Money, violence, sex, computer graphics, scatalogical humor, racism, robots designed to be rednecks but given European accents, and maybe another sequel to the saga... what's not to love? TF m1, Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon and now Age of Extinction.
JediTricks wrote:He has a discernible head, a discernible eye, a discernible torso, and discernible legs.
And...? None of those traits are even distinctly humanoid as most animals have those same discernible features.
Yet still, R2-D2 may be a trash can, but he's simple and thus makes his robotic features that much more human by their slight similarities. Just as Pixar's logo is Luxo, a lamp who is imbued with humanity merely for having a single leg and a single eye and no other features at all, R2-D2's simplicity helps what humanity is there shine through. Compare R2 to Huey, Dewey, and Louie from Silent Runnings - the robots who inspired the design on R2: http://www.spectacularoptical.ca/wp-con ... edewey.jpg all they have is a pair of legs, so they are far less human.
Again, those slight similarities could just as easily be applied to a puppy, or any number of animals. Nothing you're citing here I'd say really compares distinctly to humans to make the type of comparison you and Shockwave are making. The point remains, they aren't humanoid. Yet they don't need to be humanoid to be every bit as important as the humanoid characters. There should be no difference for the Transformers, who do have much more humanoid forms than that. The problem, again, is those films suffer from terrible writing where a lot of characters are shafted in terms of having any character development.
There's nothing simple about the 2007 movie bots, the viewer is constantly searching among hundreds of exposed features for something recognizable, it's distracting and confusing even before taking into account the fact that everything's moving constantly.
You can't be serious. It's not that difficult to make out the humanoid features of the '07 Transformers like you're making it out to be here. Even with everything moving constantly. Maybe we should place all the "opposing viewpoints as somehow under your tutelage as you define the way" people should see them.
No, he's right, it is very difficult to pick out details of movie TFs on first glance. There's a reason I've watched these things multiple times; it's because I have to if I want to be able to see anything.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
I've gotta agree with tricks: the overall design of the Bayformers are a fucking mess. This is especially compounded by those who don't turn into commercial, brightly colored vehicles: anyone with a black, gray or military colorscheme looks like a blob of parts. At least dudes like Bumblebee, Optimus and Ratchet have some color to help you tell their arms from their torsos and such.
Onslaught Six wrote:No, he's right, it is very difficult to pick out details of movie TFs on first glance. There's a reason I've watched these things multiple times; it's because I have to if I want to be able to see anything.
No, it's entirely subjective. I can't say that I've never found it difficult to pick out details of the characters. And I always see people picking out some of the smallest details on other sites like TFW2005. You should see some of the details people have already been able to pick out from just the trailers for AOE. The only time it's a problem is when they don't show very much of the character or a clear shot of them because they stay in the background or what have you. Like the majority of Decepticons who act as the cannon fodder or few Autobots like Jolt. But even with those characters, that you can barely see on the screen, you can still generally tell what shapes they have and stuff.
Almighty Unicron wrote:Shockwave, that movie either:
1) Be incredibly short
2) Be incredibly expensive
3) Look incredibly shitty
You basically want them to release a full, feature length CGI movie with amazing graphics aimed at the adult market. That ain't happening. The reason the humans featured so prominently in the movies was (in addition to helping the general public emphasize with the characters) because rendering robots is fucking expensive, especially back in 2008 or so when the first TF movie came out.
I disagree. A movie about a war that spans 4 million years sure as hell doesn't need to be short. And, we've already had movies that were entirely CGI aimed at adults. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is one example. I know, people think it sucks. What sucks is that they threw the name Final Fantasy on it just retain rights when the movie had nothing to do with that particular franchise. But that doesn't invalidate it as an adult oriented CGI movie that was done well and looked good. Also, Titan: AE. I thought that one was pretty good too. Not all CGI movies look like something from Pixar.
Sparky Prime wrote:
Shockwave wrote:Because at least R2 is a finished robot. He has complete coverings and even though his design isn't inherently human shaped, there are still discernible humanalities about it.
Seriously? You think R2, the trashcan shaped robot on wheels has decernible humanlities?
Yup.
Sparky Prime wrote:
Umm.. you basically just contradicted yourself there. And the first part of that is wrong anyway. Of course having the story be the "boy and his car" has everything to do with the TFs being characters because now the story focus is entirely on the boy and his car and not the robots. Now the second part of that is just obvious, I mean who else besides the film's creator's would have written the boy and his car story in the first place? But my point still stands, that was the wrong direction to go because it inherently reduces the bots to plot devices rather than characters. If they wanted to take them seriously as characters, they should be the focus of the movie. And they're not.
How did I contradict myself? And no, the first part isn't wrong. The focus of the story doesn't mean they can't flesh out the other characters. The problem is they didn't spend any time to flesh out most of the characters, humans and Transformers alike. Take Captain Lennox for an example. The first movie they actually give him some character development as we find out he has a wife and new baby at home that all he wants to do is go home to see. In the sequels? Where'd they go? Captain Lennox has no further character development. He might as well be another nameless soldier in those films. It's just bad writing, it isn't an inherent flaw of the narrative or the focus of the story.
So it's an equal opportunity shitty movie, ignoring character development for everyone not just robots? Ok, I'll grant you that. But, I still think the focus of the story certainly doesn't help. Which I'll get to in a moment:
Sparky Prime wrote:
See, if I'd been writing this, I wouldn't even have started the first one on Earth.
That would be incredibly risky for a first film. Imagine the CGI costs for a film like that. An
d how would you get the general audience into it? Eveb the original cartoon took thing to Earth in the first episode. There's a reason for that.
True, it would be risky. But, it would force a change in perception on the audience. They would either have to accept the robots as humanized characters or just totally be lost on the basic concept. And really, forcing a change in perception of the world around you is, in my opinion, the key concept that Transformers is about. They whole thing with disguise is that it forces you to look around and see the world differently. Because suddenly you're not just seeing everday objects, you're seeing them as possible living beings and you just never know. And really, by taking the focus away from the bots themselves, you lose the opportunity for that experience. It's not to say that "a boy and his car" can't be an element in TF, but it shouldn't be the focus of the story. That honor should always belong to the title characters.
Shockwave wrote:True, it would be risky. But, it would force a change in perception on the audience. They would either have to accept the robots as humanized characters or just totally be lost on the basic concept. And really, forcing a change in perception of the world around you is, in my opinion, the key concept that Transformers is about. They whole thing with disguise is that it forces you to look around and see the world differently. Because suddenly you're not just seeing everday objects, you're seeing them as possible living beings and you just never know. And really, by taking the focus away from the bots themselves, you lose the opportunity for that experience. It's not to say that "a boy and his car" can't be an element in TF, but it shouldn't be the focus of the story. That honor should always belong to the title characters.
I wouldn't say the "boy and his car" angle shouldn't be the focus. I think it would have worked out just fine, if they'd handled it differently then they did. Showing Sam and Bumblebee's growing friendship would have worked as a way to humanize the Transformers, after all that would give us one main human character and one main Transformer character both in the spotlight. Only I'd say they botched that up by making Bumblebee mute and having Sam act somewhat abusively towards him, treating 'Bee more like his property rather than a friend that so happens to transform into a car. They could have had the focus on both characters, but instead they made it more all about Sam.
Shockwave wrote:True, it would be risky. But, it would force a change in perception on the audience. They would either have to accept the robots as humanized characters or just totally be lost on the basic concept. And really, forcing a change in perception of the world around you is, in my opinion, the key concept that Transformers is about. They whole thing with disguise is that it forces you to look around and see the world differently. Because suddenly you're not just seeing everday objects, you're seeing them as possible living beings and you just never know. And really, by taking the focus away from the bots themselves, you lose the opportunity for that experience. It's not to say that "a boy and his car" can't be an element in TF, but it shouldn't be the focus of the story. That honor should always belong to the title characters.
I wouldn't say the "boy and his car" angle shouldn't be the focus. I think it would have worked out just fine, if they'd handled it differently then they did. Showing Sam and Bumblebee's growing friendship would have worked as a way to humanize the Transformers, after all that would give us one main human character and one main Transformer character both in the spotlight. Only I'd say they botched that up by making Bumblebee mute and having Sam act somewhat abusively towards him, treating 'Bee more like his property rather than a friend that so happens to transform into a car. They could have had the focus on both characters, but instead they made it more all about Sam.
I agree and almost included this as part of my post but I think I went off on a tangent.
