I can all ready hear the screaming to come. Not, screaming in the theater, but the screaming that comes from buying your brand new toy and finding out that it takes so many steps to Transform. I remember some of the complaining I head about the number of steps needed to transform RID. Judging from the looks of the those pics the RID toys will be considered a walk in the park in comparison to these new movie toys.

As for the pictures themselves, Prime is fugly. Starscream isn't any better. If Scorponok can't transform he's not much better than an expensive Action Master. (And, I hate Action Masters!) Blackout is the most pleasing of the lot, and that's not saying much to me.

From the looks of things to come, I sadly can not say that I will probably not be seeing this travesty in the full price theater. Maybe, at the cheep place, where your $5 gets you a seat, a drink, and a bucket of popcorn. (I don't like popcorn either.)

  Thank you, to Michael Bay for inspiring such utter crap. (Just as I knew you would.)




So, who's the first person to rip into me for my opinions?

 

Oh, I'm sure somebody will feel a need to verbally rip you a new asshole before the night is out. That's how we roll.  

Still, I'm with you on Starscream. Optimus I like, but...eeeeugh for Starscream. He looks like a monkey.

 

Overall I think it's looking good. I mean most of these are still design drawings so seeing the final, moving movie version will be the ultimate test.

Like the Blackout toy looks more Transformery to me then the image (which looks a bit McFarlane robot over designy to me) but over all Blackout it total kickassness and I'm loving it. Not having a preconceived idea of what he should look like helps a bit too. To that end Starcream looks the worst to me, his face is all kinds of odd. Prime I like, even if he looks kinda Bioniclely. Just not sure where all the truck mode metal goes, he doesn't seem to have enough red/blue on his robot mode to cover the truck mode.

 

As someone who grew up with every transformers series, I can't wait to see this flick... or more pics... which ever comes first. Totally digging this. Are they totally different? yes. change is scary. Remember how much hatred there was for Beast Wars?

Ah well, to each his own. I love it, some will hate it.

 

Its the torrent of negative fanboi comments in this thread that make me sad to be apart of this community some times. I mean for Pete's sake, grow up people. If you don't like it, don't give them your money. It's that simple. Reading a hundered different comments on how the models suck because they aren't "Gee Wun" is gettin real old. I mean every time something new comes along the same people here are to the ready with their negativity cannons. Case in point the Masterpiece Starscream thread..

And don't be upset with just Bay and the movie folks as Hasbro also took part in the design process.

I will reiterate, that's to repeat for you folks out there not near a dictionary, my earlier quote "If you don't like it, don't give them your money. It's that simple." I, for one will sit in the theater and enjoy the movie for what it is, a movie.

 

Wow, so the toys are the same aesthetic as the movie, just less skeletony. Very cool to be doing something so different. Blackout's toy looks very nice. Him and Starscream both look very imposing. Prime looks great, can't wait to see the toy for him. Argh, can't wait to see ANYTHING more. WOO

 

I was wondering why I was having such a hard time getting online... Now I know why...

 

Okay, some things I like:
-Prime's head design was kept (I'm crossing my fingers that they do the same for Bumblebee (he has horns) and Megatron at least)
-They managed to encorporate a few elements from the vehicle mode into the robot mode.

Somethings I dont:
-They pulled another Beast Machines for character heads. In the webcast, Orci and Kurtzman said they wanted to "mix it up" between reconizable characters and "new" characters. How is that served if the recognizable ones are unrecognizable?
-Worse, Starscream didn't even get an appropriately emotive head. Instead, he looks like Tick Tok from the second Wizard of Oz film.
-The vehicle mode parts are so broken up that I have trouble seeing what they transform into.

I don't buy the "G1 aesthetic wouldn't work for this film" argument. Toys with reconizable blocks of the altmode becoming limbs have sold well for the last 3-4 years. Armada, despite many of us panning it for lazy designs, sold much better than RiD, part of which was blamed on the complicated transformation of the car brothers.IMO, they blew it both artistically and comercially. I can't imagine that Prime fighting with Megatron without breaking something off (though that may be the point of the insubstantial armor and jaggy bits). How are kids, how suppossedly can't figure out Sideburn, supposed to transform something that complex?

 

"If you can't take the heat, get out of the nuclear reactor."  

 

He has to. From the note in the lower left corner of the pic:

"The wheel that drives the spinning claws will need to be accessible from the top of the toy as well so that it can be activated in its second mode by a child's thumb."

 

Like I said in the other thread, these are really nice looking mecha figures, but they just aren't TFs (like those from any generation, even BM had them looking like characters rather than just robot things).

 

Starscream i am not too crazy about......... but there have been so many versions of Starscream over the years that i can get over it.

Others all look quite promising.

 

With Starscream, I don't expect a G1 replica of the face - I just want a face that makes me think "Hey! It's Starscream!"

This one doesn't do it. It's possible to make Starscream's face more alienesque and still have it come off as Starscream.

 

I'm actually appreciating this breath of fresh air for TFs... But I do think I'm a minority... (Not because I actually AM a minority of course...)  

 

I am speechless as to how bad these things look. Its such bullshit to make up an excuse to say this isnt a G1 movie, just a G1 "based" movie. Thats like saying a girl is just a little pregnant.

All these people wanted to do was to find vehicles that would be more appealing in today's society to make an even bigger buck. "A jet for Starscream? DUDE! WAKE UP! You know people think Stealth Bomber's are cooler! Hmmm, I dont think the kids that watch Pimp My Ride and all these big money rap videos are gonna dig Prime. I GOT IT! Throw some flames on em'!"

I dont remember a series like Lord of the Rings trying to be made for a more open audience and it turned out "OK". I mean, if they wanted to make this movie for a bigger audience based on what people like, why not just make the Transformers land on earth, star in a reality show and watch Starscream get kicked off because he had no hands?

Isnt a super huge talking robot alien enough for people? Do they have to have spikes coming out of every direction, with all kinds of shit hanging out of them and all resemble some family member of the Predator for someone to go "Hmmmm, that fella isnt from around here is he?"

I must admit, I dont mind Prime, but did they have to just give up on every other character? So are they telling us that since we got the main thing that us fans asked for which was Cullen to do Prime's voice, (Which is another thing that makes me go hmmmmmm cuz I think its BS) They can now pick shitty actors to do the voices of everyone else?

I do have some hope that I will enjoy the movie, but wow, were talking hope thats declining with every single news story I look up.

***EDIT***
Please leave those comments out of the thread... Thank you...
-TFW2005 Staff

 

Well, it's official. Add this to every thing else (minus Peter Cullen being in the movie and the assertion that it is some how based on G-1), and I'm out. I'm not seeing the movie unless the trailer gives me enough of a hard-on that I tear the seams off my pants.

That's Optimus Prime in the same way that the American Godzilla is Godzilla. At least he KIND OF looks like Optimus... but as I've said before, the insane wispy little peices randomly strewn across his body, the exposed parts, the paint job... eeehhggg. "At least he's a truck."

And Starscream... what the hell is this? Seriously, what the fuck is that? Where in the sam scratch are his HANDS? The only two things that even remotely indicate that this is Starscream is the fact that (A)it is a robot that (B) transforms into an earth style jet. Too bad that about 50 other Transformers (official Transformers alone) could also be discribed that way. If that was WASPINATOR, then I'd whole heartedly say that is kick ass. It LOOKS like Waspinator, at least the head does.

I remember seeing the sketch for this, thinking they sure as hell wouldn't do it in the movie since it has nothing little to do with the original. I remember how they said "Nah, that's just a sketch, an idea, that's not final." Yeah... they hadn't replaced the hands yet.

Scorponok I can live with, I suppose. Doesn't look like Scorponok at all, but then he's not particularly well defined outside of the comics or Japanese stuff... and bringing the nebulon thing in would be too much for one movie. Ugh. It looks freaky, I guess that is a plus.

As for the new one, what the hell ever. It's okay, I guess, but he sure looks like he'd easily be taken out of commission with a few good shots. I say this since one can clearly see innards, not just pistons, but wires, pumps, thin strips of metal holding large important peices of the alt mode... again, this idea of "realism" as far as this movie is concerned is just as impossible as the classic designs. If this was some kind of transtech continuation of Beast Machines or something, fine, but a "G-1" movie? Hell no.

Also of note, there is no need to make new characters for this movie. There are several hundred G-1 transformers alone, and each of them have different personalities (mostly). Any personality you want, it's there. Any vehicle you want with the exception of a zamboni machine... pretty much there.

From an artistic standpoint I will go ahead and say that yeah, they're really impressive, but they're not Transformers. Especially not G-1.

There's a tight line that these designers SHOULD walk, though: "we're basing it off of something pre-existing. We need to at the very least give some homage to that, make it something recognizable to the fans, but also make it fresh, and exciting, and something that non-fans will dig, while making something that isn't laughable in motion." That's where it's at. I can live with Batman not wearing home-sewn spandex, and I can totally get behind him using armor. That makes sense for his character. But when they went from what was in the comic, to what was in Batman and Robin (particularly the in the final action sequence)... sweet lord.

As for looking good animated: That's what really irks the hell out of me. Micheal Bay's idiom was: Make it real. "No magical dissapearing parts!" and "No crazy size shifting!" Well, no way in hell are these transformations even slightly possible in the realm of reality. Bumblebee, who is supposed to be the small (close to human sized), spritely sort that brings in the little kids and girls, and is seen as the kind of character that you can make your best buddy, is now a huge body builder with a tracball lodged in his crotch and a completely non-human face. This is the character we're supposed to relate to? Then, you would think that their important motor peices would be covered in the odd event that they need to take a hit. These ARE supposed to be machines that are from a planet where a war has been waged over several millennea.

Will it look cool in motion? Sure, the American Godzilla looked cool in motion, but that doesn't make it Godzilla. There is a happy medium somewhere, and these guys have no idea what the hell a happy medium even is.

I would like to note that Beast Wars is arguably the best series in the entire line up, and also had the most fan imput. It's not like I want perfect CG versions of the cartoon, but something that at least echos the original important characters would be nice.

 

Those robot modes look pretty sweet. Nice change from the "we are an advance alien species of sentient robots that uses shifting boxes to disguise ourselves".

I do agree that some of those faces lack a living feel to them at first glance, but with well animated eyes and eyebrows you can pull a lot of emotions and feelings (like that movie “Short Circuit”). Remember that the teaser poster has a big robot eye that looks very human.

 

oh my fuckin god micheal bay i will make you pay!!!!! These aren't transformers!!!! Now transformers has gone the way of every other freakin anime robot in the world, just a jagged edged animated track runner body with a weird face. These look nothing like anything but transtech.... Why o God why?! the holy grail of my childhood could be disgraced in such a way?! Figures..... he was the one responsible for Pearl harbor.....

 

And another note:

If they thought it was such a "cool idea" to include characters from other generations, why the shit couldnt they have just made that BB instead of Starscream along with other characters that match up closer to the chosen bot modes? I would have respected that decision more than just giving an extreme makeover to all the other bots.

Sorry, but if I never saw Transformers in my life and would have had to choose a mold for Starscream, Ill take that MP-03 mold over that robotic kite anyday.

 

QFT!!!

I'll take this as Bay's Transformers, but not MY Transformers. Yeah, they're alien looking, but I don't see any relatability. Hopefully, TF2 and TF3 will bring these closer to the G1 asthetic we all know and love.