Transformers: One - New Animated Prequel coming September 20th, 2024 - New Toy Official Images!

lastmaximal

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
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Yeah, 3D movies going 2D for subsequent adaptations/series is not unheard of, and frees up resources that can go to design and writing. It's succeeded more often than not.

I'm just hoping it gets a robust toyline that's more than the kid mainline style we've gotten for the last few years where it's all one-steps and gimmicky sublines and some token Warrior class molds of four characters. (Er, aka the One movie toyline as it is... Drat.) It would be frustrating to never see, or only see in trickles over years, a lot of these great designs. And I don't want this to take over Studio Series either, although it makes sense for it to step up as one of the line's running sources.
 

RichardT519

Active member
Citizen
Finally saw the movie today, then did the requisite look-ups on TV Tropes and TFWiki. Nice to see I wasn't the only one...
who saw similarities between the publi personas of Sentinel Prime and Homelander.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
More images from the Chinese card set which gives some good looks at other characters from the film, including both cogged and uncogged iterations. I particularly appreciate a meaningful attempt to create some variation between the seekers, even though they all come from the same “body type”.
Like I said before, Hasbro could mine this film for stuff for YEARS between the Seeker variations, stylistic variations on the likes of Soundwave and Shockwave, and even giving some of the cameo Autobots some love.

 

PrimalxConvoy

NOT a New Member.
Citizen

Superomegaprime

Wondering bot
Citizen
The movie is a failure in terms of financal results, I get the feeling that ROTB did more harm than good, I mean it wasn't exactly a great movie in hindsight but I honestly expect TF One to find more of a audience on streaming, but then I think the film title is also apart of the problem as it seems more like a production title than anything else, plus the timing of release is bad, here in the UK it comes out next week, which is still two weeks before half term, its also being overshadowed by Beatlejuice 2 and Wild Robot, which isn't helping matters.
 

Tuxedo Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
I had a feeling that Wild Robot (emotion-stirring film based on a junior novel, with DreamWorks funding and baked-in sequel hooks) would probably get more buzz -- though the showing I went to was pretty sparsely attended.

I don't think they designed the film to be Oscar bait, but it's more likely to be considered by the Academy for the Animated category than TF:One, For Reasons.
 

Donocropolis

Olde-Timey Member
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
I do feel like maybe it didn't hit at quite the right time. I wonder if an earlier theatrical release and then at-home streaming roundabout now would have helped push the toys for the Christmas buying season. Because, really, toy sales are going to be what Hasbro is interested in.
 

LordGigaIce

Another babka?
Citizen
Nothing about RotB feels like a dedicated Bumblebee sequel. He's in it, they make a vague reference to the Bumblebee movie, and Prime and Bumblebee's designs carry over but...

It's not like Bumblebee is the focus. We don't get a follow up on Charlie or Memo. It's a movie in continuity to Bumblebee and it follows it chronologically but it's not like it's a follow-up story about Bumblebee, if that makes sense.

RotB didn't suffer from all the sins of the Bay films but it suffered from enough of them to kind of sour my experience. Too many robots who were just there to fill a roster while not getting any character. An over-wrought CGI battle in a DBZ wasteland at the end. A McGuffin hunt. A plot that seems all over the place just tossing in concepts from the franchise. Maximals! Unicron! Scourge!
It wasn't RotF or TLK levels of bad, in fact it has its strong points. It still felt like a sad return to (poor) form though, after Bumblebee gave me hope the live action movies were trending in the right direction.

And to top it off they ended it by trying to make "fetch" happen again with GI G-ddamn Joe
 

Sabrblade

Continuity Nutcase
Citizen
It seems they went with September to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the G1 cartoon. But a May release would have better coincided with the actual 40th anniversary of the whole brand.

The only real competition it would have faced had it been released in May would have been Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and IF. Which, admittedly, is some pretty steep competition, but we'll never know what might have happened, alas.
 

Undead Scottsman

Well-known member
Citizen
It wasn't a competition issue. TF One should have handily beaten a 40 years later sequel that nobody was really asking for and that was reviewing "all right". Had it done well last weekend, you could make a case for the Wild Robot eating its lunch, but it's clear with or without that a competing animated robot film, TF One wasn't doing well.

That said, despite appearing to be a more heartful and critically acclaimed film than TF One, The Wild Robot didn't do gangbusters either, earning about 30% more than TF One's meager earnings. It'll probably do fine, but it's not any kind of big success, which makes me think the rot in the film industry is just that deep.

Checking the top-ten for the year, only two films have grossed over a billion worldwide (Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine) and no film has grossed over a billion domestically.

Certainly Hasbro shouldn't be left off the hook for the terrible marketing, and also shouldn't have marketed to kids and then put the film out during the school year, but the industry is kind of floundering as a whole at this moment.

Like, I loved Godzilla x Kong because it's exactly my speed of silly nonsense, but in a healthy industry, that movie should not be the fifth highest grossing movie of the year, yet here we are.
 


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