The Energon Pub

News Credits: 4877 · Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:33 am

Please take this with a grain of salt, but Daniel Richtman, who tends to leak upcoming TV and Movie news has reported on his Patreon that a live action Transformers series is in the works for Paramount+. Not much more is known but if this is true, it would be major news so we wanted to share that with you. The source itself is behind a paywall.

News Credits: 2 · Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:44 am

I hate this. Streaming services are a scam and annoying as hell.

Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:50 am

Cool. I guess.

Thu Jul 07, 2022 8:04 am

wow. no. i expect big budget cuts on visuals and look at how they say halo is a great show. all out.

News Credits: 30 · Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:07 am

griftimus prime wrote:wow. no. i expect big budget cuts on visuals and look at how they say halo is a great show. all out.

Yep. I don't see how they can make it 'live' action, because they'd have to CGI all the Transformers, therefore it would NOT be a 'live' show. What that says to me is that (IF this is true), it would be an all-human perspective dope opera type show, similar to the Bayverse movies, but with even LESS transformers. Cost limitations would throttle the amount of time any Transformers appear, on screen, in robot mode. Most of the time they would probably be kept in alt modes, and 'talk' through their communicators, and be used as mere sounding boards for the human characters, who would be the REAL focus of any show they make.

Among my many other gripes about the Bayverse movies is that they rely too heavily on the human characters for artificially injected drama. It's supposed to be about Transformers - living robots with real feelings and emotions of their own. Yet that doesn't get properly conveyed. In each instance, the Transformers are made almost secondary characters in the films, with the humans front and center.

I know it's tough and stretches belief to get audiences to emotionally invest in robot characters based on their performances. But if Hollywood can't do that, then it says more about their own lack of skill as writers and entertainers. If they were half as clever and professional as they pretend to be, they would try, and find a way to make it work. Instead, we get 'live action' Transformers that are some of the most soul-less, ridiculous, cardboard cut-out stereotypes that can be imagined. I find the fake 'personalities' that Bayverse slaps onto most of the Transformer characters to be an insult to my intelligence.

News Credits: 2 · Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:50 am

Paramount+ has been uneven but there are some good shows. Strange New Worlds for instance is terrific. Halo wasn’t my cup of tea but I know some folks (who didn’t know the game beyond the title) who thought it was pretty good. Your mileage may vary.

If we assumed at most a budget of around 10 million an episode (on par with halo and close to something like the mandalorian) and a ten episode run you’re looking at something around the budget of the bumblebee movie but 2-3 times longer run time.

I think Mr. Cena had mentioned be down to return (though he may not be available (Peacemaker)) I could see this as a way to continue the Bumblebee story?

I do agree that they wouldn’t have the budget for lots of bots with lots of screen time. I think the rig HR story and the right directors could make a worthwhile show though. At the end of the day I want more TF content and more mainstream content.

News Credits: 2 · Thu Jul 07, 2022 12:25 pm

Don't rule out good CGI effects. I'll point to "Picard" as an example of complicated effects in a Paramount series that looked pretty good. TF '07 was the initial experiment with CGI bots. I remember the stories of the computers at ILM smoking from overuse in rendering the movie. Now, computers and programming have improved dramatically. I wouldn't be surprised if the bots looks pretty decent.

News Credits: 2 · Thu Jul 07, 2022 12:29 pm

Absolutely Picard had some brilliant special effects. Season two also had several episodes that almost entirely avoided effects

they used their budget well. The concern I’m seeing here, and not disagreeing, is they won’t have the budget for lots of bots in every episode. Halo used it’s aliens sparingly and I suspect TF would have to make similar decisions.

News Credits: 10 · Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:15 pm

Hopefully not centered around Bumblebee..

News Credits: 4877 · Fri Jul 08, 2022 12:23 am

Picard show is to Star Trek what ROTF is to Transformers

News Credits: 462 · Fri Jul 08, 2022 11:49 am

Just have Japan make a Tokusatsu adaptation of Masterforce, robot costumes and Pretender suits and all.

News Credits: 7 · Fri Jul 08, 2022 11:25 pm

The upcoming Knuckles series will give us a good idea on how Paramount will approach this.

Day 921 of waiting for Transformers Armada Masterpiece news.

Mon Jul 11, 2022 5:21 pm

Sabrblade wrote:Just have Japan make a Tokusatsu adaptation of Masterforce, robot costumes and Pretender suits and all.

Or full-body puppets, like the Skeksis and Garthim from The Dark Crystal. Save the CG purely for the transformations and smaller/larger bots and keep the average ones practical on each mode.

But yeah, Transformers is one of the series that really don't work in live action unless it's a big-budget production that can afford the digital SFX. True, some streaming series have shown pretty good effects on par with actual movies, but given their work so far on stuff like The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder, I'm not hopeful.