There's a longstanding prejudice that animation is for children, and since the Transformers in these films are animated works (no matter how "realistic" they might be designed to look), they're viewed less as "characters" than the human actors are, as the human actors are live action and "real" people instead of "fake" cartoon creations.Slashercon wrote: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.)
I have a strong feeling that if the Transformers were real people in armored costumed suits instead of all-CGI, there'd be a better chance of them getting more focal characterization than they do now. Or, if the films were completely animated instead of in live action, then the chance would be even more likely. But then that gets back to the "cartoons are for kids" prejudice, and a lot of moviegoers don't want to watch "kids' stuff", preferring live action films instead, which also brings us back to how CGI characters in live action films aren't viewed in the same light as how live human actors in live action films are viewed.
We Transfans don't feel this same kind of prejudice because we are used to robots as human-like characters, having seen them depicted as such in our cartoons and comic books. The common moviegoer audience, however, is less used to such due to a lack of the same degree of material exposure that we fans have had, as most of that material is viewed as "kids' stuff".