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Here's a thought. Why do the movies have to be in live action? Why not make a completely CGI movie (with motion capture CGI)? No, I don't mean at the same uber-expensive level of super realistic CGI quality as these movies have right now. That would be outrageous. What I do mean is a CGI movie done in a similar art style to those of Beowulf and The Polar Express. Yes, it wouldn't look as realistic as real life, but the diminished animation quality would enable the bots to have more screentime and more character interactions/development than "We must fight to save the world," "We will conquer and destroy," and "ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! BANG! BANG! BANG! KABOOM! FIGHT!" Less money for the visuals (and potty humor) = more money for the story and characters.

Transformers to date has never had a movie that I can call "good." Not in 1986, not in 2011. I enjoyed what I could but it's a lot like getting Diet Coke when you were expecting regular. It gives you a hollow feeling and a bad taste in your mouth. It's pretty sad when a half hour cartoon can tell a story better than a 2.5 hour film.

I so agree,I somewhat thought the movies needed more classic Transformers fighting and story line.I find it sort of sad to have to explain backgrounds and meanings of the movies because the explanation isn't there or its not clear

Here's a thought. Why do the movies have to be in live action? Why not make a completely CGI movie (with motion capture CGI)? No, I don't mean at the same uber-expensive level of super realistic CGI quality as these movies have right now. That would be outrageous. What I do mean is a CGI movie done in a similar art style to those of Beowulf and The Polar Express. Yes, it wouldn't look as realistic as real life, but the diminished animation quality would enable the bots to have more screentime and more character interactions/development than "We must fight to save the world," "We will conquer and destroy," and "ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! BANG! BANG! BANG! KABOOM! FIGHT!" Less money for the visuals (and potty humor) = more money for the story and characters.

I would so see something like that!

Sabrblade wrote:Here's a thought. Why do the movies have to be in live action? Why not make a completely CGI movie (with motion capture CGI)? No, I don't mean at the same uber-expensive level of super realistic CGI quality as these movies have right now. That would be outrageous. What I do mean is a CGI movie done in a similar art style to those of Beowulf and The Polar Express. Yes, it wouldn't look as realistic as real life, but the diminished animation quality would enable the bots to have more screentime and more character interactions/development than "We must fight to save the world," "We will conquer and destroy," and "ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! BANG! BANG! BANG! KABOOM! FIGHT!" Less money for the visuals (and potty humor) = more money for the story and characters.

Sabrblade por el presidente

Live-action, CGI, stop motion, traditional animation, whatever the medium is will NOT change anything but how it looks.

Sabrblade wrote:Here's a thought. Why do the movies have to be in live action? Why not make a completely CGI movie (with motion capture CGI)? No, I don't mean at the same uber-expensive level of super realistic CGI quality as these movies have right now. That would be outrageous. What I do mean is a CGI movie done in a similar art style to those of Beowulf and The Polar Express. Yes, it wouldn't look as realistic as real life, but the diminished animation quality would enable the bots to have more screentime and more character interactions/development than "We must fight to save the world," "We will conquer and destroy," and "ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! BANG! BANG! BANG! KABOOM! FIGHT!" Less money for the visuals (and potty humor) = more money for the story and characters.

Because I hate fully CGI movies!

Sabrblade wrote:Here's a thought. Why do the movies have to be in live action? Why not make a completely CGI movie (with motion capture CGI)? No, I don't mean at the same uber-expensive level of super realistic CGI quality as these movies have right now. That would be outrageous. What I do mean is a CGI movie done in a similar art style to those of Beowulf and The Polar Express. Yes, it wouldn't look as realistic as real life, but the diminished animation quality would enable the bots to have more screentime and more character interactions/development than "We must fight to save the world," "We will conquer and destroy," and "ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! BANG! BANG! BANG! KABOOM! FIGHT!" Less money for the visuals (and potty humor) = more money for the story and characters.

I'd see it, but to most it would see as just another cartoon. Half the reason these stories are as successfull as they were were due to visulas. Meaning CGI against live action.
Now that its been done, a fully animated type movie would probbably do ok.

Noideaforaname wrote:Live-action, CGI, stop motion, traditional animation, whatever the medium is will NOT change anything but how it looks.

Very ture. Even if bay doesn't direct it, its all going to depend on whom ever gets the helm's "Vision".

Instead of degrading the quality of CGI used, why not just... I don't know... rely less on CGI, and more on stuff that's actually there? Animatronics and "guy in a suit" effects have served us pretty well in the past. Also, reducing the complexity of the transformations would take a chunk out of the CGI budget AND produce better-looking robots as a result.

Sabrblade wrote:Less money for the visuals (and potty humor) = more money for the story and characters.

Protip: good stories and good characters don't cost a cent more than crappy ones do.

cotss2012 wrote:Protip: good stories and good characters don't cost a cent more than crappy ones do.

I don't believe that. You have to spend more time to come up with or refine your story and characters; that time is money. But I agree about the excesive need to make the CGI as complex as possible. Especially when the end result is just a blur of things happening to fast to really notice unless you paused it at every frame.

cotss2012 wrote:Instead of degrading the quality of CGI used, why not just... I don't know... rely less on CGI, and more on stuff that's actually there? Animatronics and "guy in a suit" effects" have served us pretty well in the past. Also, reducing the complexity of the transformations would take a chunk out of the CGI budget AND produce better-looking robots as a result.

Better looking my ass. They'd look like crap!!! A damn guy in a robot costume walking around and pretending to transform into a car does not look good.

SlyTF1 wrote:

cotss2012 wrote:Instead of degrading the quality of CGI used, why not just... I don't know... rely less on CGI, and more on stuff that's actually there? Animatronics and "guy in a suit" effects" have served us pretty well in the past. Also, reducing the complexity of the transformations would take a chunk out of the CGI budget AND produce better-looking robots as a result.

Better looking my ass. They'd look like crap!!! A damn guy in a robot costume walking around and pretending to transform into a car does not look good.

Hahaha.

Hey, atleast it looks 100% real... and didn't cost much.

MINDVVIPE wrote:Hey, atleast it looks 100% real... and didn't cost much.

You have no idea about how much money, time or effort goes into one of those.

MINDVVIPE wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

cotss2012 wrote:Instead of degrading the quality of CGI used, why not just... I don't know... rely less on CGI, and more on stuff that's actually there? Animatronics and "guy in a suit" effects" have served us pretty well in the past. Also, reducing the complexity of the transformations would take a chunk out of the CGI budget AND produce better-looking robots as a result.

Better looking my ass. They'd look like crap!!! A damn guy in a robot costume walking around and pretending to transform into a car does not look good.

Hahaha.

Hey, atleast it looks 100% real... and didn't cost much.

Do you really think the same effects they use for Power Rangers and Godzilla movies would work today? People would be rolling on the floor laughing as soon as they showed up on screen.

MINDVVIPE wrote:I don't believe that. You have to spend more time to come up with or refine your story and characters; that time is money.

Orci and Kurtzman wrote how many scripts in 2006, exactly?

SlyTF1 wrote:Better looking my ass. They'd look like crap!!! A damn guy in a robot costume walking around and pretending to transform into a car does not look good.

Obviously, costumes wouldn't be used for the transformation sequences. But if you just have the characters standing around and talking, there's no reason why that has to be animated. The actors' movements would have to look right, too. Remember Robocop?

I also think there's a type of animation that has yet to be developed; namely, a hybrid of go-motion and bullet-time (both of which were variations on stop-motion), in which the animation is first done as stop-motion and then computers calculate and add motion blur by comparing consecutive frames.

Bottom line: using CGI for everything is the lazy, expensive way, and we shouldn't assume that every single second of on-screen robots will be cooked up as textures and wireframes.

SlyTF1 wrote:Because I hate fully CGI movies!

And you are but one out of millions of moviegoers. Besides, while done in full CGI, such movies as Beowulf, The Polar Express, and even that awful Mars Needs Moms movie had such brilliant CGI that at times looked more like live action than not.

cotss2012 wrote:Instead of degrading the quality of CGI used, why not just... I don't know... rely less on CGI, and more on stuff that's actually there? Animatronics and "guy in a suit" effects have served us pretty well in the past.

Erm, I dunno. Maybe if the Japanese did it for a Transformers Tokusatsu*, but I can't seen it done for a Hollywood movie.

* - I once made a thread about how Masterforce might work as a Tokusatsu.


Also, it IS possible to diminish the complexity of the robot designs for live action CGI and have them still look good. Just look at this video. These are the G1 designs, yet these CG models (with some slight modifications to look a tad bit more realistic) would totally fit in a live action production.

Sabrblade wrote:Also, it IS possible to diminish the complexity of the robot designs for live action CGI and have them still look good.

"Still" look good? They'd look better than those piles of metal shavings that we saw in theaters! That's why I suggested simplifying the designs instead of going with overall lower-quality CGI.

cotss2012 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Also, it IS possible to diminish the complexity of the robot designs for live action CGI and have them still look good.

"Still" look good? They'd look better than those piles of metal shavings that we saw in theaters! That's why I suggested simplifying the designs instead of going with overall lower-quality CGI.

Simplified designs would look stupid in live action. As would people running around in costumes.

cotss2012 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Also, it IS possible to diminish the complexity of the robot designs for live action CGI and have them still look good.

"Still" look good? They'd look better than those piles of metal shavings that we saw in theaters! That's why I suggested simplifying the designs instead of going with overall lower-quality CGI.

I said "good", not "great".

SlyTF1 wrote:Simplified designs would look stupid in live action.

Didn't you see the video I posted?

Sabrblade wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:Simplified designs would look stupid in live action.

Didn't you see the video I posted?

I did. Like 500 times. But they're not interacting with real people. If they where, they'd look dumb as hell.

SlyTF1 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:Simplified designs would look stupid in live action.

Didn't you see the video I posted?

I did. Like 500 times. But they're not interacting with real people. If they where, they'd look dumb as hell.

Can you prove it?

Sabrblade wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:Simplified designs would look stupid in live action.

Didn't you see the video I posted?

I did. Like 500 times. But they're not interacting with real people. If they where, they'd look dumb as hell.

Can you prove it?

It looks like a video game.

SlyTF1 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:Simplified designs would look stupid in live action.

Didn't you see the video I posted?

I did. Like 500 times. But they're not interacting with real people. If they where, they'd look dumb as hell.

Can you prove it?

It looks like a video game.

To you, maybe. Can you prove it with facts?

I don't think simpler designs would work for a live action Transformers movie. Lets take Optimus for example, his arms and head go into the cab of the truck when he transforms. So where is the interior of the truck supposed to go? You can't have all that mass just appear and disappear like it did in G1. That was something that always bothered me as a kid. Parts would just disappear and other parts would reappear out of nowhere. It made them look like they were made of play-doh or something.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:I don't think simpler designs would work for a live action Transformers movie. Lets take Optimus for example, his arms and head go into the cab of the truck when he transforms. So where is the interior of the truck supposed to go? You can't have all that mass just appear and disappear like it did in G1. That was something that always bothered me as a kid. Parts would just disappear and other parts would reappear out of nowhere. It made them look like they were made of play-doh or something.

There is a good compromising solution to this. Recall how the Binaltech/Alternators and Alternity designs looked. Those designs were more visually simple than the movie designs, yet complex enough to change from realistic vehicle modes with intact interiors. The Robot Mode designs hearkened back to G1 while updating them a bit with more modern day styles and engineering. These designs are like a halfway point between the insectoid Bionicle looks of the Movies CGI models and the more simplistic G1 character designs. Something like that could suffice for a simpler yet still realistic live action design.

Sabrblade wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:I don't think simpler designs would work for a live action Transformers movie. Lets take Optimus for example, his arms and head go into the cab of the truck when he transforms. So where is the interior of the truck supposed to go? You can't have all that mass just appear and disappear like it did in G1. That was something that always bothered me as a kid. Parts would just disappear and other parts would reappear out of nowhere. It made them look like they were made of play-doh or something.

There is a good compromising solution to this. Recall how the Binaltech/Alternators and Alternity designs looked. Those designs were more visually simple than the movie designs, yet complex enough to change from realistic vehicle modes with intact interiors. The Robot Mode designs hearkened back to G1 while updating them a bit with more modern day styles and engineering. These designs are like a halfway point between the insectoid Bionicle looks of the Movies CGI models and the more simplistic G1 character designs. Something like that could suffice for a simpler yet still realistic live action design.

True, but there's also the issue of being covered in large solid panels. Most of the Alternators have huge chests made from one solid piece of the car. That would severely limit their range of motion in robot mode. In the movie they have to do 3 very complex tasks, be a vehicle, be a robot, and switch between the 2. I think the only way to make that work in live action is to give them a complex design.