I still rate it as only barely bettet than Dotm.
The lowpoint of the movies so far.
But we'll see how the Bee movie turns out.
Or not. I don't really think I'm going to watch it.
Too unimaginative.

 

Personally, I thought that the 2007 movie was a great starting point. Had Bay toned down the juvenile humor and soft porn, moved the bot designs back into a general G1 aesthetic and placed a greater emphasis on bot dialogue, I think the sequels would have been accepted overwhelmingly by the fan community. Instead, he generally doubled down on the worst parts of the 2007 movie and then made even worse decisions. Coupled with a writers' strike that resulted in the turd that was Revenge of the Fallen, the franchise felt like it ping-ponged around until it finally passed the flippers and clunked out of play with TLK.

Bumblebee seems to be taking the 2007 movie and doing EXACTLY what I mentioned above that should have been done in the first place with the sequels. If it executes as I think it should, I hope it does well.

 

I mean I don't know, I was just throwing out scenarios and wotnot. My point is that we can't be sure how and why the quality has swung down.

Did you know, somewhere, that it's allowed for people to have different opinions? Seriously. Sometimes when I talk to someone, we may not agree on a particular topic! It's amazing. And did you know, rather than facepalming at each other, sometimes (just sometimes mind) we can actually have a civil discussion about it?

For instance, let's take Brexit for instance. A BIG topic here in the UK. I thought one thing, and a friend of mine thought another. I couldn't fathom why he would vote to leave, but I heard him out and guess what? His opinion was valid! Just as valid as mine in fact! We didn't change each others minds about it, but I think we both came away a bit more educated about the subject. And we're still friends!

It's amazing. If you talk (rather than facepalming at each other) we can actually get some communication going. And, good communication can defeat things like 'fake news' and Russian bot propaganda. In fact, civil and open discourse can save the world from the cesspool it's currently descending into.

It's cool that you don't like the '07 film. Really it is. I can see why you might hate it, but the fact is, a lot of people don't. I don't. I hate what the Bay films became but the fact of of the matter is, the '07 injected Transformers with a lot of mainstream interest, fans and perhaps most importantly money.

Money may not be the most important thing to you (your fond childhood memories may be more precious to you than money) but to Hasbro/Paramount? I think they value money over your feelings.

 

I agree with you point for point. The '07 movie was a great starting point. It makes me imagine that for every movie Bay simply gets handed a script and a list of characters to include and he just sets out to create his explosions with little care if the dialogue is not terrible or whether the plot is not tedious. We just got very lucky with the first one, lol.

Travis Knight had a big critical hit with Kubo and the Two Strings. I think he'll be a lot more hungry to show his skill as a filmmaker, even if its on another TF movie. We'll see. I don't think there's anything wrong with being hopeful.

 

 

I stand corrected, then! No Hasbro at all?! Wow. I wonder if Hasbro makes it for them as a private label production? Maybe it's unrelated at all.

Guess I'm so out of touch with TDS since PR. I know they made Bandai bend over backwards for them.

Huh. Well, kudos to Disney. Much better product for only a few bucks more.

 

The first page of the thread does.

As for the other currently 16 pages of talking heads and quite a bit of soap boxing? Probably not, no, but we're still about two months out at least before we get the first new Siege toys, so fans do need something to talk about to pass the time.

 

I wonder if maybe a more "back to basics" approach with TF's might not make more sense? Up until a few years ago, brand seemed to be doing fine with just one, main toyline, that encompassed desirable aspects for both kids and collectors. I mean, it more or less worked for the past 30 years. How much has line diversification played into Hasbro's losses and how much has the saturation of things like different series, different complexities, different size classes of the same character, shampoo bottles etc. all being on the shelves at the same time resulted in kid and parent confusion? Are they actually seeing results from their business plan of targeting different age groups?

 

Exactly, correct! They expanded to Hunt For The Decepticons and made versions of figures we have been asking for in that period. Huge line, so many figures (not just repaints). It was like something for everyone. Then the second Hasbro gimped their line with crappy gimmicks and simplified transformations for DOTM, "BOOM" sales drop. They made every character accesible in Revenge of the Fallen and even made better versions of key characters....sales went up. When it came to DOTM, Hasbro dicked around making all the characters, and even stopped short of two hugely popular deluxe figures...sales dropped.

It's super obvious, and ROTF proved it...make awesome complicated super articulated figures of nearly every character in the film plus expanded story figures, focus 100% on one line...SALES!!!! Oh and there were competing iPad/iPhone apps back then as well!

 

How would they even know?

I was on a jury trial once where one of the defense's arguments for not paying royalties was that they didn't know how much money came from sales of any given product. At the time I thought it was crazy. Then I found out my employer's computer systems were so bad, their "accounting" was to look at bank statements and go "yeah, that's probably right."

 

To be fair to Hasbro, to some degree, the downsizing of the figures in DOTM was to cut costs because the economy was in the tank at that time. The gimmicks were their idea, yes, but the figures were smaller because of money. Entire waves and exclusives got cancelled because they just weren't selling. Partially because people were losing everything, others were broke and a few just didn't buy because they didn't like what was offered.

Now? No excuse.

 

I wondered why they took so long to releaee Leader Starscream...and he was in the HFTD line rather than the more obvious ROTF, but he really could gave come out earlier. I remember watching Peaugh's youtube preview, and waiting....waiting....waiting. Finally he came out, and also picked up Battle Bee from that line.

 

Honestly the "sales slump" Ravage101 is referring to started well before DOTM was even a thing. The HFTD packaged toys didn't actually sell anywhere near as well as the early ROTF toys, and it resulted in a few harder to find figures. Leader Starscream pretty much never hit Walmart or Target and went straight to discount retail, along with some other end of the line toys at the time, including a good chunk of the Reveal the Shield follow up.

 

This part I'm not so sure. Kunihiro designed ROTF leader Prime, Jetfire and Starscream, I believe priority was on the 1st 2 because he's spoken about them at length and the difficulty he encountered in incorporating Jetfire's voicebox and having them combine. They were probably prioritized so that both would be out while the movie was in theaters to cash in on the hype.

Depends on area. HFTD Starscream in my area wasn't hard to find at Walmart. Some stores like Kohls and Kmart had HFTD deluxes for a long time.

Figures like ROTF Skids, Mudflap, voyager red constructicon guy and some of the scouts sat, also the repaint of voyager Prime in wave 4.

 

As a non star wars fan, the ONE toy I actually wanted........ was a porg.
Went to the store (and looked online)
They had a shitty overpriced thing with robot gimmick stuff (around 70-100) way overpriced when I wanted say a $10 plush.
They had a really shitty no detail plush thing that looked more like a dog turd than a porg.
For something that SHOULD have sold on cute factor alone as a plush toy (even to people who have never seen the film) , they really dropped the ball merchandise wise with stupid price points and really not ONE good Porg toy at all (and I don't know who made any of them).

I actively looked for several weeks, thinking they must have made at LEAST ONE good Porg toy/plush. But no, utter garbage, and terrible price points for kids or adults.

To this day I am Porgless...repeat PORGLESS!
give me my damn porkins porg pie! (of toys, not literally)

*EDIT: I just remembered while porg-hunting......saw at least two adult parent types who were looking for an inexpensive plush type porg in the toy section, and left empty handed like I did (it was their sole reason for going into the store after seeing the film). How do I know? Psychic powers? No, I talked to them like one of those human conversations you see on TV all the time.

 

It's only gonna get worse. We have most stores dominated by fewer and fewer established ever green "mega brands" eg batman, star wars, transformers, lego etc etc.
But with interest for those always available mega brands going down and down, and fewer movie related spikes (even for once safe batman toys) and often too damn much product clogging shelves - until it goes out on clearance.
It leaves kids today with some pretty crappy choices for toys (other than lego and plush toys, most of which are great - but lego has always been super expensive for plastic bricks) and adults with not much choice but to buy online things they want and can not get at retail.

What is their "agenda" other than to make money for movies?
I have no idea, and the only time I see this stuff is from fans/people online?????????????????

If only Paramount had some sort of experience..... with a science fiction mega-brand........that might help them predict that after a decade of movies..........people might have had enough for a while and it might need a rest?  

That business style has sadly fallen out of favor.  

 

So hasbro should sell on "hasbro shop"?
What about the entire rest of the world?
They don't ship international.
This does not help me buy toys.
Sad Face.

Same way it has "suvived" recent decades. As a multimedia brand. Like star wars and batman.
Even if one arm "died off", it's still got like six other arms........

Someone here said earlier it would be better if hasbro focused on fewer products and toy lines, at a higher quality.
Yeah that would be great..... for fans. Or if they were a niche one man business.
But it's commercial suicide for a big company with big IP in multiple media.
Historically they have lost mega dollars in various decades since they began by doing exactly that (focusing too narrow, instead of too wide).
Basically it only takes one big line or product to tank, to put them in the red for a couple years (look at what happened with ET and Atari in the 80's for a generic famous example - of ANOTHER company over-producing something they were sure would sell in the millions).
Toys sales are ultimately a form of gambling, and some years they are lucky to break even at best.

 

I'm not a star wars fan so please excuse my ignorance on that topic.
I was referring to all those unsold episode one toys that shelf warmed in stores, many many months (and years) after the film was gone. I remember seeing them in bargain bins. It was released in 1999 - end of the decade so I was thinking of those ones.

Also, retro blasting channel did a bit on those "power of the force" toys - which had crazy numbers of variants from circa 1995-2000.
I don't know what else happened with the toys before that, never bought them, never been a fan so have no idea.
If you care to elaborate - please do I'm all ears.

 

Something not mentioned here so far (unless I missed it)
is that Solo was just "another bloody star wars movie" from my point of view.
If it had been out like a year or two after the last one, (rather than six months or whatever it was) then I probably would have watched it.
As it is, I pick my fav 5-6 movies of the year and see them at the cinema, anything else can wait till home release as I just can't afford to go to the movies that often. It's not just ticket prices, it's quite far from where I live so costs fuel as well. And most weekends I'm too damn tired to go unless it's like spiderman or predator or avengers or something I actually care about to start with.

 

Me say new scapegoat needed. Whatever that mean.

Man, sounds like the 70's really sucked.
At least in the 80s when you were bored you could go over to your friends house and throw that golf video game he got for christmas in a bonfire. That's like at least ten minutes of entertainment. Then you could play a proper game like mario, or play outside in actual dirt which was still considered safe and un-contaminated by nuclear fallout or super-mutants.

 

I agree with most of your ideas/comments here.

However, whenever I see "bay did this and that" in ref to the film(s) I get genuinely confused. Sure he was the director, but did he actually do any of those things?
did the writers not write the story and the character designers and animators not do what they did?
People talk as if Bay wrote all the films, if that is so, why is his name not also listed under writer in the credits?
I mean IF HE DID (and credited under producer or something) then please say so, as it confuses me to no end???