This is what ignoring another persons argument and continuing your own narrative after being proven wrong looks like.

 

I get it when people dislike the movie TF’s because their character depth is as shallow as a puddle, but why get mad that they aren’t accurate to one specific iteration or continuity?

This whole franchise is built atop reinventing characters, changing origins, and going in completely new directions. Optimus Primal is “horribly inaccurate” as is Prime Soundwave to their original source material. Non adherence isn’t something new.


So why are the movies an exception? What I can assume is that people weren’t fond of the characters and designs because the movies they happened to be in were terrible. Though, the comics basically do what the films should have done and gave the Transformers some desperately needed characterization. Does that change the quality of the films? No. But, I think it proves that had the movies actually been good, it could have worked.

 

You're trying to use separate characters to argue that the original Spider-Man frequently changes his look, which is objectively wrong and easily disproved. It's like if I used Bluestreak as proof that Prowl sometimes isn't a police car.

And again you continue to ignore my central question which is: what is accuracy? What do characters have to be accurate to, and why is it so necessary? I'll try one more time:


1. Is this inaccurate?
2. If so, what specifically is it failing to be accurate to?

 

My guy, most of these are completely different characters. Spider-Man Noir is not the same character as Spider-Girl, Spider-Ham, Miles Morales, etc...

 

You don't seem particularly good at listening or you just blatantly ignore stuff. So this is gonna be my last reply to this thread.

The reasons why accuracy matters is because:
1. People want to see their favourite characters on screen
2. People might like these characters and wants to explore them

You can continue living in this world where a character like Soundwave doesn't have consistency but a simple search on the TFwiki shows you the most relevant Soundwaves, which despite being different all have a level of consistency, they're just alternate universe versions of the dude. Much like how every variant of Spider-Man has consistency but there are alternate universe versions. Having a character named Soundwave in the movies have nothing (Similar look and voice) that all the other versions has, it's obviously not Soundwave. And when exposing a character, you want to at the very least show the basics of the character, because that's literally just common sense. Again, look at Marvel with Captain America and Iron Man. The examples you've given are completely different to my original point (Bonecrusher, Jetfire, etc). I don't want to see the same character over and over again, but I at least wanna see some consistency. You can dance around this all you want but simply going "This is a false equivalence" and give some piss poor excuse as to why that is isn't gonna do anything.
There's also the Starscream example I gave earlier, one you completely ignored.

Movies exist in a different level than tv shows or comic books, because the audience is way bigger.

Uh huh, just like how G1, Cybertron, Beast Wars or Shattered Glass Soundwave are basically completely different characters that just have the same name and a few traits that they all share.
You wouldn't want Noir Spider-Man or a complete redo of the character to the point he's unrecognizable in the movies, would you?
(Also Spider-Man Reign is literally just Peter but go off)

Last reply to this for real this time

 

These are all Soundwave

 

You accuse me of ignoring things but you've repeatedly ignored what I've said, including the two blatant, direct questions regarding Jetfire. I'm not even trying to win an argument here, just understand what you mean by accuracy and why it is so important. I told you what I thought you meant, that you want characters to be always faithful to the best or most famous version, and I really don't see any other way to interpret it, but you said I was wrong and continue to ignore more questions on the subject.

Their favorite characters already exist. When it comes time to make a new version, why does it have to be the same as one's favorite version? That's the question you refuse to answer for some reason.

DOTM Soundwave has more in common with G1 Soundwave than G1 and Prime Soundwave do. But if your demands are as surface-level as "look and voice" then Prime Soundwave is just as "inaccurate" as DOTM. All I want to know is why you single out the movie version. Again, "more people will see it" doesn't fly because Transformers has never cared about fidelity. There has never been a need to go "alright guys, let's make sure we get it right this time," unless you're explicitly continuing an existing story.

Again, you've made this point over and over but you refuse to answer: what are the "basics" of the Transformers characters? There is one Earth-616 Captain America, one Earth-616 Iron Man, one Earth-616 Hulk, one whoever. For each MCU character there is a single source to adapt. There are many different Soundwaves in many continuities. The movies are just another new continuity. Why does that one specifically have to be beholden to a previous one?

And again, all I am asking is consistency with WHAT? What is the metric that is used? Who gets to decide which version is valid, which version all other versions must be like? When I asked this before you said it wasn't what you were saying.

Pointing out logical fallacies is not "dancing around" anything.

I took your Starscream example as an extension of the argument you were making in that comment, which I responded to as one piece. And again you can't really criticize me for ignoring anything when you have consistently refused to address the central question I'm asking you. All I'm trying to do is understand your point of view.

Likewise this will be my last comment, better to just move on since clearly there's some miscommunication here.

 

This comes off as a bit petulant, @Novaburnhilde - whether it's your intention or not. You sound like you're angry that a bunch of normies came in because they liked the films and that, because of them, what you like is no longer a niche thing.

Also, there's nothing wrong with pandering to a new audience, since the new audience can become fans from what they've seen and discover the old stuff, even if the existing fans don't like it.

For example, I know ASOIAF fans who hate Game of Thrones with a passion - yet I absolutely love it, as do a lot of people I know, and it got a lot of people to start reading the books again. Same goes with Lord of The Rings - my maternal grandfather was a lover of all things Tolkien and despised the Peter Jackson movies. Without the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies, I doubt we'd have Star Trek: Discovery or Star Trek: Picard at all.

A lot of people who watched the Bay films probably thought, "I wonder if there's other stuff? I might Google it when I get in", and found G1, Beast Wars and all the other stuff and got hooked. That's how a lot of my generation got into Transformers.

That actually wasn't Bay, Orci or Kurtzman's fault - Paramount brought in a shitload of comedy writers (including Patton Oswalt) to "punch up" the script to add more comedy, which is where most of the crude humour comes from. Apparently, Bay and the writers wanted a dark, sci-fi thriller film in the vein of Independence Day, but were overruled by the studio.

There's nothing wrong with doing Transformers as a dark sci-fi thriller film in the vein of Independence Day - in fact, that's probably the best take for a Transformers film. Because, no matter which way you slice it, Transformers is, ultimately, an alien invasion story - with a benevolent faction of the aliens hellping fight the invading ones.

Also, as @AutobotAvalanche said, what constitutes a "proper" Transformers adaptation? You've said this multiple times, but never explained in full: what are, in your view, the "basics" of the Transformers characters? Iron Man's a bad example, because there's only one Earth-616 Iron Man - for every MCU character, there is a single source to adapt. Just one - yes, different writers have interpreted the characters in different ways, but ultimately, they're all the same character.

Conversely, there are many different Optimuses, Bumblebees, Megatrons, Starscreams and Soundwaves in many different continuities. The movies are just another new continuity, independent of all the rest - they're no more an adaptation of G1 than TF: Animated is. Why must they all be beholden to the G1 version of the character?​

 

Bay made a TF film in his vision back in 2007. Obviously it wasn't for everyone. But I enjoyed it.

 

Oh give it a rest, dude. I’m sorry you didn’t like the movies but they weren’t trying to be any specific other Transformers. I find it very hard to believe that you really don’t understand that and that at this point you’re just trolling.

 

I was gonna back out of this discussion cuz I'm honestly tired of having it but since I was summoned...

This is called arguing in bad faith, because you don't like what I have to say you just assume I'm bad tempered or childish, which is amusing but also a bad way to argue. Yes I am annoyed that they further dumbed down something that I love so that normies will lap it up or ridicule the entire IP based on the crap movies. Also Transformers is still pretty niche so I'm not sure what you mean.

There is a problem when it alienates the existing fans. It's good to make something with general audiences in mind, but not at the expense of the other. You need to find a healthy balance of doing both when doing a proper adaption.

You say that as if Star Trek: Discovery and Picard are valuable contributions to the Star Trek franchise, which they are most definitely not. In-fact they've done quite a bit of harm to the series overall. The majority of fans wish we didn't get STD or Picard due to how terrible they are. You really aren't helping your case by bringing them up either.

Not sure if you missed it but most fans of Star Trek hate these things because they fail to do the most basic elements of ST, and you seem to be of the opinion that it's okay if the more passionate fans hate it as long as someone comes along and likes it. Which... no. Not even remotely close to being true.

And that's great, but why can't we have an objectively good series of films that do the same thing instead of a terrible one? We can still do that sort of thing with GOOD films, surely.

Be that as it may the end result is still a terrible movie with cringe comedy trying way too hard to be edgy and hip.

It would've been great if we got that, but we didn't so I'm not sure why you keep bringing up ID up. One is a great film the other is Transformers.

Also you say this as if it's some grand revelation when I think it's quite an obvious observation, no?

I'm kind of blown away. You're literally saying "Yes different writers have interperated the Marvel characters in different ways, different writers have also interperated Transformers characters in different ways too. But the latter is somehow different" ?????

I think the arguments against using the MCU as an example are mostly semantics, but that seems to be a theme when arguing about the films. Iron Man is a good adaption, Transformers is not, it's not that complicated. The OP makes a comment, maybe uses a word I wouldn't have used, and everyone gets hung up on "inaccurate" as a term and act like just because there are different versions of characters (which isn't abnormal) that there's no proper way to do an adaption, which is dumb.

Honestly, why choose this hill to die on? Defending an objectively terrible series of films that fail to do the basics right? Is this just wanting to be a contrarian? Or because of nostalgia? People are now mostly just defending the concept or idea of the films, which isn't really what's contentious, it's that the final product is terrible.

Either way, I'm tired of having this discussion because I'm tired of having to repeat myself and this constant going in circles. I don't expect users to have read every single one of my posts since I'm just some twat online, but always having to repeat yourself is boring and time-wasting.

You clearly love the movies and aren't capable of looking at them through an objective lens. No hard feelings, man. But you kinda started it by calling me 'petulant' based on nothing.  

 

I wouldn’t necessarily call it “not capable” but just a different perspective.

Since I didn’t know of Transformers before the films, I see it as the other Transformers stuff being better rather than the films being worse. I think part of it is nostalgia, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I can objectively view these films as they are: bad (except maybe the first). At the same time, though, I still think there are legitimate things that are good in the films. You probably don’t care as much about that because you didn’t grow up with it, but again it’s much more of a perspective based thing rather than one side being right or wrong.

I guess the best comparison that I can think of (and I know comparisons with other media is such a REALLY overdone thing at this point) are the Star Wars Prequels. Now, I’m not talking in terms of the films themselves, because that’s a whole other beast, but their reception. For the longest time the common consensus was that the prequels sucked, but in recent years, they have seemed to have received this massive wave of appreciation.

I think the same thing is happening to the movies now. People seem to appreciate them much more, and it’s because the people that grew up with the Prequels or the Transformers films are able to see them in a very different light. It’s not like we don’t know they’re bad, it’s just that we’re tired of hearing it. Talking about how Skids and Mudflap or Jar Jar fail on a fundamental level is such a dead horse, and after 13 to 20 years frankly nobody gives a shit anymore.

At the end of the day, we like what we like. I like the films for what they are, you don’t. I’m just trying to get you to see things from my perspective and vice versa. I hope maybe I’ve helped you understand a bit more.

 

Oh, believe me, we're on the same page. The franchise wasn't handled correctly from the get-go, I was just simply and directly responding to OP's question.

 

what a load of subjective vomiting ranting  

 

This franchise has probably one of the biggest histories of inaccuracies even beyond the movies themselves.

 

Let’s be honest though, even if the characters were 100% G1 accurate, that doesn’t make the films any better. They’d still have that garbage toilet humor and horrendous plot.

 

The attack helicopter Blackout and Scorponok from the first film were written and conceived by Orci and Kurtzman as a modern Soundwave and Ravage that stole military data. That explains while Blackout has a Soundwave-esque design, has minimal dialogue, fires sonic cannons, and ejects a sidekick. Hasbro wanted Soundwave to be more music-themed, so the helicopter was recoloured to Blackout, Ravage was replaced with Scorponok, and Orci and Kurtzman came up with a boom box Soundwave that also triple-changed into a Humvee. Because of the filmmakers' insistence on no mass-shifting, Soundwave would be the boom box while the Humvee was re-imagined into the police car Barricade as his partner. Orci and Kurtzman felt that this didn't honour Soundwave, so the boom box was renamed Frenzy after Soundwave's G1 sidekick.

The second film introduces a satellite Transformer called Soundwave who has a visor and whose purpose is tapping into and manipulating communications. He's voiced by Frank Welker and, if I'm not mistaken, has some digital manipulation done to his voice. He ejects Ravage. This tall version of Soundwave with tonnes of panels influenced Soundwave's appearance on Prime. Barricade is absent in this film.

The third film unfortunately changes his head sculpt and removes the sound effect on his voice but gives him blue highlights and blue sonic cannon beams. He has another sidekick called Laserbeak. They explain that Soundwave manipulated the space race of the '60s and that he disguised himself as Carly's car to spy on Sam, all things that Soundwave would do. He replaces Barricade as Bumblebee's rival and pairs with Dylan, who's Sam's rival. I would've much preferred if Carly and Dylan weren't in the film and that Soundwave retained his satellite mode. They could've explained that he was jamming the signals from space. Then, for the final battle, he could descend upon the city from above. Can you imagine a giant Soundwave on the battlefield swinging his satellite panels around like blades and blasting giant sonic cannons to knock over crowds? He could've also ejected several more of his sidekicks. Taking him down would be a lot more interesting than Wheelie and Brains taking down one of the motherships. For that matter, why does the Battle of Chicago feature non-transforming Decepticons piloting scapeships? If Starscream is Air Commander, why didn't we get to see him lead aerial formations of Seekers? Despite what DotM gets wrong, it still gets a lot right.

Throughout the entire series, Soundwave has the same position and rank that he does in G1, the same purpose, several of the same telecommunication-based abilities, several of the same sidekicks, and the same loyalty to Megatron. They clearly know the fundamentals of the character. They just willfully make changes. Whether or not we like those changes doesn't change the fact that Bayverse Soundwave is an adaptation of the same character.

 

Thank you, Movie Soundwave isn't even that much of a departure when you look at all the other Soundwave interpretations.

 

Someone getting berated because they think Soundwave in a movie should at least bear a resemblance to the G1 version(i.e the most iconic and popular one)- the TFW movie board never changes I guess.

Thank goodness for the Cybertron scene in Bumblebee 2018.

 

Given how much TFW obsesses over G1 I'm surprised how many people are against this very basic of thing of me wanting Soundwave to look and sound like Soundwave in the movies.