The Energon Pub

[Hellscream9999]

What would they need to film on green screen for such a movie? Everything would be in space and the TFs are all CGI anyway, so there wouldn't be anything real to film against a green screen.

Well, it can be done with a computer, I guess the graphics for the objects/debris would be very realistic/high-res, which would lead to higher cost and render time

[NiteStar]

Do you realize how obtusely expensive that would be to fund and direct? Not only would it have SW prequel syndrome (everything on green screen, so no realism) but the cost to create, animate, and render the movie would be so egregiously high that it would never get the green light - there are other reasons for all the gratuitous product placement in aoe

Ok ok maybe 6 or 7 years ago that may have been the case but after 4 films already all making close up to 1 billion a pop each?.....we cant use that excuse anymore. They have made all the money in the world off these movies. They can afford to do a full live action CGI by now. And I think that the public deserves it. I mean thats what all this has been for right? For the idea to actually one day do that. Or we wanna keep making more "Sam and family go to college" and FBI movies..? nuh-uh...
Nope, nope, they can do it. They can take us to Cybertron and have a full-fledged Transformers movie, and if they cant by this alleged next movie then the whole film franchise is a sham.

[Burn]

You can throw as much "realistic" CGI as you like onto a movie screen, but it still needs a descent story to drive it, and that's been gradually getting worse with each movie.

Some of the best films out there are done without special effects and the reason they're considered one of the best is the well crafted storyline.

[Sabrblade]

In a way, the Predacons Rising movie we got for TF: Prime kinda feels like a response to all the fanboy wishes that keep being asked for future live action movies.

I mean, how often have we seen posts from people wanting the next TF movie to have any of the following:

• Unicron
• A story set entirely on Cybertron
• No humans
• Full focus on the robots
• Completely CGI
• Less Optimus Prime
• Less Megatron
• More characterization for the non-Optimus/non-Megatron robots
• Megatron being upgraded into a form that's not still named "Megatron"
• Bumblebee to talk permanently
• No toilet humor
• No excessive crudeness in general
• No Michael Bay

We hear these kinds of fan wishes all the time, and Predacons Rising delivered in just 65 minutes all of what four feature-liength live action films failed to deliver (not that we should have been expecting any of that for the live action films, mind you).

I think the only things missing from this list that fans have also asked for in the past are the Dinobots and that Megatron's upgraded form is named "Galvatron", both of which were at least fulfilled by AOE (regardless of how underwhelming or not they were).

But since Predacons Rising did do so much of what fans have asked for over the years, it almost seems like Predacons Rising was made to fulfill all of those fan desires in one go, so as to proverbially give the filmmakers some kind of excuse to not need to do so in the live action films, as they now could just point at Preds Rising and say something like "You fans already got a movie with all that stuff you wanted in it, we don't need to make you another one."

[Rodimus Prime]

In a way, the Predacons Rising movie we got for TF: Prime kinda feels like a response to all the fanboy wishes that keep being asked for future live action movies.

I don't think those 2 are comparable. Predacons Rising was fine for what it was, the ending to a TV series. The live action movies are different, and if all the elements you listed were included in those films, it would be a huge improvement. However, I think it's too late now to do that. If it had been done in RoTF, it would have been alright, but after the disaster that was RoTF, not even a total reboot (as long as it was set in the same world/storyline) could save the continuity. AoE proved that very well. Instead of getting new human main characters, they should have minimized the humans' presence and focused entirely on the Transformers. They did a good job on toning down on the military aspect, but it was still way too human-centric.

[Autobot032]

In a way, the Predacons Rising movie we got for TF: Prime kinda feels like a response to all the fanboy wishes that keep being asked for future live action movies.

I don't think those 2 are comparable. Predacons Rising was fine for what it was, the ending to a TV series. The live action movies are different, and if all the elements you listed were included in those films, it would be a huge improvement. However, I think it's too late now to do that. If it had been done in RoTF, it would have been alright, but after the disaster that was RoTF, not even a total reboot (as long as it was set in the same world/storyline) could save the continuity. AoE proved that very well. Instead of getting new human main characters, they should have minimized the humans' presence and focused entirely on the Transformers. They did a good job on toning down on the military aspect, but it was still way too human-centric.

It has to be somewhat human-centric, though. The average audience member doesn't give a crap about the Transformers themselves. My Dad's proof of that. He laughed when Optimus destroyed the fountain in the first movie, but Sam and his stupidity was what really helped him connect to the film. Same with Sam's parents in ROTF.

The humans are more of a comedic bit, really and that's what draws people in in these rather dark and overwrought films.

You go full 100% Transformers in a film and it'll crash and burn. With relentless explosions and alien jargon/technobabble for 2+ hours, critics will pan it in a heartbeat, the box office will suffer through word of mouth and Paramount will be all like "Yeah...we're not doing that again. The next one? MORE humans, please!"

The regular audience just isn't ready for Transformers yet. Mixed in, sure, but full on TF wall to wall? Nah. That level of love died out in the '80s. Unless you're a hardcore fan (most of us are), you're going to want the human element in the film because you can't connect to the Transformers themselves.

That, of course, has to do with the writing, but it is what it is. FWIW...I loved Cade and his family. I could connect better with a hopeless goofball with a good heart trying to protect his kid, more than I could some lucky teenager who just so happened to be fated to Optimus Prime....somehow.

AoE was more realistic and asked better questions than the previous movies did. There's no cube of life out there, there's no giant sun killing laser hidden inside the pyramids, there's no spacebridge bringing another planet into our orbit, but a company killing for money and using the knowledge to play God while a hardworking single Dad just wants to save his family? That I can identify with.

That we can all understand. Technology is getting scarier, we have machines that could turn on us and kill us in an instant given the right circumstances, so the question of "should we?" has been asked and answered in AoE, while the other three just kinda went on with BOOM BOOM BOOBS BOOM "One shall stand, one shall fall!" BOOM BOOM GRATUITOUS BUTT SHOT BOOM BOOM.

[Rodimus Prime]

I wasn't trying to say they shouldn't be in the movies at all. Maybe I phrased it wrong. I meant to say that the main story should be about the Transformers themselves, with humans as peripheral characters, or perhaps as villains, like it was in AoE with Cemetery Wind, and even Dylan Gould in DoTM. I liked those characters. I understand about the general audience needing characters to relate to that aren't giant robots, but I always had a little problem with that: the title of the movie is TRANSFORMERS. The brand had been around for 23 years when the 1st film came out, so people knew of it. So even if there weren't main human characters to relate to, the movie would have done well. Maybe not $800 million well, but well. And I guess that's what everything comes down to. $$$

[Sabrblade]

Predacons Rising was fine for what it was, the ending to a TV series.

"Deadlock" was the show's ending. Preds Rising was an epilogue made after the fact.

The live action movies are different,

Not every fan feels this way. There's a huge chunk of the fandom that has the mentality of "If a cartoon or comic can be done so well then why not the same for the live action movies?" I'm not claiming to be part of this crowd, but with how Preds Rising happened to contain so many of the elements fans desired to see in the live action films, it feels as though Hasbro only made that TV movie to throw the fans a bone and put all those wants to rest since they don't seem to want to put any of that fan-desired stuff into the live action films.[/quote]

and if all the elements you listed were included in those films, it would be a huge improvement.

In theory, perhaps. But while the end result could turn out to essentially be a live action retelling of the 1986 G1 movie (which a huge portion of the fandom has been asking for), there's very little chance that such a movie would be even come close to being as commercially successful as the four films we've gotten so far. And such a film would most assuredly be just as panned by the critics as, well, the 1986 movie itself was.

However, I think it's too late now to do that. If it had been done in RoTF, it would have been alright, but after the disaster that was RoTF, not even a total reboot (as long as it was set in the same world/storyline) could save the continuity. AoE proved that very well. Instead of getting new human main characters, they should have minimized the humans' presence and focused entirely on the Transformers. They did a good job on toning down on the military aspect, but it was still way too human-centric.

This point is in agreement with the points I was making.

But as Autobot032 said, the general moviegoing audience isn't ready for a movie with the TFs as the stars instead of some human actor in the lead. We fans wish it could be that way, but non-fans don't agree with us.

[Autobot032]

I wasn't trying to say they shouldn't be in the movies at all. Maybe I phrased it wrong. I meant to say that the main story should be about the Transformers themselves, with humans as peripheral characters, or perhaps as villains, like it was in AoE with Cemetery Wind, and even Dylan Gould in DoTM. I liked those characters. I understand about the general audience needing characters to relate to that aren't giant robots, but I always had a little problem with that: the title of the movie is TRANSFORMERS. The brand had been around for 23 years when the 1st film came out, so people knew of it. So even if there weren't main human characters to relate to, the movie would have done well. Maybe not $800 million well, but well. And I guess that's what everything comes down to. $$$

The thing is, this situation is like that video that was posted roughly around the same time the first film came out, "They Were Always Real To Me" is what it's called, the title fits our situation. Transformers were always a big deal to us, but then they weren't. A quick history lesson, for everyone, including myself:

Action Masters have their spot in a few collections here and there, but technically the last fully transformable line of figure was the end of Transformers for most people. Then it just died. Comics, show, toys, all of it gone. So if it was gone for us, imagine how much of it escaped the mind of the average American (or anyone worldwide, really).

G2 tried to revive it, show, comics, toys, all of it. It barely registered, really. Fans snapped them up as fast as they could, as garish as the colors were, it was G1 dang it, and we were going to have it! The "remastered" show caught a few people's attention, along the lines of "I remember that show. WTF did they do to it? I don't remember that cube thing. This is stupid." Not a good start. The comics only lasted a year and we didn't get a single figure of the new characters. It took 20+ years to get a Jhiaxus figure and he's not even the right color, or size.

It wasn't until Jurassic Park that Hasbro had the bright idea of Transformers + animals and bugs = big seller! come to mind. Now, that started to bring TFs back to the forefront, but it wasn't in the public's consciousness, not much, at least. It would be another decade before the general public took notice.

News stations around the country (I was, in fact, the first person to report on it. I saw a snippet about it on WEWS out of Cleveland and reported it to The ALLSpark back when I was a member there.) "Paramount pictures says they're bringing the 1980's cartoon and toyline Transformers to life on the big screen. The live action film will be the first of it's kind for the series. They're hoping to release the movie sometime in 2006, according to sources."

And then nothing for months, some of the fandom even forgot we were getting a movie, for a little while. Then out of the blue, leaked script and it divided the fandom. The film was never going to be ready for '06, so Summer '07, here we come. Trailers started popping up, the reaction wasn't a positive one. "That looks like a skeletal Cliffjumper! Why is he attacking the Mars rover?! WHO WRITES THIS?!"

People saw the name Michael Bay attached and thought "Oh no! It's going to be Bad Boys with Transformers in it! Noooooo!" Then it came out, people saw it and it turned into a sleeper hit. Made a good chunk of change here, and surprised everyone worldwide with a 700+ million dollar take. Couldn't keep the toys in stock, Transformers finally made it back to the mainstream and into the public consciousness.

It worked because it had never been done before. It worked because the juvenile humor registered with everyone.

Then another lull, so Animated could come along, we quickly saw how fast the general audience's attention span shrinks. Then comes 2009's ROTF. "They're making another one? Cool! I'll go see it!" and we saw what happened there. Critics hated it. Fans hated it. Audiences hated it. Yet it made 800+ million and beat the first film by quite a bit.

Another lull, another waiting period for the next film. In the meantime, the only publicity was bad publicity. Shia LeBeouf couldn't keep his head out of his ass for 10 seconds and caused a bunch of trouble. Bar fights, getting arrested at Walgreens, public intoxication, running his mouth, etc.

Then DOTM comes along in 2011 and this time it's in 3D and people said "Well, because it's 3D, I'll give it a shot, I guess." and they sure did. First of the series to break through the billion dollar threshold and then some. People just could not stop watching this movie because the visuals and the 3D just blew 'em away. But critics and fans were harsh and said it was overblown and they pretty much hated it.

THREE year hiatus. The general public moves onto other films and see things like Star Trek Into Darkness, read up on Star Wars coming back after 30 years, Ridley Scott's attempt to go into the history of Aliens, etc. Then...out of nowhere (for them, not us) Bay brings us Age Of Extinction.

"Aw, not another one of these..." But wait...there's Kelsey Grammer! Stanley Tucci?! JOHN FRIGGIN' GOODMAN?! Oh and uh...Marky Mark? Really? Eh, okay. Final verdict? "3D wasn't that good, the visuals are their best yet, the cast is somewhat likable but tries too hard and makes me miss Shia! Oh and it's too loud and way too long." Still ends up beating DOTM at the box office and surpasses it's billion dollar take.

Now we're in another hiatus and news places are reporting Robert The Walking Dead Kirkman among other very talented creators sitting in a room working on the next script and we hear that Paramount's plan is to create a MCU type of deal but for Transformers. General consensus? "Reboot the whole thing! Or better yet, let it die!"

So, if it's in the public, it's a negative image at the moment. As the next 2 of 3 years burn away until the next film, they'll forget more and more. They'll cringe at the thought of another 2.75 hour flick that seemingly does nothing but have explosions and weird looking robots beating the crap out of each other. Not to mention "Oh, great. This one contradicts the other films even more than the other ones did! Now none of it makes sense! Who writes this crap?!"

Heck, even the toys suffered a bit. Fatigue set in and a lot of stores just don't stock 'em like they used to. People don't buy them like they used to. People come to laugh at Shia, John Tuturro, John Goodman and Mark Wahlberg, they happen to look at the CGI eye candy too, but they could do without 'em for the most part, probably.

With the writing being handled as it has been, with the films being a whole bunch of explosives, with the general audience having the attention span of a gnat with ADD, having a Transformers-centric film won't work and certainly won't make enough money to recover the investment. Look at Disney, for example. Big name stars, big pricetags, HUGE failures. They're still recovering from John Carter, and it'll be a while before the sting of The Lone Ranger goes away.

The problem is partially the audience, it's partially the filmmakers, but whatever it is, the world just isn't ready for a Transformers only film. It's just not going to work, no matter how much we wish it would. And right now, what is everyone talking about? The massive success that is Jurassic World and it's well deserved, too. A fun romp from beginning to end and made everyone feel like a kid again, like we were back in 1993, just with prettier people doing the running and screaming thing. Star Wars is coming at Christmas, everyone's losing their minds. Transformers? No one's talking about it. Heck, half the time, the movies are only mentioned so people can say "Oh, I saw that pile of $#!7, it sucked!"

Sad, but true. People aren't enlightened and Transformers aren't enlightening. Nothing you can do, really.

Predacons Rising was fine for what it was, the ending to a TV series.

"Deadlock" was the show's ending. Preds Rising was an epilogue made after the fact.

I also feel Deadlock was the defacto finale. I feel like Rising was tacked on just because. It wasn't the best writing and it felt hollow and boring to me. Optimus and Wheeljack floating around in space, Starscream beating on Predacons because he could and Autobots fighting...what? I mean, there was nothing particularly special about it and it was ridiculously short. Not even worth my time or effort, really. (And I'm not the only fan who feels that way.)

Transformers Prime was excellent. Prime Beast Hunters was Prime dying a not so great death. Predacons Rising was taking a dump on a once great show's grave.

[Hellscream9999]

The thing is, this situation is like that video that was posted roughly around the same time the first film came out, "They Were Always Real To Me" is what it's called, the title fits our situation. Transformers were always a big deal to us, but then they weren't. A quick history lesson, for everyone, including myself:

Action Masters have their spot in a few collections here and there, but technically the last fully transformable line of figure was the end of Transformers for most people. Then it just died. Comics, show, toys, all of it gone. So if it was gone for us, imagine how much of it escaped the mind of the average American (or anyone worldwide, really).

G2 tried to revive it, show, comics, toys, all of it. It barely registered, really. Fans snapped them up as fast as they could, as garish as the colors were, it was G1 dang it, and we were going to have it! The "remastered" show caught a few people's attention, along the lines of "I remember that show. WTF did they do to it? I don't remember that cube thing. This is stupid." Not a good start. The comics only lasted a year and we didn't get a single figure of the new characters. It took 20+ years to get a Jhiaxus figure and he's not even the right color, or size.

It wasn't until Jurassic Park that Hasbro had the bright idea of Transformers + animals and bugs = big seller! come to mind. Now, that started to bring TFs back to the forefront, but it wasn't in the public's consciousness, not much, at least. It would be another decade before the general public took notice.

News stations around the country (I was, in fact, the first person to report on it. I saw a snippet about it on WEWS out of Cleveland and reported it to The ALLSpark back when I was a member there.) "Paramount pictures says they're bringing the 1980's cartoon and toyline Transformers to life on the big screen. The live action film will be the first of it's kind for the series. They're hoping to release the movie sometime in 2006, according to sources."

And then nothing for months, some of the fandom even forgot we were getting a movie, for a little while. Then out of the blue, leaked script and it divided the fandom. The film was never going to be ready for '06, so Summer '07, here we come. Trailers started popping up, the reaction wasn't a positive one. "That looks like a skeletal Cliffjumper! Why is he attacking the Mars rover?! WHO WRITES THIS?!"

People saw the name Michael Bay attached and thought "Oh no! It's going to be Bad Boys with Transformers in it! Noooooo!" Then it came out, people saw it and it turned into a sleeper hit. Made a good chunk of change here, and surprised everyone worldwide with a 700+ million dollar take. Couldn't keep the toys in stock, Transformers finally made it back to the mainstream and into the public consciousness.

It worked because it had never been done before. It worked because the juvenile humor registered with everyone.

Then another lull, so Animated could come along, we quickly saw how fast the general audience's attention span shrinks. Then comes 2009's ROTF. "They're making another one? Cool! I'll go see it!" and we saw what happened there. Critics hated it. Fans hated it. Audiences hated it. Yet it made 800+ million and beat the first film by quite a bit.

Another lull, another waiting period for the next film. In the meantime, the only publicity was bad publicity. Shia LeBeouf couldn't keep his head out of his ass for 10 seconds and caused a bunch of trouble. Bar fights, getting arrested at Walgreens, public intoxication, running his mouth, etc.

Then DOTM comes along in 2011 and this time it's in 3D and people said "Well, because it's 3D, I'll give it a shot, I guess." and they sure did. First of the series to break through the billion dollar threshold and then some. People just could not stop watching this movie because the visuals and the 3D just blew 'em away. But critics and fans were harsh and said it was overblown and they pretty much hated it.

THREE year hiatus. The general public moves onto other films and see things like Star Trek Into Darkness, read up on Star Wars coming back after 30 years, Ridley Scott's attempt to go into the history of Aliens, etc. Then...out of nowhere (for them, not us) Bay brings us Age Of Extinction.

"Aw, not another one of these..." But wait...there's Kelsey Grammer! Stanley Tucci?! JOHN FRIGGIN' GOODMAN?! Oh and uh...Marky Mark? Really? Eh, okay. Final verdict? "3D wasn't that good, the visuals are their best yet, the cast is somewhat likable but tries too hard and makes me miss Shia! Oh and it's too loud and way too long." Still ends up beating DOTM at the box office and surpasses it's billion dollar take.

Now we're in another hiatus and news places are reporting Robert The Walking Dead Kirkman among other very talented creators sitting in a room working on the next script and we hear that Paramount's plan is to create a MCU type of deal but for Transformers. General consensus? "Reboot the whole thing! Or better yet, let it die!"

So, if it's in the public, it's a negative image at the moment. As the next 2 of 3 years burn away until the next film, they'll forget more and more. They'll cringe at the thought of another 2.75 hour flick that seemingly does nothing but have explosions and weird looking robots beating the crap out of each other. Not to mention "Oh, great. This one contradicts the other films even more than the other ones did! Now none of it makes sense! Who writes this crap?!"

Heck, even the toys suffered a bit. Fatigue set in and a lot of stores just don't stock 'em like they used to. People don't buy them like they used to. People come to laugh at Shia, John Tuturro, John Goodman and Mark Wahlberg, they happen to look at the CGI eye candy too, but they could do without 'em for the most part, probably.

With the writing being handled as it has been, with the films being a whole bunch of explosives, with the general audience having the attention span of a gnat with ADD, having a Transformers-centric film won't work and certainly won't make enough money to recover the investment. Look at Disney, for example. Big name stars, big pricetags, HUGE failures. They're still recovering from John Carter, and it'll be a while before the sting of The Lone Ranger goes away.

The problem is partially the audience, it's partially the filmmakers, but whatever it is, the world just isn't ready for a Transformers only film. It's just not going to work, no matter how much we wish it would. And right now, what is everyone talking about? The massive success that is Jurassic World and it's well deserved, too. A fun romp from beginning to end and made everyone feel like a kid again, like we were back in 1993, just with prettier people doing the running and screaming thing. Star Wars is coming at Christmas, everyone's losing their minds. Transformers? No one's talking about it. Heck, half the time, the movies are only mentioned so people can say "Oh, I saw that pile of $#!7, it sucked!"

Sad, but true. People aren't enlightened and Transformers aren't enlightening. Nothing you can do, really.

Predacons Rising was fine for what it was, the ending to a TV series.

"Deadlock" was the show's ending. Preds Rising was an epilogue made after the fact.

I also feel Deadlock was the defacto finale. I feel like Rising was tacked on just because. It wasn't the best writing and it felt hollow and boring to me. Optimus and Wheeljack floating around in space, Starscream beating on Predacons because he could and Autobots fighting...what? I mean, there was nothing particularly special about it and it was ridiculously short. Not even worth my time or effort, really. (And I'm not the only fan who feels that way.)

Transformers Prime was excellent. Prime Beast Hunters was Prime dying a not so great death. Predacons Rising was taking a dump on a once great show's grave.

This. Also, am I the only one who was disappointed Unicron didn't absolutely murder all of the 's, I mean, come on, it's UNICRON, he shoulda killed at least one of them, and make him seem like a threat, I mean, bulkhead and all of them don't show up again in rid, so they could have been killed and upped the emotional stakes

[Rodimus Prime]

Predacons Rising was fine for what it was, the ending to a TV series.

"Deadlock" was the show's ending. Preds Rising was an epilogue made after the fact.

OK, I saw the series only once, from start to finish, and the last thing I watched was Predacons Rising. It was the last released piece of the TV series with the Prime characters in it, so for me it was the ending.

The live action movies are different,

Not every fan feels this way. There's a huge chunk of the fandom that has the mentality of "If a cartoon or comic can be done so well then why not the same for the live action movies?" I'm not claiming to be part of this crowd, but with how Preds Rising happened to contain so many of the elements fans desired to see in the live action films, it feels as though Hasbro only made that TV movie to throw the fans a bone and put all those wants to rest since they don't seem to want to put any of that fan-desired stuff into the live action films.

What I'm saying is that the 2 don't mix. You can't apply the same to the live action films as you do to Predacons Rising, because then the Bay film would bomb. That's why they didn't do it. And claiming that Hasbro tried to appease fans by "giving" them what they gripe about not having in the Bay films (all the stuff on your previous list) with Predacons Rising is missing the point on Hasbro's part. They're just 2 different kinds of media, what works in 1 won't work in the other. If Hasbro really thought that would be satisfactory, I feel kind of insulted. Then again, as A032 said, most people aren't enlightened, so I guess for them it would work.

In the end, I agree with most of your points, (and I appreciate the impromptu TF history) I just wanted to pick on that little bit about the movies being total failures without humans at the center. They would be failures for studios financially, but I think creatively they would be superior. But that's just 1 fan's viewpoint.

And for the record, I saw each of the 4 bay films in theaters repeatedly, and own them all on DVD. So I'm not trying to be a hypocrite or anything. In theaters they were an amazing experience, all 4 of them. They were like sex for my eyes and ears. Unfortunately, after the euphoria of seeing giant robots on a giant screen wore off, I realized there wasn't much substance behind the style. here's hoping that will change with the next installment. And as a G1 and particularly a Rodimus fan, I would love to see a live version of the 1986 movie. Too bad it will never happen, it wouldn't be financially sound for a studio to support it.

[Prime Riblet]

I just recently came to the realization that TF-5 will likely be the first live action film for the franchise that I will skip watching at a cinema. I am tired of having my time wasted. The movies, as far as storytelling, have gotten more crappy since the first movie in 2007. Granted, this is all opinion, but I really thought the first movie was a good all around movie. RotF was exciting in places. By DotM, things went to hell, and I haven't really cared since. I was so excited to see AoE, and it turned out to be a huge disappointment for me. So, I really feel the need to let my money do the talking at the box office this time around and not see TF-5 on the big screen.

[Rodimus Prime]

The movies, as far as storytelling, have gotten more crappy since the first movie in 2007. Granted, this is all opinion, but I really thought the first movie was a good all around movie. RotF was exciting in places. By DotM, things went to hell, and I haven't really cared since. I was so excited to see AoE, and it turned out to be a huge disappointment for me.

As you said, it's all opinion, but I thought that even with Megatron and Shockwave's mistreatment, DoTM was better than RoTF. RoTF was just a big, bloated mess with a few visual treats. And if in your opinion they progressively got worse, why did you look forward to AoE? Because of the new human cast?

So, I really feel the need to let my money do the talking at the box office this time around and not see TF-5 on the big screen.

I'm going to see it. These movies were made for the big screen, especially with a director like Bay in charge.

[RSDADDIMUS2]

I enjoyed all of the films. AoE was probably my favorite in terms of visuals.The Creator storyline kind of confused me because of what was stated in the previous films,but I'm willing to see 5 in hopes that they'll make it all make sense...plus Transformers and explosions. What's not to love??

[Stuartmaximus]

did we ever doubt he wasn't?

http://news.tfw2005.com/2015/12/14/mark ... s-5-306766

[Hellscream9999]

Fellow Seibertronians, in an exclusive interview with Brazilian site Cinepop, Mark Wahlberg confirms that he will be returning to the world of Transformers by way of Transformers 5. The full article and video can be viewed here.

This is not entirely new, as we already had a hint at Wahlberg's return all the way back here - but how do you feel about Mark's return to the franchise coming from the man himself? Did you like his performance in the last movie? Post your comments in the Energon Pub and let us know.

[ZeroWolf]

I thought it was already confirmed that he was going to be back for more? But I'm glad he's coming back, I liked his character more than Sam whitwicky and he's a better actor then shia to boot.

[Hellscream9999]

I thought it was already confirmed that he was going to be back for more? But I'm glad he's coming back, I liked his character more than Sam whitwicky and he's a better actor then shia to boot.

Maybe, just trying to get into news crew (and technically Will sent it to me to post...)

[ZeroWolf]

Ah I see I was attempting to do that as well last month then something in real life fell on my lap that diverted all my attention. Good luck!

[Hellscream9999]

Ah I see I was attempting to do that as well last month then something in real life fell on my lap that diverted all my attention. Good luck!

Thanks

[ImAWalkingCorpse]

3 and 4 were a significant upgrade over 2. I enjoy B movies though.

[Sabrewing]

Wow. This is wonderful news. I can't wait.

[First-Aid]

Well, he is much more believable as a hero than Shia was. I will take it vs. the alternative.

[Slashercon]

I understand that a Transformers movie taking place on Earth pretty much means that humans are going to show up, and that we do have our key humans to the cast of characters, but what makes them so d@%n special where they get top billing over the REAL STARS that are in the movie. I swear, humans being given the main treatment in these movies is the equivalent of an Avengers movie focusing on Shield or a TMNT movie focusing on April O'Neil ( ). And with news that a whole new trilogy of films are planned, do you really think they learned their lesson at this point? Tying into this news, I honestly don't want to see Mark Whalburg's character or his daughter and smug@#& boyfriend again. Can we please get some Autobots and Decepticons with motives and individual goals instead of "RIVETING" side plots like "who's dating my daughter" or "who's gonna make big bucks off alien technology"? (And please don't try to tell me that all of that was necessary. As much as I don't like Transformers The Movie, At least the focus was on the Transformers.)

[Slashercon]

And yes, I agree Whalburg's Cade is "better" than Shia's Sam, but in the grand scheme of things, both are interchangeable, and most importantly, expendable.