Batman wasn't as childish as G1? Have you ever seen anything from the silver age? And Batman wasn't a means to sell toys because that wasn't the era. Batman was simply a means to sell cheaply made, mass produced products to turn a quick profit. And Batman wasn't aimed at adults, they were meant for children, and main stream opinion was if you were an adult reading comics, something was wrong with you. And no, it's still not nothing but dark and adult, have you seen Brave and the Bold?
sure I have and I stand by that, it maybe have been much simpler story telling, but bob kane had very strong intent imbued in those stories about a mans search for justice as a vigilante detective. In fact, it had many of the same themes as chris nolans movies, go figure.
sure it was also meant to sell cheap books, same goes for stephen king, and even modern comics, that's what happens in our world of patron barter systems.
but unlike g1 which I believe as a toy line in search of a means to get at it's audience in a more advanced way then say the skip rope
comic books, marvel and dc were stories before they were anything else.
when I hear stan lee about peter parkers problems and the social injustice in the xmen world I really don't think about 80's toys being sold.
when I see a movie in which the villan dies and comes back looking like the "galvatron" toy that was released a few months earlier I wonder.
no, I haven't seen brave and the bold, I will say this, when it comes to the the expensive decision hollywood has to make as to which form of any product it should produce..it batman when it's "for kids" or when it's "mature"
the best decision lies in the form the property has the most appeal in and or success in.
I don't know about you but batman seems to have more appeal post frank miller
and to be TF has never really been any more mature then what I seen in these new movies.
Optimus and Sam? Those are the only two who should be cared about?
Take your X-Men example, the first two movies; people cared about all the characters. Even the first TF movie, all the Autobots and most, if not all, of the humans you could care about. It's not the case with this movie. The only reason I can see for caring about most of the people in this movie is because they were already established in the first one. In this movie, I could not have cared less about any of the new characters introduced. And that is pretty sad. And the story was not coherent; it was all over the place.
I think it should be noted that it's not only optimus and sam that you care about in said film...but like you said if you do it's because you your building off of the previous films, why not use it if it already exists within a two year span.
(lotr works that way)
Xmen worked that way, you mean to tell me that
1. that x2 as a stand alone film gave you plenty of reason to care about Storm? Cyclops? and all the other potential Xmen in the mansion?
if a film has no characters to follow that's one thing, but this film makes no mistake in focusing on exactly who it wants you to focus on, it literally doesn't even give speaking lines to some of the auto bots.
the bit with jet fire for example was handed pretty well, as a character motivation study.
but i digress, the reason why I brought up xmen was an attempt to show that some films with ensembles tend to focus on core characters, and what TF does with it's core characters is really great in my opinon.
they ark, they have clear motivations etc.
if you want more auto bots that strikes me more as a subjective desire more then an objective flaw.
what's more almost every other film has the benefit of have the human characters as the plot drivers, between producers, fan boys and teenage girls the filmmakers here have alot of expensive decisions to make.
Its funny how you brought up the purpose of Transformers is to sell toys. After the first movie, I bought all the characters from the film. I can't do that for this film. I can't bring myself to spend money on the Doltsen Twins or characters that were basically just set pieces. So in their desire to make people want to buy their toys, they even fail on that level.
I do agree that the graphics were nice, and I begrudgingly admit that Bay has a good eye for action, but doesn't save this movie.
well i'm sure there is a 8 year old boy somewhere that will find one of the "dolsten" twins under his christmas tree this winter and he won't be too upset about it
i'm glad you got my point about the merchandising but you missed the one about true target audience
I'm sure for all of the wonderful character work found in lucious fox, that he won't be appearing under any tree this or last winter.
from a childs perspective, this is all great work i'm sure of it, it's pretty much the same fun with character seen in beast wars
I especially like jet fires helmet.
I think nolan is great and all but being one hundred percent honest, if he was given what bay was given TF wouldn't be as successful as it is as of last weekend(that's my word.)
