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cotss2012 wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:their heads, chests, feet, and arms are different.

Sure. You keep telling yourself that

See for yourself

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

cotss2012 wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:their heads, chests, feet, and arms are different.

Sure. You keep telling yourself that

See for yourself

Their designs are similar and it's intentional. They're supposed to be brothers, much like Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, who also had their similarities as vehicles.

I started this thread as a positive thing, didn't I?

Geez.

cotss2012 wrote:Who the hell is Sideways?

Who the hell is Evac?

Sideways is the black and silver Audi R8 that appears in Shanghai in RotF. He flees from Skids, Mudflap and Arcee and is then killed by Sideswipe. His robot mode only appears in a blur, but it is pretty similar to Barricade


Evac is the main dude from the Universal Studios ride. He is a shiny blue car and his head is similar to Jolt's actual movie head, though not his toy head.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:What's funny is I have a lot of trouble telling the G1 transformers apart. With most of them all the same vehicle parts go in the same place in their robot modes.

Same here. The liberal use of repaint characters, similar transformation schemes, generic robot bits used for nearly every bot, and excessive animation errors makes it all confusing.

Ya know what? I really liked Chromia and Arcee. In fact they're among my favorites from the RotF line. I even bought the 2 pack with that purplish Arcee and that awful Blazemaster repaint just so I could cut one of her wheels off and glue it on the arm to make Elita-1.

In fairness to Generation 1, a substantial number of characters - and hence their designs - were derived from toys that were either straight repaints, or minor retools, of the same mold. It is therefore not surprising that the resultant character designs share significant similarity.

Additionally, the majority of characters with similar or identical designs were assigned unique and contrasting color schemes; presumably to aid in easy identification (with the presumably intentional exception of Reflector). Some were even assigned unique designs where the character's toy equivalent did not necessarily warrant such a step (Trailbreaker and Hoist for instance, or Sideswipe and Red Alert).

So really, the only instance in which confusion truly arises in the original 1984 cartoon (outside of, say, errors in the animation) is when a character with a shared design has their color scheme obscured.

Finally, I have to wonder: precisely why are we attempting to hold a Saturday morning show from almost three decades ago to the same design standards as a recent summer blockbuster trilogy with a combined budget of almost $550 million?

Evil_the_Nub wrote:Ya know what? I really liked Chromia and Arcee. In fact they're among my favorites from the RotF line. I even bought the 2 pack with that purplish Arcee and that awful Blazemaster repaint just so I could cut one of her wheels off and glue it on the arm to make Elita-1.

I liked the bikes as well! My only issue is, (ASIDE The little bonus animation in the extras) They never really combined. That may have been hasbro's call though, seeing how no matter how much we asked, we never got that third bike sister, with her own mold and the finished combiner...

JOP wrote:Finally, I have to wonder: precisely why are we attempting to hold a Saturday morning show from almost three decades ago to the same design standards as a recent summer blockbuster trilogy with a combined budget of almost $550 million?

Because this happens to be a flaw of which G1 is as guilty as the movieverse is. I think it's nice for all the fandom to realise that G1 is not flawless and the movieverse is not garbage.

cotss2012 wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:their heads, chests, feet, and arms are different.

Sure. You keep telling yourself that

Wow... So he give you examples of there differences and this is all you can say? Oh that's right. It is all you can say because no matter what evidence is put in front of you, you've never admit that you really had no issues telling robots aparts.

And as far as your color aurgument...

Nearly every TF in the movie verse minus the clones/generic decepticons were not only different colors, but different designs as well.

Optimus- Red/blue
Bumble Bee- Black/yellow
Ironhide- Black
Ratchet- lime Green
Dino- Red
Sideswipe-Silver
Skids-Green (completely different bot design than ratchet. No way you could confuse them)
Mudflap-Orange
Sentinal Prime- Red
Wreakers- (Sorry can't remember thir names) red/blue/green

Megatron- Silver/black/gray/brown
Starscream/Silver/gray
Blackout- blue/gray
Barricade- black/white
Sideways- Gray/silver (this is one that did look simuluar to barricade, but didn't have much screen time anyhow)
Soundwave- Silver

Rushie wrote:

JOP wrote:Finally, I have to wonder: precisely why are we attempting to hold a Saturday morning show from almost three decades ago to the same design standards as a recent summer blockbuster trilogy with a combined budget of almost $550 million?

Because this happens to be a flaw of which G1 is as guilty as the movieverse is. I think it's nice for all the fandom to realise that G1 is not flawless and the movieverse is not garbage.

This right here!


To add to Rushies point, nearly every character had a different color than the other. Just as much, if not more color differential than in G1. That, and these characters all had unique designs (unlike recycled designs in G1). So if for some reason you still can't tell the difference between the movie characters, i might suggest getting some glasses. Either way, you can't complain that movie designs are hard to follow, and then say that G1 designs were much easier to follow because of colors since nearly each movie bot had had unique colors to them just as G1 did.

Rushie wrote:Because this happens to be a flaw of which G1 is as guilty as the movieverse is. I think it's nice for all the fandom to realise that G1 is not flawless and the movieverse is not garbage.

I think a quick assessment of this thread alone indicates that neither the entirety of the Transformers fandom hold the Generation 1 cartoon to be flawless; or that the movieverse is inherently garbage.

Additionally, I would point out that the debate at hand (and my chief reason for posing this question on the first place) - which version of the franchise suffers more from character design confusion - follows a false premise. Criticism of the original cartoon in no way absolves the movieverse of criticism (and that's before we even account for the questionable fairness of such a comparison). This is why I asked my question.

5150 Cruiser wrote:Just as much, if not more color differential than in G1. That, and these characters all had unique designs (unlike recycled designs in G1). So if for some reason you still can't tell the difference between the movie characters, i might suggest getting some glasses. Either way, you can't complain that movie designs are hard to follow, and then say that G1 designs were much easier to follow because of colors since nearly each movie bot had had unique colors to them just as G1 did.

I'm not sure I can agree with your assessment regarding 'color differential'; indeed, how do we determine such a thing? For instance: are we to count the number of unique colors present in a single version of the franchise? If so, the sheer number of characters present in the original cartoon, and smaller number present in the movies, would most likely sway any count in favor of the former. Perhaps we should first create a methodology for measuring color differential before we draw our conclusions?

I would also like to point out that - at least insofar as I understand these things - that much of the criticism of the movie designs relates specifically to their appearance on-screen, often in sequences containing high levels of movement and / or other visual excitement (explosions, for instance). This is an environ in which designs containing high levels of uniformly-colored detail and complexity do not, traditionally, excel. (I also believe that to a certain extent, the Generation 1 cartoon sidestepped this issue simply by virtue of its animated status.) To argue the merits of the designs outside of the context of the media in which they appear strikes me as disingenuous.