Transformers: Age of Extinction - in theaters June 27, 2014

[Gui]

[...] Should we care that Arcee got killed (did anyone even notice)? [...]

For Chromia and Elita, yes, and this made me sad because I love them, but Arcee, no... When was that?

Seriously though, why are we so passionate about this?

The psychanalysis session is doing fine, isn't it?

[..] The only good think that came out of it was some great toys. I dare anyone to hold a Takara Buster Prime and not be wowed by it. That thing is beautiful. It also gave us Human Alliance (that IMO is a continuation of the alternator / binaltech line that was not selling and about to be canned anyways) before the movie came out. Hold a Human Alliance Jazz and tell me is not one of the best incarnations of the character.

[...]

Did they do the same with the Arcee's sisters?!? Because the only ones I could find sucked so bad that it looked like a rape to me... One of them even has nothing to do with the original (movie 2) design

Seriously, I found the Arcee sisters really great looking design wise, as well as a smart and rather novative take with their sort of mono-wheel concept: this makes them so quick and agile, but also gracious in the same time... I'm in love, I tell you!

[the white drew carey]

Now I dont like to be mean, but if you genuinely like any of those designs, you eiether need your eyes or your head examined (or both).

Well, see, that is where you are wrong.

My eyes are fine and my head is A-OK. Thanks for asking, though.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the G1 designs that couldn't have been modernized in a much more effective and pleasing fashion.

Face it, the movie designs are just bad mecha. They are the spiritual descendents of Robot Jox, with the whole greeblie box thrown in for good measure.

The Citroen commercial (part of a series) is probably has the highest productions values of the vids I posted, and looks great. The design still keeps that G1 feel while updating it without looking retarded like Bay's TFs.

And, too be honest, if you don't like that New Beetle one, you have no soul.

[Renato]

Again, I'm gonna back away from the all-or-nothing/pick-a-side arguments and say that I agree with the point that upscaled G1 Toys do not work in live-action, but I also think the jagged shards of metal that pass for robots in Bayformers are just not cool.

"Cutlery" and "Amerimecha" are interesting terms to describe them.

Let's look at Robocop's design. It's iconic, yes? It's fairly simple, yet still high-tech, still sci-fi, and instantly recognizable. I think we just need better designers, or at least, people with better judgement to approve those designs (because I think the designers they do have can do much better, but Bay is all like "MORE FLAMES!!").

Screw it, just hire Kawamori now that he's got Frontier out of his system. I mean just look at this:

It may not transform, but the White Glint just looks amazingly cool and would work perfectly in live-action. Bayformer Bumblebee and Optimus just look ugly.

Kawamori could probably even come up with cool transformations that would be recreated 100% in toy form, unlike the "make do with this" efforts from Takara (and I'm not dissing the engineers, they do a good job -- it's those designs that are full of CG magic).

Edited July 10, 2011 by Renato

[JB0]

Kawamori could probably even come up with cool transformations that would be recreated 100% in toy form, unlike the "make do with this" efforts from Takara (and I'm not dissing the engineers, they do a good job -- it's those designs that are full of CG magic).

What are you talking about? There's no CG magic in the Bayformers. He SAID so.

Every part on the vehicles is on the robot and vice-versa. There is no size-changing going on. Please ignore the Frenzy-head telephone. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

[anime52k8]

Edited July 10, 2011 by anime52k8

[Renato]

He SAID so.

"But your honour, the defendant pleaded not guilty!"

"Oh, then case closed! Let's go home."

[Kanedas Bike]

...I don't think anyone here can argue what they feel is more aesthetically pleasing, G1 or Bay-formers because beauty is in the eye of the beholder - the more logical debate is what would or could translate into better box-office success. You take that into consideration then more likely then not some hard-core G1 fans are gonna be pissed because stuff designed in the 70's and 80's are probably not going to appeal to a younger, OR a more modern audience.

There are talented folks that have made some pretty cool videos (Megatron O's ) and then there are the professionals at ILM, those folks that make effects for huge scale productions, that go on to gross a gazillion dollars.

The first video that transitioned from the animated footage of TF:TM into CG was really cool, and I'd love to see Hasbro do something like that and release it to DVD/Blu-ray but in no way in hell would I go to see that in the theater. And I'm a 30-something that grew up watching Transformers on TV.

And to the point of the first live action Transformers being a "good" movie - well taken into consideration how "not good" ROTF was and how "not as bad" as DOTM was, well then relatively speaking Transformers becomes damn near Oscar worthy.

And oh yeah, it's possible to like G1 AND the live action designs. Because you like one "style" does not mean you can't also like the other.

-b.

[JB0]

"But your honour, the defendant pleaded not guilty!"

"Oh, then case closed! Let's go home."

You have to admit, that'd speed up the legal system a lot.

[peter]

"Cutlery" and "Amerimecha" are interesting terms to describe them.

Michael Bay is a hack, he got the idea from T3 when the T-1000 was frozen with liquid nitrogen and broke into a million peices.....he reverse engineered the idea and made the Transformers you see before you.

Don't let the basterd near SDF Macross.

Edited July 11, 2011 by peter

[Kanedas Bike]

Michael Bay is a hack, he got the idea from T3 when the T-1000 was frozen with liquid nitrogen and broke into a million peices.....he reverse engineered the idea and made the Transformers you see before you.

Don't let the basterd near SDF Macross.

Sorry, dude just found this pic while browsing and...real-life homemade scrap-metal BAY-FORMERS PRIME FTW!

I dare you to find me a pick with two hotties next to G1 Prime.

*edit to add link from where I nabbed the picture - linky

-b.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Kanedas Bike

[peter]

Sorry, dude just found this pic while browsing and...real-life homemade scrap-metal BAY-FORMERS PRIME FTW!

I dare you to find me a pick with two hotties next to G1 Prime.

*edit to add link from where I nabbed the picture - linky

-b.

Here you go, two hot chicks next to G1 Prime:

[GU-11]

What are you talking about? There's no CG magic in the Bayformers. He SAID so.

Every part on the vehicles is on the robot and vice-versa. There is no size-changing going on. Please ignore the Frenzy-head telephone. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Dunno if you're being sarcastic here, but I don't think entirely true. You're right in that there's no mass-shifting for the most part, but the guys at ILM admitted to cheating when it came to the transformations of the TF's, several months after the 2007 TF movie was released.

Depending on who you choose to believe, Spielberg insisted that the CG transformation was 100% accurate, but the ILM guys later admitted that there was a crapload of "smoke and mirrors" involved with the transformations. They said it was damn near impossible to achieve a perfectly proportionate transformation given the fact that there was so much "kibble" [TF speak for alt mode parts that don't belong in a bot's basic anatomy] that was taken away from the bot modes.

Case in point, the rooftops of the car bots [bee, Jazz, Barricade]. They just slide out of view, and seem to magically disappear. Optimus' rear wheel covers are also missing in bot mode.

[JB0]

Dunno if you're being sarcastic here

Were "please ignore the Frenzy-head telephone"and "these aren't the droids you're looking for" not big enough signs of sarcasm?

Reminder: this head transformed into a Razr, which has less volume than the average Snickers bar. It was pretty blatant evidence that Micheal Bay is a dirty liar, even if nothing else was.

That post was 110% not to be taken seriously.

[Golden Arms]

Scale and proportions are things that don't exist in the TF universe including the Bay films. Case in point, In the films Starscream is the same height as Prime in Bot mode. If his original mass was similar to an F-22, then he should've towered over Prime. But he didn't. I'v also heard that the truck Sentinel prime is based on is also a 30 foot long truck. He too would tower over Prime if the scales were accurate.

I guess the movies, can get away with this because they did kinda explain it away with the Allspark. In the 1st film it orginally appears much larger than any of the Autobots. BB transformed it to rubix cube size with a touch. If the TF's are based on the same tech, then it stands to reason that they too are capable of defying the rules of physics and science as we know. Which would negate what I previously said.

[CoryHolmes]

I like the Bayformers because they're alien robots, with the emphasis on alien. I like how they wear their vehicle parts as clothes and can see the alien bits underneath. Kinda nifty, eh?

[David Hingtgen]

I'll post this again, made it myself, accurate to a pixel----an F-22 and Peterbilt 379 to scale. So Starscream should be absolutely MASSIVE next to Prime in bot mode.

[Archer]

So, any idea on what the next movie may be about? DOTM really tied in a lot of ends....

I can see the potential for unicron, but I don't really see how that will translate to a live action movie, considering he's the size of a moon lol.

I can see it now: "Transformers: Revenge of the Moon"

[peter]

I'll post this again, made it myself, accurate to a pixel----an F-22 and Peterbilt 379 to scale. So Starscream should be absolutely MASSIVE next to Prime in bot mode.

Wow, that's a huge difference......haha, so there was a little anime/movie magic....see, they could have made Soundwave into a MP3 player that transforms into a towering robot....or Megatron a Walter P-38.

Edited July 11, 2011 by peter

[Twoducks]

The problem with Bay's TFs is that the scripts are a piece of $hit, not the designs.

TF1 was a good compromise between the studio’s fear about a film with just robots and of a story about transforming robots. But instead of going forward with this they just made more cheap jokes and added more eccentric humans to glue the action scenes together.

If they only left the damn robots interact with each other. When the camera sits more or less still and the robots don't move too much, you can see them. Best parts of TF3 are the very few parts were they actually interact with just themselves.

Question: can anybody remember the face of any of the humans that go to Chicago in TF3 or at least how many they were? I only remember the three humans that had long speaking parts in the other two films. They don’t have faces made out of scrap iron or train wrecks and yet they pass as faceless blobs as do the background robots. We only get good non action shots of Prime, Bumblebee and Sentinel… how the hell can people remember or distinguish the other robots that only appear in the background or in some frames of the action scenes? If Shia or Fox had only appeared in the background and in some frames of the crazy edited action scenes, we wouldn’t recognize them either.

Fandom bitched and moaned when TF Animated showed the radical new designs and the human characters. But the thing was well written and now Animated is missed. Same happened with Beast Wars and its radical new approach to TF.

[GU-11]

Were "please ignore the Frenzy-head telephone"and "these aren't the droids you're looking for" not big enough signs of sarcasm?

Reminder: this head transformed into a Razr, which has less volume than the average Snickers bar. It was pretty blatant evidence that Micheal Bay is a dirty liar, even if nothing else was.

That post was 110% not to be taken seriously.

My bad. Haven't gotten much sleep lately. Couldn't detect sarcasm if you crammed it into the barrel of a canon and shot it at my head.

The problem with Bay's TFs is that the scripts are a piece of $hit, not the designs.

TF1 was a good compromise between the studio’s fear about a film with just robots and of a story about transforming robots. But instead of going forward with this they just made more cheap jokes and added more eccentric humans to glue the action scenes together.

If they only left the damn robots interact with each other. When the camera sits more or less still and the robots don't move too much, you can see them. Best parts of TF3 are the very few parts were they actually interact with just themselves.

Question: can anybody remember the face of any of the humans that go to Chicago in TF3 or at least how many they were? I only remember the three humans that had long speaking parts in the other two films. They don’t have faces made out of scrap iron or train wrecks and yet they pass as faceless blobs as do the background robots. We only get good non action shots of Prime, Bumblebee and Sentinel… how the hell can people remember or distinguish the other robots that only appear in the background or in some frames of the action scenes? If Shia or Fox had only appeared in the background and in some frames of the crazy edited action scenes, we wouldn’t recognize them either.

Fandom bitched and moaned when TF Animated showed the radical new designs and the human characters. But the thing was well written and now Animated is missed. Same happened with Beast Wars and its radical new approach to TF.

QFT.

[Ghost Train]

I think that Transformers has been adequately defecated upon by the Hollywood. It's time to move on and fertilize other greener pastures - Go Bots, He-Man & She-Ra, and perhaps the Care Bears... damm, Bay can direct an epic Carebears with them shooting lasers and other forms of directed energy weapons from their bellies and sh!t.

[Golden Arms]

Well, we are getting the Smurfs up next.

I was kinda hoping for the Get along gang, pound puppies, snorks, Munchicheeks(SP?), The littles or any other lame 80's cartoon.

[JB0]

I like the Bayformers because they're alien robots, with the emphasis on alien. I like how they wear their vehicle parts as clothes and can see the alien bits underneath. Kinda nifty, eh?

They were so alien, in fact, that they had two eyes above a horizontal mouth, with a functional nose in between.

And two five-fingered hands at the end of two arms. With an elbow between the shoulder and wrist at a perfect drinking distance.

And they pee. Out of the place where their two legs join their torso.

Why do people keep saying this? They weren't alien at all. They were perfectly standard humanoids with perfectly human proportions(except for Starscream, who was a bit of a hunchback) and some cosmetic disfiguration.

They're the Transformer equivalent of klingons. Just add some wrinkles and pretend that hides their inherent humanity.

None of this is particularly unique to Micheal Bay's versions of the characters. They're all metal humans with car parts glued on.

They're no more or less alien than any other Transformers this side of Pretenders and Beast Wars.

That's actually one of the things I like about Shockwave's various incarnations.

He IS just a little bit alien around the face, and he wears his monocle proudly in the center of his featureless visage.

In short, the emperor has no clothes.

Now, to be fair...

I was impressed with the Bayformers' integrated weaponry. It dodges the question of where they KEEP their guns, and it just plain made SENSE too.

After all, if they can transform to another body entirely, why can't they transform their hand into a gun?

ESPECIALLY in the Bay-verse, where they can adapt a new pair of bodies at will in a matter of seconds(who needs plastic surgeons when you can scan a 2010 Camaro, right?).

I always like to see an anthropomorphic robot with pop-out weapons that doesn't have to grab a big gun out of a trailer, and I DO give credit where it's due.

Sadly, those moments are few and far between in the history of giant robots.

damm, Bay can direct an epic Carebears with them shooting lasers and other forms of directed energy weapons from their bellies and sh!t.

I would pay good money to watch this.

Personally, I'm hoping for a M.A.S.K. revival next.

Edited July 12, 2011 by JB0

[Golden Arms]

I think you make some really good points about the "Alieness" of the bots. It really speaks of human imagination or lack there of. We are so incapable of imagining anythink unlike ourselves.

[JB0]

I think you make some really good points about the "Alieness" of the bots. It really speaks of human imagination or lack there of. We are so incapable of imagining anythink unlike ourselves.

To be fair, we don't have a lot of inspiration laying around.

And if the characters aren't human enough, people have trouble relating to them(and in this specific case, that means the toys don't sell, and that's bad).

[taksraven]

Wait, when did the first movie become good, guys?

Are we talking about the same movie?

The one where any robot not named Optimus Prime had one line?

The one where the action scenes were assembled entirely from jump-cuts?

The one where Bumblebee pisses all over a secret agent and is scolded for it?

The one with a painfully drawn-out ten-minute dialog with Sam's mom accusing him of masturbating with several repeatedly outlandish euphemisms?

The one that was a bad movie about people that just happened to have some robots in it?

Did I walk through a rift and wander into Bizarro World today? Because seriously, I want to see the Transformers you guys saw.

Its just the shittiness of the sequels that has made the first film seem better, even though it wasn't.

[Renato]

Wait, when did the first movie become good, guys?

Are we talking about the same movie?

The one where any robot not named Optimus Prime had one line?

The one where the action scenes were assembled entirely from jump-cuts?

The one where Bumblebee pisses all over a secret agent and is scolded for it?

The one with a painfully drawn-out ten-minute dialog with Sam's mom accusing him of masturbating with several repeatedly outlandish euphemisms?

The one that was a bad movie about people that just happened to have some robots in it?

Did I walk through a rift and wander into Bizarro World today? Because seriously, I want to see the Transformers you guys saw.

I think Taksraven is right that in retrospect we tend to think the first one is the best, and therefore must be good on some level.

I rewatched it and Revenge quite recently, and I can say that TF1, with all its faults, does house a fairly entertaining movie within it. If you take away all the nonsensical garbage, you could end up with a good movie. It's just that it's an entire hour too long, at the least.

The difference is that with ROTF, you can take away bad stuff forever and you're still left with rubbish. There's no good movie hidden there, no matter how you view it.

Maybe one day I will release my 90-minute edition of TF1.

[JB0]

To be perfectly honest, my problem is that I came to the movie for one thing, and one thing only: giant robots shooting at each other.

Aside from a very low robo-gunplay tally in the first film(my favorite example being the one use of Ironhide's much bragged-about guns... for a rocket-jump), all the jumpcuts made it impossible to tell what was going on.

From THAT perspective... Revenge of the Fallen got some hot robot-on-robot action in for more than just the final scenes, had gunfire, and the fight scenes that didn't rely on jumpcuts every 2 seconds.

Both, however, are far too long(or far too short if you edit out all the parts that don't have giant robot violence in them)

Dark of the Moon I would consider rewatching, though. And it's the only one of the three I can say that about.

[Limbo]

On this picture the scale does not seem to be that off..

Some would argue that Starscream seem to be one of the few movie transformers that compacts instead of expanding (the thing pretty much fold in half with the wings collapsing and all.)

But again, scale were more like guidelines when it comes to transformers

I'll post this again, made it myself, accurate to a pixel----an F-22 and Peterbilt 379 to scale. So Starscream should be absolutely MASSIVE next to Prime in bot mode.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Limbo

[GU-11]

I wonder why they never thought to give Starscream the smaller F-35 Lightning II as an alt mode. Like others have already pointed out, he's completely out of scale with everyone else in bot mode if his alt mode was a Raptor.

[Ghost Train]

The first confirmed new Bay-verse character for Transformers 4 has emerged -

[JollyRogerSquadron]

...I don't think anyone here can argue what they feel is more aesthetically pleasing, G1 or Bay-formers because beauty is in the eye of the beholder - the more logical debate is what would or could translate into better box-office success. You take that into consideration then more likely then not some hard-core G1 fans are gonna be pissed because stuff designed in the 70's and 80's are probably not going to appeal to a younger, OR a more modern audience.

There are talented folks that have made some pretty cool videos (Megatron O's ) and then there are the professionals at ILM, those folks that make effects for huge scale productions, that go on to gross a gazillion dollars.

The first video that transitioned from the animated footage of TF:TM into CG was really cool, and I'd love to see Hasbro do something like that and release it to DVD/Blu-ray but in no way in hell would I go to see that in the theater. And I'm a 30-something that grew up watching Transformers on TV.

And to the point of the first live action Transformers being a "good" movie - well taken into consideration how "not good" ROTF was and how "not as bad" as DOTM was, well then relatively speaking Transformers becomes damn near Oscar worthy.

And oh yeah, it's possible to like G1 AND the live action designs. Because you like one "style" does not mean you can't also like the other.

-b.

It IS possible to like both or more. I like G1 because it's what I grew up with. I hated Beast Wars/Machines. I thought Energon was garbage. I liked Animated. Could care less for TFPrime. I happen to enjoy Bay's version of Movie Transformers. I think Hasbro's retelling of the series whether it's G1 or whatever is for every generation of fans to have something to attach itself to. When the first Movie came out, I thought damn will it be like G1, design wise. At first I didn't like them but it grew to me. The designers were or are TF fans as well just that the engineering to their designs made more sense as to how an alien race of robots would transform from vehicle to robot.

[taksraven]

Personally, I am sick of some of the G1 worship. Some treat it like it was perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdPDQ6P2ypo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du69Ud0hfpU

And one of the reasons why Casey Kasem left the show.....

[Keith]

I say this should be TF4

[CoryHolmes]

All the "Bayformers are a crap franchise!" dog-whistling going on, I'd like TF 4 to bring us to Cybertron. There have been hints of it in the first and third films, but I'd really like to see it on-screen. After War for Cybertron gave us a good idea of what the Great War was like, I'd enjoy seeing more of that perhaps in a prequel.