...I literally showed you the box office numbers of your own country at how the franchise was taking a nosedive. Yes, the franchise made lots of money, but you ignore how the last entry did so poorly that no business with a brain would continue down a path that was beyond clear in falling apart. It's called "cutting losses" in the business world.

...okay then.

DAMN YOU.

Now I want a snickers.

 

You should watch the Twilight movies and then get back to us about the whole only the best of the best movies make money. That there are no movies out there with a big box office run that make you wonder why people pay good money to watch that.

I like the Marvel movies and they do insanely well at the box office. But I wouldn't call them the greatest movies that have ever been made. They entertain people, but they also tend to be really formulaic. They have had a crazy number of movies over 10 years but you could count the great Marvel/Disney live action villains on one hand.

Transformers had it's time in the sun and for a while the series was entertaining people. But everything runs out of steam at some point if the creative team can't find a way to shake things up. I don't know if we'd be talking about the Fast and the Furious movies if the fifth movie didn't shake things up to bring new life to the franchise. Or look at how long Jurassic Park sat on the shelf because by the third movie just having bigger dinosaurs wasn't enough to carry the franchise.

Don't become like those G1 only fans. Chill out and wait around to see where things are going to go next. Yea sure I loved G1 but that doesn't mean that I don't also love Beast Wars, Animated, or that there were not episodes of Transformers Prime that knocked it out of the ball park for me. Heck I passionately hate movie Bumblebee but I'm still willing to say I'll watch the Bumblebee movie if it turns out to be a really good movie.

 

........I read the thread title quick and though it said "Stephen Davis Comments On The FAILURE Of Transformers Franchise Media"....LOL! now THAT would be a story!

 

It's a perspective, and a valid one. Presently, Generations, including CW, TR, POTP, Mega Action Series, Cyber Battalion; Cyberverse generic/evergreen designs, every successful video game and comic, Masterpiece, and just about everything available, sans a few nods to Beast Wars and Armada, is G1 based. Hell, I still remember the late 90's and having nothing at all to choose from other than a few Beast Machines Figures. No MPs, no G1 reissues, no Generations, no movies, nothing.

My comment was contra the notion that the franchise is lacking congruence. It is not. And this is in large part, in my opinion, thanks to a return to what is essential.

 

I think it might be kind of a shame that there does seem to be such a focus on G1. Don't get me wrong, G1 is cool and all, but the franchise seems to have lost some sense of malleability that I appreciated, if only slightly. I think it's kind of a missed opportunity that the Generations line doesn't seem to branch out like it should in my opinion.

 

Part of that blame falls on Warden, who has a massive fixation on only G1 and thus reportedly is strongly against any kind of development of character incarnations from other series unless Hasbro strongarms him into compliance.

 

You alright Rush?  

Ironically I have to say the only place where I find mass amounts of people loving the movies, is right here.

 

That so?
A damn shame either way. I would personally love to see new incarnations of other non-G1 characters and stories pop up alongside all new content and the usual G1 tributes and such.

 

Or a chug Strongarm  

 

Paramount?

I remember some old news articles stating that Paramount have big problem with money.
And Paramount is putting high expectations on the Transformers films to save their financial losses.
And those expectations are riding high on The Last Failure, thinking they'll get billions of dollars like what AOE did.
But no. It failed. No matter what formality of "everything is fine" by Stephen Davis.
Everyone knows it. Davis made those remark for "corporate reasons".

Movies basically should have "heart" in order to make audience sink in to their story.
Transformers movie franchise, lost it along the way. "Loss of Heart".
The 1st and 3rd film have a strong "heart" in it. The 2nd film have better excuses due to the writer's strike.
I felt AOE was kinda saved by the inclusion of characters like Grimlock and Lockdown and the plot of Crackdown on Autobots.
And totally lost it in TLK. Characters like Squeeks, Sir Edward, Cogman, Hotrod, the Dragon Knights can't even saved it.

The TF Live Action films should at least learn and take a page from the book of Fast & Furious film franchise.
No matter how so abused, redundant, exaggerated plot (car thieves turned world saviors) and making over the top & impossible vehicle circus stunt film after film it's still making money for Universal. You gotta wonder what still makes Fast & Furious ticks.

 

Fast and Furious works namely because it recognized its niche was in ever more extravagant car stunts and implausible situations. The first two films took itself way too seriously (that's kind of why nobody likes 2 Fast 2 Furious), Tokyo Drift is more relaxed despite needing to honestly be retconned into the main lore, but from Fast 4 on the plot has been more about adrenaline pumping action and sweaty bald guys trying to kill other sweaty bald guys in the most over the top ways and no sense of plausibility. The plot of Fast 7 doesn't even make sense given the entire plot about needing Godseye is just so Dom can find Staham and kill him...even though Staham comes to Dom twice to basically do the same thing, rendering the entire roundabout item fetch quest needless. That doesn't stop it from being good, far from it - its good because it embraces just how utterly bonkers it is to have plots where the world is saved through street racing during implausible situations the world over and just has fun with it. Additionally, Dom's crew are a really likeable, crazy bunch who are always fun to be around - they're far from perfect but that just adds to their appeal and charm.

 

I’ve been working my way through Phase 2 of IDW, @CopperPuppet , and there’s a lot more characters than just those featured by Sunbow, especially in More Than Meets the Eye. The first thirty issues of Robots in Disguise were good and had a bit more variety, but after Dark Cybertron and it’s rebranding as just “The Transformers” the comic has crashed, burnt, and smoldered for the last dozen issues. Maybe it gets better after Combiner Wars, but I’ve heard not to expect as much.

Still, I love MTMTE because it seems more like manga or maybe just more like something from Image Comics’ or Tokyo Pop, for examples.

And, since Hot Rod was not a character I cared much about as a kid, I only just noticed a couple days ago that Gurren Lagann might have been ever so slightly inspired by Rodimus, and likewise by the that MTMTE took inspiration from TTGL as that rolled into town. So, just a bit more fuel for my Studio Trigger prayers  

 

Great example!

I think what really kicked off F&F after the 3rd movie was how loyal the actors were to the franchise (or vice versa) they let Vin walk after the 1st movie (sure he asked for more $, he was hot shit at that moment) and the movie did poorly. They did a completely new cast for 3 but teased that Dom would be back for 4. They even brought back the guy from 3 (who looked NOTHING like he did in 3 now, I think he's on one of the CSI shows) for a two minute cameo in a later movie. It makes no sense but it shows once you're in "the family" they'll look out for you.

(The only problem with the last movie is they didn't have the balls to kill off Brian off screen. Everything in that movie makes 100% more sense if Brian is killed by Cypher and Dom's sister and nephew are held hostage, rather than Dom's previously unknown son from the Brazilian cop)

Frankly F&F has better characters than the Bayverse. Drift speaks with an Asian accent, Hound is fat, Crosshairs makes critical comments, annnnnnd? I mean really other than Ratchet, Ironhide and Jazz can anyone really remember any meaningful lines from any of the other Autobots in any of the movies?

(Personally I think Vin should shelve F&F after Paul's death and focus on the xXx franchise. Probably could crank out a dozen more of them and Xander Cage doesn't even have to be in half of them. It's actually brilliantly set up. Universal just needs to pull the trigger.)

 

"Everyone who disagrees with my opinion is full of hatred and a liar, and I absolutely hate those idiots!"