True. But in my opinion simplistic designs could be better... At least if the robots faces ressembled more the G1 characters... Of course the detail level in the movie is tremendous and impressive. I bought the DVD version and enjoyed but most of the fighting scenes it´s not possible to see what is happening with the robots. Barricade VS BBB is a perfect example... When they are grabbing/hitting and throwing each other they look as a pile of scrapmetal moving by itself... And these is a constant in many scenes. Impossible to understand even in super slow motion... This is a bit irritating... At least for me.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Your sig says what I was saying PERFECTLY!!! Could be the designs for Bay´s TF3. But in this case the transformations will be very disgusting... And will result characters death.
I don't know about the rest of the boards but I was never very excited about the ironman movie design, complete yawn's ville to me.
Maybe you didn't read the entire thread, and that is why you made the above comment. I am not faulting you, I've done the same myself. However, this is the entire POINT of this thread!!! Simplistic Design!!!! That means less detail. There are obviously people here who think less is more. IE the amount of detail was too much. Thats the point folks. To those who liked the design and the movie, there are some of us out there that really couldn't tell head from butt in the action scenes. I couldn't even make out where Bonecrusher's eyes and mouth were sometimes. They were literally a mess of metal and wires. And when two robots grappled, I might as well have watched two aluminum cans rolling around in the bottom of a trash can. At some point, the amount of detail becomes a hindrance to the movie. Look at some of the comics out there right now. One of the more famous ones - I forget its name - uses stick figures. It isn't this meticulously crafted anime-esque piece, its just stick figures. But it accomplishes its goal and is pretty funny. Like all things in life, its a balance. Too much explosion, too much loud, too much of anything without balance totally ruins. Think on this - what is the definition of loud without soft, happy without sad? Its due to the lack of those other moments that this film suffered. It was a film of disconnected scenes rushing from one place to another. You had aspects of a Fire Sale like in Die Hard 4, an alien invasion movie, Herbie, Fast and Furious, a mideast war movie like Blackhawk Down, a supersecret underground cult of technocrats, and government intrigue. And thats BEFORE you even put in the name of Transformers into the movie... Thats like 10 movies into one! No wonder things were soooo confusing. The plot was confusing. There were useless macguffins all over the place. The action scenes were shaky. The robots were overly complex. I honestly, seriously hope that Michael Bay fixes all those problems with the movie. If not, and you can all quote me on this - the movie franchise will die a slow, painful death...
Phazer is that you? Wait, no it's not, he left every TF message board he posted on when the movie turned out to be a huge hit after he ran his mouth.
I would suggest that anyone who finds the TF movie's plot confusing confines themselves to watching Sesame Street.
Again, Draven has to make the personal attacks instead of staying on the subject. I am not trying to start a personal flame war or hijack this thread with petty insults. Mods - please take notice.
My point (not that you bothered looking for it) was that the TF movie was anything but difficult to follow plotwise.
Claiming this seems to be embarrassingly contradictory to the logic that you've used in most of your posts so far. Think carefully about this - the Transformers movie franchise, bolstered by the marketing efforts of Hasbro, Dreamworks, GM, Paramount and countless subcontracted ad companies, toy and merchandise tie-in companies, etc...is going to die a "slow and painful death?" I completely disagree. Regardless of any single person's opinion about the Transformers film itself, the inevitable fact is that this film worked as a Blockbuster - it was a cinematic and marketing juggernaut and it has likely brought in a whole heap of cash for those companies involved, both through ticket sales and merchandising. I can't point to numbers for this, but I can point to leaps and bounds in the Transformers market - ebay sales of Transformers are high, toys disappear off the shelf much faster than they used to, the secondary market is ripe with opportunity, etc. The signs are there - the Transformers movie franchise is thriving. It would take a legitimate, unified fuck-up on behalf of all marketing branches of the aforementioned companies to cause the movie franchise to "die a slow, painful death." I just don't see that happening. Regardless of the direction Bay takes the next film (more or less explosions? More robots? More shaky-cam?) I still couldn't see the franchise (as a media juggernaut) failing in any way.
I don't think so especially if they keep making movies. I hope they would start promoting some toys and get to work.
I can see your point. Lets just say that TFs died a slow death before until Beast Wars revived them. They were at their peak in their heyday of the mid 80s and by the late 80s, they were nothing more than neon-colored gimmicks. I guess its more of a question of WHEN you start noticing the decline. Some people think the US economy started going downhill one year ago. Some people think its only starting to go downhill now. Some people don't even see it going downhill. And, lastly, some people started seing it go downhill when lenders FIRST started making subprime mortgages and when credit card companies started giving credit cards to basically any Tom, Dick, and Harry that could fill out a form. Secondly, you think money is the only true indicator of a franchise's success. Well, just look back at other movie franchise's that had toys. The 1st Batman movie sold a lot of toys. The 2nd and 3rd did too. But starting with the 2nd, the movie franchise was suffering due to quality. It had strayed so far from the originaly storyline that the series died, till Batman Begins started focusing on the core of what Batman actually is.
These are good beginnings of points that seem to be relatively independent of each other. To me, they do not seem to help bolster a driving point or any sort of argument. How is a matter of gross commercial success supposed to be a matter of personal perspective? Absolutely yes, from the standpoint of the company producing the franchise. Regardless of any feelings I personally might have for the Transformers film, if I viewed this - or the Batman franchise, or the Star Trek franchise - from a commercial perspective, I'd say that they were most certainly financial successes. In regards to actual cinematic quality, yes - each Batman film had a different level of appeal for folks. However, the toys sold. And they sold a lot. Batman merchandise moves very quickly while a Batman film is in the theaters, as that's what's currently in the public interest. In fact, I'd say that it seems like Batman and Robin merchandise moved with the same rapidity as Batman Begins merchandise. The same general trend of commercial success can be seen with Transformers, although the Transformers film's commercial success seems to be even more powerful - you could find Batman Begins products on the shelves before and after that film came out!
I guess I didn't make my point clear enough. I am assuming that you define success as how much a movie or toy makes. Its defined in dollar terms. I guess thats where all the confusion lies. I think you kinda strengthened my own point. You said that toys sell, and sell well when a movie is made. I think you also said that the Batman toys sold well no matter what movie it was. However, the series was already dying. People were getting tired of the poor quality of the movies. People still went to the movies and bought the toys but it eventually died due to poor quality. So the point is made that a toy's success does not necessarily indicate the longevity of a franchise.
I'll agree with that, but I'm still confused about the "painful" adjective as a descriptor for the end of the Transformers franchise. Why do you predict its fade-away as a series to be "painful?" The reason I ask is because, by and large, the Transformers film seems/I] to be riding on its commercial success without many problems. Unlike other films that have been financial/marketing juggernauts that later flopped horribly (Starship Troopers or Godzilla, for example,) we are now almost 8 months past the release of the Transformers film and it is still selling - in DVD releases, , in toy sales and through peripherals (movie tie-ins, etc.) In fact, marketing of this type continues to prosper (bolstered by a Transformers cartoon show, a related Transformers media property.) Given all this, I still don't see the Transformers franchise dying a "slow, painful death" for a while - certainly not before or during the release of the 2009 film, at least. Empirically, a toy's success does not necessarily indicate the longevity of a franchise, true. Specifically, Transformers seems to be having tremendous financial success AND is enjoying franchise longevity simultaneously.
