Transformers the Movie

[Apollo Leader]

"Greetings, Mr. Prime!" The voice of Megatron is Hugo Weaving.

[UN Spacy]

BRAND NEW tv commercial spots out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dl1Vaa2ecA

[David Hingtgen]

Quickly reading the thread at TFW2005:

Apparently, Starscream and Ironhide are in the trailer.

Yeesh--I've known what those characters now look like for months, and I STILL could only see "dark, jagged 4-limbed things running around" in that latest clip.

"Ironide dives down to dodge, then returns fire"---I could only see "movement from a big metallic thing".

The robots are so "shredded" I can't even tell who they are, or what they're doing half the time.

[Golden Arms]

Quickly reading the thread at TFW2005:

Apparently, Starscream and Ironhide are in the trailer.

Yeesh--I've known what those characters now look like for months, and I STILL could only see "dark, jagged 4-limbed things running around" in that latest clip.

"Ironide dives down to dodge, then returns fire"---I could only see "movement from a big metallic thing".

The robots are so "shredded" I can't even tell who they are, or what they're doing half the time.

That is in essence my main gripe with the designs. Joe blow moviegoer is not going to see/ make out all of the intricacies(shredded look) of these things in a dark movie theatre as they're flying around fighting each other.

[VF5SS]

Here is a picture of Starscream from the trailer.

[M'Kyuun]

Just cruised over to TFW2005 and caught the link to the newest teaser showing Bumblebee and Starscream transforming, and followed by reading the transfans' excessively over-enthusiastic exclamations of jaw-dropping joy. Bay has certainly found his audience, given the deluge of saliva on the TFW boards. I really do hope it is a decent movie, simple plot and over-indulgent explosions notwithstanding. Just to see these huge things moving about and transforming realistically after 20+ years of waiting is worth my $7. I've dropped any silly, myopic G-1 era nostalgic comparisons, and respect it as a stand alone interpretation. I still wish they'd used a more Binaltech design aesthetic, but cest' la vie. Ironically, though the production team was steering towards a more realistic approach, the various vehicular panels and paraphernalia bend irregularly, fragment, or just completely re-shape on the robots; likewise, the vehicle forms would certainly exhibit a criss-crossing of minute lines where they fragment. Again, I like the Binaltechs b/c the designers tried to use existing panel lines/ part separations to hide the transformation as much as possible. Yep, it'd be pretty cool to live in a CGI world where anything is possible.

After seeing the pics and the various vids, I still can't bring myself to liking the Decepticon robot designs, save the CH-53 PAVELOW helicopter( Blackout?) Most of them are squat with short legs and large upper bodies, as well as insectile-inspired heads. I assume this was intentional, that the audience be consistently reminded that these are the evil non-conformist aliens in the bunch. The Autobots seem much more anthropomorphic in their proportions, because they're good. Reminds me of Toy Soldiers: the movie was poop, but contrastedly, I liked that the un-human characters were the good guys, and the more human looking soldiers were bad; but I digress. Finally, my greatest lamentation still is that Megatron, IMHO, is unrecognizable as a Transformer, let alone as Megatron. Alas, I hope his eventual Earth vehicle mode gives his robot form a more Transformer-ish look. I've heard he becomes a stealth bomber. F-117(it's a bomber, not a fighter, regardless of the mission designator): cool, and still within scale; B-2: he'd either be colossal, or in scale with a really impressive wingspan. I was actually hoping the V-22 would receive the Transformer treatment. Guess I'll wait and see.

[Guest sh002]

Imagine a realistic macross movie done right? IMO I still don't find some of these movie robots to look good enough.

Edited April 1, 2007 by sh002

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Imagine a realistic macross movie done right? IMO I still don't find some of these movie robots to look good enough.

Make sure Michael Bay doesn't touch it, and that BIG West is in entire control of it, and out of the grasp of HG haha.

They say that Starscream moves like a bird, so he has hind legs and perches on things, which he did on the trailer. Even though the toy slowly slowly grew on me, I still think the design looks weird.

Out of all the movie designs Ironhide impresses me the most. I like the mouthguard and his backstory. He just looks meant to kill and brawl till the death. Now thats cool.

Maybe not surprisingly, I like the toy designs a lot better than their CGI counterparts.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

When I go to see it, I will not bring all the baggage of the g1 toon with me.

I'm just going to treat it like a movie about aliens who come to earth and they happen to have names that are like the transformers.

I just watched the first episode of season 1 where the autobots are on cybertron and even though they look identical in robot form to their terrestrial forms on earth (after teletraan 1 repairs them) they still transform into alien vehicles! lol

The cartoon wasn't as great as well all remember. (I also remember in the jetfire episode when they showed a starscream flashback from million of years ago when he and jetfire were still buddies, that SS didn't have his triangular fighter form, but his earth form) Yep, the cartoon sucked.

I can understand now why they have gone with the whole insect look, we aren't supposed to know WTF these are. So it makes them more mysterious and less easy to identify with at first. We see it from a human point of view maybe? (as opposed to the robot point of view?)

As for realistic macross: Nah, keep it in anime form where it belongs. I would prefer the realism to be in the form of how things move in animated appearance as opposed to live action appearance. (more freedom for the fancy dogfights and mecha battles we all know and love, that had they been done in real life, would kill the pilot)

Edited April 1, 2007 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Guest sh002]

I'm not sure where I'm always reading that the explanation for their designs was to make them look more alien-like but if that were true shouldn't the designs in the movie look less like recognizable humanoids? How about animals or creatures or give them two heads and five legs? They've got two arms, two legs, a head on their torso, and they stand upright. If their justification now is that aliens from other planets have characteristics similar to humans, then just design some robots in the movie to look more like original Transformers but less blocky and without human faces.

Compare movie Starscream to the YF-21. The YF-21 in battroid mode looks a little alien-like but which one looks better?

Edited April 2, 2007 by sh002

[Eazy D]

Compare movie Starscream to the YF-21. The YF-21 in battroid mode looks a little alien-like but which one looks better?

Good point

[Hikuro]

I just picked up "Ghosts of Yesterday".........looks like the Prequal comic takes place even before this novel....ugh and IDW is only on Issue 2.

Atleast I got those coming in as well.

[UN Spacy]

Wow.

[David Hingtgen]

Hey, another Peterbilt on the left side...

[CoryHolmes]

Every time I see pictures and media of this movie, I'm made to think, "G1 what?". I really like the designs and direction this film is taking.

[Knight26]

no size changing huh, then why are primes tires at least 50% bigger then on the peterbuilt?

[Dobber]

Who is the other Transformer in that pic?

Chris

[T.V.]

Bonecrusher.

no size changing huh, then why are primes tires at least 50% bigger then on the peterbuilt?

They aren't.

Prime's rear wheels overlap eachother (outer wheel splits open and covers the inner wheel), giving off the appearance of a wheel with a bigger diameter than it actually has.

The TFs are made alien enough to be scary alienating beings, like ALIEN, etc.

However, they're also humanoid (enough) to have some human traits incorporated in them.

They're trying to balance the need for alienating and familiarizing body features.

Edited April 3, 2007 by T.V.

[Guest sh002]

Optimus looks kind of like a robot Spider-man. Sandman's robot vs. Spider-man's robot.

Edited April 3, 2007 by sh002

[Guest sh002]

just wanted to see.

Edited April 3, 2007 by sh002

[big F]

Cant remember but what was Bonecrushers G1 guise ?

[mister_e]

Cant remember but what was Bonecrushers G1 guise ?

He was one of the Constructicons. A bulldozer.

G1 Bonecrusher

[pfunk]

nice pose with the MP

[Guest sh002]

borrowed the mp optimus picture from a website.

[grss1982]

Edited April 4, 2007 by grss1982

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

I'm not sure where I'm always reading that the explanation for their designs was to make them look more alien-like but if that were true shouldn't the designs in the movie look less like recognizable humanoids? How about animals or creatures or give them two heads and five legs? They've got two arms, two legs, a head on their torso, and they stand upright. If their justification now is that aliens from other planets have characteristics similar to humans, then just design some robots in the movie to look more like original Transformers but less blocky and without human faces.

Compare movie Starscream to the YF-21. The YF-21 in battroid mode looks a little alien-like but which one looks better?

Think of it this way:

Alien robots are more advanced

Humanoid robots are more primitive.

Advanced technology always looks wierder than human tech because we don't know enough about how it works. So it look mysterious to those who haven not seen it. People don't believe ufo's are real because its not common. It's not common because we don't use AG. It's wierd because nobody understand it if it were real. It's mysterious and a little scary because if it were real, it's unknown how it does things. Unknown things scare humans more than known things. Aliens therefore must always look different to give off that effect that these are more sophisticated and older civilisation or race of beings than ourselves.

Example include the alien from the movie abyss. It can morph to look human but generally has its own native form. If it were real you would piss your pants. You;ve never seen anything like it before.

An example of a humanoid robot with mechnical parts would be the t800. It looks slow, moves like crap, has parts crudely put together, and was made specifically to look like us to diguise itself amoung humans to blend in. It's not sophisticated because it uses modern tech not futuristic tech. It's understandable immediately to people who have seen robots in a factory or whatever so it look like a man-made thing.

1 is sleek and sophisticated as if it is a living thing, and the other is primitive and easy to spot as a machine. (with all kinds of machine-like sound effects and stuff)

Now from what I have seen in the first cartoon: cybertron is more advanced than ours with futuristic AG hoverars, things that can "morph", and aliens that are comfortable being the upright 2 legged kind when they need to, and being a vehicle when they need to get from one place to another for convenience. (because it is more efficient I would assume, like how humans can ride a bicycle or run)

As far as I'm concerned the movie does an ok-ish job of making them looking "foriegn" (as in high tech but not humanoid high tech) but still holding true to the spirit of the cartoon. (ie that these are robots from cybertron and that they didn't have "f14 fighter jet in space" form 4 million years ago like the silly cartoon.)

A movie audience that sees a alien robot that is just like an f14/f15 is going to look at that and say: "that is sooo stupid". It just doesn't make sense. So the whole argument of "they don't look like the cartoon" isn't really that much an issue for me since these are supposed to be aliens from another planet. Not just human made machines. They started out with wierd looking alt modes in the toon, so a movie version has to show this evolution from thier old appearance (something that looks weird to human) to the terrestrial form.

One thing to remember is that if humans evolved from the monkeys and we look just like these monkeys, it is possible the aliens had similar looking form in ancient times to hold things with thier hands and stuff. So having two legs was more efficient to 3, having hands instead of claws allowed more choice in weapons to hunt, and having a head on top of shoulders made viewing an area a lot easier in areas with tall grass or bushes.

So the function of that form naturally became the most efficient and superior form over others forms. This idea is similar to the inbit in mospeada who eventually realise the humanoid form is actually the best evolved form to take. I'm thinking that the Transformers on cybertron came to the same conclusion, used the humanoid shape as thiers, and had alt mode to do certain task faster or more efficiently.

So say you are a monkey that can climb trees faster with long arms, you choose to transform into "monkey mode" since it requires less effort but when you want to grab an alien bannana in an area surrounded by other creatures like a giant gorilla which can knock a whole tree down with its size, you can morph into alt mode to fly off.

The whole point in my opinion of the transformers taking human forms and basing alt mode on earth vehicles is partly for these reasons:

1. digsuise as outlined in the cartoon

2. it's easier to roll than run, more energy efficient.

If humans already have purpose built machines for specific tasks, why not just "copy and paste" the ideas instead of creating your own version?

So instead of having an alien hover car, they just keep the humanoid look to not attract attention (they have to hide for stealth reasons) and take advantage of the vehicle mode for its functional advantage. (ie monkey mode means you can hold weapons and fight by punching or lifting object, while vehicle mode means speed)

It makes perfect sense that in order to adapt, they just choose the form that makes them comfortable. So if you come to a planet full of dinosaurs, you become a dino to blend in. If you come across a planet full of advanced monkeys with tools, you transform into a monkey form to not scare them. But...there would still be elements of the alien tech still that give you away. Like a funny face. (maybe they didn't get a good chance to scan the humans up close because they looked at it from a long distance?) But the impact of having them look fugly does remind you that they are not human at all. The cartoon can get away with it, because it doesn't need to be scary. We are seeing it from thier point of view. But I get the feeling this movie wants to "build up" the aliens so they are mysterious and make us want to take notice. (not seeing it from their own perspective if you know what I mean. It's going to be more like what ET is as opposed to superman.)

The reaction when you first see the movie and are not familiar with the comics or toon is: "WTF is that thing?" more than "cool its my hero from the old cartoon". Movie version assumes we know nothing to keep us wondering so its better to not assume or expect something to be just like what you saw. It might seem fresh if you approach it as a retelling of an event or ancient myth and detail is just added in, as opposed to natural part of the cartoon canon. Once you start expecting this to follow a strict set of rules, you are not going to like it no matter what because you will be biased toward what you saw as a kid, regardless of how the movie stands on its own. If the movie ends up being bad it will be bad because the movie itself is bad, not necessarily because the designs are not 100% accurate to what we liked as a little kid.

Edited April 4, 2007 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Guest sh002]

Maybe the designers should have used a little more design elements from the original source without making it a fully dedicated G1 movie. I like movies like Star Trek, X-Men, Spider-man, Superman, and Batman.

[Hikuro]

Well I'm just about done with Ghosts of Yesterday, if the movie is almost half as decent as this book, I might leave with a smile going "Well, it was ok"....the book is well written, but it goes back and forth between the robot and human elements of the story, just when things get really good on one end it switches to another.

Hopefully I'll have some sort of a review up when I finish the book.

[big F]

He was one of the Constructicons. A bulldozer.

G1 Bonecrusher

Yeah just as I logged on I remembered.

Shame they cant use the Constructicons, they`d be kick ass I think.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

I just got this idea that if this does well maybe there will be some kind of a resurgence in the whole transforming robot genre of movie? So something like a voltron movie get made or a zoids (ok so they don't transform) movies or something like that.

So the guy talking about a macross or robotech movie: who knows? It will be interesting to see what other movies get made that try to cash in on the kiddy robot shows of the 80s. Look how many comic book movies movies based on games are done.

Edited April 4, 2007 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[M'Kyuun]

If a Macross live-action movie was made, could it be shown in America without HG's interference?

While it would be neat to see Kawamori-san's designs in all their CG glory, I think the story would suffer due to the pacing necessary to keep it within time constraints. If a Macross movie is being considered, I'd actually favor a new story(devoid of environmental subtext and uber-angsty kids), with new transforming mecha by SK, produced as a trilogy to allow a decent story to draw out without the vast amount of editing required to keep it within the 2-2.5 hr format. Just throw in some cameos of the older variable fighters, including flasbacks to show them in action.

I'd like a scene where the characters are driving by an airplane graveyard at dusk; the place is full of retired assorted VF's in various states of repair, having been cannibalized and left to the elements for years. The last vestiges of sunlight reflect dully off a lone VF-22 standing guard at the perimeter, casting a long forlorn shadow.

I can dream.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

They just don't call it macross. They already did a macross plus live action movie with non-transformable planes. So I don't see the problem.

Edited April 5, 2007 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Hikuro]

Ok well to keep up with topic Transformers not Macross.......I finished the Ghosts of Yesterday book and to top off my day I surprisingly enough got Issues 1 and 2 of the prequal comic book in the mail from IDW....I really need to buy from them more often, VERY nice looking package oh and the comics looked great too.

Anyways here's some stuff on the Book and it's also a spoiler sort of so yeah.

Ghosts of Yesterday takes place at the time when Apollo 11 launches to later land on the moon. In the Arctics SSAB (Sector Seven Arctic Base) launches it's more sophisticated top secret project, Ghost 1. A highly advanced transport with a 4 man team to space.

The Ghost 1 resembles a bit of Decipticon/Cybertronian configuration, possibly more that of Megatron.

Of course speaking of Megatron...I'm sure many are aware who keep up on the news, Megatron is code named "Ice-man" who was found near the end of the 19th Century by Captain Whitwicky on an arctic Voyage. The US Military digs Megatron out and build a base around his solid remains then attempt to reverse engineer what technology they can pry out of Megatron while locked in Stasis.

Meanwhile, the Ghost 1 during a sling shot around the sun is suddenly sucked into a worm hole and sent across the galaxy where they by chance come across the Autobots and Decipticons while searching for the Allspark.

Back on Earth, Sector Seven is underway of moving Megatron to what seems to be area 51, but word on the street is that a possible russian infiltrator has snuck into the base and sure enough one has. While enroute to transport Megatron to the US, the convoy is met with a horrible accident by the russian infiltrator and soon enough KGB elite come to get Megatron for themselves.

In space, the crew assess what's happened, run into the transformers, lands on a remote partially uninhabitted world as a means of trying to escape from the battle between both factions.

However the Decipticons find it mysterious that an alien ship resembales that of cybertronian decent. Starscream takes it upon himself to look for himself and discovers Bumblebee well ahead of him and they engage in a small skurmish.

However Bumblebee vanishes in a sink hole and sucked under the planet surface.

Starscream takes it upon himself to have some fun and gains the Ghost 1's crew's trust making them believe Starscream is the bad guy, and discovers that Megatron in short, lives...now Starscream has to find a way of destroying the humans while taking out the autobots.

Finding out Bumblebee is in trouble, Optimus manages to find his little companion fighting off huge snake like monsters and later having to hide from Starscream as he and the Ghost 1 exchange salvo.

The crew of the Ghost 1 start to figure things out and try to find a way to stall for time to think things thru without hopefully pissing of Starscream...

Back on Earth, communications with Ghost 1 and SSAB command are short lived as the SSAB find out that Ghost 1 had encountered "Ice-mans family" and then the Convoy carrying Ice-man has not reported in. So a search and rescue team is sent out.

At the Convoy makeshift camp, they discover that it's only a short time before the Ice-man thaws himself out since the container keeping him frozen is beginning to shut down due to damage from the accident.

But things only get worse as the russian press on at their assault with the convoy needing help and fast.

At the other world with Ghost 1, the crew encounter Prime and Bumblebee and things begin to make sense. Now the Ghost 1 crew befriends the Autobots and leaves the planet as Starscream and his crew attack the ARK and the other autobots.

However things don't go as planned back on Earth as the Russians seem to be getting the upper hand and the rescue crew is still just shortly behind.

But things go from bad to worse as suddenly Megatron is up and moving and begins to do short amounts of destruction around him.

One of the soldiers, a man named Nolan and the main incharged Kennar manage to stop Megatron just in time sacraficing themselves by using a spare Liquid Nitrogean tank to seal Megatron into stasis lock again.

A group of Army Rangers then take out the Russians and they later retreat.

In space, Ghost 1 regains contact with SSAB command and are ordered not to return unless they know for sure the Transformers wont follow them. However time is running short as the worm hole that sent them to theother end of the galaxy is beginning to close. Captain Walker and his team while hesitant decide to follow orders and try to help the Autobots even though Prime refuses their help.

Later SSAB command tells the Ghost 1 crew to hurry home, screw orders just get home. However Captain Walker refuses to retreat and the Wormhole closes.

In the end, the Ghost 1 manages to safe Prime in the nick of time by firing a missile into Starscream, but in return, Starscream blasts the Ghost 1 and crew into Oblivion, but giving just enough time for Optimus to recover and send Starscream and crew retreating and badly injured.

Optimus decides while back in the ARK with Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide and Bumblebee that it woudl be best if they could find earth and destroy megatron...that and to protect the planet since it's likely Starscream will want revenge for what the Ghost 1 crew did, injuring him so greatly that he could not finish prime himself.

Also, to regain the Allspark.

The book was good, the character developement was great for the human factor, and the Transformers seemed very spot on to their original G1 counterparts, but still keeping with some sort of individuality. The one Transformer who seems to keep up at his G1 counterpart though was Starscream...in every way when I read his dialouge, I just heard G1 Starscreams voice, cursing, yelling, screaming, ordering, laughing, the whole nine yards.

If the movie is anywhere near as good as this book and the comics thus far...I think the movie will actually do decently in the box office...maybe not a mega hit, but I thin will do well.

[Apollo Leader]

http://au.gamespot.com/news/6168669.html

Looks like Frank Welker will be voicing Megatron for the Transformers movie video game, but not the movie itself (Hugo Weaving)?

[Hikuro]

Yes it's rather odd that Welker will repraise his role after 20 years for Megatron, yet Hugo Weaving will be doing Megatron for the movie release....it's like they want fans to buy the game and not see the movie

I'm actually gonna set up for PS2, and both versions for the DS.