Prime's design was about perfect, in my book. Jazz's was too. But Ironhide and Ratchet... really, would changing the color and giving them a head that even vaguely recalled their original heads be so impossible?

 

And then... there's the Decepticons. They were far less human looking than the Autobots, and my biggest problem with that was... well, actually, that the Autobots were as human looking as they were. I understand the idea that "They're alien robots, we can't expect them to look human!" but when half of them do and half of them don't (and they're supposedly of the same race), split fairly evenly down the good/bad lines... that just feels like a cheap device to show "Oooooh, they're bad. See how they're all not human?"

Point One, Actually if you get rid of Ironhide's side "horns" - his helmet/head shape is totally G1-ish, including a mohawk and two circular "ears" on his head. Could be coincidence, could have been deliberate by the designer, who also helped design Prime, Bumblebee, Brawl, and re-designed Megatron's head to be more humanistic and G1-ish than what was originally done.

 

Point Two, it's typical in most film, literature, whatever to make the villains look more monstrous when pared to the good guys. However, like Trench I think that was a conscious decision on the Autobots parts to be more humanistic. Hell, only Megs and Starscream even spoke in human language, the rest of the 'Cons when speaking never bothered to use an Earth language more than they had to.

Prime's design was about perfect, in my book. Jazz's was too. But Ironhide and Ratchet... really, would changing the color and giving them a head that even vaguely recalled their original heads be so impossible?

 

And then... there's the Decepticons. They were far less human looking than the Autobots, and my biggest problem with that was... well, actually, that the Autobots were as human looking as they were. I understand the idea that "They're alien robots, we can't expect them to look human!" but when half of them do and half of them don't (and they're supposedly of the same race), split fairly evenly down the good/bad lines... that just feels like a cheap device to show "Oooooh, they're bad. See how they're all not human?"

Point One, Actually if you get rid of Ironhide's side "horns" - his helmet/head shape is totally G1-ish, including a mohawk and two circular "ears" on his head. Could be coincidence, could have been deliberate by the designer, who also helped design Prime, Bumblebee, Brawl, and re-designed Megatron's head to be more humanistic and G1-ish than what was originally done.

 

Point Two, it's typical in most film, literature, whatever to make the villains look more monstrous when pared to the good guys. However, like Trench I think that was a conscious decision on the Autobots parts to be more humanistic. Hell, only Megs and Starscream even spoke in human language, the rest of the 'Cons when speaking never bothered to use an Earth language more than they had to.

First point: Eh. Even looking for it it's barely visible. And certainly not enough that, if I didn't see the movie and saw Ironhide I'd even slightly think that it's the same character.

 

As for the second point... like I said, it's a cheap literary device. The speaking human language is fine, but really... I don't see the Autobots adopting more humanoid forms in order to be more humanistic. Especially since their protoforms are every bit as humanoid as their Earth forms (and also since the canonical Decepticon protoforms [Megatron and Starscream... I guess Soundwave now, too] were almost as humanoid as the Autobots).

That said, I do like the speaking Earth languages to show they're more open-minded about other cultures. A: it's behavioral, not biological and B: It's relatively subtle. I don't think many people are going to be accusing Bay of being too subtle.

 

God, it sounds like I didn't like the movie, when I really did love it. But I'm not above pointing out visible flaws in the movie.

God, it sounds like I didn't like the movie, when I really did love it. But I'm not above pointing out visible flaws in the movie.

Pointing out flaws and intelligently discussing the movie's strong and weak points isn't the same as saying "OMG Bhey ruined Transformers! They look nothing like G1!"

 

Though as far as Starscream goes, my guess was that his ape-like structure was imposed on him due to the design of the F-22 (which works both in-story and real life).

Prime's design was about perfect, in my book. Jazz's was too. But Ironhide and Ratchet... really, would changing the color and giving them a head that even vaguely recalled their original heads be so impossible?

 

And then... there's the Decepticons. They were far less human looking than the Autobots, and my biggest problem with that was... well, actually, that the Autobots were as human looking as they were. I understand the idea that "They're alien robots, we can't expect them to look human!" but when half of them do and half of them don't (and they're supposedly of the same race), split fairly evenly down the good/bad lines... that just feels like a cheap device to show "Oooooh, they're bad. See how they're all not human?"

Point One, Actually if you get rid of Ironhide's side "horns" - his helmet/head shape is totally G1-ish, including a mohawk and two circular "ears" on his head. Could be coincidence, could have been deliberate by the designer, who also helped design Prime, Bumblebee, Brawl, and re-designed Megatron's head to be more humanistic and G1-ish than what was originally done.

 

Point Two, it's typical in most film, literature, whatever to make the villains look more monstrous when pared to the good guys. However, like Trench I think that was a conscious decision on the Autobots parts to be more humanistic. Hell, only Megs and Starscream even spoke in human language, the rest of the 'Cons when speaking never bothered to use an Earth language more than they had to.

First point: Eh. Even looking for it it's barely visible. And certainly not enough that, if I didn't see the movie and saw Ironhide I'd even slightly think that it's the same character.

 

As for the second point... like I said, it's a cheap literary device. The speaking human language is fine, but really... I don't see the Autobots adopting more humanoid forms in order to be more humanistic. Especially since their protoforms are every bit as humanoid as their Earth forms (and also since the canonical Decepticon protoforms [Megatron and Starscream... I guess Soundwave now, too] were almost as humanoid as the Autobots).

That said, I do like the speaking Earth languages to show they're more open-minded about other cultures. A: it's behavioral, not biological and B: It's relatively subtle. I don't think many people are going to be accusing Bay of being too subtle.

 

God, it sounds like I didn't like the movie, when I really did love it. But I'm not above pointing out visible flaws in the movie.

I just don't see the Decepticons being more monstrous as a flaw in the movie. They aren't gonna care if they look human that much (not like the Autobots, as they would care) and the TFs in this universe can show that they can reconfigure their parts however they want to, whenever they feel like it. Also, the protoforms had NO visible mouths at all, they had faceplates. Which suggest the TFs design their own faces (at least the Autobots do).

And that would explain why the cons look so much more savage. If indeed they design their own faces. They're evil. They'd want to look that way to invoke fear I would think. This also explains why Megatron would have fangs. Just to look more menacing and scare everyone into following him...not that he'd need to with all his power.