The Movie designs are merely a stepping stone to the perfection of Transformers Prime, guys. The pendulum will swing back and forth forever. Just look at G1, Beast Machines, and Car Robots(RiD 2001). Or Armada, Energon, and Cybertron (though there it sort of swings backward). The Movies are sort of a response/balance to Animated.

 

Ummmm, the Movie came before Animated.


I'd also hardly call TFP perfection, that's HIGHLY subjective there. Designs are simply up to artistic interpretation at the time. Whatever is popular at the time will dictate how the visuals go. TFA was done in that style to try to ride the Ben 10/Teen Titans train. Cyberverse is looking like an attempt to get a middle ground between G1 and TFA.

 

Especially since TFP couldn't write a Megatron worth a fucking damn to the point Starscream legitimately was a better leader.

 

 

You mean the show where 90% of the characters share the same face, transformation scheme, and design cues? TFPrime was so middle of the road stylistically. It took no risks, and had no character. They were derivative of both Animated and the movies, but lacked any of the creativity or character that they had. They were bland and easily emulated, and represented a sterile hodgepodge of previous designs whilst introducing nothing new or distinctive of their own with a few exceptions like Soundwave. (one of the legitimately good designs of the show IMO)

Actually, it's the exact opposite. Animated was basically a backup plan if audiences rejected the style of the films, and to quickly distance the brand from them should they fail. But they didn't, so the stark visual contrast between two concurrent lines was somewhat unintentional. (verses nowadays where there's increasing effort to align visual styles with evergreen and even the BB movie to a degree)

 

Supposing that there were the pendulum of which you speak, Shockscream13, and my memory serves me, then Prime, by the extension of your metaphor, would be far from perfect. Given the assertion that the movieverse is bad, and would equate to a backward swing, then the forward swing would be Animated, followed by a backward swing in ROTF, a forward swing in WFC, another backward swing with DOTM, met with a forward swing with Rescue Bots, terminating with a final regression in Prime. Compound that with the reality that many of Prime's elements were, in some ways or others taken from the movieverse, (e.g. Optimus' alt-mode, Optimus' bloodlust, disposable Decepticons, blinding transformation, built-in armaments, pointiness, tastelessness, useless military involvement, and, arguably, the grey, whispering Starscream as well as Fowler's modus operandi) and you will find that Prime is not the paragon that you perceive it to be. As it is, Prime had flaws of its own. It had pointless humans, nose-free faces, a Cliffjumper dead at the hands of glorified battle droids.
Given the designs and contradictions in story and plot, Prime, at best, could be seen as a way to detoxify fans' blood and brains of the seemingly finished drivel of the Movie trilogy. I laugh at the idea of the "stepping stone". The Movie designs are more akin to the grass of a valley in relation to Prime's designs, built on the foundation that is Generation 1, steeped in the manure of the Unicron Trilogy, with some blades taller than others, some more deeply rooted, some destined to be torn up, or chewed, or whistled with, but no blade greater than the next.

 

Been a fan of Transformers since the beginning. I own a variety of things bout the only stuff im not a fan of is A/E/C. While I do enjoy G1, there's no way in hell I'd wanna see a live action movie that looked like that. I like the movie designs because they clearly are actual aliens. Unlike G1, which tend to look like people dressed in robot suits. If people don't like the designs, that's fine with me, there's something to like for everyone in all the transformers over the years, hell, I think the comics are stupid and a huge waste of time but if others like it, I'm cool with that.

 

What's there to understand...?

Paramount are the one's jumping on the G1 bandwagon now that even regular moviegoers have grown tired of Bay's crap.

 

What I really like about Bayverse designs, beyond my complexity-boner, is that they really upped the ante with forms beyond the standard humanoid. Bonecrusher was hunchbacked, three-armed, had clawed roller-blades for feet, Starscream was wide and monstrously avian, Frenzy had a perturbing skinny look, Ironhide was really bulky and most of his arms were cannons. Other films depicted even fancier designs like Demolishor's head-surrounded-by-wheels-and-shovels, unicycle fembots, Rampage the pogo whipper. I liked the occasional twist on the vehicular aspects as well; Jetfire's blackbird boosters form his thighs rather than jet boots or a jetpack, Megatron turning his tank treads into shredder boots, that kind of stuff. I think someone said that there was a real sense of intrigue in just what kind of body was hiding inside the jets and cars, and that's my love for the movie style half-fulfilled; they just looked really fascinating, the ways they twisted and turned the usual humanoid formula, or even bypassing it altogether.

Well, the Decepticons anyway. The Autobots just played it safe and looked human-friendly, bless them  

 

I will never understand how in the hell anyone can't tell who's who in these movies
I own the dvd's I CAN TELL BUMBLEBEE FROM BARRICADE
I've seen them enough times

 

This guy gets it.
Yeah They took you out of Your comfort zone with the 1st trilogy designs

 

Ehhhhhhhhh, it's like watching the machines from the Matrix fighting eachother, honestly...

 

I understand why the designers went in the direction they did for the movie transformers, but they didnt have to go to the extent they did.
Yes, Prime is a semi truck, but he should have always been a flat nose truck, and they coulda used the same truck they ended up using for Galvatron in AoE as Prime's alt mode. Also, they never shouldve given him a mouth. The face plate is/was as much an integral part to the iconic look of his robot mode.

Second, having the Decepticons look more like metallic bugs was...well, i never liked it, shoulda called them Insecticons instead. Why couldnt Megatron be a tank? If they were gonna keep him in his cybertronian alt mode then why not make him look like G1 Galvatron's alt mode, a weird cybertronian gun-tank.
Starscreams robot mode?? the worst of them all. Here's the weird thing, his robot head has a closer resemblance to G1 Megatron in shape.

You see what im saying? they went so far left when they didnt have to.
Jetfire and old robot...wha...??? robots dont age!!!

 

I think I've said this before in other Bayverse threads, but at the risk of repeating myself...

One of my favourite aspects of the G1 toy designs were that they were, well, unusual-looking. Weird proportions, limited articulation, designs that were done on paper and via the use of physical models rather than using modern-day CAD software.

This gave the original G1 characters a distinctly otherworldly quality, which many modern Transformer designs lack. Wheeljack's arms were too long; Astrotrain's arms were too short. Ratchet and Ironhide's heads were an afterthought; Gears' head was too big. Warpath, Seaspray and Cosmos (and others) had conjoined 'monofeet'; Jazz, Springer and Blitzwing lacked feet entirely. Megatron and Wheelie just looked... weird.

And I loved them for it.

So for me the more humanised, anthropomorphic designs that were introduced for the G1 cartoon were inferior to the toys. The toys looked more like weird aliens from outer space, rather than humans in armour. Unusual and bizarre robots were sanitised and homogenised to become the 'evergreen' designs that we know and love today.

So for me, the Bay designs harkened back to the Transformers' original roots, back to Huffer's double-jointed arms, to Scourge's tiny arms and weird tiptoe posture, to Hound's giant feet. We had chicken-legs, pogo-stick legs and unicycle legs. We have fat Transformers, thin Transformers, claws, hair, beaks, oversized limbs and strange proportions. The Transformers were truly alien again, just like the original G1 toys were.

Whether they succeed as good deigns is obviously down to the individual to decide, but for me the Bayformers are in many respects truer to the Transformers' original roots than the G1 cartoon is.

 

Its a hit and miss for me. Some designs are good and some are goofy... I think the bayformers design are too far from the source material... Hopefully we get to see these designs by XM studios on the big screen in the future..

 

To be completely fair it isn't like Prime hasn't been a long-nose truck cab in the past - hell, one of the most popular versions of him is G2 Laser Prime and that's a long-nose cab.

They gave him a mouth to make him more emotive - honestly it's kind of a happy compromise that he does still have the faceplate, but it's more a battle mask that goes over his mouth though he can still speak just fine with it deployed. Plus, the series immediately preceeding the films ALSO had given prime the same deal with a mouth under a battle mask...

Then how did he get to Earth from Cybertron on his own? Plus he was a tank in the second film and it isn't exactly that much better if we're honest.

Because guess what Megatron (and more accurately, the G1 Megatron colored Galvatron version) turned into in Cybertron.

Movie Starscream does NOT have a bucket head. It's not even got squared edges.

Alpha Trion and Kup from G1. Checkmate.

 

THIS. And yeah, the magnet walking through a scrapyard example fits perfectly.

 

If their heads/faces didn't look like insects, I would be fine with the designs... but the faces look atrocious.

IMO, TF Prime was the best TF series to this point. Except that they made bumblebee not speak like the movies...

I just saw the last movie and sometimes he can talk and sometimes he can't... so stupid.

 

While deviating from source material can be good and something I normally support, there needs to be a line drawn as to what point the designs stop being Transformers and more just robots wearing the suggestion of car parts if even that. The movie designs introduced more or less from AoE on, though some DOTM designs are just as guitly I will admit, simply seem to treat the idea of having recognizable alt. mode pieces in robot mode as an optional suggestion rather than a mandate and the inconsitency is rather jarring. For example, AoE Stinger and Bumblebee's main robot mode are identical but somehow turn into completely different cars, suggesting there isn't a connection between the two even though there very much needs to be given transformation is just the robot form rearranged into LOOKING like a car, not actually BECOMING a car. And Galvatron is a waste of CGI because that robot mode clearly isn't intended to look like it turns into anything because it lacks any kibble - further proven by how the toy has to hide THE ENTIRE ALT. MODE on the backside of the body and limbs.

Transformers need to look like they transform, given that's the whole gimmick, and being lazy with designs as the movie designs have been approaching simply removes another layer of depth to the robot characters. Compare that to the G1 Seeker/'Starscream' from the BB trailer, sure it isn't exactly a really original design beyond the adaptation onto an F4 Phantom, but the transformation is a joy to watch all the parts shift around and become something recognizably humanoid.

I'm not entirely sure how you can think it was the best when the show was a constant series of aborted build-ups to pathetic non-payoffs that relied on Megatron being so genuinely awful at leadership that Starscream legitimately started out as the better leader in the interest of the Decepticon goals, a second season full of plot devices (half of which get destroyed in the same episode they're introduced in), and a complete inability to permanently kill off any Autobots who have an iota of character development past the first episode.

 

They only represented the characters they were based on in name only.

To me they were just Transmorphing alien robots, not Transformers.

they all resembled crushed metal compacted scrap in robot modes. and once bay got the last most terrible movie of all, they could hardly be called transformers at all. they were just giant knights in knight armor. devoid of anything robot related at all.

 

It can also be so bad it shits all over the source material.