posted
My expectations for this movie are shot all to hell already, so no new information can make my starting attitude toward it any worse, I don't think.
I'll likely go see it, but I'm not expecting much. I'm going to pre-assume that it will be on par with the Hulk rather than Batman Begins.
I'm hoping that if I lower expectations enough, that I'll enjoy the movie. That worked with Punisher, actually. It's not that great of a movie, but I was expecting the worst so I enjoyed it (on TV, not in the theater).
Either way, though, Michael Bey's dropped this particular ball, imo.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Armageddon was actually quite funny - even though I boycotted it until just two weeks ago and only watched it after my girlfriend twisted my arm. Not high cinema, but entertaining.
It also helps that I had absolutely no expectations there, either.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I actually liked Armageddon. I can't watch it often, but it's not bad. Pearl Harbor made me sad. Not because of the subject matter, just so much as knowing how much better it could have been made, imo.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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You know, I really have to wonder what peoples expectations of this movie were. I guess I don't get it. It's a movie about giant robots that transform. That, and the fact that it has characters people recognize, is what my mind says is the reason people will see this movie.
Does it have giant robots? Yes. Do they transform? Yes. Are there recognizable characters? Yes.
Did anyone think when they first said they were going to do the movie, "gee, I bet that's going to have a superb acting and plot?" If so, you had a completely different reaction that I did. I thought "hey, giant robots! and they transform into cars! optimus prime?! heck yeah!"
What I don't understand, I guess, is how the movie is in anyway ruined yet.
posted
There are good comic/cartoon movies, and bad ones. Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, all made great movies. Fun, entertaining, and keeping with the basic look, feel and story elements enough that even when they diverged, it was done with some style and most of it stayed true so you could forgive a little here and there.
Then you have your movies that find children and steal them away to foreign lands, taking their property, salting the earth of their farms, and punching their cats in the face, refusing to save them even after all the human children have been rescued from the burning airplane full of snakes. Movies like Mortal Combat, Silence of the Lambs, and The Hulk.
There's no excuse for Michael Bey, even if Armageddon was much better than Deep Impact, he's screwing up Transformers and I, for one, will stand for it, but won't like doing it.
quote:Originally posted by T_Smith: http://www.ohlookabutterfly.com/albums/nathan/abj.swf
I'm confused. The comic is funny, but why is it a swf? Does it do something that I'm missing?
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
explain how the moie is ruined in point form pls I onl so far hear "miceal bey suckxors" from you.
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What Michael Bay has done is give Spiderman an orange and green costume with a cape and giant scarab beetle on the front. He's made Superman a three-armed alien with purple hair who can't fly and is vulnerable to iron. He's made Bilbo an elf, Legolas a dwarf, and Aragorn a hobbit. He's made Dracula a vegetarian.
You could easily have made any of the movie perversions I mentioned above, but they would not have been Spiderman, Superman, Lord of the Rings, or Dracula in the eyes of anyone familiar with the source material.
Transformers is not a movie about giant robots that transform and blow stuff up. It is a story that has already had several cartoon shows and an animated movie, and the images/personalities of the characters are very specific.
As much as fans want Spiderman to swing from webs through the streets of NYC, fans want Megatron and Starscream constantly bickering.
As much as fans want Superman to have a blue suit with red gloves/boots/cape and a big red and yellow "S" on his chest, fans want an Optimus Prime that's a red snubnose semi with blue flatbed.
As much as fans want Frodo to be a hobbit, they want Bumblebee to be a yellow VW bug.
My expectations are lowered considerably because Michael Bey has already changed major, major elements of the original material that many fans (myself included) identify as integral to the idea of the Transformers. To change these points makes me fear for what other major changes will be made that pull the movie further from the expected set of ideas/images/characters.
Thus, my expectations are not for a Transformers movie any longer. Instead, I am expecting a "Robots turn into machines and blow things up" movie that just happens to use recognizable names here and there.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I'd also like to add that Michael Bey isn't wholly at fault here. Whatever producers brought him and the writers in should have looked at the proposal and said "I'm sorry, this isn't what we were looking for" and found someone else.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
"He's made Superman a three-armed alien with purple hair who can't fly and is vulnerable to iron. He's made Bilbo an elf, Legolas a dwarf, and Aragorn a hobbit. He's made Dracula a vegetarian."
I disagree with these associations, but your point is taken. As far as my interpretation goes, the only thing changed thus far is images of the characters, not the personalities, backgrounds, storylines, or the characters themselves. However, it sounds as if I wasn't as much of a fan as you were, nor have I read any script or spoilers of plot or anything like that.
I suppose this would be the same as if they made a Dragonball Z movie, and Goku was just a really strong human.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Heh, I actually thought FC's point was very well made.
It might look like inconsequential details to non-fans, but it's the kind of thing that sticks out very, very oddly to someone who loved it when they were younger (and for some of us children at heart, still love it today). But I think appearance wise he's right with the "Legolas a dwarf and Aragorn a hobbit" thing. Visuals DO matter. The fact that Bumblebee was a teeny VW Bug was part of his personality. He wasn't a bitchin sexy car.
I was upset with X-Men for all the changes that were made, but it's a LOT harder to be upset with X-Men when there have been a billion incarnations of the series, to the point where anything can go really, and by the time the last movie came out, I didn't care anymore. But Transformers is different. It's incarnations are nowhere near as numerous, and most of us have very specific memories of what it was like, most especially for me, from the movie.
Anything less than that is the same kind of travesty as would be if Spiderman wore a rainbow spandex outfit with a cape or if Superman were an aging black woman with no cape. If the personalities don't match up, then imagine Clark Kent as a smooth talking sex maniac and Peter Parker as having OCD.
I don't mind things being a little different, especially since they are starting a franchise that's been dead (in THIS form) for years from the very beginning in a live action format. But too much change and it seems a lot to me like they are just plundering the memory of Transformers to put together whatever they think will sell the most toys in the aftermath, and that to me is a sacrilige. I still have dreams of them making a live action version of the animated movie.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by T_Smith: http://www.ohlookabutterfly.com/albums/nathan/abj.swf
I'm confused. The comic is funny, but why is it a swf? Does it do something that I'm missing?
I'm hoping at one point, to program a back button, and a forward button, and present them on a webpage in flash format. Also, it allows people to zoom in, and resize as needed.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
DBZ WILL be made into a live action movie in the near future. After all of Marvel and its brethren have been pillaged to death, and all the money that can be gotten from them has been, anime is next.
That's a bit misleading since there are plenty of live action anime based movies out, or coming out soon, they've yet to really hit some of the major US popular titles. Gundam Wing, Full Metal Alchemist, Trigun, Inuyasha, DBZ, etc.
Quite frankly, I would LOVE to see a live action Trigun and Full Metal, if they can cast the movie right, and get the writers from the original series to write for the new incarnation, so as not to mess it up. But it's all coming, just wait and see.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: DBZ WILL be made into a live action movie in the near future. After all of Marvel and its brethren have been pillaged to death, and all the money that can be gotten from them has been, anime is next.
That's a bit misleading since there are plenty of live action anime based movies out, or coming out soon, they've yet to really hit some of the major US popular titles. Gundam Wing, Full Metal Alchemist, Trigun, Inuyasha, DBZ, etc.
Quite frankly, I would LOVE to see a live action Trigun and Full Metal, if they can cast the movie right, and get the writers from the original series to write for the new incarnation, so as not to mess it up. But it's all coming, just wait and see.
The first few episodes of Trigun would be REALLY hard to pull of in a life action move format. How do you show sissyness in a life action movie without it making the whole character concept, geared for children?
If you made Trigun a live action movie I would be too worried of it turning into something like Inspector Gadget.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
oo, well I never considered them making it into a live action TV SHOW, I always figured it'd be a movie or two, but I guess it COULD be done that way.
Heh, I can see the Inspector Gadget concern, but other than Vash's go-go gadget arm, there isn't that much of an issue with it.
Thing is, there's no way it'd be geared towards children if it were done right. The shifts between comedy and deadly serious are often very fast, but they work amazingly well. It'd be very tricky to do in live action, which I think makes it that much more vital for the actor to be well cast. But it would be interesting.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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In my opinion very few anime series need to be, or could effectively be made into live action movies or series. I usually have a pretty open mind about such things, but I can't for the life me imagine DBZ not looking like a total joke. Are they still working on Evangelion? I think they could handle the visual aspect of it, but the story, the psychology of the characters, and the religious references are complex, and would be tough to cram into a single film. They'll probably dumb it down to simply being about good guys in robots fighting monsters.
As for the topic at hand, it amazes me how intolerant people can be when it comes to changing something that they remember from their childhood. I grew up with Transformers too, but I'll reserve judgment until I at least see a full trailer.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I'm just wondering what happened to the Dead or Alive movie, or did that go straight to the "Adam and Eve Signature Collection" section?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Last I heard, both a Trigun and DBZ movie were in the works.
Trigun X will be based off the Manga.
DBZ will be based on a series of studies in sleep disorder research and the Geneva Convention against Torture.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
And, on a side note, Dracula technically *is* a vegetarian, isn't he? Or is that a discussion for another thread?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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The original Transformers series and movie were an anomaly… Despite the fact that the cartoon was essentially a 22 minute advert for Habro's toys, and likewise the movie, a solid group of creative people made (for the most part) a pretty good body of work. The movie, I think, stands up best to the test of time.
Unfortunately, in my opinion that thin veil over the crass commercialism has been lost since and the newest cartoons are the worst yet (some weird amalgam of Pokémon and Transformers? What's up with that?).
All we can do is hope for the best on this one.
Posts: 74 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Beast Wars was pretty leet. While its sequal was watchable it wasnt leet.
Now please something freaking concrete I am still only hearing Micheal Bey sucks and comparing "changes" of what would be crappy in LOTR movies.
Someone in point form tell me each change that to your knowlege makes the movie not transformers if you can not do that then stop talking.
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I like Optimus' Robot mode, but his Vehicle mode is a bit off. I don't think the flames fit him very well.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
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Did the studios confirm that was the look of OP? Also even then while Im not a fan of the flames OP looks pretty snazzy.
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It appears to me that the new concepts for the transformers are more fluid looking and I kind of liked that boxy look that they had in the cartoons and original movie. Just me?
Posts: 871 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I think that has had a good and bad effect B34N. It veers away from the classic view, which people don't like, but it also makes the Transformers look more realistic. I think people are just dissapointed that they didn't make a movie of the original show exactly. There were obviously going to be changes like this, and people act so surprised. Sure some of the changes weren't for the best, but when has any movie maker gotten anything like this completely perfect?
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
WHAT CHANGES!!!! Aside from making OP have some flamish paint on it I have yet to see any substantial changes.
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3) Starscream's character has all but been eliminated.
Each of these has been specifically discussed in this topic. If you don't think that the changes mentioned are substantial, then don't participate in the discussion. It's a waste of everyone's time to arugue whether points that people have made are substantial or not. It's a matter of opinion, and yours obviously doesn't match the opinions of the people involved in this thread.
Edit: Megatron's look was another thread. Sorry. The overall look of the transformers was discussed here.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:If you don't think that the changes mentioned are substantial, then don't participate in the discussion.
Only people that agree with you are allowed to partcipate in this discussion?
Uncool.
I wasn't clear. I'm not saying he has to agree with me over whether these changes are good or bad, but saying they are insubstantial isn't fair to the people who have been discussing them all this time.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Where does it say they eliminated star screms character? Links pls.
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I'm just wondering how they're going to make those pointy, complicated-lookin' robots back into playable toys. It'd be pretty hilarious if the authorized Transformers movie action figures didn't actually, y'know, transform.Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
Of any movie released in the last 30 years, I think only Star Wars was more geared towards a post movie toy line than this will be. I'm sure they'll make something work.
I see what LD is saying mph, everyone here is arguing over whether or not they hate the changes, but at least those arguing admit that they ARE some pretty big changes.
Blayne is going at it from the point that nothing has changed really, so what's the point in arguing over it? Arguing that is fine, but it's not what's going on here, so I don't blame LD for trying to keep the discussion on the same track it started.
However, Blayne, I'd suggest you check out the other half dozen Transformers threads that have been around in the last week or so. They'll have all the information on what has changed and what people do and don't like about it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Blayne, this guy puts some of the visual concerns quite well - namely those surrounding Bumblebee, Starscream, and Megatron. Thankfully, Optimus is no longer a firetruck, as he was in an earlier draft, but the cosmetic changes they have made seem to be made for change's sake only, irritating fans for no reason other than some designer's desire to be different.
Other concerns with major changes come from the idea that Megatron, whose character is based around the fact that he has/is a massive gun that can blow pretty much any of the decepticons away and rules with that force, now no longer is a gun. He's become a plane, just like Starscream and the other also-rans. I suppose with Spielberg as executive director, though, we're lucky he wasn't made into a walkie-talkie.
Also, there has been news leaked (can't find a link at present) that Starscream doesn't have any dialogue, and utters only one line in computer code. Since the constant verbal confrontations between Megatron and Starscream (not to mention Starscream's constant attempts at betrayal to seize control) are a huge part of both characters, that absence is significant.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
The guy from AICN has a valid point: I'd be afraid to give my son one of these toys because he might sever his wrist trying to get it to transform.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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It's probably important to note that it is an "artist's conception" of the Prime look. If you hit the other two links on the page for other artist's renderings, you'll notice they have a considerably different frame setup. My first impression when I saw it was that the artist was overly concerned with sticking to a strictly human hero "Physique" rather than a shape that would fit the character.
I think what we actually see on screen will be somewhere between this drawing and the traditional form. On the other hand, I do think designs slightly more complex than the originals give a bit more weight to the believability of them being functional.
Posts: 74 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:On the other hand, I do think designs slightly more complex than the originals give a bit more weight to the believability of them being functional.
See, I'm not sure I do. I don't know why sticking a bunch of fiddly bits all over a chassis makes it any more likely to "work."
A robot isn't more believable just because someone's glued some chromed spaghetti to its joints.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
By slightly more complex I meant more along the lines of not every surface having a flat cover, and not requiring mass intersect with itself for movement. If you recall, the joints in the original Transformers weren't the most realistic, from a walking talking robot standpoint.
I wasn't proposing that a magical combination of intersecting bling and rice would magically endow Optimus with a human feel.
Posts: 74 | Registered: Aug 2006
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