Considering how long it takes ILM to render these bots and how expensive it is to do so, it is unfeasible with today's technology to create a Transformers film that has the amount of screen time that we want the robots to have. I think this is why the films have such sloppy editing; in scenes where Bay cuts away from a bot just as it starts Transforming and then cuts back when it's finished, I think ILM did not have enough time to finish rendering the animation. For example, in Age of Extinction, when Lockdown transforms into the Lamborghini Aventador for the first time, only the very final stages of his transformation are shown. I think this is because ILM didn't have enough time to render the animation. What do you guys think of this?
I did not know that they only showed the final transformation stages. Wow, seriously they didn't have enough time?
That's my theory, because in the commentary for Transformers (2007), Bay mentions this as the reason why one of Bee's transformations wasn't shown entirely.
What? Lockdown had 2 full transformations in the movie. When he transformed from car to robot and climes the grain silo in Texas. And after he killed Lucas in Texas when he transformed from bot to car. Both were full transformations. Which is something his character got more than even most Autobots lol.
"Why We Won't Have the Transformers Film We Want Anytime Soon" Speak for yourself, *I'm* perfectly fine with the way the movies have been. Overall I've loved them. Of course there are a few things I would've done differently or would have liked to seen, but I really like them just the way they are.
Yes, but his very first Transformation isn't shown in its entirety Spoiler (i.e. right after he kills Ratchet) .
I love the films too; they're very entertaining overall. However, I think it goes without saying that the bots (especially the Decepticons) haven't had much screen time and characterization despite these being their movies. I want a Transformers film in which the bots get 75% of the screen time.
Eh, after 4 movies, with AOE being better than the last 3, it STILL needs some improvements. In the end where Spoiler Prime goes into space give us a space battle in TF5! In Revenge of The Fallen, we got the infamous Forest Battle; more of that, please! To quote Doug in his TF4 review "give us a challenge, give us something new not different." Hell, all 3 Toy Story films were all CGI. If it's so expensive, why can't Bay use the money from the last films to give us MORE TF screentime, MORE longer fights with our favorite 'bots, and competent writers?
We could if they stopped wasting so much time and money on stupid CGI nobody cares about! "driller" and stop making up new designs just to render them for 3 seconds in the background then never see them again "sideways, jolt, countless decepticons, etc" They have all new designs, they're shouldn't be any reason to design anymore for the next film, just take those characters and write a story around them!
There's a bit of leap between the amount of detailing the Toy Story movies have and the detailing the Transformers movie has with its CGI.
While they've skimped with partial transformations since TF 1 they DID seem to be notably cheaper with the Transformations this film. Hound and Crosshairs didn't transform once, even partially, nor did Drift into his car mode. Nevermind the drone transformations. BUT because of this we got more bot screentime then we ever had before. So I think it's a fair trade off.
All I want is something a bit more smarter and coherent. To come off as they planned it all from the start and not making it up as they go along.
I think Paramount would have to run the series in the ground like they did with Star Trek and then at some reboot way down the road go with designs that didn't take as long to render to really amp up the bot time to these films. Although if they would cut down the over all length of the films then there would at least be a feeling of more bot time. As to Decepticons I've just lost faith in them ever crafting Decepticons that would go on any list of greatest film villains.
I disagree slightly. Michael Bay knows how long the special effects team needs in order to fit everything on time. Bay and his team are always given a very specific time window, so they start to plan out how many action scenes need to be in the film and robots first. Once ILM knows the schedule of their production work and how many robots and effects then they start to work on it. We could have a movie of mostly Cybertron battle scenes between the two factions and very little human scenes. But the real reason why we may never have a mostly cgi built transformers film is due to the budget. The robots and their environments are very expensive so that may be possible only if there's a higher budget. AOE surprised me with how much cgi there was, I was literally blown away with every action shot.
I was happy with the Autobot screen time and interaction in this one, and the treatment of Lockdown as an individual with a developed personality, not simply a generic monsterbot. It made him very threatening. Next time I hope we get the same treatment for the Decepticons in general. The movie wasn't perfect, but it's getting closer to the movie I would really like.
I agree that the cost of the CGI does keep the movies from featuring the transformers in the same way as the cartoons. I do think they could cheat the transformations more, use more of the explode/implode transformation.
