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Comment on “Transformers”

1. Nikalian88 Says:
   August 29th, 2006 at 14:24

   first off, let me just say TRANSFORMERS RULE!!! though i was born in 88' i am still a fan of the great bots'. i shouted for joy at the news of a live action moive, for i had just found out that they nolonger sell g1 series boxsets just as i save up enough to get one! so let me just say that your reviews are keeping me counting down the days till 7 4 7. till all are one.

1. dylan Says:
   October 11th, 2006 at 09:40

   i don't want to be rude but...
   
   what in god's name did you do to our beloved transformers?!?!?!!? their not suppose to look that freaky!!! your doin like those of the sequels in batman the movie and it sucks!!!
   
   i have to live another century to see a better transformer before i die... you guys ruined it!!!

1. deviant artist Says:
   January 7th, 2007 at 14:11

   I am currently a computer animation artist and I would love to produce an undergound Tranformers movie (even though I know that if it made a profit {and it would} I'd get the pants sued off of me :)
   
   I really hate what the franchise owners (fuckin Hasbro or whoever) have allowed to happen to the Transformers of Generation One... what happened?Did theses guys even watch Transformers? This crap looks like Bionicle! Why couldn't we just update thier "Vehicle Mode" and keep the old school robot designs and give them all GUNS??
   I mean honestly... Why are they making this dumb shit...to make more toys? Kids today don't even play with fuckin toys anymore... MAKE A HOT MOVIE FOR THE TRUE FANS and the toy line and all other frills will follow...just like the TV show did with us back in 1980something.
   
   

1. Trenton Larkin Says:
   May 13th, 2007 at 00:22

   I am really excited about Transformers the movie. But I hold my breath until I see it wondering if it will be any good or not. And one thing I want to know is where is Hot Rod or Hot Shot?? Why aren't there more Autobots??
   
   

1. TonyBones Says:
   May 17th, 2007 at 22:27

   I too am a computer animator and I'm compelled to agree with the other animator here. These new designs are an artistic abortion. They are a cluttered, jumbled mess and look like, as a co-worker put it, wads of tin foil covered in razor blades. Updating a design is fine, but the Michael Bay way of doing it, which appears to involve jamming the original through a wood chipper and reassembling it with a backhoe, angrily storms past tasteful revision and staggers drunkenly into the oncoming traffic of franchise butchery. These new designs are the decomposing corpses of once great characters. Maybe 20 years from now someone will make a Transformers movie who actually LIKED the original series. Until then I'll definitely pass on this version.

1. Vice Says:
   May 31st, 2007 at 11:08

   For you guys that criticize the designs...
   
   Just because you guys are computer animating hotshots doesn't give you enough credibility to slice 'n dice robot character design revisions done with a sense of realism and proportion. I mean let's get real for a second... when you got your Optimus Prime toy back in the day and transformed him all ready for war and whatnot, could his legs bend even slightly to the side? The original Transformers were blocky as heck, like a human-being wearing a dozen tailored suitcases... how are they ready to fight when they can't even scratch their freakin noses, huh? Well, to wrap this up, let me put it this way... I'd rather have Bumblebee look like this:
   
   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/MovieBumblebee.png
   
   than like... (pff)... this:
   
   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c8/Bumblebee-boxart.jpg/685px-Bumblebee-boxart.jpg
   
   And for the record, I grew up with Transformers... I just have a respect for Spielberg's vision and I understand the direction the crew is trying to go.

1. TonyBones Says:
   June 1st, 2007 at 18:41

   Yeah, Vince is right. Artists are terrible judges of design and aesthetics. All artistic decisions should be made by committees of accountants and other Hollywood pencil pushers.
   
   As far as "getting real for a second", you're kidding right? Never mind for a minute that we're talking about something as implausible as vehicles that turn into robots, but if you actually believe that what you've seen in the new Transformers movie trailers looks more "realistic" than this "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A21RA3hMY10", then you are in no position to be slamming the credibility of people like myself who do this for a living. People like me are bashing these designs because they fail to suspend disbelief, which is the primary purpose of special effects to begin with. In the Citroen commercial that I linked to you can actually see the car transform into a very flexible, dancing robot AND it retains the design sense of the original Transformers characters. It could easily "scratch its freakin' nose" or any other body part it felt like. You can watch as every piece of the car shifts into place making the viewer believe that such a thing is actually possible. The Michael Bay version does not achieve this at all because the original vehicle's form is all but lost in its robot form. The vehicle's sheet metal folds and breaks in half to form the robot while the rest of the vehicles inner workings explode in to a snake pit of sharp metal fragments. The pieces move as if they've magically detached from the car and then float into a cloud of disjointed pieces, like a swarm of metal bees moving in a humanoid configuration. It is not, as you put it, remotely close to "realistic" even in a sci-fi sense of the word because the vehicle in Bay's rendition has been effectively destroyed in the transformation process and could not "realistically" put itself back together in any kind of believable mechanical way.
   
   If you think that animators couldn't take the original character designs of Transformers, update them tastefully and achieve realistic movement just because the toy you had as a kid couldn't then you aren't using your imagination and have proven why "hotshots" like me are qualified to do all the slicing and dicing they feel like. Again, watch the Citroen commercial to see how it could have and SHOULD have been done.
   
   
   

1. Another Hotshot Says:
   June 1st, 2007 at 18:59

   You said it TonyBones. Updating and evolving a design is all well and good, throwing all sensibility, form, function, and taste in a trash can, compacting it, then pulling it back out, wadding it into a jumbled steaming pile and calling it a Transformer is not.
   

1. Vice Says:
   June 2nd, 2007 at 16:49

   Hahaha... really? Why won't you admit something for a second, Bones: You haven't even seen a particularly detailed angle in which one of these characters transform from their vehicle form or vice-versa because none of the current trailers have shown you. And even if 'folding and breaking sheet metal' was a technique which the designers took note in its not like two pieces of metal could be combined and disguise itself as one piece... cleanly slice a penny in half, and put it back as it was and how clearly can you see the slice? Not that clearly; it's not exactly like chopping up a pizza. These are "robots in disguise"... they already have preset forms, so can each one actually perfectly bond with a vehicle made in a different planet? Stop me if you've heard this one...
   
   Starscream walks inside an Air Force base... tells the General, "do you have an F-22 Raptor in my size? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL?"
   
   Now we're talkin' sci-fi, baby. I like the Citroen commercial, too. But as far as taking the same design sense? ehhhhh... Most of the original Transformers designs looked particularly more humanoid than that car. You can actually fit a guy in a suit designed as the old school Optimus Prime. With the Citroen commercial the limbs are flimsly and the car parts look like their in the way. Get this sci-fi fact in your head: the Transformers have preset forms. They're robots set to transform into foreign objects... not foreign objects set to transform into robots, like that Citroen commercial.
   
   And I truly apologize if I offended you. The last thing I want to do is disrespect your position in your craft, I'm sure you take it very seriously. But come on, these designs were made by artists alike. Bay may have had a say in it, but ultimately each film has their own credited artists and designers. I'm also sorry that you feel like you have to miss this film simply because you're not on the same page as the artists in this film. Heck, I'm an actor, and I didn't mind watching Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.

1. TonyBones Says:
   June 4th, 2007 at 18:10

   Ok hang on a minute. Trying real hard to fill head with sci-fi facts as instructed. So, if I got this right, the original creators of Transformers did not infact know what they were doing clearly having no idea how the Transformers were REALLY supposed to work. It took visionary Michael Bay coming along some 20 years later to finally get it right. If the original series were that flawed in design and concept then why the hell even bother with it at all? If you have to alter it that much to make it acceptable to the almighty Hollywood then why not just call it something different altogether?
   
   Listen, a trailer out right now shows what looks like an Audi TT or some similar silver car starting to transform and the sheetmetal of the car's body actually starts flapping like roofing shingles in a tornado as it starts its transformation process. In another shot, metal fragments snake upwards like chunky metal liquid, kind of like vines twisting up a lattice in time-lapse film. They morph more than they transform, which is fine… BUT IT’S NOT TRANSFORMERS! So yes, I have seen particularly detailed angles of the transformation and it looks ridiculous. If the trailers you’ve been watching haven’t showed a detailed transformation though why are you so fired up to defend it?
   
   Go to a toy store right now. The Transformers toys that are supposed to look like the movie version can't even transform. They're statues. The one's that can actually transform have been radically toned down from their movie counterparts. If that's not proof that these new designs don't make any sense then I don't know what is. Sure, the original toys were not as limber as, say, even the car in the Citroen commercial but even the new Spider-Man toys can't move the way a real human does. The old toys could at least transform and still look like the character on screen!
   
   Anyway, if the Citroen commercial doesn't move you then I can't see what you could have ever liked about the original series. You say it's flimsy but again you’re not using your imagination. It could be bulkier and still stay true to the spirit of the original. Fact is, you'd probably like whatever they threw at you. Like the new Star Wars movies. Except for the die hards most people would rather just pretend that the new Star Wars never happened. Here, had Bay stuck closer to the originals and done it well he would not have alienated the core fan base and people like you would have liked it just the same. Everyone wins. I'm not so ready to settle for mediocrity just because that's all that's being offered.
   
   Furthermore, as an actor how can you support the lame movie-by-focus-testing formula that Bay is all about anyway? Personally speaking I can't even count how many times I've seen good designs go bad under the direction of non-artistic "suits" calling the shots. Sure, in the end the art was technically produced by an artist but the soul was sucked out of it after constant changes and revisions demanded by the non-artists in charge.
   
   In the end though you can spare me your pity over my missing this movie due to an inability to comprehend the apparent sophisticated genius of these new designs. I guess I'm too simple to appreciate the artistry of Bay movies in general. But don't cry for me, I'll still be 10 bucks richer on opening day.
   

1. TFan Says:
   June 20th, 2007 at 13:26

   I love this pic.

1. LikedTheMovie Says:
   July 3rd, 2007 at 12:34

   frankly I think you all sound like a bunch of nerds fighting over nothing. I saw the movie tonight and I loved it. I didnt grow up watching the cartoons, but I have seen pictures and I like what the movie did much better than if theyd kept the designs the same from the cartoon. I do also agree that when they did transform there was a lot of movement that seemed too busy. however, look at the big picture. its not about selling toys, please, if anything its about selling cars. however, I honestly believe they wanted to make a good movie and I think they achieved that. I can see kids walking away from this movie and being really excited about it. my friends and i are 20 years old and we loved it. I dont think an 8 year old boy is going to leave that movie thinking about what the designers did wrong. if you dont like the movie, thats fine, if you do, thats fine too. however, I promise that no one really cares what some nobody computer designer thinks, so get over yourselves and chill out!

1. Adam S. Says:
   July 9th, 2007 at 15:38

   
   Transformers Sucked.
   
   With all the money toward C.G. and advertising, you’d think they could have hired a better writer. It took two movie tickets (18$ U.S.) for me to realize that they completely butchered my most favorite character, Soundwave the boombox, I just didn’t realize it was supposed to be him. In the cartoon series he had the coolest voice, and these cool transforming tapes which turned into an eagle and a horse or a dog or something. But in this movie, he is sadly portrayed as some sort of ant-faced shiny metal skeleton. His voice sounded suspiciously like an arabic golum. And instead of a transforming tape you could cut his arm off and it’ll turn into your cell phone. Stupid huh?
   The Biggest drawback that I saw, or rather couldn’t see, was the way the Transformers transformed. They transformed way too fast and there were so many movements that you couldn’t understand that part was turning into what. Couldn’t they have just built some transformers in C.G.? I mean, they managed to build transformers out of plastic in the 80’s.
   The other big drawback was the “plot”. The whole time they were looking for some cube that had this energy that turned machines into Decepticons. Even the Transformers themselves were not bound to the laws of their own transforming bodies, they could simply scan a machine and turn into that machine. You heard me, and what you’re thinking is right, it’s lame.
   But other than that I’d say its a feel good movie with good acting, pretty people, and big robots that magically shrink down into cars and stuff. Though most of my friends found it cheezy, I didn’t mind the dialogue.
   In conclusion, we can’t redo transformers the movie, but that’s Ok. Hopefully now someone’ll come out with Gobots the movie.
   That.. would be justice.
   

1. Ion Says:
   August 25th, 2007 at 11:24

   I have seen the movie it was OK.All i have to say is why the frinkin hell do they have bumblebee,personally hot shot would have been way better.Peroid.

1. robandtez Says:
   December 1st, 2007 at 15:02

   i got transformers on DVD (the best film in the world)!

1. jay Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 16:18

   why do people keep piping in and calling us nerds for caring about transformers.if your a big macho jock who cant stand nerd talk then get the fuck out of here and let the people who know what there talking about have there say.

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