her eyes aren't lit up, of course they look dead
and ROTF arcee's head looks like some sort of succubus witch

 

Nah mate nothing can save that thing that’s supposedly a face. At least the rotf arcee design is interesting and alien looking.

 

it's not alien it looks like an old lady. the 2007 design was alien

 

Yeah, all of those are horrible. For me personally, they are worse than just about any of the Bay design faces that people love to complain about.

 

She reminds me of SHODAN.

 

I think Ratchet/Ironhide would look fine if the mouth were a bit higher on the face, but we also know those 3D Models were rushed and had to be done on top of pre-existing rigs and models so maybe it wasn't possible to tweak faces accordingly to the time frame they had. Arcee is just so human it hits uncanny vallye and then gets worse when you notice she has pink "skin" that worked on the cartoon design but on a 3D model ends up like some kind of horror movie mask. She is almost as bad as AOE Drift's face.

I'm sure if they appear next movie they'll all look better though since they'll have brand new models that turn into real cars instead of slap and dash edits of Optimus and Shatter models

 

The aesthetic worked for Drift though, because the gold colouring made it read as just a metal mask. And samurai helmets were known to feature distorted human/demon faces, so it doesn't really seem out of place.

Arcee's face, by comparison, is this creepy fleshy light pink tone, and is smoother than the other prologue designs, so it really just sets off the porcelain doll phobias something fierce. It's not as bad in the film proper, with the dynamic lighting and action going on, plus a bit of motion as she speaks. But the pure dead face seen in this context is creepy as hell.

 

Comparing BB Arcee to any of the monstrous designs from Bay is rediculous. First of all Transformers aren't really alien looking, that's just Bay's personal style. All of them look like what happens after a Xenomorph finishes it's life cycle in a Cybertronian, which was never what I was hoping for in Transformers. I'm hoping one day we can Embrace what makes every other iteration of transformers interesting, their humanity, Deceptions or Autobots.

Face wise, the uncanny valley need to be explored till we find the right balance of robot, detail, and smoothness. Personally I'm fine with the look of the BB Autobots, its much more acceptable than the Xenomorph look, but do I think it could still be improved sure. But ladies and gentlemen Transformers look very human at the end of the day. Change that and you might as well call them something else.

 

Demonstrably false:





As just a few examples.

Most of the original movie-verse designs were intentionally designed to be more animalistic and alien. And that's just fine, for the purposes of the story they wanted to tell.

 

But the Bayverse robots don't look like xenomorphs? at least compare them to something that looks like them, like a Jaeger or something

 

They don't look like xenomorphs, but they don't look "alien" as some people describe it. The Autobots are just humanoid while the Decepticons are all insectoid and with some bots having non-human like bodies (which is why some people joke about the movies being a "race war" due to the very different aesthetic split between the two sides with very little crossing over).

 

Me personally, I like both Bay's and BB's Acree faces. I like the variety it presents, like how each of the other charcters are represented either slightly different or completely different from show to show, from comic to comic. Some versions I like, others not so much. Variety is the spice of life.

 

yeah the only one who looks truly alien is megatron, but even then he's rather humanoid
but that's just kinda what happens when humans make aliens, they often look humanoid

 

It's also weird to use "xenomorph" as an analogy, since I'm assuming he's talking about the H.R. Giger monsters (since nobody refers to any old alien as a xenomorph, even if that's etymologically accurate), and those are just human skeletons dipped in latex, with a giant dildo for a brain pan and a dinosaur fossil tail strapped to the butt. Not particularly abstract or distorted. The variances in Transformers morphology were far more extreme.

I'd argue that the only "insectoid" feature on most of the Decepticon designs is their faces, with the vertically oriented mouthparts in characters like Blackout, and most of the Constructicons. Otherwise, I'd lean more simply "animalistic", or just plain distorted.

Starscream I'd place as something of a bird/gorilla mix, Barricade as vaguely gorilla-ish, the Dreads as being somewhat cat-like, etc. The only ones I'd liken to arthropods personally, outside the obvious Scorponok, are Devcon and the multi-limbed Overload concept. And I've always personally seen Mixmaster to have a skulking, sorta "spidery" countenance, but that's not really an overt design influence.

 

i love a good movieverse talk but isnt this a thread about studio series bumblebee movie thrust

also, 2007 arcee, best arcee...EVER

 

Actually Ratchet and Ironhide look quite good there. They seem to have different kind of design from Arcee. They look more robotic, I think? It's hard to describe but I do like how Ratchet and Ironhide look in contrast to Arcee which who looks a bit strange, I agree.

 

I wouldn't call the comparisons ridiculous, but they are a bit unfair. The Bay designs look significantly better than BB Arcee.

 

For the male characters, they didn't try to emulate the shape of soft, pursed human lips. That, and silver "fleshtone" over pink go a great deal in alleviating the "uncanny valley" effect. They're human-ish, but without going so far as to be unsettlingly creepy. Just an approximation, and not a failed replication.

 

Well I completely disagree as I find ratchet and ironhide's skull-like faces much creepier than arcee's "too human" face

 

Yeah I think I’ve grown to appreciate Ratchet and Ironhide’s faces more now than I had before, since they actually look robotic and not like a porcelain mask, but I still wish it was a bit more broken up and not just a smooth metallic face with a tiny puppet mouth seam. I think Brawn did this pretty good and was one of the better ones, although his eyes are a bit weird and he’s lowkey built like an easter island head.

Also most of the Autobots on Cybertron have creepy ass pinprick eyes and I don’t like it. I think that’s also why I really disliked Ratchet’s design initially. It felt creepy, but Arcee is on a whole new level. Give me something more along the lines of BB Optimus or Starscream’s eyes and I’d be happier.