Transformers 2 Has Wrapped - Plus: Possible Spoilers

FlameStrike says:

“I’m not sure what you think ‘based on’ means but it certainly doesn’t mean exact copy translated to feature film.”

Anyone who believes that’s I was asking for an exact recreation is, at worst, a complete idiot, and at best has not been paying attention and has no idea what he’s talking about.

I don’t care about superficial details like the alt-mode. I was referring to the character elements, and only the character elements. I understand that a number of things had to be changed and updated. I accept that. However, then you have Starscream saying “I live only to serve you,” thats so out of character for the G1 version on whom they said he was based he might as well have been Cop-Tur from GoBots. When you have Optimus Prime, the one who always manages to come up with a way to save his teammates, abandoning one of them because he can’t even be bothered to try to look for a way to try rescuing him without harming the humans, that’s completely out of character.

I commented that “Starscream, … Scorponok, … bore no resemblance to their original series counterparts, unless you consider Starscream being a jet and Scorponok being a scorpion to be enough to qualify.” Apparently, you do, because you’ve cited the alt-modes as being enough to count. I do not share that opinion. I have a higher standard than that.

You’re right one one thing though: There wasn’t much dialog between the robots in the film. What was there, however, felt so completely out of character that I didn’t believe these were even supposed to resemble the characters whose names they shared from ANY of the Transformers series to that time. You said that “Starscream led the Decepticons to free Megatron,” which only proves my point, especially when you consider that the Starscream the writers were supposedly using as a model for the movie would have proclaimed Megatron to have fallen long since, and would not have even bothered to look for him, much less to try to rescue him. He simply would have proclaimed himself leader and moved on from there.

As for respecting the franchise, they most certainly did not. When they say things like “a worthy effort requires a deserving source,” I have a hard time believing that they have any respect for the source material or the franchise, or that they’re even putting their best efforts into making the movie any good. When they decide to make changes, not because they benefit the movie, but just because they can, I don’t believe they respect the franchise. Now, I’ll grant you, the original series definitely had it’s low points, but it also had stories I’d rank up there with some of the best SF ever written. One episode even had a single, two word line, right at the end of the episode, that gave more character to the character that spoke it than we saw in ALL of the characters in the live action movie combined. The problem is, that’s not what people like to remember. They like to remember the episodes with bad animation, bad writing, and laughable plots. They also ignore the comic series when they talk about Transformers, which also had some good stories and character development, and I’m saying that as someone who’s not exactly a fan of the 80’s comics.

Another example I can proevide of not respecting the franchise is changing, almost universally, elements of the series that have remained consistent almost across the board for over 20 years. The visual aesthetic alone was only changed once, and that series was largely decried, at the time, as being the wost Transformers series ever. Now, there are a number of fans looking back on those almost as “the good old days.” That series, at least had well written stories and character development, elements that everyone who likes this movie scoffs at.

As for fan input, I am not being dishonest about that, and I find such a comment to be highly insulting and unforgivable. I was on the discussion boards for Producer Don Murphy where fan input was encouraged, and where he even admitted that it was an experiment, even if the atmosphere was toxic. Yes, Peter Cullen was cast as a way of throwing a bone to the fans, who at the time the decision was announced were coming down VERY hard on the movie because of the robot designs, among other reasons. However, they ignored the calls for Frank Welker to return as Megatron. As for Arcee, not so much. Yeah, there was a segment of the fanbase that didn’t want her in the movie, and there was a segment that did. The reason for dropping her, though, was that she didn’t fit the story. My speculation is that was because the Autobots didn’t have a heavily armed powerhouse to go up against the Decepticon tanks, which is what they needed Ironhide for. Of course for all the character development he got they could also have chosen Trailbreaker, Brawn, Huffer, Warpath, Hardhead, Grimlock, or any of a dozen others, and you’d not have been able to tell the difference.

The concept art, yeah, I’ll give you the point that the hideous designs are my opinion. That, however, doesn’t change the fact that the concept art that leaked out was practically indistinguishable from the final product. The outcry over Megatron’s look was phenomenal, and prompted the response that it was just concept art, not the “final design.” Funny, I couldn’t tell the difference when I did see the final design. I also couldn’t see any changes made to Starscream from his “early concept art.” That looked so much like the toy that surfaced a couple of weeks later that it quickly became obvious they weren’t telling the truth on that front.

The leaked script: This was an early draft of the movie, one which was, I believe, written by John Rodgers before Orci and Kurtzman came on. It was, supposedly, so completely rewritten by Orci and Kurtzman that it bore no resemblance to the final shooting script. Yet virtually nothing was changed. Every scene in the trailers confirmed that. Every scene in the movie confirmed that. This was not just a script review I’m referring to. I’m talking about an actual script that I downloaded and read. One that was confirmed to be legitimate but “out of date” and not even close to what they were using. I can accept that they want to keep things secret, that they don’t want to spoil the movie for those who, unlike me, had not been following the development ever since the announcement at OTFCC 2003. My point is that this was just another example of the lies they told throughout the process.

The mass-shifting, though, was one of the big ones. They outright said, in no uncertain terms, “There will be no mass shifting in this movie.” They commented that it was completely ridiculous in the cartoon, at said that there was no way to make it work believably on screen in a live action format. Then they design robots that couldn’t fit into their own vehicle mode because they have too many parts, and they have this gigantic cube that shrinks down at least twice because it first becomes small enough for one of the robots to hold in it’s hand, then small enough, again, for a human to hold in his hand while appearing to have the same relative size! And yes, if you’re willing to believe someone as dishonest as you’ve accused me of being, I did notice the robotic mass-shifting myself even before the movie opened simply because there has so much empty space in the vehicle modes that they wouldn’t have had room for arms and legs to fold up unless they all went under the hood, which consistently became the chest of the robot. Simple logic told me that mass shifting had to occur, despite what the writers and director were saying. That logic was confirmed by ILM’s Scott Farrar in an interview on IGN.com.

Now, I know they had to cheat to make that work. Metrolight Studios had to cheat to make it work on a TV series almost 15 years ago, and they did a damn good job of it. The fact remains that when you have a robot who has easily twice as much mass as his vehicle mode, they CGI artists are going to have to cheat, and make sure that the cheating is done on the far side of the Transformer while he’s changing, which means you can never have him transform the same way twice. Again, yes, I personally noticed this.

Finally, and I have no idea where your point eight comes from as mine was about them promising to make this better than the original series and instead living down to everything they criticized about that same series. I understand they had budget limitations, and that they couldn’t have done the movie without presenting it, at least in significant part, from the human perspective. Most people are so unimaginative that they’d not have been able to accept a live-action movie based on that story from any other perspective. That being said, there is no reason they couldn’t have presented a movie with compelling characters, robotic and human alike, a compelling and though-provoking story, not unlike those that the original series had done on more than one occasion, and still actually done away with all the negative elements from that same series.

Yes, the original series was pretty bad at points, I’ll even concede the idea that it was bad more often than it was good, but when it was good is could have held its own with some of the best SF out there. The people who made this movie, however, didn’t even try to live up to that, they just said anything they felt would justify their changes even if it was unsupported by facts, insulting to the Transformers property, and/or insulting to the fans they were trying to convince to see the movie.

My arguments are not baseless, and I am most assuredly not exaggerating. I am calling it as I see it, and nothing more. I am calling it as someone who followed the news regarding the original movie for four years, and participated in discussions involving one of the producers, at least one of the writers, and a representative of the director. I am calling it based on my experiences, my observations, and my perspective as a fan of The Transformers in nearly all of its incarnations.

I had serious doubts about the first movie in this series even before I saw it, based, at first, largely on the choice for director, and then on the continuing flow of news regarding the movie. I did not expect much from it. In point of fact, my expectations has sunk to the point that I almost didn’t bother to see it, and wouldn’t have if I hadn’t had free passes. After seeing it, I left feeling not like I’d seen a Transformers story, not even like I’d been entertained by anything I’d just seen, but like I just been ripped off and like I wanted a refund. Just like I had after seeing “The Rock” and “Bad Boys,” both of which I actually paid to see. I gave the movie an F on Yahoo! movies, and one star on both Barnes & Noble’s website and Amazon.com, and that one star was only because I couldn’t give it less than that.

Yes, I hated the first movie, and I hate the people who made it, and I am not going to see the second. I am in fact going to do everything I legally, and realistically, can to discourage anyone else from doing so because the people making this movie should not be rewarded for their incompetence.

This, incidentally, is the last time I am going to be posting on this topic, in part because I have lost all respect for you Mr. Keyes, and in part because I am getting so angry over this topic, and the resulting attacks on my integrity, that I suspect any further posts would get me banned from this site. That’s assuming that this one does not, which I am already half-expecting to happen.

If so, so be it. I’ve enjoyed my time here, but I guess it had to end sometime.

If not, then I’ll see you all around in other topics.

Copperknob says:

For whatever reason, Transformers seems to be the kid that’s just a little different and easy to pick-on on this site. So I’ll join Mr. Keyes in defending it. As with many films that are either redone or is predated by something else, one shouldn’t expect a literal re-enactment with better graphics and more attractive casting. There has to be gives and takes in order to modernize the characters and story-lines for the current audience (or simply a lack of time to develop a particular element). With that in mind, this film adopted new elements and left out some for what was in my opinion (and that’s simply what it is) an overall pretty impressive product.

As stated above, the character designs were made to avoid mass changing. To literally expect it to be a part-for-part piece-by-piece transformation would be asinine as there would be steering columns and seats poking out of the characters bodies. So there initially must be some give and arguing over a few cubic feet here and there ends up being an argument in futility. If you watch the special features on the DVD the creators go through the design process and show some of the mechanics of the transformation and all the algorithms they had to go through to make it work. The characters in robot form ultimately end up as close as reasonably possible the size they ought to be in relation to their vehicle. After this the only arguments are on your own characters design taste (boxy, fleshy or more of an animatronics figure). To which I wish they would have been closer to the original than they were. By that it’s mostly just paint-jobs and head shapes.

Character interactions were another problem with the film. Sector 7 doesn’t need to be discussed as that gives it way too much credit (it’s like the Jar-Jar Binks of Transformers). The problems with the character interactions were more in the lack of time to develop the characters. Trying to compress all of the robot character development from even the first three episodes of Transformers (More than meets the eye Pt. 1, 2&3) would be extraordinarily difficult while developing human characters that an audience could relate to (as it is difficult for Joe Schmuck to relate to a 4 tonne robot from outer-space). So yes I would have liked to see more development of both Autobots and Decepticons (particularly the Starscream and Megatron relationship); but considering the time available it wasn’t a poor job. Megatrons condemning demeanor towards Starscream and Starscreams deceptive “I live to serve you” (as there are times in the original series where Starscream fakes loyalty to avoid unabated conflict) was a moderately good job all things considered (this is especially amplified when he takes off at the end instead of helping Megatron fight Prime).

Consumers being a major involvement in product design are, despite some people’s opinion, not a Hollywood trait. So what involvement there was for the Transformer film are although not unique, not entirely common. What people want and what is practical from limitations of capital available, production abilities or even distinguishing it from previous products may often be separated by significant gaps. There were attempts to bring in fans opinions into the movie. For example, Welker was approached for the voice of Megatron but it was ultimately deemed inappropriate as his voice has aged.

Essentially my two biggest criticisms of the film were the lack of panned out shots. I think all the close up shaky angles detracted from the film, but not significantly. The biggest problem I had with the film was actually the poor choice of names used. Using both Bonecrusher and Devastator as names in the first film are going to make it tricky for the Constructicons to be in the second film, and I’m quite interested how they go about doing it.

As for the sequel, who knows really? It was stated before hand that false information would be released. Although a lot of what is shoring up seems reasonable, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of what’s been reported ends up being false (through no fault of the site’s of course). The Pretender seems to be one of those false information scenes. The new character is likely just a distraction and another female interest of Sam and likely a rival for Mikaela (so that there is some element of human plot). Michael Bay does occasionally run with bad ideas, but I don’t think he is dumb enough to add an Austin Powers Fembot to the film. Although I could go on and on about the Transformers universe (and do intend to do so on whatever the next article posted about them), I feel like I’m a few citations away from writing a thesis paper, so I’ll just Roll Out instead (forgive my terrible pun).

lengthycobra says:

dear rob, well all i can say is wow. I mean my god after reading your defenses to flamestrike who for someone who so apparently hated the film and no doubt the sequel has no problem with being on topic after topic about it, i find it amusing.

Personally i feel sorry for you rob and director’s like mike bay. To deal with die hard fan crazed maniacs who own ever dvd, probably memorized every line per episode and have the free time and the will to care about the robot vehicle size ratio gives me a whole new level of respect for you guys.

To take anything, be it spiderman or a old cartoon or a tv show and to have to listen to people rant and nit pick every little detail gives me a head ache i cant describe. God omg wolvering is 5′3. jackman is TOO TALL!!!!!

I’ve watched the lotr trilogy many many times and i could give a rat’s behind how much they follow the books and what parts were left out etc. I just liked the movies.

I didn’t care if bumblebee was a camaro, megatron didn’t turn into a gun and wait for someone to pick him up to shoot and dear god optimus had flames on his legs, i’m going take a few days off work because i can’t stop crying.

I’ll just stick with the saying if anyone wants the cartoon or comic, go read it or watch it. Transformers like spidey or xmen etc i have gotten people into these who never picked up a comic or seen an episode before.

So if a few whiners don’t like the movie or the sequel because it was not pound for pound a copy of the crappy and outdated cartoon,oh well.

What fans don’t realize is the core audience is not enough to warrant a 700 million dollar movie. That’s why changes are made, dialogue is updated and this is 2008, not 1988.

These are generally entertaining movies made for a broad audience to attract new people to the franchise, not just long time fan vets.

but i’m not going to get into any more of a debate about this film or part 2. I know plenty of people myself included that will see it, twice even and trust me it will do another 500 plus million

and everyone involved and people watching it will enjoy it so like anything else, who cares. I mean god is it possible for the dark knight to make any more money then it has lol

but there are people out there who didn’t like it and pick it apart, oh well.

I’m going to pop transformers back in just so i can enjoy the explosions and know somewhere out there a fanboy is wheeping lol

comgen says:

so Ill just defend this film also since so of you are in cloud nine smoking something and not relizing how hard it would be to make this film perfect for everyones opinion thats just it opinion.if they made the film to make everyone happy it would be a 12 hour movie and cost over a billion dollars.
so if you didnt like the first one then dont watch the 2nd if you liked it then watch no.2 I will and my kids will. so grow up!!!

Disgruntled Reader says:

For what it’s worth, I found the movie to be a reasonable reimagining of the Transformers franchise, given the limitations imposed by having to direct it towards The General Public. To be honest, reading so many of these nit-picking detractors carping on about mass-shifting and suchlike, it reminds me of why I quit reading and posting in the fan fora. The film is what it is. As a Summer popcorn-flick that bothers to do some justice to the source canon, while *also* making money at the Box Office, it works. Okay, the human characterization was crap, but I didn’t go to watch fleshlings get all sweaty and panicky over giant robots. I went expecting full-motion, well-realized, physically realistic transforming robots who would shoot/pound the bearings out of each other, and I got what I wanted. It helps, when anticipating a new film, to temper quixotic hopes with knowledge of what is realistically achievable on film. Transformers could have been better, but it was more than adequate as a first-run, and proved the concept well enough that live-action can work. Enough said.