As profitable as superheroes are (except Flash) I'm glad Paramount recognizes that Transforners are something different and need to be.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
- Thread starter SHIELD Agent 47
- Start date
Holomatter avatars just mean less screen time for the giant robots in the giant robot movie. They don’t even have the stakes of sending in the human partners to do stuff since they don’t really exist. Not a fan.
it’s just human sidekicks with extra technobabble.
it’s just human sidekicks with extra technobabble.
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Speaking of Michael Bay, according to this interview at Variety with Paramount CEO Brian Robbins, while Bay may no longer be directing these films, it turns out he still has final say on everything that goes into these movies, and has the power to veto anything he doesn't agree with.
After a Decade in Limbo, Brian Robbins Is Giving Paramount a Makeover With ‘Ninja Turtles,’ Tom Cruise and ‘Gladiator 2’
Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins explains the film studio's new look, with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" and a "Gladiator" sequel.variety.com
TBH, I don't disagree with Bay entirely here, but then I am very lukewarm on the whole integrating GI Joe thing. The only thing I halfway like about it is that approaching it from this vector lends itself to a more comic-booky, sci-fi-y take that may play better because it isn't a Woo Realistic Military Yeah vibe that no one but a very loud fandom faction of Abe Simpsons wants.
I'm not too surprised by the veto power, as that seems to be something producers tend to hold on to. This is going to be easy to be alarmist about (oh no! Bay can still make or break the movies!) but given we've gotten two movies that are solid-to-good and distinct enough from his stuff strongly suggests it's not a big deal.
The Transformers are walking VFX. They need VFX to exist on screen even if they're standing there.
But I agree that TF time onscreen would be better used for characterization moments that need less action and thus less in the way of VFX. Stand, sit, talk, react, interact. No need to constantly transform, blow things up, run, etc.
Holomatter avatars are frankly a weird solution for anyone wanting "more Transformers, less humans", because these are literally going to be humans onscreen that we're just saying are Transformers.
Sure, I guess some people could technically be "proven right" that "you don't need human characters" because now Prime, Mirage, Arcee, and Wheeljack can infiltrate the Peruvian festival themselves rather than rely on Noah and Elena. But surprise, those amount to human characters onscreen, and you didn't fall in love with this franchise because of human figures that are secretly projected from giant robots that turned into cars and things. However much green-blue digital effect filtering or voice flanging you put there.
It also sharply downplays the "differentness" that Transformers/human interactions run strongly on, not least in the immediately arresting sense of scale. Noah Diaz being cajoled into infiltrating a museum by [actual Pete Davidson] while [actual Peter Cullen] stands by glowering is an SNL sketch I'd like to see, but has none of the same feel of the interaction between Noah, Mirage, and Prime.
And of course even if Paramount were to be fine with it (doubtful, given this is core to the spectacle that makes these movies), I doubt Hasbro would enjoy having the central gimmick they sell toys based on so downplayed.
Not so loud, James Roberts might hear you!
I don't mind humans being in the films, and feel the last two handled it pretty well. But I want my Transformers movies to be about the Transformers, not about the humans who do stuff with the Transformers.
I feel like the last two kind of hit 50/50 with it -- it felt more like a partnership to me, which is fine in my book.
I feel like the last two kind of hit 50/50 with it -- it felt more like a partnership to me, which is fine in my book.
In the bay movies we see transformers project holoavatars. Using them to even interact with our human cast wouldn't be horrible. They can even glitch out to not be perfect or show yes, these are only used so often.
Again, this is just trying *something* to get these characters more opportunities to get characterization.
Again, this is just trying *something* to get these characters more opportunities to get characterization.
Yeah, there's a distinction between "holo-drivers" who can sit in a driver's seat and deliver dialogue and full holomatter avatars who can walk around and interact with physical objects.
As for the VFX budget-per-character, I'm curious as to how that breaks down in terms of designing, animating, and rendering. It may be possible to cut corners somewhere (simpler designs with fewer individually-moving parts, physically-identical "repaints," off-camera lines, frame-blocking, amortizing a cost over several movies, etc).
As for the VFX budget-per-character, I'm curious as to how that breaks down in terms of designing, animating, and rendering. It may be possible to cut corners somewhere (simpler designs with fewer individually-moving parts, physically-identical "repaints," off-camera lines, frame-blocking, amortizing a cost over several movies, etc).
Especially when one of those three sentences was a suggestion to murder some innocent people, which made Optimus go "Ironhide! You know we don't harm humans! What is with you?!"
Which, in hindsight, kinda both acts as foreshadowing to later movie Autobots also being murder-happy psychos, and as a point of making Optimus later look pretty hypocritical with all his "I'll kill you!" "We will kill them all," "He's going to die," dialogue in those later movies.
Oy vey.
I wholeheartedly agree, but the answer to that is to write the robot properly, not this holomatter avatar idea. Even if the latter were somehow to be followed, the same type of writing (the humans don't fare much better in those movies) brings us back where we started.
This is fair,, and I also agree with it. Humans have a place in the story, but a big part of that role is as a "way in" to the Transformers characters and world, and as foils. It isn't their movie.
I also think the last two movies struck that balance fairly well. The 2007 movie was also decent with it, and AOE seemed to have flashes of it in Cade bonding with Prime, but by then the Bayhem and theme-park-ride writing was a black hole no sense of narrative depth or complexity could escape from.
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Yeah, it's really sad when we have to consult media outside of the movies in order to get personally-written content for the movie characters. For Ironhide in particular, you'd never know from watching only the movies that he's actually a closet fan of American Football. In one of the Transformers: Classified novels, it's described how he would often have fellow Autobot Gears (the focal Autobot of those novels) sit down to watch football games with him. While Ironhide claims that it's solely for Gears to study field tactics and strategy, Gears observes that Ironhide gets really excited and invested in every game they watch. Something like THAT would be amazing to actually see onscreen in the movies instead of our having to be told about it in a book.
In all honesty, as bad as ROTF was, it too gave more focal time to the bot characters than the first movie did. It's just that the bots that movie chose to focus on was were Skids, Mudflap, and Wheelie. Oh, and Bumblebee. All the cool ones like newcomers Sideswipe, Jolt, and Arcee, and the returning Ironhide and Ratchet, were still relegated to the background.
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I think part of the problem is that aside from a couple of cases (Sam and Cade) we don't really get continuing human characters, so we A) don't really get enough time for coherent character development, B) have to re-hash the "introduction to Transformers" theme every damn time, and C) can't mix-and-match characters in interesting ways (which is what the best sequels do).
Like, when Bumblebee came out, I had an idea for a sequel which would've included Charlie and Jack (John Cena's character), with Jack being the one who spends the movie teamed up with Bumblebee (letting Jack's macho bullshit bounce off Bumblebee's more earnest heroism), while Charlie ends up meeting Optimus (letting us see a different side of Prime than the movies usually present; less the bloodthirsty warrior and more of the wise father-figure we remember from the 80s).
Like, when Bumblebee came out, I had an idea for a sequel which would've included Charlie and Jack (John Cena's character), with Jack being the one who spends the movie teamed up with Bumblebee (letting Jack's macho bullshit bounce off Bumblebee's more earnest heroism), while Charlie ends up meeting Optimus (letting us see a different side of Prime than the movies usually present; less the bloodthirsty warrior and more of the wise father-figure we remember from the 80s).
I would've loved that. Just continuing that specific tone and combination of characters would have been great.
I just got that yesterday (I was at Walmart for unrelated stuff). He's a surprisingly great little toy once you get past the brown wheels and lack of paint. Alt-mode is decent (though there are a few gaps and things that have to be massaged just right to get into position).
Thinking of calling him Dataset (function: researcher), since he's obviously not Wheeljack.
I am jealous! I've seen the Scourge/Scorponok armor set in the wild, but have yet to find Wheeljack outside the Target 3-pack.
...also, my headcannon is that in the movieverse, the name Wheeljack is the Cybertronian equivalent of John Smith...
Okay, watched it. Noah's scenes prior to the parking garage scene could have been replaced by a couple lines of dialogue and nothing would have been lost. Such painful canned "gotta have a human plot" dreck. And boy did the Unicron-granted "invincibility" vanish utterly as soon as the final fight began, so that Optimus could go on a dismembering spree.
The movie was not without good points, but man was it loaded with bad points.
---Dave
The movie was not without good points, but man was it loaded with bad points.
---Dave
So, at some point in Cybertron's past, a 'bot named Wheeljack sailed to a new land and nearly got killed by the natives?
On the shores of Quintessa, yes. Also, there are reports of a 'bot named Wheeljack who travels in a strange blue box...So, at some point in Cybertron's past, a 'bot named Wheeljack sailed to a new land and nearly got killed by the natives?
I heard he travels in a Orange box that contains his workshop and on the door a sign says "Will not be held accountable for fatal injuries or lost of body parts!!"
In my headcannon for G1 Wheeljack, he is a genius engineer, but his experiments always tend to blow up because he put far to much into them, like the time he tried to make a portable space bridge that could also do the tango!!