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Goki's Thoughts on the Transformers Movie


Goktimus Prime

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I'm a loyal diehard TF fan but unlike everyone else I'm not excited or looking forward to the new movie coming out this year and here's my reason why. First of all I think the new look to the TF's in the movie stinks to high heaven. They look nothing like the TF's that I grew up watching. To me they look like RoboTech or Voltron charachters. But nothing like the original TF's. I dont have a clue as to why they decided to change the look of the TF's but they did and that has really turned me off on wanting to go see this movie. With all the technology Hollywood has now days dont tell me they could not have kept the charachters looking like the real Transfomers because they could have very easily. I may get alot of flameing because of this post but I just think that the look of the TF's that I know and love was just tossed aside. So I will stick with my dvd of TF's The Movie and not waste my time on the new movie because to me its not the TF's I know. Change is good yes but for a TF fan whos been a diehard for so long like me this is too much. Anyone else feel the same?

 

No, I don't feel that way at all.

 

First of all, if you really are a die-hard TF fan from back in the day, then you will remember how Transformers the Movie flopped in box offices and received really critical reviews with comments such as:

 

"THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE features rancid animation techniques, a story that will bore anyone over age 10, and a few overpaid celebrities essaying the lead voices." - TV Guide, Movie Guide

 

"(Transformers The Movie is) positively inane, to the point of near-unwatchability. The dialogue is banal, the scene progression completely random, the plot points absurd. Now the idea of the gutteral Welles bellowing commands in the darkness of space holds some appeal, but even this laughable camp loses its charms in short order." - Christopher Null (filmcritic.com)

 

The movie Transformers look different for the very same reason why Wolverine didn't wear yellow spandex in the X-Men movie - you're looking at making the movie appeal to a general audience, not just the hardcore fans. Transformers The Movie only appealed to fans of the G1 cartoon - if you'd never watched an episode of Transforemrs before in your life and you sat down and watched Transformers The Movie, it would confuse and bore the crap out of you. That's why it failed in the box office.

 

Do you really want to see history repeat itself?? Rather than blatantly repeating the mistakes of yesteryear, I think it was a sensible move to redesign the characters with a new sensibility - particularly one that can look and work realistically in a live-action setting.

 

Ever cosplayed as a Transformer? If so, then you would know that it is really Powerglideing hard to move around when you have such a blocky body, which is what the traditional TFs were designed like in robot mode -- blocky. In comics and cartoons, artists/animators cheat by morphing and displacing parts to force the bodies to move in certain ways. Even Beast Wars and Beast Machines did this a lot despite being 3D animated. Heck, even Pixar does it. And while you may be able to get away with "cheating" like this in an animated cartoon, it would not be the case in a live action film as it would instantly look out of place against a photo-realistic backdrop. Consequently it makes more sense to have a more "organic" (re: anthropomorphic) design for the robot mode in order for it to successfully limit the full range of bio-mechanical movement that a human body can do (and then some).

 

If you're truly a "die-hard" fan then you'll also realise that change is something that's always been constant throughout Transformers. So Megatron isn't a gun. If you're a "die-hard" fan then you'll realise that the majority of Megatrons did not transform into guns.

Megatron G1, 1984 = Walther P-38

Megatron G1, Action Master = no alt mode

Megatron G2 = Abrams tank

Megatron G2, Combat Hero = Tank

Megatron G2, Gobot = Porsche

Megatron MW = F-22 Raptor (which is the alt mode for Starscream in the movie)

Megalligator = Alligator

Reverse Convoy = Tank

Megatron Classics = Nerf gun

Megatron Classics, Ultimate Battle = Tank

Masterpiece Megatron = Gun

 

Other Megatrons...

Megatron BW, Ultra = Tyrannosaurus Rex

Megatron BW, TM = Robotic T-Rex

Megatron BW, TM2 = Cybernetic dragon

Megatron BW = Technorganic dragon

Megatron Megabolt = head-spider

Megatron RiD = Jet, car, hand, bat & dragon

Megatron ARM = Tank

Megatron EN = Jet

Megatron CYB = Car

 

So out of 11 incarnations of the original Megatron, only 3 of them have ever been guns (one of which a toy gun). So only 27% of the original Megatron have been a gun. 15% if you include the other Megatrons. By no means a majority or even consistent trend (which I'm sure you would have noticed in the last 23 years). In fact, there have also been exactly three Megatrons that transformed into jets. So really, he's equally justified transforming into a jet as he would a gun. ;p

 

Secondly, I find it laughable that you've already judged and condemned this movie as being crap based on nothing more than the character designs. Visual effects are nothing more than a story telling tool -- what's more important is the actual story. This is something that has made the Star Wars saga so successful - Lucas realises that visual effects are just another story-telling tool. Yeah okay, he kinda went a bit overboard with Episode I (especially with Jar Jar Binks and the oh-so-unnecessarily long Podrace) but he definitely learnt his lesson with Episodes II and III (where Jar Jar had a massively reduced appearance and we never again saw unnecessarily prolonged scenes like that Podrace - the Kenobi Vs Vader fight on Mustafar is a good example of a scene that was long enough to tell the story but not too long that it made us doze off). When images of Episode V first came out, some people might have dismissed Yoda as just being yet another odd creature character... and how many of us cheered for him when he went toe to toe against Darth Tyranus and Darth Sidius/Emperor Palpatine?

 

When I read comments like yours, it makes me wish that the movie will succeed just to show that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But I don't want to pre-judge as either being good nor bad until I've seen it.

 

And is it really that hard to simply withold your judgement/opinion about something until you've seen it? Because frankly, until you have seen this movie, then anything you say about it is just coming out of your arse.

 

Come on folks, let's not judge this movie until we've seen it. Sure, these new designs may look alien to what we've previously seen in Transformers, but in the world of the Transformers, things are often...

 

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!

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