Stuartmaximus wrote:well for one...has a live action Transformers tv series happened yet?....mmmmmm....no! so somethings stopped it from happening yet, or has kept it from happening so far, probably coz of a lack of interest in it(coming from the same aforementioned nay sayers no doubt)
Wow! I'm sorry, I feel like I hit a nerve. I didn't know "who" the Naysayers were. I was just responding to the reply. But as for why it hasn't happened yet.. Well, if you will indulge me, I think I may have the answer. In the past we haven't seen any interest in a live action TV series, because Paramount has never expressed interest in expanding it's building franchise of Live action Transformers Movies. It's cartoon series come and go, but as for a live action TV series, the idea just didn't make sense, Back then.
Fast forward, now Paramount is looking to expand, first on their list, Live action Bumblebee movie/origin/spinoff/prequel. With Star Wars and Marvel Properties from Disney deluging the Movie, TV, and most importantly Toys and apparel along with various other Merchandise flooding the market, is a model that Paramount is apparently trying to emulate. It is perfect in a business model sense, as Properties are now trying to vie for a specific demographic of the market, Teens, collectors, and adult men. It's a war, and the flood of stuff we are getting like Star Wars is a great thing! Also, the amount of DC TV shows, Marvel TV shows, and scifi coming back too, it's a great time for new things to show up. Also with the Advent of so many streaming possibilities to produce a hot property exclusive for streaming service like those trying to compete with Netflix and Hulu, you could say a Live Action Transformers series with human military and Autobots on covert missions to kill decepticons uncovering clues and encountering their own adventures would be a hot idea that one of those streaming services may want to look at. Hot properties and franchise names as content encourage more subscribers, it's not that a TV show could have worked back then as there was no indication until now, with Disney as a rival, and Sony trying to make a come back, that Hollywood in general seems to be escalating a large scale franchise war, and so I say, why not toy with the idea for awhile.. see what we can come up with, and maybe someone in the industry will take our words here as something that would be taken as advice to make it work. It's pie in the sky, sure.. but why not have a bit of fun contemplating how this could add to the Paramount expansion? what's wrong with thinking this could be possible in the current media war climate? I think it's a great stab at trying to help Paramount along by putting this out there for discussion, in a relevant topic thread. I'd love this idea to become a community discussion, and maybe reach Paramount's ears...
I'm just enthusiastically optimistic. I'm a G-1 original fan.. who has finally after 10 years, accepted, embraced and become comfortable with these movies, styles, and the ideas put forth in the live action movies. How could I not? It has Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime! It had both Hugo weaving AND Frank Welker as Megatron, and Galvatron. I just can't ignore that.. I own the MPM-04 Movie Optimus Prime. I am getting the MPM-03 Bumblebee.. I am totally on board, and I'm happy to be there. Live action NEST TV series with my new favorite love, Hot Rod, would be a dream come true..
Sabrblade wrote:skywarp-2 wrote:Why?
It's because no one wants to watch a Transformers show that deliberately stars humans instead of the Transformers.
Now see, that's the kinda Stuff being said about the first two movies, and constantly gets brought up, but for the last decade, it has been accepted and even become, for many, expected and anticipated on occasion. I for one loved the Banter Between Agent Simmons and his body guard, or Cade and the Guy who Built Galvatron. Hilarious! Have you gone back and just watched the movie, this time from the beginning and tried to ignore past convictions and see it for what it is as it's own property? I took another look at Movie 1-3 and I watched it as if I was someone who was new to TRANSFORMERS and at the end of DOTM, I realized, this is a great trilogy. I loved Leonard Nimoy's Sentinel Prime, and I will Miss Mr. Spock, myself being a huge Trekker. However, I think that argument is 10 years old, and if done right, casting good chemistry and likeability, then humans with Transformers could work in a live Action TV series, as they have apparently worked in a live action movie franchise for a decade..Seems logical as Spock would say..
Sabrblade wrote:The movies as they are already get enough complaints from people about the Transformers being treated like set pieces and background visuals rather than actual characters (something we can hope to see rectified by the Bumblebee movie even if Bee were to be the only Autobot as a main character in the movie, but I digress), so a show that sidelines the bots even further holds even less interest with people.
Well, I don't think the Bots were sidelined at all actually, having just went back thru all 4 movies. I haven't seen all of TLK yet, but I will tonight! I think that over the progression of the movies, there has certainly been much more Bot action, think of AOE, almost every scene with a human was with or pertaining to Cybertronian tech or bots. Another thing I would like to also say is that with Knight Rider, a kinda cool trick is to have the humans riding in the cars for conversations with their bots, that is another way of keeping the characters around without CGI costs.. it's a workable idea, it just needs people who can see the avenues for it.
Sabrblade wrote:The reason Agents of SHIELD can get away with working as a supporting show for the MCU movies is because, unlike the Transformers movies, the titular protagonists of the MCU movies are real people actors, not CGI characters (Hulk and Groot notwithstanding), with the same applying for AoS. When people watch MCU movies, they see Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Pratt as Star Lord, etc. The same applies for when they watch Agents of SHIELD, as when they watch they show, they see Clark Gregg as Coulson, Chloe Bennet as Daisy, Ming-Na Wen as May, etc.
For Transformers, however, people don't see Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Mark Ryan as Bumblebee, or Hugo Weaving/Frank Welker as Megatron. They see a computer-animated robot with a deep voice as Optimus Prime, a computer-animated robot with little-to-no voice as Bumblebee, a computer-animated robot with a scary voice as Megatron, etc. It's a different presentation entirely.
While I concede it's a different Presentation Entirely, we're not talking about Actors here necessarily, we are talking about Characters. Optimus Prime and Megatron are names and characters that kids have grown up with for generations now. Not withstanding, other characters that are not real actors like Yoda a computer animated and Puppet no less with Frank Oz as a voice over, R2D2 a Robot remote controlled and piloted suit, with little to no voice. Chewbacca a Man in a large Dog suit who only growls and barks, and yet as household names, these characters tho not human, are part of the story, and have fans in their own right. It's not about actor recognition, tho it is for those who are G-1 when it comes to Cullen and Welker. at least for me anyway...
Sabrblade wrote:A show that focuses on N.E.S.T. or Sector Seven wouldn't be a "Transformers show", it would be a "N.E.S.T./Sector Seven show", which would only appeal to a niche corner of the viewing audience since it wouldn't be the same case as audiences going from watching the human-actor-dominated MCU movies to watching the human-actor-dominated Agents of SHIELD TV show. Rather, it would be a case of going from watching movies with robots in them (even if they're still overshadowed by the human actors) to watching a deliberately human-actor-dominated show with little to no robots in them.
That is not what I am suggesting. I am thinking of a more covert secret agent type show thing here, military backed, but more like a CIA division or James bond-esque type show. The Bots are in every scene, whether as cars talking to their human team partner, each human N.E.S.T. agent would be paired with a Bot for maximum bot coverage to appeal to those who want more, and argueably I too want more, but am comfortable with how the latest movies tended to be more bot focused over time. In total, the big picture of the movies in totality thus far, has been pretty good in trending upwards with more bots. With a TV series where once a week a RID fan can come and see Autobots kick in a few Decepticons heads with great spy like story telling woven in, and their favorite bots, and human characters together on the case. I'd watch that! I would see Sector 7 being represented by one actor as a liaison for that Government department and sort of overseer before the secretary of defense disbanded the team in DOTM.
However, you're right a show centered on only the humans and little bits of bots in it would fail, it'd be like tuning into the super Bowl for just the halftime, and the rest is only 1 or two highlights.. not worth it.. so yea, you are correct. I agree with you there, but that is NOT what I am suggesting at all bro. I'd want lots of Bot action.
Sabrblade wrote:Plus, the MCU feels more like it earned its supporting shows by maintaining a greater sense of consistency and organization in its overal continuity, thanks to having someone like Kevin Feige to helm everything in such an orderly manner. Transformers has had no such person to guide the films along the way, with the films seeming to just not care about keeping anything all that organized at all. The films used to let IDW help sort everything out with their tie-in comics, but ever since AOE, the films no longer have any IDW comics to help them along and a lot of the holes that the comics ended up filling and bringing logic and sense to seem to have been swept under the rug by AOE, TLK, and whatever future developments there are to come. Ehren Kruger, writer of DOTM and AOE, even once openly admitted that "logical sense" doesn't factor into writing these movies when it comes to what Bay and the producers want for these films, so tying in a TV show to fit in with these films' ever-changing hackneyed continuity would be a fool's errand.
Oh, I agree there.. However there are other ways to fix continuity, and opportunities besides comics and novels to do so. The Movies are basically fixed. A weekly TV show could help in those areas, and focus on key story arcs and battles that could tell the story and assist in retcon of continuity concerns in a live action way, thereby being ever more so satisfying then just reading it in a comic, and the beauty part, if Hot Rod does becomes Rodimus Prime in the movies sometime.. then the TV series of his past exploits just gets hotter... because now fans have two versions of this character who they've gotten to know, and before he takes the matrix of leadership, is gotten to know, loved, and his acceptance as the new Autobot leader and Prime would be easier to stomach then the 1986 mistake once made. As for the studios, yea, they may end up learning something from the TV series continuity which could improve their scripts and also give us a more satisfying movie experience on the flip side. If done right, Paramount could rake in Golden butt loads of cash, they just need to think about it and plan accordingly.
Now, I am off to Watch finally, start to finish..TRANSFORMERS The Last Knight!!! Sooo Excited!
Hey guys, Loved the discussion, I'll be back later to check on the reply. Gotta love being a Transformers fan or as I call myself an "R.I.D.-fan" at this time. There's so much to look forward to!
