TF4 bots are much more humanoid, does Bay see 'em different?

[JediTricks]

The first movies worked hard to make the robots as alien as possible while still recognizable, the reason in large part is because Bay wanted to make an alien film, not a Transformers film. This made a lot of the robots exceptionally foreign and bizarre, which left them difficult to treat as actual characters a lot of the time, putting more story focus on the humans.

Chicken legs, bizarre limb configurations, inhuman faces, etc.. This got significantly worse in ROTF where characters had extra arms, giant wheels in place of bodies, pogo mono-legs, and so on, before mellowing some in DOTM.

In this new movie though, AOE seems to have nothing but absolutely normal-looking Transformers on both Autobot and Decepticon sides, everybody looks remarkably normal (except Grimlock which so far has looked like a dino). That made me wonder though, does this mean Bay is finally seeing the Transformers as CHARACTERS instead of just aliens? I could see that being the case, but it could also just be wishful thinking.

[Sparky Prime]

This made a lot of the robots exceptionally foreign and bizarre, which left them difficult to treat as actual characters a lot of the time, putting more story focus on the humans.

That made me wonder though, does this mean Bay is finally seeing the Transformers as CHARACTERS instead of just aliens? I could see that being the case, but it could also just be wishful thinking.

Why would their appearance make them any less of a character? I really don't think that has anything to do with it. Bay had said in interviews he saw the first film as being a story about a boy and his first car. Then the second film the boy goes to college and the third he gets a job. So the focus of the first trilogy is Sam growing up, which just becomes complicated by alien robots. I would hope that with Sam out of the picture for the next trilogy they will put more of a focus on the Transformers themselves, although I wouldn't be surprised if the humans are still the primary focus. I think they see it as being easier for the general audience to relate to a human focused story.

It is interesting to see how the Transformers have developed a more humanoid appearance throughout the films though.

[Almighty Unicron]

Consider the following-

Most of the noticeably inhuman transformers in the past films have been Decepticons. In this film, the decepticons/antagonistic transformers are being made by humans rather than coming from Cybertron: they literally aren't "alien" robots and are instead created in our image.

[Shockwave]

This made a lot of the robots exceptionally foreign and bizarre, which left them difficult to treat as actual characters a lot of the time, putting more story focus on the humans.

That made me wonder though, does this mean Bay is finally seeing the Transformers as CHARACTERS instead of just aliens? I could see that being the case, but it could also just be wishful thinking.

Why would their appearance make them any less of a character? I really don't think that has anything to do with it. Bay had said in interviews he saw the first film as being a story about a boy and his first car. Then the second film the boy goes to college and the third he gets a job. So the focus of the first trilogy is Sam growing up, which just becomes complicated by alien robots. I would hope that with Sam out of the picture for the next trilogy they will put more of a focus on the Transformers themselves, although I wouldn't be surprised if the humans are still the primary focus. I think they see it as being easier for the general audience to relate to a human focused story.

It is interesting to see how the Transformers have developed a more humanoid appearance throughout the films though.

It makes them less of a character because cinema is a narrative. It's allegory. The characters are supposed to be a reflection of us to tell a human story, but by making them look so alien "because they're aliens and they should look alien" is wrong. You lose the audience that way. Past a certain point, they're no longer usable as characters and in fact, the rest of your post really proves that. The first trilogy is about a human boy rather than about the bots themselves. They aren't even the stars of their own movie. And really, the whole premise of the franchise has been to reverse the roles of character and plot device. It's always been about seeing objects as living beings rather than just technology and that's really the ultimate failure here. By making them too alien, that concept of role reversal is lost. Really, the movies should be about the robots with the human characters serving as plot devices. So the designs fail at a basic story telling level and that's what makes it bad cinema.

Also, I just don't like the movie designs for other reasons as well. The look... unfinished. I mean, really, how many pieces should it really take to make a shoulder on a robot? Look at C3PO. He has only one piece for his shoulder. Why can't the movie bots have coverings to hide their internal parts? When we build a car you don't leave the engine and other parts exposed. The get coverings. And the body is part of what makes one car distinct from another. And so it should be with the movie bots. But we don't see that. All we get is an endless see of unpainted, grey/silver shardobots with their junk exposed.

[JediTricks]

Consider the following-

Most of the noticeably inhuman transformers in the past films have been Decepticons. In this film, the decepticons/antagonistic transformers are being made by humans rather than coming from Cybertron: they literally aren't "alien" robots and are instead created in our image.

True. I had the wheel-feet and chicken-knees of Sideswipe from ROTF/DOTM in mind when I was writing this, but the majority of the weirdos are evil, and this film's villains do appear to be more human-related than previous.

It makes them less of a character because cinema is a narrative. It's allegory. The characters are supposed to be a reflection of us to tell a human story, but by making them look so alien "because they're aliens and they should look alien" is wrong. You lose the audience that way. Past a certain point, they're no longer usable as characters and in fact, the rest of your post really proves that. The first trilogy is about a human boy rather than about the bots themselves. They aren't even the stars of their own movie. And really, the whole premise of the franchise has been to reverse the roles of character and plot device. It's always been about seeing objects as living beings rather than just technology and that's really the ultimate failure here. By making them too alien, that concept of role reversal is lost. Really, the movies should be about the robots with the human characters serving as plot devices. So the designs fail at a basic story telling level and that's what makes it bad cinema.

Thank you! There's a bad habit in cinema of making inhuman, somewhat faceless villains so that the "heroes" can slaughter more enemies that aren't like him. It's narratively less challenging to have Obi-Wan kill Battle Droids than Stormtroopers. It's less offensive to have green blood splashed on the screen when a video game hero kills his enemy. It says that the antagonists largely don't matter as people, they are simply a challenge for the heroes to overcome, it is a simplified story, like some cheesy '50s B-movie that doesn't give any thought to its characters, just "Johnny Goodguy vs the Bad Aliens!"

My hope was that Bay has finally gotten past his own hangups about the Transformers in general being aliens because he wanted to make an alien invasion movie, and has moved forward to "these are characters, here is why they fight and how it affects others around them." But that's probably asking too much.

Also, I just don't like the movie designs for other reasons as well. The look... unfinished. I mean, really, how many pieces should it really take to make a shoulder on a robot? Look at C3PO. He has only one piece for his shoulder. Why can't the movie bots have coverings to hide their internal parts? When we build a car you don't leave the engine and other parts exposed. The get coverings. And the body is part of what makes one car distinct from another. And so it should be with the movie bots. But we don't see that. All we get is an endless see of unpainted, grey/silver shardobots with their junk exposed.

Yeah, totally, what is to stop someone from jamming a pipe into an exposed leg or foot joint? What would happen if you got a bolt stuck in between your bicep muscles? That's why we have skin, yet the TFs leave that one exposed all the time. I think this comes largely from Bay's edict that the bots be bigger, they be the "giant fucking robots", so the physics of cramming all that bot into a car that would normally only stand maybe 12 feet tall stands 18 feet tall instead and the parts have to be smaller and the car skin has to be more spread out.

[Sparky Prime]

It makes them less of a character because cinema is a narrative. It's allegory. The characters are supposed to be a reflection of us to tell a human story, but by making them look so alien "because they're aliens and they should look alien" is wrong. You lose the audience that way. Past a certain point, they're no longer usable as characters and in fact, the rest of your post really proves that.

I don't agree. Just because they don't look human is no reason they cannot be characters in a narritive. There are plenty of books and movies with non-humanoid characters. Take R2D2 for an example. He's a trashcan shaped robot that communicates through blips and beeps but yet he's every bit a character as anyone else in the Star Wars franchise. He doesn't need to be humanoid. Why should the Transformers be any different?

The first trilogy is about a human boy rather than about the bots themselves. They aren't even the stars of their own movie.

But that's got nothing to do with the Transformers being characters in their own right. That's the films creators putting the focus on the human characters, and failing to develop all of the other characters (including some of the other human characters) while telling the story more from Sam's point of view.

[Shockwave]

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. There's a head that is distinctly a head, legs that are obviously legs and even the various things that pop out are basically arms and hands. The problem with the Bay designs is that they don't look like anything. It's like they're still in the design phase and someone forgot to design the out casings to make them look... finished. So they end up basically looking like unfinished things rather than characters that an audience can relate to.

The first trilogy is about a human boy rather than about the bots themselves. They aren't even the stars of their own movie.

But that's got nothing to do with the Transformers being characters in their own right. That's the films creators putting the focus on the human characters, and failing to develop all of the other characters (including some of the other human characters) while telling the story more from Sam's point of view.

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.

See, if I'd been writing this, I wouldn't even have started the first one on Earth. At all. The whole thing would have chronicled the war on Cybertron and how it began and it maybe would have ended with them landing on Earth. But 99% of that still should have taken place on Cybertron. That would force the audience to see the bots as characters since there wouldn't be any humans to focus on and the audience wouldn't be able to just dismiss them as objects.

[Almighty Unicron]

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.

[Sparky Prime]

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? You're really stretching it. And personally I'd say the TF movie designs look finished. It's just a different sort of aesthetic compared to robots like R2.

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.

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.

[JediTricks]

See, if I'd been writing this, I wouldn't even have started the first one on Earth. At all. The whole thing would have chronicled the war on Cybertron and how it began and it maybe would have ended with them landing on Earth. But 99% of that still should have taken place on Cybertron. That would force the audience to see the bots as characters since there wouldn't be any humans to focus on and the audience wouldn't be able to just dismiss them as objects.

I think the brand's view from the larger zeitgeist demands that it take place on earth so as to be robots in disguise, but that doesn't mean they have to pay lip service to where they came from, why they came here, and who they are. I think the first movie could have benefited from more robot talking, but still have the human characters. The robots needed to be more defined as characters on BOTH SIDES, then there needed to be visual clarity to who was saying what at any time, it's really hard to make out the visual tangle. The second movie has ample time to develop the characters as characters, but the second movie is a trainwreck in every way so lines simply bounce off characters, robot or human. And the third movie is confusing and too long and the second half a great battle with executions left and right, kind of not fun to develop characters with that weight.

Seriously? You think R2, the trashcan shaped robot on wheels has decernible humanlities? You're really stretching it. And personally I'd say the TF movie designs look finished. It's just a different sort of aesthetic compared to robots like R2.

He has a discernible head, a discernible eye, a discernible torso, and discernible legs. What's not discernible on him are his arms, and in fact the movies use so many different places for arms that it's downright confusing to the layperson. 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.

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.
Starscream http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2007 ... ssiles.JPG - you can make out legs and eyes, the eyes help suggest the head but it's not terribly clear.
Barricade http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/5537/s ... 109270.jpg - that is a tangle of parts against another tangle of parts, where does Barricade end and Bumblebee begin, there's a wheel that might be either bot's in the middle (it's Bumblebee if you know the Camaro well enough), and you can make out an arm and a waist and maybe a head, but the head has no facial features and the arm disappears and there's no hand. This is a visual mess.
Someone, maybe Ironhide http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_G96gxvrHqrE/T ... nshot3.jpg - is he coming or going? is that his front or his back? Is that even a robot or debris?
Ironhide http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Llxf0Z81zHA/S ... onhide.jpg - meow meow meow, there's eyes and then either a cat nose or a high mouth, or something, don't forget that you have less than 3 seconds to figure it out.
Ironhide again http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/screenshots/ ... 653993.jpg - ok, he's clearer here, yet the elements of his legs are wholly undefinable - knees, feet, thighs, they're all lost to a mishmash of parts.