Radd

Just got back. Loved it. It's not without it's flaws, Bay does well enough with the explosions, but the action lacked any sort of reason to it. It was just a bunch of explosions with robots running around. You never really got a sense of any sort of strategy involved. Also, characters do die in the movie, but in none of those cases does it ever really hit you. I can't even remember one of the character's names. The movie met my minimum expectations as far as plot and characters. My bare minimum. And my expectations were low. But, it did meet them, and I did enjoy it as a whole. The character designs are still the worst part about the movie, in my opinion. For the life of me, I can't keep a clear idea of what half the Transformers in the movie look like in my head. The Decepticons were probably worse about this than the Autobots. I think this picture right here illustrates the most basic problem with the character designs: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/201/4987042...b21368b11_o.jpg As others have mentioned, there's also no clear idea of just who survived and who didn't in the movie. Out of the Decepticons there's maybe three unaccounted for by the time the credits are finished, and that's not even counting those that appear for a moment only during the final battle. Doesn't beat Pirates 3 for a good action adventure flick this year, but it's definitely worth seeing. **** Editing just to say that the poll here is very poorly worded. Does the movie kick ass? Sure, well enough at least. Like I said, Pirates 3 was better. I also finally caught Hot Fuzz in the cheap theatre, and that was by far a better movie, too. But is "it's good, but not as good as the original" really the only step between "kickass" and "meh"? Personally, I think this movie is better than the original movie in a lot of ways, and worse in a lot of ways. They're both 'Transformers', but it still winds up being a case of apples and oranges.

I think Morpheus means, "Will this new addition to the Gurren Lagann remain a separate mech that a human pilot will fly around, or will it just appear during the transformation from now on like the helm?"

In Star Trek they explain it away that there is some common ancestor to all the races in the galaxy, but it's only mentioned once in passing and the idea is never explored so it comes off as a cheap and forgettable excuse. In Macross, they have the same premise on why all the "aliens" look like humans with only minor cosmetic traits to differentiate them. However, it's more immediate, the Protoculture being that common origin for humans, Zentradi, and Zolans, and all those races being the direct result of the Protoculture. The only race shown in Macross not related to the Protoculture's racial engineering are the Protodevlin, and they have no bodies at all, except those they take from existing beings. I suppose being more up-front makes the excuse more acceptable, but it would be nice to see them try, especially if they introduce any further alien races. Star Wars has lots of humanoid aliens, but also a good share of more "otherworldly" beings. Orson Scott Card tends to push further in what I've read of his books, and he'd be a likely candidate for writing a story about multidimensional slugs that rip out their organs to communicate (he actually did have something kinda like that in one of the Ender books).

Too bad the teaser doesn't show anything except the cloudscape in a slow zoom. Still, Oshii? Production I.G.? Alternate history? Dogfighting? I like what I hear so far.

That's kinda putting words in peoples' mouths. I suspect most people just want big giant robots from another world, who disguise themselves as vehicles, and fight other similarly themed giant robots in an action adventure sort of story. Preferably with designs similar to say early G1 characters, or better yet the Alternators (with with more variety than the latter). Also like decent writing. Not necessarily a life changing incredible story to top all others, just nothing that would make most people cringe when a plot point is explained, or a character opens their mouth. No spikey haired anime characters, Transformers shouting out their attacks or otherwise acting like sentai characters. I also suspect many established fans are not fond of a drastic change of the aesthetic style in the character designs, whether it's more Hollywood overcomplicated like the Bay movie, or overexaggerated cartoonish like this new show.

Personally, I hated the direction Beast Wars took the franchise...but it was well written and had some great characters. By far the most solid tv series ever to come out of Transformers. Of course, Beast Machines tossed that all in the crapper, but hey even it had a more self-consistent story to tell (completely changed several character's personalities and got very heavy handed with its own morality at times). I can't like this new series even less than the past few, but it's too early to write it off. Might be pulled off in a good way. Just not the giant-robots-warring-across-our-world sort of way we've come to expect and want. Again, I recall very clearly many people loudly proclaiming the Clone Wars series would bomb once the show's designs had been revealed. Heck, I can't stand the movie character designs, and I'm still holding out hope the movie itself might be entertaining enough to overlook that.

I do wonder how the target audience TF fans feel about all this? You know, the kids that are fans if Armada, Energon, Galaxy, and all that. Kids are kids, yes, but they're not as dumb and sheep-like as too many people believe. Of course, Hasbro might be banking on this drawing an entirely new audience in. If so, I wonder how well that will go? Certainly appeals to a completely different aesthetic, design-wise.

Dammit all! So I'm at Target today, the wife's looking at pillows for the futon, and sheets. Passing by the toy aisles, there's the movie Transformers toys. Prime looked decent enough so I was going to pick him up. I get him home, and wouldn't you know? He's absolutely, incredibly fantastic. Worse yet, Ironhide and Jazz look pretty good, too. My only hope is that the movie is terrible, putting me off from buying any more.

Woo! Episode 12 wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't one of the best episodes either. I'm glad episode 13 packed some punch, that was great!

Speaking of, any of you seen this: http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/62681/detail/

Now that's pretty.

I don't even care if it's realistic or not, I just want it to look good. I'm also fully willing to change my opinion if I see it in person and am impressed. I recently saw the TF movie toys at the local WalMart and they look much better in person than any of the pictures I've seen online. Unfortunately, that's made me seriously reconsider not buying any. I do like how, if even just for practical reasons, the toys are somewhere between the movie designs and, say, the Alternators, as far as aesthetic style. Prime and Jazz look particularly good. I'm also getting more optimistic about the movie. Everything I've seen lately makes it look as if the movie won't be taking itself overly serious, and will retain a lot of the quirkiness I enjoy from G1, Beast Wars, et all. Dropkick's toy bio is fantastic. Too bad he's not a movie character.

Gah, the colours and the really poor "weathering" (that I'm dissapointed to see that they seem to be sticking with) make me lean towards just ordering the Takara version...even if the Hasbro version fixes the issue with the back joints. This Hasbro version just looks cheap. I mean, if they bring the price down to $20-30 maybe, but past that I'm not sure it would be worth it.

I doubt it will be that awesome, but I'd certainly be the first to line up for something like that. Bionic Commando is still one of my alltime favourite NES games. I break out the GBA combo whenever I can. I've barely touched Strider and Final Fight.

I don't really think it's fair to harass a character designer on a show like that. If you've ever worked on anything graphic design or art related, you'd know we generally don't get much artistic freedom. They come to the designer, knowing the sort of work they do (hopefully, though it helps to have as broad an artistic palette as possible), and tell them what they want. The designer then provides rough preproduction work and works out the final designs with those in charge of the project. You either provide what the client/project director wants, or they go on to someone else.

Of course, the only really decent Transformers shows are maybe a few, individual, episodes from G1 (and I'm being generous there), the original movie, and Beast Wars (and even though I hate the art and story direction it went it, Beast Machines was much better written than most Transformers series). I sincerely doubt it can get much worse than most of what's already out there. I believe stating that "America's animation these days isn't for us, it's for a new generation" kinda misses the point. Rose tinted glasses and all that. I might as well quote myself from the Transformers thread (why does this warrant it's own thread anyways?):

I don't see the whole "X-TREME" thing here, it's the Samurai Jack style. Ja, there's some graffiti style in there, but it's really more goofy and cartoony than G.I. Joe Extreme's super steroid heroes, or Loonatic's "edgy, hip americ-anime stylings!"

I am guessing it's the movie people trying to cash in with a Samurai Jack like cartoon in the same way Star Wars hit it off with the Clone Wars. I doubti t has much to do with "updating the style for a new generation" like Loonatics. Studio executives have a very odd way of looking at things, like they see trends, follow what happens to be popular, and completely miss the reality of why it was popular and then try to cash in on an aspect that is completely irrelevant to the popularity of the thing they are mimicking. My favourite example of this is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. When that movie bombed, execs pulled the budget on a dozen or so high profile, big budget CG animated movies. The reasoning was, FF:TSW failed because it was a CG movie, and people didn't want CG movies that year. When Spider-Man 2 and Shrek 2 hit it big at the box office, the popular industry reasoning was that "people liked sequels that year" and so a bunch of sequels were lined up to cash in on a "sequel-mania" that never existed except in the minds of studio execs.

Heh, well they certainly weren't this blocky. If your biggest draw to Transformers are the designs, this show certainly will not appeal. I'm just hioping the writing is decent. Even there I'm worried, but we'll see.

Sadly, despite the horribly un-Transformers art direction, if Clone Wars is any indication this is likely to be a more entertaining show than the past several tv series imported from Japan. I'm guessing the toys will look nothing like the show.

Welcome to 1993. Nintendo hasn't been the squeaky-clean kid friendly no-blood-allowed company people think it is since the first Mortal Kombat tanked in sales because of Nintendo's attempt to be more "family friendly" to the exclusion of all else.

Remember Clone Wars? Was that just for little kids? I'm seeing a lot of the same sort of comments as when the art style for that was first made public. I agree that the choice of art direction is questionable, however it's far to soon to write it off as something just for kids, when it might wind up being far more mature in storytelling than Armada, RiD, Energon, and the like. Again, I hate this art style. Just saying the art direction does not necessarily dictate the sort of story telling we can expect.

I'd guess the more likely scenario is video panels inside the cockpit dome. Give the pilot more protection. Of course, it's all speculation at this point. We'll see.

I don't think anyone is questioning that Basara is central to the story. Just, from a writing perspective, is Basara a character, or an idea? Though his character is developed through back story and various character's influence on his behaviour, Basara developes the least of any leading character in the series. Basara is who he is, and he knows the sort of person he is, his biggest drive is to make people understand how he sees things. He has his flaws, none of them appear except in fleeting circumstances. In some ways he has some growing up to do, but by and large he has the most mature "big picture" outlook on life of anyone in the series. Barara is the Herlock to Mylene's Tadashi Daiba, as it were. Sure, Herlock flies his flag, and conquers the frontiers of space with his indomitable will, but Daiba is the main "character". The central character from the storytelling perspective, the one who grows and evolves with the story. The one we follow as he's drawn along with the force of nature named Herlock.

Sadly, despite the incredibly non-Transformers art direction, I'd wager this show winds up being a lots better than RiD, Energon, or Armada. On a side note, I find it hilarious that they're really promoting the "animated Transformers" angle. Look kids! It's just like that big blockbuster movie but animated! Animated Transformers! Who'da thunk it?!