Regardless of the impression my signature may give (Edit: changed sig since post.), I don’t think Bay has raped my childhood… yet. I will hold on that verdict until I actually watch the movie. That being said, I’d like to bring up some thoughts I’ve had about the design of the live action movie Transformers. Keep in mind that I love G1 as much as the next guy and was hoping for a more nostalgic look… at first. One of the first things I noted and HATED with a passion about the movie designs was that the bots have toes. TOES! On my giant robots of destruction! “Why must they have toes???” I exclaimed. I didn’t think about it again until last night. THIS IS A LIVE ACTION MOVIE, and the Transformers must be ultra realistic or movie will fail to suspend the audience’s disbelief. We’re not talking about Harry Potter here, where magic is an acceptable defense. No, we need either visual defense or we’ll need to resort to some Giordi LaForge style technobabble. Seems like a reasonable requirement for a live action movie, right? Well allow me, a GeeWuner if you will, to design a movie Transformer from scratch with that requirement as my starting point. Transformers should be bipedal. What does a bipedal need to stand? Balance, hips, legs, knees, ankles, and feet. But feet that are simply shaped as a block won’t do. No, we humans use our toes for fine control of how our body falls into our next step as we walk. I want the movie Transformers to walk. Do you? Well crap. This means they must have flippin’ toes. …At least a big toe and another toe to collect the functionality of the four little ones. Well that’s not so bad. What about other range of motion issues? Well we’d want these intelligent robots to operate computer terminals at their seats, right? G1 had that. It was cool. Let’s keep that then. Well that means that the bots need extremely flexible hands, more flexible than even the comic books draw them. We need the bots to be able to angle their arms inward to type at a keyboard… Well there goes another G1 staple: exaggeratedly bulky torsos. OK. So at this point our G1-starting-point movie version Transformers have articulated toes and fingers. They also tend to have a little narrower body frame than we’re used to seeing. What else do we want our G1-based Transformers to do? They need to be able to duke it out, fist to face when their weapons are lost or disabled! What about those big hunks of alt mode that can be easily recognized in bot mode? Those can stay right? NOPE! It’s either them or the action. Megatron isn’t going to be able to wrestle Prime to the ground and choke him with his bare hands (al la the cartoon movie) with a huge cannon on his arm. Check this out: Yeah… Even though the position is a little weird and his tongue is hanging out, that’s Megatron, not Legion. ;-) So let’s see what we’ve come up with for our realistic G1-based live action movie Transformers. *Looks at bold stuff above. Looks at Bay’s Megatron. Grrrr… Looks at bold stuff above again. Looks at Bay’s Megatron again…* I guess he has a point. So scrappier, more agile Transformers fit the bill after all. I guess I’m OK with the big hunks of alt mode getting shredded then. Still… IMO, the shreds could’ve been a little smaller, and he still could have a better noggin. No doubt about that. Same goes for Blackout and Starscream. I have no defense for Starscream’s backwards knees or ginormous chest. He is an anomaly among the other designs. As for the rest of the designs, well… now we know how these could be called G1-inspired designs, yes? Now… Lets wait and see if they behave properly! So it's time to stop bitching and start getting excited again. ^-- Longest post EVAR!
That is one of the best posts I've read on this subject. but your sig seems to disagree with a lot of it. To the toe-haters: Transformers have had toes before. its not common, but they've had toes going all the way back to G1. damn near everyone in BW had them as well. toes on a robot make a lot of sense too. the toes can each be at different heights, meaning added stability on rough terrain.
Good post, sir, good post. I like to see people finding logic in the designers work instead of just tearing it apart for not being G1 enough. I have yet to see anyone present good logic for why the characters would be physically improved by being more G1, apart from nostalgic appeal. Have to say though, I wasn't aware the toes were on anyone's shit list; they're actually one of my favorite features about the new designs.
As I have stated before I don't mind the over all designs, but they need to look more like movie prime rather than movie megatron. Prime is reconizeable....the rest...
I won't dispute the basic message, though I do find one mild flaw in it. The issue of body shapes being dictated by what the do, where they sit, or how they should fight is more a "movie logic" than actual logic IMO (though it makes sense here, since we are talking about a movie. To give an example. Humans designed chairs around the way our bodies are built. We didn't evolve our shape to fit the unchanging chairs. It would make sense that an alien race of robots would design their own equipment around their own physical form, rather than modify themselves to the equipment. Likewise the way they fight would stem from the limitations and advantages of their own bodies as well (I'm reminded of one G1 episode where the writers remembered robots were fighting, and Op/Megs were rotating their arms and torsos around in ways humans can't) One could say this is for Transformers to use human equipment, but that would be awkward anyway due to the differences in scale. As I said, I'm not disagreeing with the observations really, since we are talking 'movie' here. I tend to think that the moviemakers are underestimating the leaps of logic in some places and overestimating them in others. After all, in movies many alien races look like people in makeup, and you can blow up a giant unknown alien mothership with a Mac laptop.
They dont really have human toes so much as legs with spread out support pads and prongs, which is cool by me
I disagree. Opposite of humans and probably any other organic life form, the Cybertrons' most basic fundemental being seems to revolve around contorting and modifying themselves to fit the environment.
I don't care about the bodies as much as the heads. Prime looks okay because his head is iconic and they knew to keep that so why aren't they doing it with some of the others? I understand if they have to modify mouth or eyes a bit, but basic helmet shape shouldn't be too hard to keep. They have it with Op and the "horns" with Bumblebee, but not with Megatron or Starscream. Why? I haven't see Jazz yet. I hope they keep the visor somehow. As for the new designs in general I try to think of them as a reformatting. Some of those were hard to get used to at first. Remember Transmetal Optimus?
Regardless of Shoes we still balance ourselves inside the shoes, with our feet being soft fleshy appendiges. Transformers are Metal, which in the Movies case is not soft (for the most part) the designs we've seen ARN'T solid faces that bend when they talk, they're pieces of metal that move independently of the others simulating movent. Now since they are made of Metal they need pieces and hindges to form feet to balance. Which also must be much larger then our soft feet, And due to their additional "kibble" and thus weight, they need toes to counter said weight. And being metal (which I re-Idderate is Hard) the do not need Protection (aka shoes) to keep from damaging their feet, thus Claw looking and ALIEN looking feet and Toes. In addition, CARTOON Transformers CAN have shoes cause they dont need to explaing flexable metal or Blocky shoes, as far as we need to know they HAVE feet Under those blocks, but a Rea-life Movie MUST somehow address this subject.
Actually, my point logic had nothing to do with shoes, but if you'd like to bring that into it, it's OK. ;-) Our shoes flex with our feet, so they profide traction. The more flexible the shoe, the better the traction. Ever seen wrestler's shoes? Let's compair those to clogs, which have little traction. Same goes for big, solid robo feet vs. bots the have toes.
Sorry But some of the TFs in this movie are Bipedial well...have toes at least....look at optimus concept.......
There are those whom want those who dislike the design, to just shove a cream puff in our mouths, and enjoy this lovely bay creation. How much is Bay getting of the toys profits again 10 or 20%?
