Movie character design logic, or lack thereof

[JediTricks]

One of the goals stated by the producers and designers of these films has been to get a sense of logic out of these robot modes, to suggest that even non-carbon-based lifeforms would evolve this way because at these sizes it makes sense.

So what do we get from this "logic"?

- Digitigrade chicken legs. TF wasn't the only film to do this, there has been a growing movement for the last 20 years in sci-fi to exploit this in alien designs, even ILM did this for Star Wars Episode III with General Grievous, but TF really adopted the hell out of it. So why the backwards knee and extra ankle joint? Is this a logical leg design for creatures this scale? I'd argue a mixed "no", while there is more variability in how the leg can balance the weight over it, at this scale there is a lot of weight to rest on those joints which would lead to fatigue and instability. I'm not pretending to be an expert here, but it seems like a good idea for very light animals that don't spend a lot of time on the ground, and a very bad idea for heavy creatures that do any amount of walking at all. If they had used digitigrade mammal legs like how cats and dogs had, it wouldn't make sense that they're walking upright.

- Instant camouflage. Bumblebee made sure we found out just how instant. This makes sense from a storytelling sense, in that the writers don't need to explain how or what the transformers are doing and how they do it in terms of new alt modes. However, it's exceptionally lazy and seems to violate physics by just changing not just shape but also mass at will. And it's ridiculously advanced even for these guys. Worst of all, the amount of energy needed to move all those little tiny parts around seems exceptionally wasteful, not to mention far less useful as armor since it's pre-fractured and mobile.

- Insectoid faces. There are some advantages to these designs, greater visual acuity being chief in my mind. And it's not like they have to eat or smell stuff. However, I do have to wonder why they went with such an nonexpressive design, there's no specific need to have it besides "THESE ARE ALIENS" (like we couldn't tell that from the fact that they're giant sentient robots). Maybe it's to tell the good guys from the bad, although the reality of the films is that you can't even tell one guy from another on the same team much of the time.

- Integrated weapons. For melee weapons, this seems like a pretty good idea, although dealing with a damaged weapon seems like a huge problem. For ranged weapons however, this seems like a massive waste of internal energy and mass to build these things, especially the non-energy-beam based weapons that fire projectiles, which have to come from somewhere. The movie universe seems to largely ignore the fact that this stuff came from somewhere though, when bumblebee's hand forms into a gun, it has as much mass as - if not more than - his forearm, yet his forearm still has to function, still has to have motors and linkages and power systems connecting it -- you couldn't take out the bones and ligaments and arteries from your forearm and expect to continue using your hand.

- Wheel feet. This is totally unacceptable, there is not much logic to this, and it's what spurred me to start this thread. Wheel feet are a huge waste of energy, this is undeniable on any level. Look at something like the Segway and you'll see why it's a failure at market, it runs for an hour and then cannot keep the user upright. It is generally unstable and downright useless on some types of terrain. Even standing upright on rollerblades is a use of energy, so imagine what a GIANT robot doing this must be expending to keep itself upright. And once they fire any weapon, they then have to fight momentum from the reaction pushing back on their wheel feet. Yet movie 2 is all about wheel feet where movie 1 only had a little of it.


So, what do you guys think? More thoughts? Counterpoints?

[BWprowl]

So, what do you guys think? More thoughts? Counterpoints?

Rule of Cool. Interestingly, the quote at the top of that page is from a review of the first movie.

[138 Scourge]

Being robots, I'd expect they could be a little more adaptable as far as the weapons and wheeled feet go. I mean, we can have wheeled feet, it's just not integrated into us, yet.

So, since we don't know much about how the movie TFs mature, we can guess that stuff like the weapons, wheels and armor are added somewhere between the hatchling and full-blown robot stage?

[Dominic]

The really flexible camo, as seen with all of the Autobots in the first movie, is more an example of making the characters as powerful as they need to be, which is a form of god-moding.

In context, answering JT's question would require accounting for the tolerances of the alloys, and knowing exactly how the various bits fit together.


The foot questions have more pedestrian (pun intended) answers.

I am not sure, but I think digitigrade feet would increase running speed or range (by requiring less energy per stride). I can try to check with a friend of mine who is more knowledgable of such things.

Given how useful speed would be for a species lke Cybertronians, wheel feet make sense. Bonecrucher lost less speed while transforming than a guy like Prime would. (Luckily Prime was trying to slow down at that point in the movie.) Mass and weight would also be variables, but lets try to stay grounded (oh such a clever pun!). Sideswipe lost almost no speed, which had clear advantages in the movie.

The excess energy consumed by wheel feet would be justified by the advantages they would confer. Guys like Sideswipe could remain in more stable configurations when not fighting.


The mass shifting, for weapons and other-such, is just plain stupid.


Dom

[Dominic]

My buddy confirms that digitigrade feet would give a speed advantage. And, every example I can think of from the movie depicts digitigrade feet correctly.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

In context, answering JT's question would require accounting for the tolerances of the alloys, and knowing exactly how the various bits fit together.

Who's to say that the TFs aren't doing this? They are, after all, highly complex and advanced computerised machines. In fact, you might be able to even say that the TFs occasional stupidity is a side effect of this--they don't have much time to think about certain mundane elements of detail, they're too busy computing things like how their mass fits together in their altmode, or something. I'm explaining this horrible, because I've got another point that might not quite belong in this thread, but it's come up, so.

My second time seeing ROTF, I noticed something--any time the Autobots are standing around and a bunch of Decepticons show up (or vice versa), they instantly get into a firefight. There's no...TF-like buildup. Traditionally when two groups of TFs will encounter each other, they'll argue and say some lines. Grab any TF book real quick, or watch an episode of G1, BW or RID--they're 'always' talking while they fight. That's where a lot of their characterisation comes from. And in the movie, any dialogue during fights I hear is usually generic barkings of orders or directions. It's...less good.

[donosaur]

It bothers me how freaking advanced the Decepticons are in ROTF. The pretender bot is way more delicate and weird than anything else we've seen, plus the ball-bearing robots (does he have a name? someone referred to those things Ravage coughed up as Insecticons...), there's Scalpel's insane "shove it up your nose so I can see your thoughts tool" (why would they even HAVE that?!), and there's the tiny little decepticon mosquito Sam catches. Why don't the autobots have any of this shit? Where did it come from???

[138 Scourge]

It bothers me how freaking advanced the Decepticons are in ROTF. The pretender bot is way more delicate and weird than anything else we've seen, plus the ball-bearing robots (does he have a name? someone referred to those things Ravage coughed up as Insecticons...), there's Scalpel's insane "shove it up your nose so I can see your thoughts tool" (why would they even HAVE that?!), and there's the tiny little decepticon mosquito Sam catches. Why don't the autobots have any of this shit? Where did it come from???

Ravage gets some wicked hairballs. That thing's apparently known as "Reedman" in the credits, and some people have been calling it "Overkill", but I think "Buzzsaw" is more appropriate.

Scalpel's thing I can kinda see. He's clearly an evil genius, and if he's gotta see someone's thoughts, I'm sure he's gonna figure out a way to do it. The fact that the thing was about half-snot, well, again, evil genius.

Decepticon mosquito, no idea. Got nothin' for the Pretender-bot, either. Decepticon force-evolved to mimic organic life?

[Onslaught Six]

The Autobots don't harm humans--or, presumably, any other organics and such. Hence, they don't develop these kind of infiltration technologies--they have moral hang-ups about it. Human cloning is a big issue for us humans because we actually consider ourselves worthwhile and sentient beings--and presumably, the Autobots would have issues impersonating a living, breathing human because that's just a Bad Thing to do. Meanwhile, the Decepticons have no such hang-ups because they're The Bad Guys and have no compassion for the humans--they're the evil mad scientist who isn't letting little things like moral code or emotions get in the way of SCIENCE!

[donosaur]

Okay, so those are good reasons for them having it, but it still seems unbalanced. I'm not buyin' it.