Transformers the Movie

[lordoftime]

How many fans of animation here were around to see the original Transformers TV series and the hit movie it spawned, all of which were made in the 1980s?

For me this will always be TRUE Transformers, as I dont really like or know much of the stuff they came out with afterwards.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Actually for me the "true" transformers were the comic book series (which ran past 350 issues in the UK). Allowed much more depth, characterisation and plot lines than the movie or television series managed.

The only good bit about the television series and the film was that was how I imagined Optimus & Jazz to sound like. Shame Scatman isn't around for the live action movie but I hear the guy who voiced Optimus in the television series will be doing the same for the live action

 

[Coolhand]

I loved the Transformers when i were a lad. They looked cool. They acted cool. They WERE cool. The animated movie rocked and also traumatised me by killing Prowl, Ironhide and Prime.

However, I am so, so very gutted by the direction this new hollywood live action movie has taken. Having seen the new designs (mostly absoloute cack. The transformers now look like insects as opposed to cool robots. And Starscream is an ape with chicken-legs) and read the script (I can go into spoiler details but it's pants. Like, really pants.), I fear my treasured childhood memories are about to get devoured Unicron-style by Hollywood.
I haven't cried like this since Prime died!

 

[Memnoch]

How many fans of animation here were around to see the original Transformers TV series and the hit movie it spawned, all of which were made in the 1980s?

For me this will always be TRUE Transformers, as I dont really like or know much of the stuff they came out with afterwards.

I totally agree I grew up a total fan still have all the UK comics from aprox 60th issue. Watch the class animated film to death as a kid and have recently bought that and tv series on DVD ha ha

The film isn't all I hoped, whats going on with the designs jesus

 

[lordoftime]

I admitI havent been following the news of the new movie that closely, is it that bad?

And I agree with Coolhand, the death of Prime in the movie was heartbreaking for my ten year old self. He was my favorite. Me and a friend used to pretend we were Prime and Megatron fighting in my front yard. Good days!

 

[Clank]

I was seriously into Transformers (not that you'd get that from my avatar or anything!!! )

I saw the original movie at the cinema and recently bought it on DVD. I used to have a load of the UK Transformers comics and paricularly remember artwork by someone called 'Geoff Senior' being really cool.

Somewhere on my laptop I've got an animation from the new 'live' movie of a transforming Optimus Prime (who's a 'white' truck!?) which looks good but that's all I know about the live version. I'll have to look into it...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Waiting for a proper trailer to come up.
Apple - Trailers - TRANSFORMERS

Just a teaser at present...

 

[lordoftime]

Finished watching this and it was much better than I remembered. Had a more spirtuial theme to it I did not recognise as a child. Also didnt even know there was a Chosen One!

Been looking the series up online seems there were MANY versions done after what is now being called Generation 1.

Wonder if there is any way to get the original episodes on tape. Or the Return of Optimus Prime that apparently was made about a year after the movie.

 

[Coolhand]

For all Transformer fans...

Transformers: The Movie and click on "Trailers" to see the brand new trailer for the live action movie, showing snippits of the "bots" and the "cons" in action!

Squeeeeeee!

I still hate the new designs but if the action is as chaotic and explosive as this trailer hints, I might forgive them...

 

[Culhwch]

Just watched the trailer. Looks pretty cool, though you'd expect nothing less from Michael Bay. You'd also tend to expect a pretty dire movie, so hopefully he bucks the trend this time 'round...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Transformers

Check out the latest trailer on the Transformers site:
Transformers Movie - Official Site of Transformers: The Movie

Looks very interesting - and like Transformers has grown up as a movie.

EDIT: Whoops - moved to this thread - and does look like they've really taken time with the special effects.

What else has Michael Bay directed?

 

[Culhwch]

Bad Boys I and II, Armageddon, The Island, um, The Rock, I believe. Pearl Harbour. You know, moving, intelligent, suspenseful, thought-provoking masterpieces.

 

[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.

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...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Bad Boys I and II, Armageddon, The Island, um, The Rock, I believe. Pearl Harbour. You know, moving, intelligent, suspenseful, thought-provoking masterpieces.

Ah. Well, at least Transformers can claim it never intended to have a grown-up audience, I guess.

 

[Alurny]

I was just dying out as I remember it. I had transformers covers and all that. I remember thundercats better!

 

[McHorde-Trooper]

How many fans of animation here were around to see the original Transformers TV series and the hit movie it spawned, all of which were made in the 1980s?

For me this will always be TRUE Transformers, as I dont really like or know much of the stuff they came out with afterwards.

Although I am interested in the other Transformers stuff the heart will always be the 80's transformer stuff.

I thought the Comic was too much of a toy add. I mean they sort of killed off Prime and brought him back as Gimmick-Master Prime. Megatron was replaced as the leader and never really seemed to be the core character that he was in the cartoon.

All that being said I want to see the live action Transformers movie. I'm skeptical, but hey have the original voice of Prime playing his part again, right?

I've seen a little trailer on YouTub too. The transformation sequence looks surprisingly believable and at least the clip didn't seem to have overblown special effects like the Matrix sequels.

Edit: I'm about to watch the 12-20 trailer. I may have to edit my post latter.

 

[Coolhand]

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.

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.

 

[Quokka]

Unfortunately your probably right, I really dont know much about the movie except from what I saw on the two previews and I can see your point. I was expecting to be disapointed by this movie (now days Im expecting to be disapointed by most movies and remakes more than most ).

It was actually Starscream that gave me hope, I read somewhere that Megatron was dumped due to the size changing.... fair enough there.

But also that after some bad feedback to the original design Starscream was going to get a make over to be more like the original, if that's version 2 it still aint great. More importantly than the looks though, it said that any character that was named Starscream had to be the coniving, ambitious coward that Transformers fans expected or they wouldnt do it?

I agree that Bumblebee should have been given some sort of personality that tied in with the 'youthful enthusiasim' of the cartoon (I havent read the comics) but I still like the look of him in the stills that were released .


Edit: Checked out the cover of Empire Magazine featuring Optimus Prime, again that guy with the original voice, I like it. Of course all this is probably irrelevant due to the likelyhood of a decent plotline , but hey Im a cynic.

 

[Memnoch]

I went to watch this at the weekend (Kicking and screaming)

I actually enjoyed it ignoring some odd plot decisions, it took me back to my absolute fanatic love of TF's as a child. (Still have all comics from 86 onwards in my loft.)

The first transforming has the original cartoon sound CLASSIC. They even pinch lines from the original cartoon movie. The lead actor is very good and I see is Indy's son in the up coming Indy 4 movie.

I thought it was at times difficult to distinguish who was who though.

What did others think of the film??

 

[Overread]

What I think people have to accept is that film makers do not set out to make another persons story. They buy the rights to a production - read the blurb - and make up another completly different story that is theirs with their name on it. Personally I would prefer that they had the guts to make their own film with its own title and suffer the inevatble comparasons to the original work that they took insperation - that would feel more honest to me.