The common complaint I'm hearing from everyone is there isn't enough character development of the robots. The only characters that they're focusing on are Prime, Bumble Bee, Megs, Screamer, Jetfire, Twins, and the Fallen.

During any normal motion picture, the movie generally centers around the 2 leads and a few supporting characters. ROTF is following the same protocol of any normal movie, by focusing on it's 2 leads, and a few supporting characters. In a comic book, or cartoon series, you have a full season to develop each individual character, in 3 a part trilogy, you don't have that liberty. Don't get me wrong, I agree with everyone that more development is better. However, I don't think it's ever going to be possible in the movie-verse due to time constraints.

 

Well, they'll always focus on Prime because he's the leader. On Bumblebee because he's so goddamn lovable and he's best friends with the main human character. On Megs, because he's the leader of the enemy and on Screamer because he's so awesome. I don't know why they focus on the twins because they look annoying and Jetfire is because he's pretty popular among the fans. The Fallen, well, his name is in the subtitle DUH! But indeed, I would like them to focus more on less important characters in the next movie, too. They're totally being ignored like Ratchet, Jolt, Ironhide, Arcee and Sideswipe. And the most important one: Soundwave. But they will introduce new robots in the third one so it's going to be even harder to give all of them enough screentime and development... which is a shame.

 

i like focusing on the main characters and I think that ROTF gave them tons more development.

in my opinion, i dont see why they should spend time developing characters that are going to be killed off in a matter of seconds or scenes.

 

After seeing Sideswipe's spot it's a blasted shame those twins are getting more air time. They're the Jar Jar Binks and being forced down our throats. I would love to have seen more Sideswipe, Arcee and Jolt.

 

do you know what you get if you give each individual character the same amount of screen time???

You get Watchmen which ends up being less action and more character development. But that's only 6 characters and ends up being a 3 hour movie

So with 46 robots!!!.............its near impossible unless it was like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Extended Edition

 

They dont have to be given tons of character development but it would have been nice to see they had some character.

 

Or at least a line or two. Nothing extravagant.

 

I dont think it would have hurt if a slight amount of action was cut to fit in a little more character development. Makes you actually care more about what happens to the characters during the action. Character development tends tomake for greater films than action does. Though maybe I do need to accept these films as just mindless action.

 

well i think you dont understand the typical complaint which is they arent developing any of the characters. Bumble bee is as close as it gets and even he is just a bunch of one liners really.

Cmon lets be honest here there is no depth to the film or the characters Bay has even admitted that in that interview he just did with the pic of prime / jetfire combo.

To that man Transformers are merely cool for the things they are not who they are. I think many dissagree and that the Transformers should have some individual personality and story. But lets face it the movie is just a shallow cgi spectacle. Great if CGI is all you want

 

I liked the way the twins were portrayed in the film. It's not that I don't want developement for the other characters, but there are always other materials like the comics and books. I would rather they focus on a core cast, rather than under do everyone anyway.

 

This is what happens when you get someone like Michael Bay, who was given a 48 hour school lesson on Transformers, and then believes he knows more about them than most fans.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the first movie and really excited about the second one. However, I think the biggest complaint I can give about this movieverse is the lack of character development and/or dialogue amongst the Transformers. Oh well.

 

I'll tell you why most robots will never be developed in the movieverse. It's because Bay likes explosions, nay he lives for explosions and general carnage. He's spent his whole life looking for the ultimate explosion sequence, the epitome of annihilation, and to him everything is a mere tool to get to that. Actors, CGI, scripting, locations, all mere tools in his search. At times, ROTF feels like a series of explosions with some robots in the middle. Don't get me wrong, it's great and all, but it feels a little disjointed.

 

actually i don't need a much development but I like unique personalities

From what I can tell, these will be the guys with some personalities other than OP and BB

Jetfire
Twins
Starscream

 

i think the development of Megatron and Starscream was brilliant.

you could see that Megatron was the bully and was taking his failures and frustrations out on Starscream (whom, was giving his best to explain and cover himself) but (Megatron) would kiss ass with The Fallen.

blaming Starscream is like the scape goat for anything that goes wrong when Megatrons around.

 

I know they don't have a great deal of time to flesh out all the characters, but it does seem like they could do more.

I mean think back to the original Star Wars films, we didn't exactly have all the time in the world with Bobba Fett and yet somehow in that little bit of time we did have he ends up as a major character in the Star Wars Universe because they gave fans just enough of kernel to go on.

So while I'm not looking for the full back story of every Autobot and every Decepticon nor do I need to know their favorite color it would be nice to infuse them with at least enough personality to jump start the old imagination. Too many characters just have that feeling of cannon fodder or filler and that applies to the human cast as well.

 

I have a feeling that Sideswipe and Blackout/Grindor are beginning to fill that Boba Fett niche.


But I do agree that while we have a lot of bots showing up this time around, it would've been nice to have them show at least a bit on interaction or maybe speaking a few lines and such. Kinda give them more of a presence that they are there and that they count for something. Not just when they do a particular showcase scene, speak a line and then melt away into the background.

 

its hard to develop them , look at X-Men

 

I think the Kitchen Bots almost got more screen time than Sideswipe and friends  

 

Why bother developing any TFs... Apparently they are like Highlanders and every time two of them meet they fight to the death! Don't expect mercy or just a fleshwound, it is Kill or be killed utterly. There won't be many of them left to develop or even have stories about because only starscream is smart enough to run away.

 

I don't know why people say movie characters lack development. Even if they don't speak, how the CG robots move tell a lot. Jazz jumping on top of Brawl, dodging, turning and kicking off the missile rack is certainly different from Blackout sending energy waves all around the base, cutting up cars with propellers, or from Scorpnok quickly bringing out his tail from beneath the sand and impale a soldier. Talking isn't the only way of fleshing out characters, and I think the movie is a proof for this.