Anymore so than the animated Transformers movie where they killed off…well pretty much everyone?
But dude, they are robots in disguise. How could you not want to see it?
I read somewhere that they were all set on making a GI Joe movie, but because of the present war/s it was decided to give the go-ahead to the Transformers.
The redesigns don’t really bother me that much. I’d have said they pissed on my childhood if they’d hired anybody other than Cullen to voice Prime.
Four Oscar nominations, including Mitchum as Best Supporting Actor, and Best Screenplay by Guy Endore, who also wrote The Werewolf of Paris. Although, unaccountably, this film contained no werewolves. That’s probably the only improvement I think they could have made. Of course, I think the same thing about pretty much all movies. Werewolves are the original Transformers.
Speaking of which… where’s the live-action Visionaries movie, dammit?! How is it possible that Transformers rate all these movies even though they ONLY turn from robot to vehicle? Yet Feryl the Spectral Knight can turn from human to wolf AND has his own vehicle! He is CLEARLY superior. Even Radioactive Giant Steve Austin agrees.
The cartoonist shares my views.
Eeeh…depends what you mean by ‘internally consistent’.
There are multiple, often contradictory, though related, Transformers continuities.
For ‘G-1’ there are the TV series, the Marvel comics, and the Marvel UK comics.
Beast Wars and Beast Machines continued on from G-1 TV, and incorporated some elements from the comics.
In Japan, G-1 continued significantly beyond where it ended in North America. While they incorporated Beast Wars, there were a lot of extra stories in the interim, and they went off on a different direction, following Beast Wars with Beast Wars sequels, and Car Robots (Robots in Disguise in the US). I’m not entirely clear if Car robots was supposed to be in G-1/Beast Wars continuity in Japan, but it wasn’t in NA.
Then Armada, Energon, and Cybertron are apparently another continuity in themselves.
Dreamwave’s comics were in the pre-existing American continuities.
IDW’s comics fall into several continuities. They’re reprinting the Marvel US comics as Generations. They published an in-continuity Beast Wars comic. They’ve published, so far, two movie-related comics (a prequel, and an adaptation of the movie) - which, by the way, are very good. They’ve had one Evolutions series called Hearts of Steel, which is set in the 19th century. (Steampunk Transformers for the win!) And they have their own continuity, through Infiltration, Escalation, Devistation, Stormbringer, Spotlight, and Megatron: Origin. The IDW camouflaged forms resemble the G-1 forms - Bumblebee is a classic bug, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Prime are cab-overs, etc - right down to explaining how Megatron, Soundwave or the taps can change size, but their bot forms have been altered, making them look more like what they’re supposed to be - robots who convert into convincing, and mostly accurate*, perfectly functional, vehicles or other random Earthly items.
- When Ratchet’s being worked on by a mechanic, the mechanic comments that his suspension’s unusual, but it’s only strange enough to comment on, not to keep him from being able to work on it.
He does? Seems he’s just hoping it’s not crap, whereas you’ve already reached that conclusion.
I’ve never even heard of Transformers before. Of course, in the 1980s I was already an adult and living upcountry in Thailand, so that could have something to do with it. But I guess that means I won’t be cheesed off by how they’ve reportedly changed the story or the characters or left out some characters etc.
I’m curious how the movie has already garnered 785 votes at imdb.com when it hasn’t been released anywhere yet.
Okay, but why not release here at the same time? Why are they releasing it early here? I guess to prevent piracy is the most likely explanation, although honestly that does not work. The copies will still be out on the street.
That link goes to a three panel cartoon in which someone says they are going out on a date with someone named Kate. Nothing about the Transformers movie. Passing reference to Starship Troopers only.
Am I missing something?
-FrL-
Link worked for me.
Is no one else getting a three panel cartoon that starts out with someone saying “Where are you going?” and the other guy saying “Out?”
-FrL-
The strip has updated. The one Bosda linked to is not at that link any more.
http://licd.com/comic/20070623 <- This is yesterday’s.
I remember buying Marvel’s Transformers #1 way back in '83 or '84, and it started off with an explanation of how the Transformers evolved on Cybertron. Yes, non-biological evolution, with metal pistons and gears and pulleys, and for all we know carburetors. Even at the age of ten I thought that was dumb. Later on, the cartoon explained that the Transformers were actually created by the Quintessons, those creepy floating heads that changed faces. I liked that explanation better, even though it begs the question of where the Quintessons came from, since they were also (I believe) robots.
As for the movie, I’m hoping they ignore the whole Cybertron backstory altogether and just focus on the “giant robot carnage” factor. I’m disappointed that most of the robots don’t look anything like their animated counterparts (Optimus looks pretty cool, but the Megatron design is awful), but the fact that they got Peter Cullen shows they are at least trying to keep something from the series. And the scene in the trailer where the Decepticons attack the army base looks like it will kick at least six kinds of ass.
So yeah, they’ve got my ticket.
Weird because it went to the correct one for me even after it updated for others. The ways of the web are strange and wonderous.
How are they going to make Megatron (teeny tiny pistol) transform into a giant fricking robot? In the animated series it was done with perspective shots – the pistol would fly up in the air, you’d lose sense of scale, and when Megatron landed, he’d be the same size Optimus Prime. The robot forms were basically the same size, but the toy gun you could buy was a more-or-less reasonable size for a real person to use, and the toy truck was 1/120th scale or somesuch (not at all driveable by a real person).
Megatron isn’t a gun in the movie; he’s some sort of alien spacecraft looking thing. As far as I know none of the robots change size in the movie; small robots become small items, car-sized robots stay the same size, etc.
I found this (spoilers). It shows “leaked” stills designs and toys from the movie. Looks like Megatron won’t be a pistol. I won’t say further in case there is someone overly sensitive about spoilers.
Exactly.
There’s stuff that I consider to be “cultish” or sacrosanct. . .maybe something like “A Scanner Darkly” that came out last year. You don’t want to turn that over to Michael Bay, and make it into an action driven, car-chase plot with brain waves and explosions.
But, the “Transformers”? This stuff was a mass-market, merchandise driven, juvenile product to begin with. As far as I’m concerned, M. Bay can’t pee on that; he’s part of that cultural continuum.
As a guy born in 72, I was right about the right age for Transformers. I’ve pretty much grown out of seeing the summer blockbuster, but Transformers certainly has my attention, and I figure that Bay is as good a choice as anyone for doing this movie.
I hope Anthony Anderson gets a decent part. I think he’s pretty underrated. I’m serious.
Exactly! The Micronauts consistantly kicked Steve Austin’s, Johnny West’s AND Evel Knievel’s asses.
I want my Micronauts movie!