As much as I liked ROTF and DOTM, they seemed to lack the heart and character of the first film. As I look back, John Rogers (comic book writer) wrote the first draft that the movie was largely based on. So my question is do you believe that the simple lack of involvement of Rogers caused the lack of Transformer characterization and the basic heart of the story? Its said he did the characterization of the Bots in the first and that he came up with most of the stuff non action related. To me, it looks like sequels or reboots need writers more familar with comic book writing.
Absolutely not. The first movie had the least robot characterisation out of the three films, so I would say keep Rogers well away. Besides, I don't have a problem with what Kurtzman and Orci turned in and I really liked Ehren Kruger's work on DotM. Besides, you say you would like someone more familiar with comic book writing, but surely that would be a horrible mistake as comics and movies are two radically different genres?
Not necessarily. Many comic book panels have a very cinematic quality to them. If a comic book writer can describe those sorts of scenes to an artist to draw, then I don't see why they can't outline similar scenes to a movie director to film. And as for characterization and dialog, more than a few comic book writers are capable of such stuff to a level equaling that of the best playwrights and novelists. That being said, wasn't John Rogers responsible for that stinker of a Catwoman film? I'd keep him far away.
I have to disagree. even though the film wasn't centered on the Transformers, it still gut a lot of characterization. It showed the personalities off all the Autobots. There was too many Characters in the next few to give sufficient development.
I guess that part of my post was semi-rhetorical. I can certainly see the similarities in the artistic style, as you rightly point out, but to me, the stream of dialogue vs monologue between movies and comic books just doesn't seem to blend IMO. Movies don't really have the opportunity to show what the characters are thinking without the exposition getting rather clunky, but comics can spend many pages with just 'thought bubbles' or internal speech/narration to carry the plot forward. I'm not saying a good writer wouldn't be capable of adapting themselves to either style, but the seperate genres are just that in my eyes - seperate. Although one can be translated into another, such as with Watchmen, for example, where I found the comic to have a very cinematic element. The film likewise, continued a lot of the internal characterisation. I just think that is the exception rather than the rule.
I still like how magical the first movie seems. Who didn't get goosebumps during the Arrival scene? I thought that the movie made a great introduction to the Transformers universe. The robots had lots of personality in the scenes they had. Optimus was a war hero haunted by his past and was the perfect leader. Bumblebee was a young Autobot who communicated his feelings very well without words. Ratchet was the genius medic. Jazz was the second in command who was small but brave and he wanted to help Bumblebee. Ironhide was the blow s**t up dude who sometimes questioned why they were fighting for the humans.
That’s a generalised miss-conception. True, I would say that by and large DOTM had the most robot characterisation and definitely felt the most “Transformery”. However, ROTF is the one that’s guilty of having the least robot characterisation. In TF1, even though the robots on the whole had the least screen-time out of all three films, the Autobots were handled very well. You got a sense of who each and every one of them was. ROTF failed to do that in favour of asses, pot brownie jokes, boobs and explosions. Glad that DOTM made up for it.
