I see it as a "re-boot" of G1 - in much the same way as the new BSG. I think it has a lot in common with G1, whilst also being different - and necessarily so.

I am from the G1 generation and in an ideal world there are things I would change if I could - but I love the movie and am looking forward to ROTF.

 

I see it as G1 for the twenty-first century. It seems to have more in common with that continuity than any other and looks to be where the writers turn to most for their inspiration. However, I believe it to be sufficiently different from the first incarnation of the franchise to qualify as a new strand entirely.

 

Really, I see it as the real life version of G1. No matter how many times there has been a new TF series, the story line has been the same. Id hate to compare it this way but its just like Power Ranger: they get upgraded/changed every season or so but its still the same plot.

 

Meh. It's a different beast all on its own and I like that. I love seeing familiar faces reimagined in different ways, regardless of what franchise it is.

 

The only facts in the case are that it's very heavily G1 derived, and a retelling of the original story; it's clearly based on that portion of the franchise (like nearly every series since has been, at least to some degree).

Whether you personally choose to recognize it as "G1" is one of those unresolvable internet nerdwars.

 

Not sure if you actually get the difference here.

Adolf Hitler was a real person. He led an actual country. Setting aside the stuff he's infamous for, he was real.

Star Trek, the X-Men, Stewie Griffin, Bloodrayne...all these you cite are works of fiction. Someone or some company owns them. Their personal histories, their achievements, everything about them can be redone, retconned, or simply discarded in the next telling of their adventures.

The Hitler example doesn't hold water. You're comparing an actual person with someone who is just a figment of someone's imagination, rendered as intellectual property.

Iron Man
The Lord of the Rings
Firestarter
Stand by Me
Trainspotting
The Shawshank Redemption
Christopher Nolan's Batman movies

These are only a small number of stories and properties from the print medium translated into pretty good films. And I liked them.

 

No, I am not. I have no faith in that man what so ever.

 

Keep your G1 wants out of my Bayformers.

Thank you.

 

Missed a "y" in there, darn spell checker instead of grammar checker.

I'm not saying there are never any good translations from book to movie, comic book to movie, or TV show to movie. But every translation from one to the other is not always great. Each film series will vary as to how many of it's old fans it can win over and how many feel it somehow missed the mark.

 

Oh, the sweet irony.

 

I would like to further elaborate my point of view for a moment.

I know on page 3 I pretty agreed with Midnight's statement, but after a good nights sleep i have further to add.

To me, Bayformers is a movie similar to the live action Masters of the Universe movie, or the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Movies based on existing franchises which were completely bastardized.

Mario and MOTU movies were bad for me for this main reason; they completely changed the look and feel of a series I had come to know and love, and was familiar with.
I don't know if they did the best they could based on existing tech at the time, or they just didn't care.

However I actually like both of those movies at the same time; why?
Mario Bros. had some decent characters , and character dev, and I liked them. Plus the movie wasn't afraid to make fun of itself. I liked that.
MOTU I thought had decent characters as well, and some good one liners, and the story was okay too.

Bayformers for me fits into this category of movie. Now I don't think Bayformers is completely bad, it's just shallow. I know I bitch about it a lot but I really thought it was an okay movie. It just isn't great. It's no Spiderman, it's no Dark Knight.

The story for the movie was pretty rank, and a bit lame.
The Autobots barely had and character developement (unless you count the scene where the Autobots were bumbling around Sams house, which no one does), and the Cons were little more than Hollywood movie monsters.
Poor Megatron was nothing more than a mere after thought, and nobody cared when Jazz was killed. Seriously I felt worse for BB when he lost his feet then when Jazz got killed. That's just bad story telling.

The special effects were great I can't fault the movie for that. Yes many of the characters designs were really bad, but the cgi models were fantastic.
Though when the Autobots arrival to Earth was simply amazing. It was probably the best part of the film. That and Sams encounter with Barricade.
So their good and bad things about Bayformers, but it was mostly a pretty pedestrian movie.

 

Bayformers has homages to G1, which I like, despite having not been introduced to it that early.

But keep everything about G1 in Bayformers to a MINIMUM.

 

The Bayformers movie was a different universe, but completely untrue to the source. If you're going to have Optimus Prime be a truck, you can't go about giving him a long front end and you certainly don't give him flames. Don't want to make Bumblebee a VW bug, fine. But don't make him a souped up muscle car. He's small and scrawny and shouldn't be the star of the film. And Megatron should have kicked more butt and killed more robots. But only if there were more robots to kill off in the first place. You don't need to give them distinct personalities, they're just going to be killed off in the first few minutes.

And speaking of killing them off, they kill off one insignificant (to the movieverse) character. They should have killed off a major character. Imagine how powerful it would be if they killed off Bumblebee or even Optimus Prime himself. Of course, then Prime couldn't have his moment where he laments the loss of a an all-powerful paperweight. The source of great power in the Transformers universe is the matrix not a crappy black box. It's an interstellar relic, not airplane transponder.

And don't get me started on the humans in the story. It's called "Transformers," not "Sam Tries to Get Lucky While the Army Blows Shit Up." There should be one, maybe two human characters. And they should both be male. Want a female in the story, add a femmebot.

Linkin Park and Goo Goo Dolls don't cut it. It's giant metal robots, not Heathers: The Next Generation. They're going to shoot each other, not cut themselves. Give me 80's power rock. Give me Stan Bush. Give me "The Touch."

I know, I know. We can't do all that because it costs too much. So, make it an animated film. All the shows were animated. The movie should be animated.

To hell with the Fallen and Devastator. The movie needs Unicron. Then it would be awesome. And I guarantee it would make tons of money. Also the should release it twenty years ago.

[/Sarcasm]

I do agree with the folks that say that the robot personalities where barely developed beyond Bumblebee and it was often difficult to tell them apart or what they were doing at any given moment due to their design, but I thought Bay did a better job with it than anyone else was going to. The story was good and effects were great and it was easy for people unfamiliar with the story to follow. Bumblebee pissing on the guy was dumb, but didn't ruin the film (or my childhood). There's plenty to dislike about the film on its own merits, but it's failure to be a true G1 film isn't necessarily a fault.

 

As far as I'm concerned, its a new franchise.

I'm someone who never clings to the past, or reminisce about nostalgia. Rather, I'm always open to new ideas and new interpretations. I don't believe in going down a similar path, just because thats 'how it was in G1'.

It doesn't matter if Bumblebee is a fighter, it doesn't matter if Ironhide is black, it doesn't matter if Starscream doesn't backstab as much.
I love the movieverse for its own unique interpretations, and I never worry about its lack of G1 accuracy. The past is the past, the future is the future.

I loved G1 as a kid and looked forward to Saturday mornings when the cartoon would come on. I got my hands on almost every G1 toy that was available in my country. But that was 20 years ago. It is a new franchise now, and some changes is refreshing.

Just an analogy. You grew up enjoying your mother's chicken soup and loved it. To you, it was simply delicious.
But does that mean that 30 years on, when you go into a restaurant and order chicken soup, it tastes horrid and yucky merely because it wasn't your mother's recipe?

I know some people might say yes, but for me, I appreciate the different taste or style of the soup, and enjoy it for what it is, not hate it for what it isn't. The new soup may taste different from your mother's, but it has its own unique goodness and appeal.

 

I've always considered the TF Movie franchise as just another reboot of TF fiction in general. And that's fine. That said, my major exceptions to the film franchise are reasons that have little to do with how non-G1 they are.

My major reasons for not being a huge fan of the TF films are:

The first film isn't written very well, the general robot design aesthetic is too car-crash-mangled-tin-foil for me, and, need I mention, it brought us robo-urination (see film not written too well.)

For those reasons, even if I weren't a toy robot person, I probably wouldn't like the movie very much. On a scale of 1 to 10 for me, it's definitely a 6.5/7.

 

The Watchmen movie was slavishly faithful to the comic book. The hardcore fans probably loved it, but a lot of people following the story the first time found it dragging.

Translating a story from one medium to another is always a challenge. Hell, Transformers went through the same thing in the cartoons, moving through different animated formats, going back to TRUKK NOT MUNKY.

Even the G1 Transformers cartoon and comic versions didn't offer consistent portrayals of the same characters.

I'll admit the live action movie could have been better. But it's just one franchise out of several under the Transformers brand. Trying to find deeper meaning in a movie based on a glorified commercial for toy robots is looking for things that might not really be there.

 

Your post would've been the greatest ever had it not been for the disclaimer at the bottom.

 

Yes being too faithful to the adaptation can be just as bad or worse so it's a tricky game finding the right balance. Sort like an exact word for word translation of Lord of the Rings would have been bad compared to the liberties take to make the films flow and to add tension.

 

I don't disagree with you much here, but Simon Furman, along with some other writers in various mediums haven't had too much trouble writing good TF fiction in the past.

 

For me i see this as G1 new franchise style
its in its own G1 universe if that makes sense... and i like it like that... Yes i would love to see classic characters make it to there own movie but i think as this as a new franchise in the transformers universe it works very well... one day id so love to see classic modes colors etc make it into there own movie... will that happen prob not glad we got the 1986 movie : )