Paramount Says Transformers is in the Same League as Star Wars and Star Trek

I take it you haven't seen Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Ah ... but he used THE STAR WARS and our TRANSFORMERS ... he could've gone with Spider-man or X-Men.

QFT. Visionary marketeer (sp?) perhaps.

-airfox

I really like that part too.

I'd say by now that TFs have passed Star Trek. Star Trek hasn't had any kind of market presence in years. No TV, no movies...zilch. The last two incarnations (Voyager and Enterprise) drove most Trek fans away. Recently, there's been an IDW comic, and probably a few specialty-market action figures. Compare this to Transformers, which has had a very successful feature film (I'm looking at you, Star Trek: Nemesis), a continuous toy line, nearly continuous comics, constant TV presence, and bigger retail presence. Maybe JJ Trek will be what it takes to reboot and rejuvenate the franchise, but it has a long way to go to get back its former pop culture status.

Transformers was good, was it Empire Strikes Back or Wrath of Khan good? No, but it was good.

Aha! But was it The Phantom Menace or Star Trek: Insurrection good?

-airfox

Transformers is 100 times better than Star Wars, and is even better than Star Trek. Always has, always will. Star Wars didn't appeal or influence me as strong as Transformers did. Star Trek has been known as "dead" for quite awhile. Even though I didn't have a huge issue with the latest movie, it did flop big time. I still do like Trek, but the first time I saw Transformers... it hit me big time. I don't ever think I ever saw anything comparing to the same par as Transformers. No show or movie franchise so far beats it in my opinion. As far as a "toyline" is concerned. Transformers was a toyline back in the 80's, but it's became much more than that now. It's now a large multi million-dollar entertainment franchise. Transformers is rich in awesomeness. Always has, always will.

And for those who have bashed the anime-Transformers. You haven't realized the link. Beast Machines was a huge flop, but unlike Paramount who just "gave up" on Star Trek; Hasbro came up with ideas to reboot the franchise. They turned to the Japanese, and just look to where we are at now. Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron was the foundation in which established the movie. The people who run Transformers are quite intelligent, idealists are intelligent in general. Now Transformers is a enormous future for the science fiction community, possibly an infinite future.

Studio spokesman Michael Vollman created Star Wars? Did I miss a memo?

(Sorry, my earlier post was not a reply to yours above it. )

Yeah! I'd like that link.

Ok thats cool...now they just need to make 8 more Transformers movies to catch up to Star Wars and Star Trek.

Maybe so, but far less good ones. SW has 3, and ST has maybe 4.

Wow. That was cold.

But it's always going to come down to fan opinon and just what we are comparing.

If it's just movies then I'd take even the worst of the Trek films over the first Transformers film since the Transformers movie honestly had me wondering if I shouldn't give up on Transformers and go to other hobbies instead.

If we are talking TV well it's sort of tough, the Star Wars animated shorts were far better than anything in the last three new Star Wars films. Long history of Star Trek shows some better than others. And Transformers has long list of cartoons some better than others yet again.

Toys, oh wait GI Joe shots all the others out of the water there.

Comic books, pop culture humor, just so many ways you can compare franchises where some times one out shines the others while other times the other franchise shines best. But even there it varies fan to fan. Such as you loved the movie and other things Transformers while watching the movie once was one too many times for me but I still love other things Transformers.

Transformers are good, but they have to work alot to reach the sme league of SW ( I think ST is crap).

However the TF 2007 movie is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better that the Prequel Triology (SW)

We are also only one film into the Transformers movie franchise and they are talking character character character already so if they deliver on both action and character then Transformers would really blow the Teen Vader Angist triology out of the water.

Yeah, I'd say tf is like shit wars & star wreck.

(1) Few,if any, original ideas.

(2) Owned by money grubbing corporations.

(3) Lots & lots of pointless overpriced merchandise.

(4) Over zealous (rabid) fans.


The toys are pretty fun though.

Was this an ignorance induced off-the-top-of-your-head comment or is there some actual misinterpreted study behind it? I would love to take a look at some of these "errors" if you'd like to PM them to me.

See, with Star Trek, the issue was it had been a continuous tv and movie franchise for some 19 years up to the point Enterprise's cancellation in 2005 tempoarily ended Star Trek.

Even former Star Trek writers (such as Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore) and outside observers felt it was time for Star Trek to take a break, because there had been an unrelenting torrent of Star Trek since 1986. The public needed breathing room, and the franchise needed to reinvent itself.

Beast Machines was not a 'huge flop', it just didn't do nearly as well as Beast Wars. I would also suggest the success of RID, Armada, Energon and Cybertron were down to Hasbro's ideas and marketing rather the how the Japanese created the cartoons or whatever, given Car Robots, Superlink and Galaxy Force were financial disasters, and Takara engineer the Transformers toys regardless of which market it is intended for.

So yes, the foundation of the creation of the movie is built upon recent successes, but Japanese side of TF had little to contribute to the success beyond the toys.

One small reason I would disagree is that all the Star Wars (originals) were pretty much equal. Lucas's focus was'nt trying to outdo each film with new tech and ideas, it was all pretty much one big movie and it gave the trilogy an overall balance.

The TF movies just feel like theyre trying to outdo the previous one, plus they're just winging it movie to movie with the story. Lucas had it all down before picking up the camera

Id love to put it in the same league, but cant.

I love both SW and Transformers, sure SW has had a lot more influence in pop culture, but I prefer TF anytime.

I could've used The Final Frontier though ... which is so much worse than Insurrection that it's not funny anymore.

Sorry Ash - not trying to be an ass here or anything - but I seriously can't believe you'd take The Final Frontier over the Transformers movie. I know the Transformers movie wasn't a work of art, but it was at the very least better than that train wreck of Spock and Kirk searching for God.

-airfox

Yeah! He's a traitor! *b*tchslap*

Let's wage glorious war with our battle energy axes and G1-styled blasters against phasers.

Sadly, I have to agree with this statement. It seems like nobody even remembers Star Trek anymore. It makes me sad.

And I also hate to say it, but I'm not holding out much hope for the new Trek movie. It may be great (thought it's technically an odd-numbered Trek, so it might fall prey to the pattern) but the general public doesn't care about Trek anymore.

Aha! I know. I've asked people, they're like "W... WTF is Trek?"

Paramount, though, has a lot of confidence in JJ Trek. They're moving it from November to May, because they think the 'summer' movie season will contribute to a higher gross.

Check......check......and check.

Armada and the end of Bast Machines look good compared to those.

That and the books killed it for me.

In all honesty, TF is just starting. Assuming they do start putting actual depth to the movies, they can become as good as the SW/ST series, but it'll take a lot of work to reach what those two did in their hey-day.

Actually, if you take out the nostalgia factor, All the StarWars movies are the same, except for #5, which George Lucas had the least amount of influence on. Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 all had HORRIBLE dialog, cookie-cutter plots, and awkward relationships. George Lucas cannot pull a performance out of an actor, the way many other directors can. George Lucas makes Paul W.S. Anderson look like Martin Scorcese.

Empire Strikes Back had a brilliant actor-focused director who wasn't afraid to tell Lucas to "ef off". He managed to pull off some of the best performances ever given by Harrison Ford in his entire career. Even Mark Hamill was tolerable. That's why that movie resonates so well and is considered the best of the movies. All the other movies were under direct uber-control by Lucas, and that proved the man is a talentless hack (much like Michael Bay). Lucas is a genius businessman, however. He was among the first to negotiate ownership of marketing rights for his films. Because of that, Fox lost out on BILLIONS of profits from all the StarWars figures, toilet paper, lunchboxes, etc. Before Starwars, massive movie merchandise campaigns were unheard of. Georgie made hollywood realize that they could make far more on a movie than just showing the movie, and it's turned into the current frankenstein monster that it is.

Georgie even made the actors sign away their rights to their own faces! That's why the toys look so much like the actors. Aside from Harrison Ford, none of the actors got any residuals from the figures and merchandise. Ford was smart and renegotiated his contract to include a percentage of material using his likeness. The other actors got a flat $200 upfront.

Wow... my parents would be proud that I put my college film history education to such good use. *shrugs.*

I'm only 23 but I've seen a lot of the original Star Trek movies all the way to the last series of movies and shows dating up to when Lamarr Burton or whatever his name was on the show. I honestly have to say I've always loathed Star Trek> Both characters, and story (It turned into a fucking soap opera with the most retarded looking laser guns I have ever seen...ohh and the movies from the 90's ahahaha what incoherent, pointless drivel....BOOORRRRIIINNNGGG) Star Trek as a whole, is A LOT more campy and corny than Transformers the movie ever was...and I'm talking William Shatner days as well...."Trek" has always sucked and is now dead for a reason..and should stay dead IMO. The only character Patrick Stewart was ever meant for was Professor X! And those movie sucked too(BECAUSE of character portrayal and lack of faithful character development hmmm sounds familiar)...but even still I'd want him as Professor X again in any further installments (just not the rest of the cast) just 'cause he makes such a good one.

However, I think Star Wars and Transformers are both equally awesome...I have love for all characters in both universes...except for JAR JAR!! It is true though, Star Wars might rain supreme in mythos/character development. We'll see if they expand and make this next one a little bit deeper.

please don't bump old threads.