Same here. I don't think TLK is a technically great film, but I really appreciate the creativity present in it. For that reason I'll take TLK any day over the overly G1-reverent stuff they're doing in the modern cartoons and comics. I say the more Transformers looks like these paintings, the better.

And frankly...I love the idea of Nazi Terminator Transformers. Weird, sure, but it would make a super fun story. And I see no reason they shouldn't do it. Transformers isn't (and never should be) "robots that turn into cars". Infiltrator robots that turn into Nazis are just as valid as anything else in the brand. Out of all the things in these paintings, I think I'm actually saddest that we didn't get an army of Pretenders. That would be a neat setup for a villain.

 

Honestly, I think this would've worked as a stand-alone Elseworld-style story similar to Hearts of Steel

 

Definitely artwork from the writers' room, not The Last Knight itself. It also looks like pitches for three different movies: a Cybertron prequel, a WWII movie, and Bumblebee film with a more steampunk-esque style, possibly involving beastformers (maybe an early idea for a Beast Wars movie?).

I'd have paid good money to see any of them, but especially that steampunk BB film.

 

What a missed opportunity.

 

I know this is suppose to be like Skull Island but it reminds me of Castle Grayskull. not to mention the cyborg Nazi looks like Trap-Jaw.

 

I was digging the Cybertronian Nazi until I scrolled past the art that seems to imply that the Nazis either worked for the Decepticons or were, er, all Decepticons. Something about this rubs me the wrong way, even if I'm not technically against a WWII setting for Transformers. Eh, I don't know how I feel about it.

Yeah, holy cow that is genuinely so much more incredible looking than Quintessa. And not just because concept art always looks better than the finished film.

I wonder why they didn't go for this, because that G1 Quintesson design is endlessly more striking, threatening, and imaginative than Quintessa.

I guess it could be budget, since they were probably already spread so thin at this point in trying to combine like ten scripts. Or maybe they liked the idea of a female villain and for some reason decided they couldn't make the Quintesson female AND ugly. Which is stupid. Honestly someone probably just saw this and was like: "What, they have five faces? and the faces spin around to depict a different personality? And they are like mechanical squid creatures instead of metal humans? How silly! We'll make Quintessa a human that can be metal sometimes, or has a meal vessel, or something-- we don't have to explain, this is a silly movie anyway."

Like... come on.

 

This is what I expected.
Transformers — Timothy Min | 3d design/modeling

 

Those are pretty amazing concept art. The Quintessons especially really look amazing in a more live action setting too. Would be sweet if we ever saw any of these ideas and designs come to life in future TF movies or at least future TF media in general.

That's what came to my mind too. Wouldn't make for a bad bad for a potential movie Strongarm.

I think there's still a chance we can see any of those ideas be used for future TF movies. Especially if they still have an idea for a cinematic universe but this time being more careful and smart on how they go about it. Since the Bumblebee movie is considered a rebooted movie series now they can find ways to get crazy in the future when the time comes. Or at the very least like you said be used for any potential mature TF series.

And yeah I totally agree that the Skull Island/Mysterious Island setting would be so perfect for a Beast Wars movie because you'd then have a good way to explain why some of the characters beast modes like Rattrap have beast modes that are bigger then what they usually are. Not to mention it'd be a great King Kong homage given that Primal and BW Megatron already have a King Kong homage going on with Primal representing Kong and Megatron representing the Skull Island T-Rex or V-Rex for those fans of the 2005 Kong remake.

 

That's a good point...there's absolutely still a chance that we could see them. I mean, a lot of the same people are still involved behind the scenes. And we know designs sometimes get reused.

 

Exactly. I don't think they're going to pass up a chance where a WWII TF setting would be such an entertaining movie to watch. Sure it won't happen for a while given that they're right now focusing on establishing the new TF universe first but still there's a good chance that least some of those ideas and designs will be used if not all of them.

 

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Nice

 

Huh, that Quintesson is really cool, but it’s no wonder they didn’t use it in the movie. It’s actually recognizable as what it’s based on. Can’t have that!

 

I wish that they had more dragonbots.

 

While I do like this piece of artwork, I must say I question whether that design for the Quintessons would work in a live-action film. At least in the Bayverse-esque films. I could see something like that in Thor Ragnarok, but I could easily see it looking out-of-place in a more serious and 'realistic' Bay-style movie. The Quintessons are very '80s designs, and a floating egg with five heads might be a bit too goofy to the average viewer.

Personally, I always thought it would be neat to have the movieverse Quintessons be more conventional looking aliens whose faces morph/shapeshift into five different designs. Or maybe their entire body morphs. I like to think Quintessa is an alternate form of the alien hand we saw in AOE. I always thought that would be a neat take on the Quintessons, and some sort of shapeshifting effect would be more visually impressive on the big screen than a floating egg that rotates. I actually would like to see a conventional Quintesson at some point, but I think the odds of Bay putting this in his movie was next to none.

 

'More serious and 'realistic'? Please tell me what is more realistic about the designs from the Bay-style movies. I hear 'realistic' thrown around a lot in order to muster up any kind of defense for the Bay films and more often than not it just seems to be a buzz-word, that because the CGI is convincing they look more 'real', which is absurd. By that logic if we got a film with very faithful designs with good CGI work then they'd be more 'realistic' too.

One of my favorite ones is that the characters can't look like their original selves cuz they'd look like 'giant toys', as if there hasn't been a massive marketing push for each film, meaning tons of merchandise... meaning they look like giant toys.

Also the traditional designs could easily work in the movies. I mean it may not work in a 'Bayverse' esque film, but since Bayverse-esque films are typically not very good that sounds like a good thing. Plenty of people think the TF's in general in those movies look goofy, some people think Superheroes are goofy, so by saying "some people may think it's goofy for the Quints to look like Quints" isn't a good argument. I'm all for appealing to the general audience, but not when it comes at the cost of adaptional fidelity.

You can add more visually impressive elements while still keeping the important stuff there, but even then something being 'visually impressive' shouldn't be the goalposts for making aliens in a movie, or adapting something from pre-established fiction.

On the subjects of goofy 80's Aliens.





Making the conventional Quintessons look good in live action can easily be done, they just have to get artists who care enough to do it right. Also yes I'm aware Out of the Shadows was a box office bomb, still a better film and adaption of the source material than any of the TF Movies except maybe Bumblebee. My point is that you could use the same flawed argument for the Kraang and yet it's been done quite well, so there's no good reasons for their stupid "Quintessa" creation. It's not even that creative when all they seem to have done is take an idea from Aligned (Quintus Prime) and make him female. Suddenly those talking eggs seem a lot more creative.

It should be a wake-up call that the Quintessons from the dinky 80's cartoon are better characters than the Hollywood budget adaption. That's not a high bar to leap over and yet none of the Bay movies can make that jump without fumbling over themselves.

 

I think they'll be fine.  

 

I actually completely agree with you that the Bayverse designs aren't very realistic, hence why I put 'realistic' in quotation marks. But even if they're not scientifically plausible designs, they still seem to represent Michael Bay's idea of what a realistic Transformer looks like (hence why he didn't want stuff like shrinking). For better or worse, I just can't see Michael Bay looking at this design and approving it for one of his movies. A different director with a different tone and style, sure.

I was also specifically talking about this within the context this art was created. You have to keep in mind this artwork was designed for the writer's room directly after Age of Extinction. These pieces were supposed to give a general idea of where the writers could take the movies, they weren't supposed to represent specific shots or designs from an upcoming movie (in the same way that something like the last Josh Nizzi Optimus design was actually working towards a final design). What I'm saying is that I don't think we were ever as close to getting this as some people think. It was just an early bit of art to help inspire the writers' imaginations. It never would have happened in the climate of 2014/2015, unless Bay had decided to leave after all. In a new reboot series, the chances of seeing this are actually much better.

I generally agree with most of what you say, but I can't entirely agree with this. Big blockbuster movies have to appeal to the widest audience possible in order to be viable. There's no point in making a movie that only has a very limited appeal, unless it's some sort of low-budget indie movie. If you want to see more Transformers movies, they have to appeal to a wide audience. Sometimes adaptional fidelity has to be sacrificed in order to achieve that. If it can be done well, I say it's fine. I mean, you wouldn't want to sacrifice something core to the brand like transformation, but changing something like the design of the Quintessons would be fine if it were needed. There's nothing saying they have to look like that. Although they do have to incorporate the number five somehow, given their name.

And I should make it clear that I don't think this design would have made a movie flop. You could absolutely make this work for a general audience. But if you were to swap Quintessa with this design, I don't think it would have worked in that particular context (if you left all the other elements of the movie the same). For that particular story, I get why Bay and the filmmakers went with the design they did. They were going for "alluring sorcerous" to fit the medieval/mythological feel of the movie. Plus, nothing else in the movie would have really fit in with this, visually. They'd have needed an entirely different movie with a different tone and visual style to make this work (which is completely fair to wish we got instead, especially since TLK was a flop).

 

Let's get back to concept arts.

Another Josh Nizzi. Close up

 

I think that’s Hatchet’s 3D model