Transformers Would a loyal G1 adaptation appeal to a wider audience?

[blind_fury]

Here Don Murphy argues that the G1 version wouldn't appeal to a wider audience which is why changes were needed. Is this a legitimate concern or bulls--t?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INYA8pa5NLc

 

[Nathan]

Well some changes obviously need to be made. Most logically are the alt modes like mentioned in the interview. When the Transformers crash landed/awakened in todays time, they shouldn't use vehicles from 84 as their alt mode.

But that's pretty much the only thing I agree with. I don't believe Transformers crash landing in a giant ark would appeal to less people than Transformers crashing separately like some sort of comets.

 

[blind_fury]

I'm pretty sure the reason Harry Potter and LOTR played so well with general audiences is because they stayed true to details that made those stories popular in the first place.

Like the average 16 year old is going to boycott Transformers because the characters are "too boxy", Bumble Bee is a tiny car, and Megatron has huge canon on his arm. I think if the action sequences are mind-blowing, the dialogue is memorable, and story is epic people will be lined up around the block.

Knowing that G1 Transformers were cool enough to inspire a life-long fanbase should've been a hint to keep the changes to a minimum.

 

[blind_fury]

Well some changes obviously need to be made. Most logically are the alt modes like mentioned in the interview. When the Transformers crash landed/awakened in todays time, they shouldn't use vehicles from 84 as their alt mode.

That was never an issue. When the Autobots awaken teletraan 1 finds recent alt modes for them to use.

 

[Avangarde]

You see here's the thing, take a look at Prime. He still resembles his G1 counterpart, he has a modern updated look and we can tell its him. Megatron on the other hand does not resemble his G1 counterpart. Now with my way of thinking I ponder "they are certainly aware of what Prime use to look like, so obviously they know what G1 Megs use to look like. So why didn't they just do an updated version rather completely redesign." Ok fine, lets make him look really evil looking because all bad guys have pointy fingers, sharp teeth, and other cliche' because people that watch movies are stupid and don't realise that personality is not enough to express evil, give me a break. So does that mean that kids in the 80's were smarter because they could tell that Megatron was evil without the need for cliched looks.

Please by all means do an updated version of the TF's, some of them look great, however the logic escapes me with having Megatron look like that while Prime retained similarities. If I could be bothered I would draw Megatron in a Bay-esk way, but still be able to look at it and tell that its Megatron without having to slap a lable on him.

 

[DOG LIPS]

I think the general people would have looked at this thing the same way no matter the designs. "Whoa, giant ****ing robots that turn into cars!" But by taking some of these designs so far down the shatter they have lost a huge chunk of old fans. My friend watched the trailer for the first time yesterday and his reaction was "Was that Optimus? It looks pretty cool." He's not a fan, nor does he know any of their names really other than Prime and Megatron. Then I showed him the pic of Megs and he said "It looks ok, but where's his bazooka?" He never said; "Hey! Where's the Ark?? Or; "Hey! Starscream is a chicken-gorilla!" He took it well and would have taken it well even if they were 100% faithful to G1. My point is, he's not a fan, and he didn't **** himself over the new rockin' Bay-designs. He wouldn't have **** himself over G1 designs either. The concept has him interested and he could care less if they look like what he sees in stores, or what Bay pulled out of his hair. So yes, if it were 100% G1 it would appeal to a wider audience because the fans wouldn't be so divided and there wouldn't be killer Furbies.


Just my opinion.

 

[CherryRedSpider]

Look at the 90's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, they had Splinter as a pet trained in the art of Martial Arts by his Master. The Shredder was directly linked to him being the killer of his Master and his hot Asian wife. Plus the Footclan were a bunch of runaway kids not kick ass robots.

I finally got over it. Judith Hoag helped a bit.

 

[DOG LIPS]

Look at the 90's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, they had Splinter as a pet trained in the art of Martial Arts by his Master. The Shredder was directly linked to him being the killer of his Master and his hot Asian wife. Plus the Footclan were a bunch of runaway kids not kick ass robots.

I finally got over it. Judith Hoag helped a bit.

That's how it was in the original comic story though.

 

[CFlash]

What Don Murphy should be asking himself is "why the heck didn't League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which he produced also) appeal to a larger audience???"

Here's how a movie critic put it:
What a riveting movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen might have been! And what a rickety mess it turned out to be when the people responsible lost faith in the origin of the material!
(http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/league_of_extraordinary_gentlemen/)

Also, he should ask himself: why did Quentin Taratino punch me in the face for ruining his Natural Born Killers script. Why oh why did I call him a "one trick pony" (for Reservoir Dogs) back in the day before he went on to make several more classics... like Pulp Fiction.

As for Transformers... everyone else here pretty much already summarized it. Changes definately needed to be made. Dumbing it down certainly did not.

 

[blind_fury]

I think the general people would have looked at this thing the same way no matter the designs. "Whoa, giant ****ing robots that turn into cars!" But by taking some of these designs so far down the shatter they have lost a huge chunk of old fans. My friend watched the trailer for the first time yesterday and his reaction was "Was that Optimus? It looks pretty cool." He's not a fan, nor does he know any of their names really other than Prime and Megatron. Then I showed him the pic of Megs and he said "It looks ok, but where's his bazooka?" He never said; "Hey! Where's the Ark?? Or; "Hey! Starscream is a chicken-gorilla!" He took it well and would have taken it well even if they were 100% faithful to G1. My point is, he's not a fan, and he didn't **** himself over the new rockin' Bay-designs. He wouldn't have **** himself over G1 designs either. The concept has him interested and he could care less if they look like what he sees in stores, or what Bay pulled out of his hair. So yes, if it were 100% G1 it would appeal to a wider audience because the fans wouldn't be so divided and there wouldn't be killer Furbies.


Just my opinion.

I agree completely. A G1 movie would've been just as popular with general movie goers and 100 times more popular with fans. By making all these design/story changes they're alienating the fanbase for no good reason. I guess they figured they didn't need the fanbases to succeed and that pisses me off. If you want to know how to make a good pirate movie try to find what pirate movie fans want in a good pirate movie. If you want to know how to make a great Harry Potter movie talk to the people who love the character. Want to understand the appeal of LOTR? Talk to people who can't stop reading the book. But when it comes to Transformers they ignore the fanbase as if they understand the appeal of Transformers more than us? It boggles the mind.

also G1 has proven it worked. go anywhere in the world and say "Starscream" and chances are if it's a hip dude he'll know your talking about Transformers. Try asking anybody who Sauron was before the LOTR movies. If they didn't read the book they'd look at like your crazy. My point is Transformers were
far more popular than LOTR before the movie and those films still managed to stay as close as possible to the source material. No changes to appeal to wider audience. Why would LOTR require no changes but the more popualr Transformers do require changes??? It makes NO SENSE!!!! It's BULLCRAP!!!!

 

[CFlash]

Look at the 90's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, they had Splinter as a pet trained in the art of Martial Arts by his Master. The Shredder was directly linked to him being the killer of his Master and his hot Asian wife. Plus the Footclan were a bunch of runaway kids not kick ass robots.

I finally got over it. Judith Hoag helped a bit.

Um, that's pretty faithful to the comic if I remember correctly. Also TMNT was made in the 80's... not the 90's. lol.

 

[OptimusPrimeRib]

Personally I feel a slightly reworked "ark" storyline would have been far superior, but then what do I know I'm not a screenwriter. I've always felt the original storyline was pretty strong piece of scifi.

 

[Nathan]

The Turtles Movie were based on the old comics. Splinter was a pet, Shredder killed his master and the Foot were never robots.

It was the cartoon which was totally bogus.

 

[blind_fury]

To people who voted major changes were needed. Why would LOTR not require changes but the more popular Transformers require changes?

 

[xwolverine2]

i think the female audience might not want to see it as much....they would see it as some cartoony movie instead of a real film.
...this being based on my mother.

but thats just me.

 

[Nathan]

And the changes made by Bay and Murphy change that how?

 

[Hunter Rider]

I think the one major change they have made that was needed was the shift of focus to the human characters POV,the designs don't seem to have needed quite the overhaul they got but i like quite a few of them personally

 

[blind_fury]

Personally I feel a slightly reworked "ark" storyline would have been far superior, but then what do I know I'm not a screenwriter. I've always felt the original storyline was pretty strong piece of scifi.

Exactly the orignal ark storyline was already good sci-fi. It didn't need to be revamped.

Starscream on the other hand needed to look like a chicken ape. That plays well with the soccer moms.

 

[xwolverine2]

And the changes made by Bay and Murphy change that how?

gives room for human interaction and some love story part to it....

and i definatly think this movie needs it to be a real film.

GR (from the looks of it) is doing an amazing job at mixing the movie for a large audience.

 

[The_Raven]

I was never into TF as a kid, but since the movie hype began I've done a little digging into the history. The Ark seems like a pretty solid concept to me, and as far as Megatron's redesign....ugh.

It doesn't massively affect me, but I can definitely see TF fans point of view. Some of this just seems like change for the sake of change.

I do think updating the look/alt modes of the robots was necessary (Prime looks great so far) but they went way overboard on Megatron. They should have just made him a tank with a bigass gun or something.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

 

[Nathan]

gives room for human interaction and some love story part to it....

And how exactly does a giant spacecraft prevent that? As much as I despise the puppy love part of the story, it could still be in there despite a giant spaceship crashing at the beginning.

Murphy: "Ok guys, listen up. We're a faced with 2 options. We either stay true to the G1 Story and have the Ark in the movie and completely forget the human interaction, or we turn the Transformers into generic robots, let them get separately to earth and can focus on Megan's ass."

and i definatly think this movie needs it to be a real film.

Giant robots. From space. Turning into cars and planes.

 

[*Dead*End*]

I don't really think it would effect the wider-audience if there was the Ark story, and Megatron was a tank, Ratchet had a white color-scheme, Starscream be more humanoid on Earth [then animaloid] etc. However the story, look, and feel of the movie that [I'm imagining] we're getting [I say immagining, because I don't know for sure that we're getting, what I think we're getting] is working together with the new designs [including no mass-shift, and Cbertronian language], character arcs, the Allspark causing Transformers to get to Earth well. [It is more believable, than having Transformers go to Earth for it's resources, there are trillions of other planets full of energy . . . eventhough they didn't exactly choose Earth, and crashlanded on it instead, I know]. I can't imagine the wider-audience believing that advanced robot's such as Transformers are running out of energy on their home, planet . . . they're so far ahead of us, that their energy makes sense to be virtually limitless in this new, reimagined version.

In short, I think that a Closer G1 adaptation could be a success, but it would have to happen to be one of those cult followings phenomenon. Which I think was a risk the studios wouldn't dare to take.

 

[DOG LIPS]

let them get separately to earth and can focus on Megan's ass."

Sold!

 

[CFlash]

gives room for human interaction and some love story part to it....

and i definatly think this movie needs it to be a real film.

GR (from the looks of it) is doing an amazing job at mixing the movie for a large audience.

1) I agree about the human interaction and love story. But, that doesn't mean it needs to contrived and cliched.

2) I beg to differ on the GR thing. People snickered and laughed at the trailer in the theater when I saw it. I don't know if it was the aweful CGI (and it does look aweful) or just the whole vibe of the movie. But I just dont see GR appealing to a wide audience.

 

[DOG LIPS]

What gets me most about all of this is that 90% of the characters are COMPLETELY unrecognizable. They are so FAR from any incarnation that they have nothing but the name in common. Sure, change is fine and understandable, Iron Hide shouldn't be a mini-van, sure I'll go with that, but why can't they at least resemble their cartoon/comic counterparts enough so you don't have to sit there explaining who the hell they are to people?