Throughout the years of the live action Transformers movies we've seen some pretty brutal deaths on both side of the Autobot and Decepticons. Many fans seem to have a strong dislike sometimes for how vicious and nasty some of the killings of our favorite Bots or Cons can be. However when Bumblebee came out we got a little less brutal and crazy robo deaths a band andfighting and more of an actual focus on fighting styles. Now my question to you guys is which do you like more, the brutal and vicious style of fights in the Bayverse or do you prefer the style of Travis Knight fighting scenes which were less brutal (imo) but were more focused on fighting styles?

 

i'd say a mix of both, think of it lot mortal combat, most characters use moves that are more stylized but when it comes to finishers they can be more brutal

 

I think it'd fun if different characters had different styles of fighting. Someone like Grimlock can be brutal and vicious, while someone like Optimus can be focused and technique-based.

 

Oh, I for sure prefer Bumblebee's style. The cleverness of the action made the characters feel more skilled. In Bay's movies, the action is mostly just robots smashing into each other. It can be neat, but it can also feel really repetitive.

 

Depending on the martial art, focused style and techniques can be very brutal and vicious, especially for martial arts that aren't far removed from direct combat, like Krav Maga. So for the purposes of the thread, I'm going to say "and." Definitely "and."

 

Agreed, and I think we saw a lot of stylized fighting in the Bay movies before the final blows. Optimus had several slick moves in the RotF forest battle and flying into the DotM street battle, for example.

 

Just gonna say yes to this.

 

Optimus did have a technique tbh.

Yes especially with Optimus fight scenes

I honestly never thought of that

 

The Decepticons can stay brutal while the Autobots adapt more skill-based fighting techniques through human alliances similar to NEST. Trying to imagine someone like Megatron doing kung fu kicks and karate chops feels... off in my opinion.

 

It depends on the Decepticon. Black Arachnia/Airachnid would be a good martial artist character.

 

I liked the G1 style fighting in that it's style and techniques.

 

I say why not both?
For instance autobots moat of the time use calm and careful tactics and decepticons use brutal attacks

 

It would be nice to see a few Decepticons use techniques sometimes tbh. I always imagine how it would be if the Dreads had a more assassin type stealthy fighting style. That'd be so cool.

Megatron fight like a gladiator though doesn't he?

 

Something in between. However I will say this: The robots blowing up gives them a sense of actual robots. At least in our perception of robots. Especially Dropkick's death kinda reminded me on of ED-209's destruction in RoboCop. In my opinion ever since the live-action movies started the perception of transformers shifted slighly away from the idea of them being robots. I mean in the Bay movies they bleed and have organs and stuff that for me personally makes it difficult to think of them as robots. They were exactly what Prime described - robotic organisms. But I'd like them to stay away from that concept. Make them have more of a 'machine/robot' nature. I am not saying every step they take should make buzzing sounds but I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain.

 

Yes, in TLK (he didn’t do much fighting in the others...). My first post referred to the Megatron of the first film, who fought by overwhelming Optimus, throwing him into walls and swinging him like a doll to tire him out. After ROTF he takes a more methodical approach. Owing to his smaller size. He drops the physical dominance of his old body and fights on lucky hits and sneak attacks.

 

Yea in the first movie he fought like a wild animalistic barbarian. I thought the reason he fought the way he did in Rotf is because we was still weak from being revived? Either way I like his fighting style in TLK. That should be how he fight most of times in the movies in my opinion. It fits him real well

 

A good combination of both. But I like when a fight can be burtal and fast pasted.

 

Brutal tends to get kind of boring after while and in the moment it's oh cool it just doesn't seem to stick with your memory the way a well planned movie fight does. I guess you could say I'm look for something more like The Raid and less like Friday the 13th. I think it might be while I'm always in the mood for a Steven Chow classic but I have to be in the mood for a Quentin Tarantino movie. Both skilled directors but I like the flow of a good fight over how much blood can get in one scene.

What's kind of weird with the Transformers movies is the fight choreography has been all over the place. Sometimes we would get fights with a nice flow to them and other times it felt like a jumbled mess of robots. Sometimes it felt the same film could contend for both the best fight of the year award and the worse fight of the year award.

Oh and fewer cuts in the fight scenes. The fights that are just one cut or that can trick you into thinking it's one cut is why I love movie fights, but it seems like most production teams don't know the tricks to pulling it off.

 

It has to fit their character. Everything the character says and does, including how they fight, should tell you something about them, and there can be as many varied styles of combat as their voices, body types, or visual aesthetics. In every case, though, the style has to match what you're trying to say about the character.

The giant, monstrous character could fight with seemingly unthinking ferocity or low predatory cunning. The warrior, trained for combat and with a depth of experience can fight with confident precision, or with a variety of weapons, or in a way that turns his opponent's own actions against them. The brash, agile, blindingly fast character can fight with effortless grace or with piercing lightning charges. The mad scientist can fight with unorthodox movements and confusing or unanticipated tools. The artist forced into a life of war could run from battle, use their weapons clumsily, try to hide or use traps to survive. The rugged powerhouse can fight with broad movements that seem to ignore whatever force the enemy projects at him. The treacherous trickster can fight using ambushes, deceptions, or target weaker or wounded opponents. You can switch up these archetypes, or mix up unexpected styles if you can find a way to fit it into the character you're developing.

Their dialogue defines these characters, so does their appearance, as a form of visual language. Their movements, body language, and fighting styles are another important way to communicate characterization to the audience. You tell a story through what they do, and the fights they have, but more importantly, in HOW the two characters fight eachother.

 

If it’s always brutal it’ll just become dull. So style and technique. I’m fine with brutal as long as it’s not spammed.