The Energon Pub

First-Aid wrote:

syphonn wrote:So why choose the SR-71 form? Why would a cane assisted robot choose the form of an aircraft that travels in excess of 2000 mph. Its an awesome aircraft, but it makes for a terrible alt-mode and contradicts Bays argument for realism.

Reasons? Mass and size considerations maybe; when did he land? What was nearby? Personal preferences involved? The fact that the plane was no longer in use may have led to that decision. In that case, what did he do with the original? Another thing, walking and flying are two different modes of transportation. Walking requires more physical effort...flying relies on the lift from the wings and very few moving parts, relatively.

Lets also not forget that (in the movie) Jetfire is supposedly 'discovered' in a museum.

What better place for a transformer to hide for decades than as a public display piece?


as a side note, I'd like to state that Yoda also used a cane... and could kick serious butt when needed.

I don't get why people are making a fuss about the cane. There's no cosmic law that say you have to display him with it. Anyway, I like the looks of this. cane and all.

Nothing says cool like attacking a Decepticon nonchalantly with missiles while using a cane to support you.

For those who want to gripe about the cane, would you rather see a damaged mech lumbering around with at least a means to support itself and keep functioning or a geriatric mech sprawled out in a parking lot squelching high-speed bursts of "I've fallen and I can't get up".

Besides, from an old fighters standpoint that cane is just a weapon you can lean on. After I had leg surgery it took me no time at all to get my balance refigured so I could support my cast and stand on one leg whilst spinning one of the crutches like it was one of my bo staffs. When I downgrade to using a cane, for me it felt like being able to take my Jo Staff with me in public. Disabled? yeah temporarily. Defenseless? Not even close!
I totally dig the idea of Jetfires cane. It just shows that he improvised the best he could with what he had on hand and when you consider that the cane is his landing gear, which was probably an integrated component before, he had to utilize part of his own body to make that cane. That would be like a human stripping flesh off an arm to bandage a deeper wound elsewhere...while conscious!
I'm thinking Jetfire could probably show Ironhide a thing or two about being tough.

i'm just happy his landing gears didn't end up transforming into his feet or some unicycle gimmick!!

he looks alright I'm not too big on the beard and the alt mode looks like it may have kibble probs but I'll wait for more pics.

VonSchlitzy wrote:i'm just happy his landing gears didn't end up transforming into his feet or some unicycle gimmick!!

SHHH!!! Bay might turn him into a unicycle bot with a cane because he can't balance! (in the third movie)

Hmmm,

I like the idea they have here with his backstory, but, the cane is a bit...weird.

Now, I'm guessing the cane forms into a part of the SR-71 mode...hence the wheels. For the toy, this might be a decent idea. But, if it is an actual PART of him in the film...that is where my BS alarm is gonna go nuts.

Random wrote:Hmmm,

I like the idea they have here with his backstory, but, the cane is a bit...weird.

Now, I'm guessing the cane forms into a part of the SR-71 mode...hence the wheels. For the toy, this might be a decent idea. But, if it is an actual PART of him in the film...that is where my BS alarm is gonna go nuts.

Landing gear.

First-Aid wrote:

syphonn wrote:So why choose the SR-71 form? Why would a cane assisted robot choose the form of an aircraft that travels in excess of 2000 mph. Its an awesome aircraft, but it makes for a terrible alt-mode and contradicts Bays argument for realism.

Reasons? Mass and size considerations maybe; when did he land? What was nearby? Personal preferences involved? The fact that the plane was no longer in use may have led to that decision. In that case, what did he do with the original? Another thing, walking and flying are two different modes of transportation. Walking requires more physical effort...flying relies on the lift from the wings and very few moving parts, relatively.

why does yoda walk around with a cane and look like he's about to fall over with death, but then hop up and battle with the best of 'em? There is no good answer in a world of fiction!

UltraPrimal wrote:I will be severely disappointed if he is not voiced by Hugh Laurie.

me too.

I like it

It's just a photo inside (if it's really even in there) a box... How fake. But I will probably just get Jetfire for his alt mode (love the Blackbird!). That cane has got to go...you can make a bot look old without making him waddle around with a cane LIKE A HUMAN!!

Canes, wheel-feet, acid-melted faces... Primus I hope there's SOMETHING good about this movie

quetzalcoatl wrote:

First-Aid wrote:

syphonn wrote:So why choose the SR-71 form? Why would a cane assisted robot choose the form of an aircraft that travels in excess of 2000 mph. Its an awesome aircraft, but it makes for a terrible alt-mode and contradicts Bays argument for realism.

Reasons? Mass and size considerations maybe; when did he land? What was nearby? Personal preferences involved? The fact that the plane was no longer in use may have led to that decision. In that case, what did he do with the original? Another thing, walking and flying are two different modes of transportation. Walking requires more physical effort...flying relies on the lift from the wings and very few moving parts, relatively.

Lets also not forget that (in the movie) Jetfire is supposedly 'discovered' in a museum.

What better place for a transformer to hide for decades than as a public display piece?


as a side note, I'd like to state that Yoda also used a cane... and could kick serious butt when needed.

you beat me to it, and i didn't even see it. the yoda comment is all yours, dude! let me just say-i second you Yoda comment!

Let me just say to all those of you who are whining and bitching about Jetfire having a cane that if I ever come across any of you in the woods and you have an injured leg and don't have the common sense to improvise a crutch or cane from a branch, not only will I not help you make one but as far as I'm concerned...bears have to eat too!!
(That's right, I'll leave your ass and prove that Darwin had a good point)
The cane isn't to make him more human, and it isn't to imply that he's old. He's a giant robot with a damaged leg and he's stranded out "in the sticks" with nothing to work with. No access to Cybertron tech and he probably made the cane before even encountering humans.

Originally, I was not going to buy a Leader class figure for the Movie line but if there is even the most remote chance that my doing so will irriate even ONE person who doesn't like this figure because of the cane, then I'm all over it! I'm so dissapointed in my fellow TF fans. I can't believe I had to spell out such a basic, practically instinctual concept. Just for this, and for the sake of pissing off even more folks, I'm voting Jetfire/Drift in 2012. I also hope Jetfire takes command of the Autobots by the end of the movie and makes Prime his bitch. I'll scream with glee like a little girl if Jetfire uses that cane to finish the ugly-stick beating someone started on Tracks and Mudflap too! "Wheelie" baseball isn't a half bad idea either.

I'm really beginning to hate you anti movie people. Why? Because you are so unwilling to accept change it's staggering. I don't know if you guys know this, but G1 ended a looooong time ago. The same blocky designs can only go so far before you need to create something new.

Don't get me wrong, I like everything from G1 to present. My collection thread testifies to that, but I also like it when something I collect takes a new turn. The movie designs were a needed breath of fresh air and in my opinion revitalized the TF franchise. You guys should be grateful for the movie seeing how the designers carried over tricks learned from the movie line into the Animated and Universe lines. Without those improvements in design, we probably would not have been able to get figures as cool as what was released.

No one whined about Powerglide having a heart sculpted into his chest, but people goes balistic over a frikkin cane? I don't get you guys. I think the cane is awesome and adds some character to the design. Without the cane, he just looks like some kind of violent creature who's working with the Autobots because it suits his agenda for the time being. With the cane, he looks like an ancient and wise Cybertronian who's ready to fight to preserve his peace. It's all about what you interpret from a design. Don't believe me? Then feel free to photoshop the cane out of the pic and you'll see what I mean. You also need to consider that unlike Fallen, Jetfire is not endowed with Unicron's power so he can't maintain himself as well as if he was on Cybertron. A TF can't maintain himself forever so the fact that he engineered a cane into his transformation is good use of brains or processors if you ask me.

Urm, couple of things. Namely first and foremost, its the kind folks (like yourself) who automatically seem to snap into a "defend the film" mode the moment someone has anything remotely negative to say about a single aspect from the new movie franchise that seem to jump to the G1 references & comparisons nowadays. I bitched about the cane, and his face, does that tag me as one of your apparent "anti movie people" instantly? Even though I love the sound of Cullen's new Prime over the original? Even though I love Sideswipe's wheelfeet? Even though I dig Optimus' face? Even though because of the movie line alone my personal collection increased by a fourth or even a third in numbers? Etc? Thinking one item to suck and voicing as such instantly makes one that fabled "Geewunner"?

And again with the dissing on the blocky designs that began in Generation 1, went into 2, carried into visual references at the end of Beast Wars, which begat RiD, which begat Armada, then Energon, next ala Cybertron, Dreamwave comics, IDW designs, reprinted material that sells, Classics/Universe figures, TFCC & BotCon comics and items? That 'tired' 'old', 'outdated' style that some seem to imply somehow sucks now? That one? Just because something is new and different doesn't mean it's automatically good and better. From G1 to BW to Animated to Bayformers, every single solitary individual of the Transformers fandom is gray matter, period. Change in Transformers is welcome, keeps things new. From the RiD series to Beast Machines techno-organic Maximals. From Dreamwave's War Within to IDW's Hearts of Steel. Change in TFs is good the majority of the time. What works for who at any given time is another story, and that's perfectly fine. We all like & dislike things when it comes to Transformers, and as long as such can be stated without insulting another's preference or attacking their fellow fan in some way personally (like, dear fark, stating one would leave an injured fellow human being for bear food for the simple fact they don't care for a cane accessory on a toy) I do think opinions should be shared. That's what communities do, successful ones anyway, and it helps to communicate as a fandom (not fandumb) who we are to one another. You know, we are the world kind of ****. It should never be a train of thought that has any one of us thinking we shouldn't feel open to offering our voice on like & dislike any longer. We're all part of the franchise and no one should ever let someone who doesn't like an honest opinion (and that means honest personal take on that official stuff you invest your time, money and interest in, recall) make them think just because they're not on Hasbro's or Takara's payroll and they're just one individual that they don't matter to what 25 years of 'The Transformers' just truly is.

And, back to the topic specifically, I still think it's a bit lame. The whole "bits falling off as he walks" and cane bit. And I felt the same about Bumblebee's lack of ability to speak (until suddenly at the end - which I still say should be attributed to his contact with the Allspark not too far prior rather than a shot in the throat so to speak from Ratchet half a movie ago). In the prequel comic where Megatron did this damage to BB's throat he also ripped off an arm entirely. A limb can be reattached entirely but a speaker is such a pain? Then again, Jazz was merely torn in half and Ironhide (Ratchet by his side) walked in saying they couldn't save him. Maybe Ratchet just sucks as a medic. Though I really don't get what all this damage really means to a robotic race that can reconfigure their entire alternative forms in a split second (which includes robot transformations and the robot mode itself as far as reconfiguring/reformatting goes), grow weapons, etc. So a relatively boring body with a ginormous broken up jet hanging off his back, uglified head, then tacking on a cane because he's old & injured (yet still perfectly transformed in alt mode, no doubt)? Yup, lame, fail, whatever the kids are calling it nowadays. But maybe they'll have a scene where he gets uber pissed and pimpcanes the crap out of someone. That would be some browny points I suppose.

Windsweeper wrote:
I just wish we got traditional looking TF's. Between Star Wars, Robot Heroes, Animated and the Movie, I'm not fond of any of these new aesthetic directions for Transformers.

There's a couple of lines you might enjoy. Universe, Encore. Heard of them?

Anyway, how about we all relax a little until the film comes out, and see how well/terribly the whole cane thing is played. He may have the compelling gravitas of the late Alec Guinness. He may have the comedy stylings of Charlie Chaplin.

So why not wait until the movie (or at least until seeing the toy)? THEN we can bitch about it.

The jet mode is nice, the rest ...simply awful. Can't get over how ugly these toys been but why waste time crying over things you can't change. Well, at least we have a big exploding special effects movie and I'm sure it's a decent story.

P.S- G1 didn't end a long time ago, just got reinvented, like the Transformers Animated series, and this live movie. I'm not anti-movie, but I wish Transformers never hit the big screen, if they were to be something less than themselves. Even if they got the character down, it's like nothing as good as Watchmen, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Superman, Hulk, Batman, etc. They will never make a Transformer movie in their org. G1, simply because of they're afraid it will lose money. If they spend time in detail like they did with these alien looking ugly robots, boxy human faced would have worked fine with me. YouTube, has so many 3D examples, it would have been cool anyway, with slight upgrades. The live movie was too extreme, no body recognized them, sad for me really. This is just my opinion.

What I want to know is if he is so old and feeble he needs a cane and has parts falling off, what good is it going to do Optimus to combine with him?

Has Anyone else Noticed That This Jetfire Looks an awful lot like the Cybertronian "Fallen" prototype?

Evil_the_Nub wrote:What I want to know is if he is so old and feeble he needs a cane and has parts falling off, what good is it going to do Optimus to combine with him?

he is going to slow down Optimus!

I actually like this figure a lot. It is not perfect, but the alt mode is just about perfect. I will add it to the very short list of ROTF figures that I plan on getting. Him and Sideswipe at this point.

Um... Doesn't Optimus and Jetfire combining kinda screw over the "no mass shifting" thing royally? Or is a blackbird jet roughly the same size as a truck cab?

Also, on the bottom of Power Bots Op, it looks like the other normal-sized Power Bot will be Megatron. I'm a bit disappointed that The Fallen doesn;t seem to be getting a whole lot of toys made when his name is in the title.

Nemesis Primal wrote:Um... Doesn't Optimus and Jetfire combining kinda screw over the "no mass shifting" thing royally? Or is a blackbird jet roughly the same size as a truck cab?

Also, on the bottom of Power Bots Op, it looks like the other normal-sized Power Bot will be Megatron. I'm a bit disappointed that The Fallen doesn;t seem to be getting a whole lot of toys made when his name is in the title.

There is a pretty dramatic difference in size between a Peterbilt Semi and an SR-71 Stealth aircraft. good point for sure.

too many kibble under the jet mode.

Nemesis Primal wrote:Um... Doesn't Optimus and Jetfire combining kinda screw over the "no mass shifting" thing royally? Or is a blackbird jet roughly the same size as a truck cab?

Well, for starters, "no mass shifting" was a throwaway swipe at the old material during production implying no tape decks growing into thirty foot robots n'such. Any notion of absolutely no mass-shifting they shitcanned thoroughly with Frenzy's morphing head, the Allspark itself by far, and general transformations as said in a post production interview with ILM (as done by some notable name from DM.net at a convention) where they stated there's parts that come out of nowhere since there's just not enough actual 'stuff' in the vehicles to create the robots, ergo mass shifting out of thin air & whatnot.

Next, what with the likes of design to shrink an F22 down the way they did with Starscream and the fact this Jetfire toy has the majority of his alt mode hanging off his back (sure, not a verbatim translation of the screen bit, I'm sure, but still at least some indication), I expect with the cane to come a hunch of sorts, with kibble back-abound.

And as for comparison size itself of the vehicles, you're absolutely right. It's a point I've been wondering about since the hint of a Blackbird. What I found for some dimensions on the semi is "Dimensions: 25'1"L x 8"W x 12' 4"H (top of stack)", while with the SR71 I got "Length: 107 ft 5 in (32.74 m) Wingspan: 55 ft 7 in (16.94 m) Height: 18 ft 6 in (5.64 m)". Just a little bit off, ain't it. I imagine, even with some visual cheating in effect, some akin to Energon Prime and Omega Supreme. You know, when the big Omega body had the little Prime head on it? Like that. Just a movie Prime pretty much swimming in a mess of Jetfire with wings. Still, the keychain outline I remember from a month or so back looked alright, pretty tight even. Have to wait to see how that one plays out, especially onscreen.