To fix the problem of having to change all their vehicle modes, Soundwave etc just set the movie in the 80's when the original series took place, there we go, problem solved, Sounwave shall be a tapedeck! :)

no no, i think it's harder than that, it's the mass reduction that has everyone in the movie business denying his true form.

Ah ok, what about the giant robots?  How hard is it to believe that maybe some TF have the ability to change size.  Its a movie that is about a giant race of robots from another planet.  Now thats hard to beleive!

I think they are going to try to keep everyone in a general size of what they TFed from, with no shape shifting.  but who really knows.  I just hope it turns out good, like (imo) the spiderman movies have done for spiderman

1. Optimus Prime

2. Prowl

3. Iron Hide

4. Ratchet

5. Bumble Bee

6. Brawn

7. Jazz

 

1. Megatron

2. Starscream (wonder who they are going to get to play his voice?)

3. Soundwave

4. Ravage

5. Shockwave

6. Thrust

7. Thunder Cracker

Ah ok, what about the giant robots?  How hard is it to believe that maybe some TF have the ability to change size.  Its a movie that is about a giant race of robots from another planet.  Now thats hard to beleive!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You've just given the reason there'll be no mass shifting of that scale.

 

As you say, it's already asking the audience, many of whom (they hope) won't be existing Transformer's fans, to accept the concept of giant transforming robots that are sentient, and sell them on it.

And the best way to achieve that is to ground it in as much realism as possible.

 

Seeing a hand gun jump out of someone's hand and turn into a 30 or 40 ft monter may just be enough of a wtf moment to cause the viewer to pause, question what they saw, and moments like those change how a movie is percieved, makes the difference between a box office smash and a miserable failure.

 

Look at the Batman films. Batman and Begins both ground themselves as much in reality as they can.

They're both huge fictional fantasy films, but done in a way people never question it.

Batman Forever, or Batman and Robin on the other hand...

 

Same with X-Men.

Had they all been running around in their comic costumes of that era, had we instantly been given concepts like the sentinels, the brood, and similar, it would have been too much disbelief to suspend, there's no way an audience can connect with these characters or their world.

 

I love Megatron as a gun, I love Soundwave as a cassette player, and I don't care if there's no explanation as to how. As I've said before, "old lost technology" is enough for me.

But that belongs in a comic, or a show, not in a movie.

Yeah I totally agree with you but if it was somehow explained during the movie i think it could be made plausible but I know what you mean.

I only read a couple pages of this, so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or not, if it has I apologize for being repetative, but...

 

I'm not lobbying one way or another for soudnwave to be this or that as his alt mode, but if he does have to be changed the news van/survllence (I knopw that's gotta be spelled wrong) isn't a bad idea.

 

Although, what about something like an uber-spy plane?

Ah ok, what about the giant robots?  How hard is it to believe that maybe some TF have the ability to change size.  Its a movie that is about a giant race of robots from another planet.  Now thats hard to beleive!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You've just given the reason there'll be no mass shifting of that scale.

 

As you say, it's already asking the audience, many of whom (they hope) won't be existing Transformer's fans, to accept the concept of giant transforming robots that are sentient, and sell them on it.

And the best way to achieve that is to ground it in as much realism as possible.

As I recall, that's only half the explination - the other half is that a drastic change in size looks "weird" and is hard to pull off.  (Apparantly in that old "transforming sneaker" ad, the ad agency originally wanted to start with a normal sized sneaker, but it looked so wrong they went with the transformation of a larger version.)

 

You can get away with a pretty large transition in size if the viewing public isn't really aware of the size differential - such as the SAAB ad where the plane turns into an SUV.  In reality that plane is considerably larger (probably at least four or five times the size) than the SUV - but since most people aren't aware of how big a jet fighter actually is - they don't realize how much the plane has shrunk and it looks OK.

 

Fortunately, this will work to our favor in the movie - as Starscream will be able to shink to the size of Megatron and the Autobots and no one will be the wiser.

This brings up my big frustration with the "no mass shifting" argument.

 

If you don't have mass shifting, how is Optimus Prime supposed to be able to talk to, say, Starscream? How is a human supposed to be able to talk to Prime without yelling the whole time?

 

Starscream should be Devastator-sized without any mass shifting.

 

And the Autobots would all be radically different heights which makes conversations difficult or impossible to shoot.

 

Imagine a conversation between Spike (6 foot tall), Bumblebee (20 feet tall), Optimus Prime (50 feet tall) and Jetfire (100 feet tall).

 

Now, Spike and Jetfire are just examples but... c'mon!

 

Are they really just gonna have these things look like the toys transforming with a bit of hydrolics?

 

If I was doing this, parts of them would be liquid metal. There would be pistons and venting steam and swarms of nanites surgically reconstructing them with lasers as panels fold out. We'd see it's an incredibly complex process the first few times and then develop a visual shorthand for later transformations.

 

I'd have the movie transformation be hundreds of times more complex than the toys or cartoons.