar of negativity.

 

My best guess is that way everyone goes into the movie equally. Meaning that those of us who watched more than meets the eye after school in the 80's don't have any insight than the teenager that is going to see it today. And it might be that MR Bay is infact ruining transformers forever. that last bit is a joke please no one take that seriously.


Edit: Damn when I started typing there was not one reply. I wanted to be first lol Too slow!!!

 

I think this thread is a fairly safe one to post in.

Characters have changed with each iteration of Transformers. Whether they are cool or not depends on your opinion. But I think that this series has done a fairly okay job at melding past iterations with a new version.


I feel that with the major characters, as long as they have some element (no matter how small) from their past versions it should be okay to reinvent them a little:
- Bumblebee is still a yellow car
- Ratchet is still a medical vehicle
- Jazz is still a cool car
- Jetfire was a former Decepticon
- Starscream is still a cowardly smug sod
- Soundwave is still a spymaster and has Ravage and Laserbeak as his minions
- Sentinel Prime is still Optimus's predecessor
- Lockdown is still a bounty hunter


With other characters it's okay to make changes, or to have just new characters introduced. Which I think have worked out successfully:
- Barricade was never a police cop before
- Skids and Mudflap were never brothers (but I like the Twins myself)
- Wheelie spoke in rhymes before
- Crosshairs was just a truck
- Hound was just a jeep

So yeah, it's your opinion.

 

In the current Hollywood model I don't think it is cool.

So many other films give you something in the look to trigger nostalgia. So while the armor is updated to look all cool on the big screen Iron Man looks basically like you would expect. The Ben Affleck Bat-suit and Bat-armor reminds you of the comic books. Even with other Paramount films Mr. Spock looks like how you would expect Mr. Spock to look while no one would have to tell an old Turtles fan that it was Beebop and Rocksteady in latest Turtles movie.

Honestly I'm just as baffled to why they went so radical with the Transformers. It seems like the same studio bad idea as hey let's put the entire GI Joe team in black uniforms instead of going for the old look. With Optimus Prime in the early films it seems like Paramount was showing there was this cool middle ground where you could put in all the iconic bits that oozed nostalgia while adding all sorts of new bits to take advantage of what you can do now in effects.

I don't think straight up G1 would have worked, and the complete redesigns haven't appealed to me. But it seems like there would have been this really nice middle ground where most people could have been happy. Sort of the update without having to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

I can take it or leave it.

It's great when great pains are made to make things match the source material, but there's a chance of the new version instantly blending in with all the rest because of that.

 

That's an interesting point! I hadn't ever thought of it like that.

I think you bring up some good points. The characters you mention in your first list (other than Jetfire) were done well in my opinion. Some didn't get enough screen time for me to determine whether their character is something I'm ok with, but they'll laid at least one thing right. All of them except for Starscream and maybe Bunblebee are fairly recognizable as the G1 character while also updated. Starscream, while looking different, acts just as he should and I wish he had more screen time. He's still a sniveling coward just like I want it.

This is pretty much how I feel. Optimus Prime was a great example of keeping the iconic look but updating it. It doesn't kill it for me but I think they could've handled other characters like that.

 

personally, i like it...movieverse did a nice job establishing it's own distinct look & feel

 

I wouldn't say every character looks unrecognizable, I mean, Optimus is still a blue and red truck with a mouthplate, windows on his chest, etc., Bumblebee is still a yellow car with a youthful appearance in and "horns" (well, more antennae in the movie's case, but whatever) in robot mode, Jazz is still a slick robot with a cool car mode and a visor, Ravage is still a fierce jaguar with guns on his hips, Grimlock's still a giant robot who turns into a T-Rex, Brawl's still a big green tank, Shockwave is still purple with a cannon in place of one arm and no recognizable face aside from his one eye, and... well, okay, I guess they do depart from the original designs after that.

Honestly, even though the movies do change a lot of elements, and while I would agree it does make for a relatively disappointing representation of the original characters when compared to Marvel's or DC's or even Star Trek's redesigns for their characters, but I don't mind so much when the characters are well executed, and I do think the designs look very cool. Like you say, they just don't often resemble the character's they're supposed to emulate.

 

All I'm going to say is this. Would it be exciting if every single character looked the same for 30 years? If every Ironhide was a red soccer mom van, if every Megatron was a mass-shifting gun, or if every Bumblebee was a tiny Volkswagen? No. While I don't care much for the Beast era, it did something different, which was really needed back then.

Another this is that people seem to think only the Movies make the characters 'unrecognizable'. Because Prime Arcee looks like G1 Arcee. Or BW Inferno totally looks like G1 Inferno. Nah, ignore those. Only bring it up with the movies because Michael Bay raped the franchise and is the Devil or whatever they say nowadays.

 

In a word: no.

It wasn't cool in 2007, it wasn't cool in 2009, it wasn't cool in 2011, it wasn't cool in 2014, and it won't be cool in 2017. Most fans wanted Transformers that actually looked like Transformers, not random alien bug shit with shared names that just happen to also transform into things.

 

Not a fan of name slaps.
If you're gonna give a character an original form, then take the extra step and give it an original name.

And, as far as Movie BB still looking like G1 bumblebee because he's yellow, I submit 2 things:
1) in AoE, he was black.
2) people recognize me by my face, not by the clothes I change on a daily basis.

I don't get people associating characters with alt modes; I go by their identities.
When a few characters in G1 disguised themselves as Stunticons did they stop being those characters because they looked like something else?

 

Meh, I think I've either grown to accept that names are going to get reused, and that they can be applied well across multiple characters who are completely different from each other and still... 'work' for both of them, for lack of a better term. Sometimes a cool name is just a cool name.

If they're going to go in a completely different direction with a character, even if they'll share a name with a previous character, no I don't think there's any issue with them looking completely different. It might be a good thing, in fact, as it can help break away from the preconceptions the audience might have with that character-name.

If there's a deliberate intent to reference another character, however, there has to be SOMETHING of that original in them, though. Doesn't necessarily have to be a blunt visual reference, or a pile of character traits, but there has to be at least a piece of the 'core' of who that character is. Ironhide might be the best example I can think of in the movie universe for what I'm talking about. He wasn't Texan, he wasn't red, he didn't turn into a van, he didn't spray people with liquid nitrogen or acid (oh the irony), he didn't have a helenic mohawk-crest or a chest window, etc. etc. But even with all those differences, I don't recall him being singled out for not being 'Ironhide' enough all that much (I think I saw more hate for Sideswipe not being red, for example). Maybe being a big, gruff enforcer for Optimus was enough of the 'original' Ironhide to work with, maybe other Ironhides since G1 had opened the door to all those differences, I don't know.

 

And yet people bemoan movie OP because he doesn't act like G1 OP

 

IMO, if people are gonna keep whining about this, they should find a different franchise. Transformers has always, ALWAYS had radical redesigns.

Just look at Beast Wars, the best version of Transformers out there.

The Predacons weren't a combiner, but a whole faction.



Dinobot wasn't a group, but a character.



Scorponok wasn't a giant green city-bot, but a regular sized, purple, dimwitted scientist.



Silverbolt wasn't a combiner lead with a fear of flying, but a noble knight, with a darker side to him.



And this trend has continued infinitely, throughout all of Transformers history, from Beast Wars onward. Just look at BM Thrust, or RID01 Scourge, or Armada Hotshot, Blurr, Wheeljack, Jetfire, Sparkplug, Red Alert, Smokescreen, or Cybertron Scattershot, Scourge. If you want to live in a little G1 only world, go right ahead, but if you can't stop whining about the rest of the franchise not doing the same, even after 20 years, then please go away, and find a franchise more to your liking.

 

Wanna make me?