Stephen Davis Comments On The Future Of Transformers Franchise Media

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by SilverOptimus, Apr 1, 2018.

  1. Autobot N

    Autobot N Wants a Legacy Sunstorm

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  2. Haywired

    Haywired Hakunamatatacon

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    Thank you, this thread.

    Thank you for posts implying that Bayverse was ever driven and made out of creativity and artistry instead of being a blockbuster moonlighting as a toy commercial.

    I needed that.



    Now to remove all this tea and Kit Kat from the screen and the keyboard...
     
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  3. GrimLocke

    GrimLocke Cultus Volcanicus

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    Thing is, @Windsweeper II, that would require Hasbro to admit that it was a bad idea to ever get involved with Michael Bay! Especially since he hated the Dynobots and Unicron, until he was forced down—on both fronts!

    I think I only saw his first two outings, and I don’t feel a strong desire to see any of the rest, though I may pick up Studio Series Grimlock cause it looks cool and I think it would be cheeky to have FoC Grimlock riding on Studio Grimlock’s back.

    Still, I believe, with absolute certainty, that what Transformers needs now is Anime.

    So, I’ll leave you with a lil’ mood music from Eric Burdon and The Animals...

     
  4. Windsweeper II

    Windsweeper II Banned

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    I've been doubting myself whether a Transformers movie with good characterisation and a decent amount of screentime for the TF's can be done, since the CGI for them takes up so much of the budget.
     
  5. Infosaur

    Infosaur Ancient Cybertronian

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    Well as far as corporate smoke blowing goes, I see some room for optimism.

    I have a small (slightly less small than when we watched Rescue Bots together) kid, so I saw a bunch of Rescue Bots and though it could have been HORRIBLE, it was actually really cool and did a good job of sneaking a few jokes under the radar for adults.

    When my kid stepped up to RiD I saw some potential, but it was wasted by "gotta catch 'em all" villains of the 'weak' and poor character development. (Frankly, my first impression of Sideswipe was they nailed the "I don't break rules, I bend them,,,, a lot" attitude of his character.) They also did quite a bit to appease longtime fans (Starscream, Soundwave, Stunticons) unfortunately screentime was at a premium and the main story line was something of a joke. (Even fan favorite Hank, got sidelined)

    So after accepting that Lost Light and Optimus Prime are getting canned and the IDW continuity is ending. The possibility of a Roberts penned RID or a Margrid Scott version of Rescue Bots could actually work. Maybe slightly more adult/mature than the show? Some decent relationships, aging up the humans, some world building, and some cannon answers to old questions (Chief Burns' wife? Rusty's mom? Sideswipe/Stongarm romance? Heatwave badass-ery? What's going on on Cybertron that forced Bumblebee to prefer to stay on Earth?

    As for Paramount, no movie house has done less with more than they have. They OWNED Star Trek!!! And ran it into the ground. Relaunched it, in a convoluted way that both confused the non-fan and insulted the fan base. (Clean relaunch, no time traveling Spock, no destruction of Vulcan, no British Kahn,,, etc.) They likewise shot themselves in the collective foot with Transformers, and I'm willing to bet if I looked into what other franchises they've owned they might have also torpedoed.

    Just saw Ready Player One. And this is a decade after Avatar, and not to mention Toy Story. SFX budget is no excuse for completely ignoring character development.
     
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  6. Windsweeper II

    Windsweeper II Banned

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    Good point.
     
  7. CopperPuppet

    CopperPuppet Probably a Robot

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    Perhaps it would be fun to get rid of the CGI in favor of having people in Super Sentai style mech suits.
    That'd force them to get creative, right?
     
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  8. GrimLocke

    GrimLocke Cultus Volcanicus

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    TakaraTomy’s Zoids Wild and Studio Triggers SSSS Gridman are both digitally animated, @Windsweeper II, though the former is a bit more obviously CG, but that’s not so surprising for Zoids, after all.

    And, naturally, Zoids is aiming for a younger audience than Trigger, what with Wild seeming to be more of a play on Monster Hunter Stories (and Digimon and Pokemon to a lesser extent), while Trigger has always straddled an approach that’s a bit between... HBO and Cinemax for the most part, of something like that.

    Anyway, some trailers below the spoiler for some examples of what TakaraTomy and Trigger have planned this year...



     
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  9. Moy

    Moy Constructicons!

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    What part of that is a lie?
     
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  10. RodimusSupreme

    RodimusSupreme Banned

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    3rd Party's fine to me, KO companies are fine to me. And if Hasbro fails (as a company), Transformers WILL die. It's just purposeful ignorance to think that one franchise of theirs can survive by itself (Other than maybe Star Wars). If Transformers doesn't make them enough money after a while, then they'll just can the whole thing and focus on the other franchises they have. You do realize Hasbro have more than just Transformers for a franchise they own, right?
    EXCUSE ME?!?! G1 STARTED the franchise. G1 didn't save crap!!
     
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  11. RodimusSupreme

    RodimusSupreme Banned

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    ...And I thought I was annoyed with people here and elsewhere...
     
  12. GrimLocke

    GrimLocke Cultus Volcanicus

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    Conversely, @RodimusSupreme, Transformers isn’t just owned by Hasbro.

    I’d still prefer something from Studios Trigger or Bones, but a new Tomy produced anime would be better than anything announced so far, even if it were more Shonen than Seinen like Zoids Wild.
     
  13. Aernaroth

    Aernaroth <b><font color=blue>I voted for Super_Megatron and Veteran

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    You sound extremely rustled in this post. So are you actually going to leave? Goodbye and thanks for contributing to the community, if you are, because I hope you're not going to go down the road of all the users who tantrum about how they're going to be gone forever and THEN we'll see how much we end up missing them. I'd expect more from you than that.

    I'm going to be really honest with you here, you'd been an ardent defender of the TF films for years now, but ever since the last one came out, you've seemed... different. Frustrated, less patient with people, and way more willing to lash out or respond in ways I don't think I would have seen from you beforehand. As I've said before in other threads, you seem really invested in the idea that the TF films HAVE to be successful, seem to be latching onto anything that gives that impression, and have been pretty dismissive of pretty much anything to the contrary. You seem to be taking everything that's come out since TLK was released very, VERY personally, and I'm not saying that as an attack or to belittle you, I'm saying it because I don't recall your attitude being the same in the previous years you've been here.

    Things certainly seem to be changing, especially when it comes to the films. But in all honesty? That's okay. I think you got into the franchise through the films, so while maybe you've seen turnover in the comics, the tv shows, the toys, etc., I don't think you've had to go through a major "change" in one of the parts of the brand you're really into. I imagine all, or at least most of us have gone through one of those, possibly more than one, and yes, there's a sense of loss. Those changes are normal, though, as far as the Transformers brand is concerned. If anything, the decade of ongoing that all fit an extremely specific aesthetic has been more or less unheard of for the brand, but sooner or later it all seems to go through a reinvention. The movies have already been highly influential in media that has followed their release. Give whatever comes next a chance (or some of the other history of the brand). There's no guarantee you'll like it, but the parts of previous incarnations that have been successful (which, at the end of the day, I'd say the films have been, at least financially and in terms of putting TF back in the public consciousness) tend to crop up again and again. Its those constant reinventions that got us the TF films in the first place. I can't help but see them as a good thing in the long run.

    If you're done here, well, good luck wherever you land next, but if you're planning on sticking around, please, PLEASE take a step back and think about your posting, because you used to come off as a much more positive poster, and posts like these are unbecoming of your years with the community here.



    I'm not sure if you're joking, but while I think this would be a massive commercial and critical flop, I'd be amped to see it happen just because of how 'out there' it would be.
     
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  14. GrimLocke

    GrimLocke Cultus Volcanicus

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    I could go for a Headmasters Tokusatsu,@Aernaroth & @CopperPuppet, but perhaps something a bit more Kamen Rider-ish to start, since they do frequently feature CGI upgrade mecha from their bikes.

    Start with the Headmasters shot down and crash landing on Earth, but separated from their scattered bot bodies.

    But, have their transtectors already scan an alt mode upon crashing, so that the Headmasters have to generate a human Alt mode from their transtectors’ Alt mode that provides them clues to their transtectors’ whereabouts, and, naturally, Emissary and Wipe Out take the longest to find Cerebros and Full-Tilt, respectively.

    All the while, the Headmasters face small scale cybertronian beasts that are being cranked out by some nepharious master mind, and then bigger bots and beats aligned with a mutual devious foe to bot and con alike as transtectors are tracked down around the Earth.

    Oh, and the bots and cons make Human friends along the way who help them not only disguise themselves and search for clues to their transtectors’ whereabouts, but teach the bots and cons life lessons as their journey continues :p 

    Presumably, to drag things out further, the bots and cons would find Max and Tryps eventually, but lacking their transformation cogs, or something, such that they now have ships and bases, but no super weapons.

    Finally, when they do find their whatchamacallits, cap it off with a team up against Scorponok, whose been pulling the strings all along, probably, since I can’t think of any other Decepticon Titans.

    Otherwise, it’s down to or could, afterward, lead to a team up against Unicron, or maybe a Giant Quintesson Titan, whatever that might be.

    Still, starting small from something well paced make those final heights all the grander, like Dancouga, which doesn’t finally combine until about halfway into the show.
     
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  15. CopperPuppet

    CopperPuppet Probably a Robot

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    That's quite the idea you have there. I was just joking about a Transformers movie where the Cybertronians were just guys in those bulky, borderline cardboard box style robot suits Sentai uses.
     
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  16. GrimLocke

    GrimLocke Cultus Volcanicus

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    I do really like the idea of showcasing the Headmasters through Tokusatsu, but I felt resorting to Kaiju costumes would be a tad bit of a disservice to the transtectors so my mind veered towards Kamen Rider, @CopperPuppet There were some pretty big CGI buddies in 555, Kiva and Decade, from what I recall watching years ago.

    Then again, I guess we’d have to wait for the MasterPiece Trypticon and FortMax before that could even remotely become a reality :D 

    Also, with Gridman and Ultraman both having anime revivals in the works, why not ring up either of their studios, Hasbro? :oops: 
     
  17. SilverOptimus

    SilverOptimus Movie News Monster Moderator News Staff

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    Absolutely. Very well put. I myself came to the franchise with the movies but I've now accepted the fact that a change is inevitable. In fact, at the moment, a good change is a must. Transformers Franchise has always been about change. Figuratively and Literally. A market analyzer once told me that 30+ years for a franchise is a huge thing. Not many companies can pull it off. The reason why Transformers survived so well is because of its constant transformation. Hasbro knows this, Paramount knows this. Batons must always be passed, torches must always be passed. If Paramount can keep up the momentum, then continuing is fine by me. But the verdict is in clear writing: The film series must do something extraordinary, otherwise it'll enter Franchise Fatigue. Star Wars is the clear example of this. I think I put it in the best way possible on my 'Focal Point Article':

    "It is indeed amazing to realize that it has been 11 years years since the first Transformers Live Action Movie came out. For many across the globe, these movies became their own G1. We couldn’t help but wonder at the fact that Bumblebee: The Movie will become a new generation’s introduction to The TransFormers. There’ll be a kid out there so happy during this Christmas season, watching the new movie with awe and wonderment and later writing to Santa for a Bumblebee toy. 4 days later on the Christmas Day, he or she will wake up early in the morning and dash to the Christmas tree to tear the packaging with so much excitement to see their new toy. Thus, a new ear will truly dawn."
     
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  18. CopperPuppet

    CopperPuppet Probably a Robot

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    @GrimLocke
    I'm not too familiar with Transtectors or Headmasters outside of the 'Titan Masters' incarnation, newer fan sorry, so I can't say much.
    I have seen Kamen Rider though (Every Heisei series besides Kuuga, Agito, Blade and Hibiki currently), so I can at least understand what you mean in that regard, kinda.
     
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  19. Windsweeper II

    Windsweeper II Banned

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    Everything :) 
     
  20. GrimLocke

    GrimLocke Cultus Volcanicus

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    I haven’t seen it either, but I had skimmed the TFWiki for the Headmasters a bit ago in my curiosity to see where Sixshot had received the most characterization, @CopperPuppet

    However, over a decade ago, I followed a fandub of Transformers Victory that was surprisingly well done, especially compared to the Combiner Wars Machinima :p 

    I’ll probably get to the Titan Wars Machinima when I get up to that in the IDW comics, but I suspect getting around to the Headmasters might be more rewarding.