[Coolhand]

Originally Posted by Quokka

I'm a bit suprised that this movie has been so badly dissed lately, I mean they were never ever gona resurrect a remake of my much loved 80's cartoon.

Originally Posted by Quokka

Keeping that in mind... Megatron, Soundwave etc... were always gona change/disapear completely, due to the size changing and as long as they keep a passing homage to the original storyline I would have been well happy.

The new insect/robot look ain't all bad and considering that Optimus and BumbleBee are still looking well good with the 2nd preview, and if there's a half decent sfx movie (with a few half noticed nods to us oldies) ... and the obvious lead on to the sequel.. were we really hoping for more?

Of course I will miss Ravage, Laserbeak and Rumble...

You raise some good points there and I actually agree with you that they could never simply do the 80's cartoon in CGI (much as the hardline G1 fans might go all misty eyed at that.)

That’s not my beef. My beef (and the beef of many others) can be summed up in the following points


SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS TRANSFORMER’S GEEKERY FOLLOWS!!!!!!!!










1: The script is awful. I’ve read it and it sucks. Firstly, The Transformers are only in the movie for about 40% of the time tops. Most of the movie is a stupid teenage geek running around trying to impress a cheerleader (I kid you not) whilst a group of soldier clichés get attacked by a mechanical scorpion that might as well be Geiger’s Alien or an X-Files Monster of the week for all the relevance and resemblance it has to a Transformer (it doesn’t even transform!!!!!)

2: When the Transformers finally do put in an appearance, they have no lines. They hardly speak. They have no character at all. One of the things that everyone loved about Transformers was their personalities. Plucky Bumblebee, Tough as Nails Ironhide, Haughty Mirage, Ice-cool Jazz. That factor isn’t present in the movie. For example:

We all remember StarScream who, in almost every version of the Transformers since G1, has been portrayed as a cowardly traitor constantly trying to sneak the Leadership of the Deceptions from under Megaton’s nose. Calling any Transformer character StarScream has huge connotations, much like calling a character in an Arthurian story Mordred or Merlin. It raises certain expectations for the character because of a wealth of established lore.

There is a character called StarScream in the movie. He has two lines. Both of them are basically “Yes Megatron.” Many fans contend that they should have called the character something else, or actually made him the StarScream we know and love. But then, to do that they’d actually have had to spend some screen time with the ‘Bots and ‘Cons, rather than the Nerd and his Chick.

2: They don’t look like Transformers anymore
The radical redesign of the Transformers is a huge point of contention and has caused more online fights than I can recall seeing in a long time. For me and a lot of others, the cool designs and look of the original Transformers was what got us into them in the first place.
For many fans the new designs don’t work at all.
Granted, they couldn’t simply do the toys or the cartoon models due to issues of joint articulation and mass. But they seem to have gone to the total other side of design and given us a bunch of daft looking insects that have none of the humanizing features or “cool” sleekness of the original cartoon Bots and Cons.

For example, lets take StarScream again:
Imagew screamer.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is the old StarScream, a handsome, arrogant, vain killer. He looks cool. He has character. A good starting point for a quick “realism” upgrade.


Here is the new StarScream.

http://www.tfw2005.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/12044/cat/1411

He looks like a Gorilla had sex with a chicken. He doesn’t look anything like a Transformer, let alone his original namesake. None of the Original aesthetics are in there, and it’s not even as if the new version looks cool. It has no character. It looks plain ridiculous. I mean it can’t even WALK! It WADDLES!

Basically, the movie might be a passable “Generic giant robots invade the earth” movie. People who don’t really remember or care about the source material might actually quite enjoy the wizzy effects and explosions.
But it ‘aint gonna be Transformers.
Not for me anyhow.