No, it's more in the same sense that Adam West, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale and Robert Pattinson aren't playing the same character.

Out of all 2007 characters, Bayverse Jazz is plainly not an 'in name only' nameslap. It is clearly attempting to be at least a version of the same character. There were even alterations to the Solstice to give it features intended to evoke the original.

 

To really expand on this, the only real rule the live action universe has established regarding transformation is that the alt-mode has to be believable given the size of the robot.

Smaller bots have smaller alts. They demonstrate this early on with Frenzy being a boombox, getting his ass kicked, and then what's left of him turning in to a cell phone.

But changing alts on the fly had always been part of the universe without any need for exposition. Bee, Shatter, and Dropkick all assume new alts throughout the latest movie and nobody bats an eye. It's just what they can do.

People are so focused on the Porsche...but are y'all mentally preparing yourself for the very likely situation where we see Autobots and Decepticons assume beast modes (or Maximal/Predacons assuming vehicle modes), if only temporarily? Because "Rule of Cool" and "To Sell Toys" both suggest it's going to happen.

 

well, sometimes details matter. Although I should state that I was not a party to that particular meltdown. I had no strong feelings one way or the other.

And let's face it that was probably more of an observation and a nitpick rather than a full-on 'ruined forever' tantrum.

 

I'm just throwing fuel in the fire since but anyone saying jazz hasn't been a Porsche for 30 odd years has some real selective memory. he was clearly a new (at the time) 2006 997 Carrera so unless official comics don't count that's just not true. Hasbro/Takara also tried to make a Binal Tech/Altinators toy too that was gunned down by the powers at Porsche. So internally at Hasbro they had ideas to use it again. SS86 jazz is yes G1 Jazz but it's what 6 months old? and offical toy and clearly a slant nose.... even if they did have to tweak things a bit. So saying Jazz hasn't been depicted officially as a 911 (or part of it's family tree) in 30 years is just factually wrong.

 

It's been a part of the live-action movies from day one, that some of us have found objectionable from day one. It comes up from time to time. We've all given this franchise enough money over the years to be entitled to express a few preferences.

 

I mean, if financial contributions dictate who gets a say in shaping the universe...have you ever looked at how much money the live action universe has pulled in?

It's a lot.

 

Except that's not even the problem. This isn't a question of Jazz being in the film with the wrong alt. mode, it's a question of the PORSCHE being in the film and inexplicably being assigned to possibly a character who isn't actually known for being the Porsche and not Jazz, when the very paint job of said Porsche looks more like Jazz than Mirage.

It's blatantly clear there was an intention to NOT make the Porsche as Jazz, which needs to be explained if any of this uproar is to be silenced amicably. Otherwise, it's going to be considered a black mark by people Hasbro's clearly been trying to cater to ever since the collapse of TLK when you take the single most popular Autobot in the fandom (or second most, it's either Jazz or Prowl since Prime and Bumblebee have too much exposure) and you do NOT give him the alt. mode that is just so perfect for him in a realistic setting.

Because people already got over that crap in 2009 when we had actual Twin transformers and they weren't Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

Except that's not REALLY a foolproof argument there since TLK proved just one slip up on a colossal scale nearly killed Paramount. All the money made by the films didn't make up for the fact TLK was a net loss of $100 million and killed the HuaHua Media contract Paramount desperately relied on to get funding, despite the franchise having two films that broke the $1 billion milestone.

On the other hand, it was Hasbro that picked up the tab...and THEY got a bigger say in what Paramount did with Bumblebee, which was the revamp to be more G1, and that change arguably is what saved the film.

 

What saved the film was because it's a good movie. General audience couldn't care less whether the robots look g1 or not.

 

Yup. As demonstrated by the live action films making billions of dollars despite the lack of any real G1 aesthetic. The Bee movie would have been good regardless of the VW alt mode.

There were four movies prior to that without the G1 designs that did just fine. The "one slip up" was thinking they were invincible and putting less effort in to creating anything close to a cohesive story. Any one of the three scripts that were stapled together to make TLK likely doesn't have the same kind of backlash as what went to theaters.

Hell, we know that slavish recreations of the source material aren't what draws general audiences because the MCU has turned in to a financial powerhouse while completely rewriting the origins, arcs, and outcomes of several characters.

Because general audiences aren't intimately familiar with the source material. They're just looking for a fun movie and a good story. That's why TLK ultimately collapsed. It started building too much of the story around the humans. I don't go to a Transformers movie to watch Marky Mark run around with a space gun. There were huge chunks of AoE where the bots simply vanished. So everybody went to AoE, it made a ton of money..but fatigue set in and they didn't come to TLK.

That alienated general audiences, because they don't go to Transformers movies to see generic human action. They can get that anywhere. And it's why Bee pulled them back in. You had a small robot cast, but they were able to be the focus of the story while the two main humans (Charlie, Cena) played their roles but didn't get in the way of the robot action.

 

I guess you missed my tirade. Lambos ARE the Twins. That Corvette was better suited to be Tracks, imo.

 

I've said it several times, but Jazz wasn't the only Porsche in G1. Dead End, Nightbeat, Cliffjumper, and several other characters turned into Porsches. I don't get this logic that Jazz and only Jazz is allowed to be a Porsche. There are a limited number of automobile manufactures in existence, so you're going to see the same ones pop up now and again for different characters. It's just silly to expect every car manufacturer to only be used for one character, when there are thousands of Transformers characters. And like I've said quite a few times at this point, this is a Porsche 911 which looks nothing like the 935 Jazz turned into. It's a different car.

 

I dont care if this is jazz or mirage. But... For folks who by the MP Line, this porsche appearence might finally mean they are willing to license an MP Jazz sometime is the future.

 

Yes. They took our money, in exchange for a highly desired but unsatisfactory product, which they have a monopoly on producing. (No one else has the rights to go out and make a superior TF movie to show them how it is done). You are absolutely correct. As the audience and as consumers, we gave them that money, we enabled them to continue to make these movies, as we hoped for better. They are the ones making this movie, so they get to express their take on the material, in movie form. Once again. We just get cheap words on the internet.

Expressing opinions, positive or negative, agreeable or disagreeable, that's the only say we get.

 

That was thirteen years and two directors ago.

No it doesn't. People just need to move on and stop using every tiny deviation from the source material as proof that the film is some slap in the face to fans. It wasn't explained why Blitzwing looked like Starscream, but the fans got over it when they realized it was a stupid thing to be upset about.

There's so many other, real things that can go wrong with this film. So much breath is being wasted over such a silly superficial change like Mirage's alt mode that I wonder how we could possibly articulate real problems with the film like story, character development, dialogue, writing, etc, if this is how we react to "the wrong kind of car."

It will never be silenced. People are still complaining about Prime having flames. I'm all for respecting the source material and listening to fans input, but as I said above the negative reaction to Mirage is disproportionately outrageous. There's nothing that can assuage that, there's people who have already written the movie off no matter what.

Again I say, how the hell are fans going to react to real problems with the movie if/when they become apparent?

And Mirage being a Porsche is somehow equal to this?

 

since when has the plausibility of alt modes been relevant in TF movies? or even TF in general?
latest time i can think of was RID2015 with Grimlock hiding as a crane.

 

only 15 people in the brand have actually read a big percentage of the comics, it seems like. every discussion idw and especially marvel are ignored as if they never existed. it's sad.

 

Nightbeat was also a Porsche. So was Minerva.
#shouldhavebeenNightbeatorMinervaeventhoughIhaven'tseenanythingbutacar

 

Changing alt modes is a problem? It literally happens in the first 5 minutes of MTMTE Part 1.

 

this is so detached from the argument about picking jazz's altmode for mirage, its incredible. name reuses for completely unrelated characters ARE fine, its an issue when you have the exact alt mode of one character and you give it to another.

 

It's not about being g1 AcCuRAte , jazz was a martini 935, not a 911. But jazz is arguably more important than mirage imo. And seeing this car makes me wish it were jazz. Even as a perfect mix a round silver sports car, ( bayverse ) and g1, Porsche with blue accents.