What should come next? Transformers 4 or a reboot?

[Optimus_Prime_]

Originally Posted by WarBlade

Please check in with the original fanbase on that assumption, because many of us really hated it.

Reaaaaallllyyyyyyy. I post over at Allspark.com, the largest Tranformers messageboard, and also at TFTM2005. The majority of Transformers fans, ya'know the actual ones that have followed the franchise and don't have nostalgia fueled distorted memories of it, actually loved the Bayverse by and large. It's been pretty much the most profitable venture thus far. Your assertion that some dumb, cud chewing public is responsible for this and the other film's remarkable success is well...wrong, I'm sorry. The toys are revered in the forums. Check TFormers.com, they constantly get good reviews. Go to a BotCon. The biggest draw is the movie(s), has been for the past several years. No only people who seem to think the franchise was some brilliant fiction seem to think Bay pissed all over the franchise. You talk to actual faithfuls, who have followed ALL of the series, and the reaction has been quite the opposite.

[Hound89]

Originally Posted by MessiahDecoy123

Spider-man 4 was in production when they decided to scrap the whole thing and launch a reboot. So ya never know.

But that was The Direct Refence, theres no reason they cant make more movies in the franchise,

"We haven't lost the Transformers. They didn't grow up or become expensive like Toby Maguire."

For the Second Trilogy it wont be hard to introduce, Galavatron [thogh personaly id love for them to use Bludgeon or Thunderwing]

[Punisher Rising]

A complete reboot, definitely.

[cronosred]

Complete reboot.

[Jake Cassidy]

^ As long as Jazz and Ironhide don't get killed off and Sideswipe is exactly the same as he is in these movies.

[Jake Cassidy]

1. Same continuity

2. Different direction (more serious)

2. More focus on the TFs

3. Get rid of the human characters except for Lennox and Epps

4. Add Marissa Fairbourne

5. Better director and writers

I'm assuming that there are still a lot of Decepticons on Earth. There can be 2 factions. 1 lead by Bludgeon, the other lead by Thunderwing. Cons vs Cons with the Bots caught in the middle.

[Thundercrack85]

Transformer fans may be vocal, but they don't get you millions at the box office. Good special effects and explosions get you millions at the box office.

[sauronthegreat]

Complete reboot and with a distinctive transformers robot designs

[bell110]

Originally Posted by Optimus_Prime_

You really think so, because that movie was initially panned by critics, and it made buttkiss at the Box Office. First of all, forget Bay, the 1986 movie callously killed off Optimus Prime which caused kids to cry in the theater. The reason: his toy was being discontinued. You want to talk about the "grand" plot? The first thirty minutes of the movie, including Optimus Prime's death have NOTHING to do with the rest of the movie. No seriously? Explain to me why that's b-e-t-t-e-r than what Bay did? Because that entire sequence was MANDATED, yes MANDATED by Hasbro to tie off toys no longer offered in stores. The writers of TFTM didn't want to do it. They wanted Optimus to die a martyr at the end. The folks at Hasbro though were adamate the story not focus on characters who were discontinued.

Unicron never explained, just shows up. Great set up there.

The Matrix was never explained, and was basically retconned in. We'd already seen what Optimus' inards looked like and the Matrix was conveinently abscent. The MATRIX WAS NEVER PART OF THE SHOW. You'd be surprised how many people who hate Bay's take never knew this. In fact NONE of the movie was in the show. The moon bases? Nope. Ultra Magnus, Kup, Daniel, Hot Rod, Wheelie, The Quintessons, any of it? Nope. Not even Autobot City. They are all just there.

The connections are never explained. The Quintessons were supposedly agents of Unicron, but in the final movie they show up, unannounced, and serve no purpose in the general plot EXCEPT they make one huge plot hole: How did Hot Rod and Kup know where Magnus and the others were?

Also Magnus was never supposed to be randomly killed in the original. His arms and legs were to have been pulled off. You can see this is the repair sequence, and if you watch the death scene and listen to the audio. However the "draw and quartering" was deemed inappropriate, so instead we got a random exploding Magnus.

Let's see what else

Oh yeah

Hot Rod: "Where is Galvatron, where is he?"
Wreck-Gar: "And the answer is...Unicron"

(By the way scintilating dialogue there)

How the flying f*** did Wreck-Gar know this, at all, by any wrapping of my mind. He'd met Galvatron like ten seconds ago, and never talked or interacted with him in any meaningful way whatsoever.

What else is wrong with that movie...hmmmm....

...Oh did you notice how many characters show up in two places at once: Hound, Sunstreaker, Dirge, Thundercracker and a few others. Thundercracker is reformatted by Unicron, and appears 2 minutes later at Starscream's coronation. By the way Starscream's treachery in that movie would mean literally NOTHING to someone who hadn't watched the show, neither would Soundwave's compassion towards Megatron. The movie does absolutely zilch to set up the characters.

Nothing is done to set up Hot Rod as the leader, he just fights Galvatron, gets Matrix, whoops leader. Why didn't it do that when he held it the first time? Never explained. Why didn't Optimus know it was him, he's carrying the damn thing? Never explained. The purpose of the Matrix is never really explained. Does the Matrix make you a bigger stronger robot? Why didn't Optimus revert back to Orion Pax when he passed it? Why didn't Magnus start calling himself Prime? Never explained

Also the dialogue is incredibly clunky.

But yes, it's a much better film than Transformers or Dark of the Moon.

Of course it was panned by critics. It was a feature length cartoon commercial. You can pick apart the movie all you want, but despite all those flaws, it is STILL better than Bayformers. As someone else said, judging the quality of these films by comparing them to the cartoon doesn't work because this movie is a multi-million dollar summer blockbuster. Honestly, think about what you are saying. They spent millions of dollars to bring these guys to the big screen, yet they made them "every bit as good" as a toy commercial from 25 years ago. That says alot about Bayformers. And for someone with the name Optimus Prime, you really seem to hate the Transformers.

Originally Posted by OoAnd1

Define "quality" because there's a reason millions of people have watched these Transformers films above almost everything else the last 5 years.

Of course millions of people watched this movie. It has pretty special effects. Quality is how well will these movies stand up to subsequent viewing. How many people are going to sit and watch these movies all the way through after the awe of the special effects as worn off. I wanted to go back and watch DotM again to see if I liked it because it's a good movie, or if it was just better than RotF. After thinking about it, I could not force myself to sit through that building scene again. The quality of the story was not enough to get me to sit through the pretty special effects.

Originally Posted by Drizzle

Considering the amount of characters that are now dead, especially Decepticons, I don't really want to see a fourth one.

Just bring them back. Trust me, nobody is going to question how they came back.

Originally Posted by Optimus_Prime_

Reaaaaallllyyyyyyy. I post over at Allspark.com, the largest Tranformers messageboard, and also at TFTM2005. The majority of Transformers fans, ya'know the actual ones that have followed the franchise and don't have nostalgia fueled distorted memories of it, actually loved the Bayverse by and large. It's been pretty much the most profitable venture thus far. Your assertion that some dumb, cud chewing public is responsible for this and the other film's remarkable success is well...wrong, I'm sorry. The toys are revered in the forums. Check TFormers.com, they constantly get good reviews. Go to a BotCon. The biggest draw is the movie(s), has been for the past several years. No only people who seem to think the franchise was some brilliant fiction seem to think Bay pissed all over the franchise. You talk to actual faithfuls, who have followed ALL of the series, and the reaction has been quite the opposite.

It's not nostalgia fueled distorted memories. The cartoons were actually entertaining. How many of those fans just don't want to say anything bad about the franchise? I've seen many fan reviews that you could tell they were tring hard NOT to be critical of these films. I've seen so many reviews that preface their review by saying, "Don't expect oscar worthy material". It's a bad sign when you have to start by saying that because I never expect oscar material in any movie I go see. It only serves as code for "this movie is really crap, but I'm going to like it anyways because it's Transformers".

And I'm not some 80's purist. I also liked Beast Wars, TF: Animated, TF: Prime, and I did like the first movie. I even bough all the toys from the first one. I didn't like, however, TF: Armada and all the other anime crap, Beast Machines, or RotF. Siebertron.com is one of the sites I check daily, along with SSH.

Originally Posted by Hound89

But that was The Direct Refence, theres no reason they cant make more movies in the franchise,

"We haven't lost the Transformers. They didn't grow up or become expensive like Toby Maguire."

For the Second Trilogy it wont be hard to introduce, Galavatron [thogh personaly id love for them to use Bludgeon or Thunderwing]

That's ironic because the reason we don't get enough Transformers is because they are expensive to begin with.

[WarBlade]

Originally Posted by Optimus_Prime_

Reaaaaallllyyyyyyy. I post over at Allspark.com, the largest Tranformers messageboard, and also at TFTM2005. The majority of Transformers fans, ya'know the actual ones that have followed the franchise and don't have nostalgia fueled distorted memories of it, actually loved the Bayverse by and large.

That's nice. I wasn't talking about the Michael Bay movies though.

Originally Posted by Optimus_Prime_

It's been pretty much the most profitable venture thus far. Your assertion...

Was made up entirely by you. I made no such assertion.

[Hound89]

Originally Posted by sauronthegreat

Complete reboot and with a distinctive transformers robot designs

That would be The a Waste

[The Caped Knight]

I glad to see that a reboot is not even in the cards. I'd rather they continue the franchise because despite Bay's lack of a good storytelling in his trilogy. These films have made a massive amount of money in the box office, as well as the product merchandising etc...

I'd love to see the Dinobots, The triple changers, The Aerialbots etc... and of course Primus vs. Unicron .

[Hotwire]

I imagine most of us were around 10 or so when TFTM was released. That being said, we all thought it was the most awesome movie ever. As Optimus Prime points out though, it had huge problems. At age 10, we couldn't see them. Now, at 35, we choose not to see them, because when we watch it, or remember it, we're 10 again, and we don't care.

[warhorse78]

Depends. I feel real sorry for whoever has to come in and try to write a continuation after the mess the last two movies were, it might be easier to just have a reboot.

I also wish somebody would be on board that will put the budget towards good quality Transformers time, not just see a couple of the "fan favorites" have a shoot out scene for a minute, then disappear for the rest of the film. I wonder how much money was wasted on John Malcovich that could have been used on Ironhide blasting away an extra 5 dreads before he got stabbed in the back?

This is tough, I like the designs of the Transformers, I like the roles that Lennox and Epps played, and would like to see them expanded, and like people say, there's tons of more Transformers to bring in, and maybe Hasbro can invent a new bad guy.

[Hotwire]

Originally Posted by warhorse78

Depends. I feel real sorry for whoever has to come in and try to write a continuation after the mess the last two movies were, it might be easier to just have a reboot.

I also wish somebody would be on board that will put the budget towards good quality Transformers time, not just see a couple of the "fan favorites" have a shoot out scene for a minute, then disappear for the rest of the film. I wonder how much money was wasted on John Malcovich that could have been used on Ironhide blasting away an extra 5 dreads before he got stabbed in the back?

This is tough, I like the designs of the Transformers, I like the roles that Lennox and Epps played, and would like to see them expanded, and like people say, there's tons of more Transformers to bring in, and maybe Hasbro can invent a new bad guy.

I posted some rough figures over on TFW2005, I use the same name over there, that answer your question.

Based on employment websites and production info on the first two movies, each Transformer costs about $1.5 million per minute of screen time, per animator working on him.

FYI, this would put the budget of a fully CGI movie, somewhere around $200 million plus, per bot, for a two hour film. I doubt any studio would green light that budget.

[warhorse78]

Originally Posted by Hotwire

I posted some rough figures over on TFW2005, I use the same name over there, that answer your question.

Based on employment websites and production info on the first two movies, each Transformer costs about $1.5 million per minute of screen time, per animator working on him.

FYI, this would put the budget of a fully CGI movie, somewhere around $200 million plus, per bot, for a two hour film. I doubt any studio would green light that budget.

I never said an outright nothing but Transformers film. The first movie was made for less than these last two, and yet they had more good quality Autobot time. How much you think the flying men cost to do? How much was the destroyed building in Chicago cost to generate, when it could have been used to show one bad ass fight between, say Sideswipe/Dino/Optimus vs Shockwave.

[def28]

Man I wish they threw in some more time for them in DOTM. Agreed, Transformers 1 didnt seem that way though. Everything seemed balanced out and we got tons of Bot vs Bot time and that was a less expensive film. These movies make so much money they could have shelled out a bit more to balance between the humans and bots at the end in Chicago. Only Bee and Prime have their moments, with some quick stuff of the wreckers. The humans didnt need help except for Optimus/Bumblebee coming in last minute every other scene.

Im fine without them rebooting. I have fun with these films and would like to see another one asap with less human focus of course. Doesnt need to disappear just minimized a bit.

Although a prequel on Cybertron would be pretty awesome.

[Optimus_Prime_]

Originally Posted by Hotwire

I imagine most of us were around 10 or so when TFTM was released. That being said, we all thought it was the most awesome movie ever. As Optimus Prime points out though, it had huge problems. At age 10, we couldn't see them. Now, at 35, we choose not to see them, because when we watch it, or remember it, we're 10 again, and we don't care.

That's ultimately the problem here. People say Bay makes them 'turn off their brain' as a knock against what he made, yet those same people will happily do just that to enjoy an episode of Transformers, specifically G1, which was by and large crap sprinkled with a few tolerable and exciting moments. IMO Bay has some issues, but what he produced was generally on par with the source material. I've always thought his sense of humor was his general drawback. Not being able to distinguish between the humor that is necessary in an action movie to balance the light and dark and the humor that is necessary in The Hangover. Some of Bay's scenes are downright hilarious except they're incredibly awkward because of how out of place they are in the general setting of the movie. For example in Live Free or Die Hard Bruce Willis tells Kevin Smith "how about I beat you to death in your own house". This line is a throwaway piece of dialogue that breaks the tension and gives you a chuckle, but it's perfectly appropriate for his character. In Bayformers you get guy getting tased in the nuts, which is funny, but inappropriate for the setting. You can still add humor to scenes like those but it has to mesh well with the general tone of things around it.

[Hotwire]

Originally Posted by warhorse78

I never said an outright nothing but Transformers film. The first movie was made for less than these last two, and yet they had more good quality Autobot time. How much you think the flying men cost to do? How much was the destroyed building in Chicago cost to generate, when it could have been used to show one bad ass fight between, say Sideswipe/Dino/Optimus vs Shockwave.

Sorry, I was just throwing it out there. I've seen a lot of people, not necessarily on this site, asking for the full CGI. I hope the rest of the post was helpful.

[Optimus_Prime_]

Originally Posted by bell110

It's not nostalgia fueled distorted memories. The cartoons were actually entertaining. How many of those fans just don't want to say anything bad about the franchise? I've seen many fan reviews that you could tell they were tring hard NOT to be critical of these films. I've seen so many reviews that preface their review by saying, "Don't expect oscar worthy material". It's a bad sign when you have to start by saying that because I never expect oscar material in any movie I go see. It only serves as code for "this movie is really crap, but I'm going to like it anyways because it's Transformers".

And I'm not some 80's purist. I also liked Beast Wars, TF: Animated, TF: Prime, and I did like the first movie. I even bough all the toys from the first one. I didn't like, however, TF: Armada and all the other anime crap, Beast Machines, or RotF. Siebertron.com is one of the sites I check daily, along with SSH.

Most Transformers fans are critical of G1. Most fans also hate Armada and the very weird Japanese cartoons, so no, it's not that, it's that most Transformers understand that Transformers is not oscar worthy material, and there is no reason to believe everything is or can be. This is why I hate critics, they have no filter usually to distinguish between a film whose goal it is to entertain (or make you laugh, or make you frightened) and those whose goal it is to win oscars. Transformers goal has always been to sell toys, and the fact that you can 'turn off your brain' and enjoy TFTM, which you admit is a shallow little toy commercial, but hold Bay to this extremely high standard is hypocritical. It's a classic fanboy mentality of seeing any change good or bad as an afront to your pet property.

[Nathan]

I think it really should be a reboot. Sure, I admit that there are tons of new Transformers that they could introduce, but a Movie without either Starscream, Soundwave, Megatron or Shockwave? They wasted all the big guns in this Movie. And Cybertron is gone. That's just screaming for to start from scratch.

[Optimus_Prime_]

Originally Posted by Hotwire

Sorry, I was just throwing it out there. I've seen a lot of people, not necessarily on this site, asking for the full CGI. I hope the rest of the post was helpful.

For me Live-Action will always have to give added weight to the human actors. If people want a robot-centric story they need to stick to the cartoons. It's not just the expense, it's the fact that it's pointless to do a 'live action' movie that's just filled with a bunch of cgi characters in real environments.

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by Optimus_Prime_

For me Live-Action will always have to give added weight to the human actors. If people want a robot-centric story they need to stick to the cartoons. It's not just the expense, it's the fact that it's pointless to do a 'live action' movie that's just filled with a bunch of cgi characters in real environments.

It doesn't even have to be Transformer centric. The human focus simply just shouldn't be all stupid humor. You could have easily deleted 30 minutes or more of the human scenes and it wouldn't have changed a freaking thing in the Movie. I mean honestly, was this the best way to use Malkovich's talent? By making him Sam's goofball boss? Next to 10,000 other goofball characters?

[Optimus_Prime_]

Originally Posted by Nathan

It doesn't even have to be Transformer centric. The human focus simply just shouldn't be all stupid humor. You could have easily deleted 30 minutes or more of the human scenes and it wouldn't have changed a freaking thing in the Movie. I mean honestly, was this the best way to use Malkovich's talent? By making him Sam's goofball boss? Next to 10,000 other goofball characters?

That really wasn't the post I responded to though, now you're just erecting a straw man. That literally has nothing to do with what I said.

[Hotwire]

Originally Posted by Nathan

It doesn't even have to be Transformer centric. The human focus simply just shouldn't be all stupid humor. You could have easily deleted 30 minutes or more of the human scenes and it wouldn't have changed a freaking thing in the Movie. I mean honestly, was this the best way to use Malkovich's talent? By making him Sam's goofball boss? Next to 10,000 other goofball characters?

It wasn't all stupid humor. Should I list the scenes that weren't?