Now, I love the movie designs and aesthtic, and was glad when it was first said that there would eb no mass-shifting in the movie-verse. Obviously Frenzy's head turing into the phone was a bit of a cheat there, but I can forgive that given the neciesity of that to the plot, and i's not as extreme as huge robots turning into a gun or Walkman.

However, looking at the Hasbro wallpaper with the Twins on it, it's really obvious that a fair degree of warping and mass change with Skids. You can see the pattern that covers the whole side of his car mode shriks and warps to fit into one small panel by his arm, a panel which is smaller than his doors! Also, the part of this pattern which sweeps over to the front of the car magically manags to remain on the front section in bot mode while simiultaneously also fitting onto the said panel by the arm, and also on a panel near his back (some of the other CGI images show this one more clearly).

I know there was a bit of cheating with the bots in the first movie (disappearing windscreens and seats etc, more internal bot parts that could realistically fit into the vehical mode without filling the entire seting area with mechanics) but in general the vehical parts remained in proportion in both modes.

The shrihking design on Skids, however, is a bit more blatant, and goes some way to confirm some people's suspicion that the vehical modes are kind of grafted on to pre-existing designs for the robots, and if something doesn't quite match up then never mind. Not that this will affect my enjoyment of the film as far as story and action go, but it is a bit disappointing to think that despite all the work that apparently goes into generating models with thousands of moving parts, and trying to make things realistic, there's such blantant laziness with something that is as simple as a small design adjustment.

No wonder we'll never get completely movie-accurate transforming toys - even leader Prime has it's cheats...

 

it would be near impossible for everything to move exactly and not change size and if it did, then the bot would just look stupid probably

i dont mind a small amount of mass shifting it doesn't bother me in the slightest, it doesn't bother me that the interior of the car just magically vanishes coz i dont really care about that part

as long as nobody turns into a stero then stands as tall as prime or megatron jumps into the hands of starscream im happy

 

If they didn't shrink or divide some parts we'd end up with the same stupid DOOR ATTACHED TO ARM stuff that some of the toys have.

Plus it's not like the shrunk it to 50% of the sive, it's mostly around 85% of the size.

 

Its a fan-wank nod to the G1 Cartoon. YES. The Bay-formers have mass-shifting too.

 

Bullshit. It's not a fan-wank. It's just them cheating because it would be impossible to have a 100% accurate transformation, so even in a universe without mass shifting, there is a little cheating.

Personally, I don't really care, because it's not even real mass-shifting. Just minor cheats. I don't like mass-shifting at all..don't like it how a bot can fit into another bot's vehicle mode, even if they are the same size in robot mode. Or how a giant robot turns into a very tiny handgun.

I will give you this though..there is ONE character that justifies mass-shifting, and it's, obviously, SOUNDWAVE.

 

Why? And why "obviously"?

 

I'd say on the particular example of SKids is smaller than 50%. Seriously, look at the swirly pattern on the bot mode, and then see how much bigger it is on the car. I just don't get why they wouldn;t split the pattern up and spread it over more parts in the bot mode to at least give the illusion that the car breaks up rather than shrinks. I guess in action it's not really going to be that noticeable, but it slightly annoys me cos when the Movie 1 designs were first seen I was defending them from the point of view of them being realistic, and as it turns out realism only matters when the design/production team want it to!

 

Because I just said so and he is awesome. C'mon man, what more arguments do you need?

How about the fact that his turning into a cassette deck and infiltrating bases that way is brilliant. Or him storing robotic henchmen like that?

I think because of lack of mass-shifting, other Soundwave characters haven't reached the level of awesome like the G1 version (as cool as other versions are).

 

It doesn't look all that smalll, seriously, the Beat is a real small car (Skids is just a bit bigger than a human) with really big front lights compared to the rest of his body, the size isn't really as bad as you think it is

 

and who doesnt love big headlights  

 

So your argument is, ironically enough given your previous post in this thread,

OK then, thanks for clearing that up for me.

And yet:

Or a tape deck. Make your mind up.

 

I hope you can understand the irony when someone uses the argument of something 'being awesome', stating it as fact? Appearantly not.

The difference between Soundwave and other bots using mass-shifting is Soundwave's actually has a purpose. He's the intel officer. He sneaks into human and Autobot facilities to gather information disguised in his tapedeck form, something he can't do when he's a fricking huge robot.

Just what purpose does Megatron turning into a little gun have, next to looking silly? Oh hi, I'm the biggest, baddest Decepticon leader, I turn into a handgun so my second in command can fire me. Never mind that fusion cannon I have on my robotic arm.

G1 Soundwave being awesome is my personal opinion. His character and special skills work good because of the mass-shifting, but it is useless in pretty much all other characters (except maybe Blaster, since he's Soundwave's Autobot equivalent).

Me saying bullshit Wing Saber's comment has nothing to do with the Soundwave argument. Way to take it out of context, for the sake of looking what..smart? Funny?

Don't worry gramps, from now on I will be sure to explicitly state something as my opinion, not as a fact. Even if it should be totally obvious to any other human being. Gotta keep the cranky elderly in mind, eh?  

 

Gramps? Oo, an age dig! I must be dealing with a child! I'll adjust my posting style from now on when I talk to you  
OK littl'un (I like that, so I think I'll call you it from now on), I'll bite.
1. I quoted your charming comment at Wing Saber's argument so you could see how irritating/stupid it is when someone does that. Looks like it worked too.
2. Wow! I've never seen an opinion before, what with having been here for nearly 9 years! Honest. Thanks for pointing it out to me.   (this, incidentally, is called sarcasm. I wouldn't expect many children to understand it, so if you did, give yourself a gold star)
3. "No-one should mass shift! (except him, because he's great)" is a daft argument, your opinion or not. Put in one TF who can do it, and others will be able to as well. Mass shifting, or NO mass shifting - Make your mind up. Open the door or leave it closed.
Still, I suppose it's typical of a little kid to contradict himself partway through a post, eh?

 

Are you sure? the panel with mroe or less the whole pattern from the side of the car doesn't even look a wide as the front grill....

And the thing that really bugs me is that part of the pattern manages to be in three places at once :S

 

If I can accept Ant-Man, Wasp, and skinny Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk in Marvel comics then mass shifting in general isn't any sort of problem for me.

Plus I'm old enough to know that special effects have always been about cheating so if they need to cheat a bit here and bit there to change from car to robot, once again no problem.

Although it's so funny to read about how upset people can be over it.

 

I'm not upset, just confused why they'd purposefully do something as silly as shrink a deco down rather than break it up when they'd previously insisted on being 'realistic' etc.

 

Transformations are fudged.

Yummy yummy fudge...

 

The size still looks good enough to me.

If there's a problem is the fact that some of the markings on robot mode... are completely different from anything on the real car such as his armpit marking, where did that come from?

 

Not rum and raisin though. <gags>

 

that's kind of what I mean, it looks like the design on the side of the car has been shrunk and warped to fit on that one panel, whereas common sense says you'd just split the markings up and they'd be on the corresponding panels in robot mode.