Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

[Sabrblade]

I'm afraid I must disagree as in my view (your milage will vary) both of those series are superior to G1 toon. The G1 toon was just a toy commercial where you bad characters appearing for no reason (hey Astrotrain where did you come from! And the protectorbots! At least the aerialbots, stunticons, combaticons and technobots got an introduction)

In terms of story, yes, the stories of the two series are OK. Some of the G1 stories are not well-written.
But if you have too few characters (like in Beast Wars and Armada), the WAR between autobots and decepticons will be just like a feud between two small gangs...

Sometimes that smaller scale is more entertaining than a realistic portrayal of warfare. Said smaller scale is even one of the reasons this Bumblebee movie is drawing in so much more critical acclaim than all of the previous five films put together,

And it's not like the G1 cartoon always had every single Autobot and Decepticon go into every single battle in every single episode.

[ZeroWolf]

And the G1 fights were more of a comedic brawl then a war. You wanted a war you had two choices, your imagination or the comics. Having a larger cast means nothing.

[Sabrblade]

[Salacious_Monk]

I'm afraid I must disagree as in my view (your milage will vary) both of those series are superior to G1 toon. The G1 toon was just a toy commercial where you bad characters appearing for no reason (hey Astrotrain where did you come from! And the protectorbots! At least the aerialbots, stunticons, combaticons and technobots got an introduction)

In terms of story, yes, the stories of the two series are OK. Some of the G1 stories are not well-written.
But if you have too few characters (like in Beast Wars and Armada), the WAR between autobots and decepticons will be just like a feud between two small gangs...

Sometimes that smaller scale is more entertaining than a realistic portrayal of warfare. Said smaller scale is even one of the reasons this Bumblebee movie is drawing in so much more critical acclaim than all of the previous five films put together,

And it's not like the G1 cartoon always had every single Autobot and Decepticon go into every single battle in every single episode.

I don't think being small-scale is the reason that the bumblebee movies are attractive. The new movie is attractive because the transformers finally have their personalities and the robot designs are prettier. In the previous five movies, all the transformer characters were just paper-thin.

[Salacious_Monk]

And the G1 fights were more of a comedic brawl then a war. You wanted a war you had two choices, your imagination or the comics. Having a larger cast means nothing.

The G1 cartoons aimed at the kids so you couldn't give a realistic portray of a war. You still remember the reaction to Optimus's death in the movie? However, having a larger cast can provide you the foundation for making the transformers movies into an epic. The live-action movies are not just for kids. You can make them into something like the starwars series.

[ZeroWolf]

A larger cast is incredibly expensive though, hence why in revenge of the Fallen onwards the cons got bulked out by reskinned models that they had already used. The 07 movie had a smaller cast as well and is the most favourable of the live action movies (till Bee of course) in a movie setting you have two hours to keep people's attention. A large cast and making them distinct from each other is a very tall order, that's before you even think about plot. Until it changes, paramount will also keep the human element, which again requires time to develop them.

Now all of this is possible but you have to be careful with your choices. Marvel worked because they didn't throw the Avengers at you at the very beginning, each got a movie to sell themselves, so the Avengers movie could sell you them as a team. Only curveball with this approach is of course Guardians of the Galaxy, but we weren't getting them any other way, and their first film did suffer from marvel villain syndrome.

[Salacious_Monk]

A larger cast is incredibly expensive though, hence why in revenge of the Fallen onwards the cons got bulked out by reskinned models that they had already used. The 07 movie had a smaller cast as well and is the most favourable of the live action movies (till Bee of course) in a movie setting you have two hours to keep people's attention. A large cast and making them distinct from each other is a very tall order, that's before you even think about plot. Until it changes, paramount will also keep the human element, which again requires time to develop them.

Now all of this is possible but you have to be careful with your choices. Marvel worked because they didn't throw the Avengers at you at the very beginning, each got a movie to sell themselves, so the Avengers movie could sell you them as a team. Only curveball with this approach is of course Guardians of the Galaxy, but we weren't getting them any other way, and their first film did suffer from marvel villain syndrome.

I doubt that a larger cast would be incredibly expensive. You think people like Scarlett Johansson or Robert Downey Jr. would be much cheaper than CGI? I have seen aquaman. It was full of CGI and was almost plotless but the budget was only around $180 million or so. You don't need to make the robots unnecessarily complex like Michael Bay did. That can save a lot of money. Making transformers distinguishable is not difficult. You can use colours. In the G1, Megatron was grey but Star was red, blue and white. But in Bay's movies, almost every decepticon was grey...
Paramount can try making the next movie 40% transformers (CGI) and 60% human and the one after that 50% transformers (CGI) and 50% human and so on. If the result is good, then in the end we can have a 100% CGI transformer movie.

[ZeroWolf]

We already have had a 100% cgi transformers movie, Predacons Rising.

That was also a smaller cast.

Bigger cast does not equal a great movie. Movie studios want their films to make as much money as possible, especially if based on a kids toy franchise like this, so they'll want to make as much for as least possible. But as I said earlier things may change but don't expect it to happen over night.

[Sabrblade]

If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

[ZeroWolf]

If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personally about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Thank you Sabrblade, you've put it better than I did.

[Salacious_Monk]

If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

[Salacious_Monk]

We already have had a 100% cgi transformers movie, Predacons Rising.

That was also a smaller cast.

Bigger cast does not equal a great movie. Movie studios want their films to make as much money as possible, especially if based on a kids toy franchise like this, so they'll want to make as much for as least possible. But as I said earlier things may change but don't expect it to happen over night.

Precons rising was a bit disappointing... Honestly, I think that Paramount should consider stagger autobot and decepticon movies. The next transformer movie can feature starscream (a decepticon movie) on how he tries to overthrow Megatron and then gets banished to the Earth where he builds his own troops (terrorcons/predacons/combaticons). The movie after next can feature Optimus Prime (an autobot movie) on how Megatron after having dealt with Starscream's rebellion starts to invade the Earth and how Optimus Prime defends the Earth.

[ZeroWolf]

If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

Not everyone reads them plus they can be rendered pointless by the next film...look at all the tie ins to the live action tf movies.

[Salacious_Monk]

If anything, a bigger cast would give less screen time to everyone except the one or two who'd get to be the main leads.

The G1 cartoon's cast was so big for its own good that, despite most of the following characters (and I use that term loosely) showing up often and frequently, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anything personal about Prowl, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Windcharger, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Skywarp, Thundercracker, any of the Constructicons besides Long Haul, Skids, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, any of the Stunticons besides Motormaster, any of the Combaticons besides Swindle, any of the Protectobots besides First Aid, Pipes, Swerve, Tailgate, Runabout, Runamuck, Broadside, any of the Predacons, any of the Terrorcons, any of the Technobots, any of the Throttlebots besides Goldbug (since he's just Bumblebee), Slugfest, Overkill, Fastlane, Cloudraker, Pounce, Wingspan, Punch, Chromedome, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Apeface, Snapdragon, Pointblank, Sureshot, Crosshairs, Slugslinger, or Sixshot, just by going off the G1 cartoon alone without also consulting their toy bios and/or any of their comic depictions.

And most of the ones who were memorable were mostly because of an oft-repeated one-note quirk rather than a compelling fleshed out personality. And that was because the cast was too big to develop everyone equally.

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

Not everyone reads them plus they can be rendered pointless by the next film...look at all the tie ins to the live action tf movies.

You don't need everybody to read them. You just need enough people to read in order to cover your cost and give you a profit. Not everybody uses an iphone but Apple still makes a lot of money from their iphone business.

[Sabrblade]

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

The MCU is a whole a different animal. The Avengers films can handle having large main casts because they allowed the other movies leading up to each of them to give focus to all of if the main characters (or in Hawkeye's case, Age of Ultron gave particular focus to him). That's how the Avengers films themselves work as ensemble films. They bring together familiar faces that we've gotten to know on a more personal level in the surrounding MCU movies. And yet, somehow, the Avengers films also still manage to find a way to adequately juggle everyone's screentime focus relatively evenly.

Whereas the G1 cartoon just threw in everyone from 1984 right out of the gate, and only kept adding more characters as time went on, and yet still chose to give the majority focus to a fraction of its main cast, leaving the large remainder an army of dudes we saw all the time but barely ever got to know.

That's partly why every cartoon afterward and some* of the live action movies (especially this Bumblebee movie) scaled back the main cast roster to a core group of characters that get ample focus and development between each of them, allowing us to get to know each of them more personally than most of the G1 cartoon's cast ever got, thereby further enhancing the meaningfulness of both the narrative of the ongoing storyline and our viewing experience overall.


* -- By "some" of the live action movie I mean those like the 2007 one, AOE, and this Bumblebee movie, where the characters were more clearly defined in their smaller units. ROTF, DOTM, and TLK, meanwhile, had expanded rosters full of generics and nobodies added to their robot casts.

[Salacious_Monk]

Of course, but you can say the same thing to hawkeye, falcon and war machine...But why do avengers still have such a large cast? You don't need to flesh out all the characters in the movie. You can do it through comics or novels (making more money).

The MCU is a whole a different animal. The Avengers films can handle having large main casts because they allowed the other movies leading up to each of them to give focus to all of if the main characters (or in Hawkeye's case, Age of Ultron gave particular focus to him). That's how the Avengers films themselves work as ensemble films. They bring together familiar faces that we've gotten to know on a more personal level in the surrounding MCU movies. And yet, somehow, the Avengers films also still manage to find a way to adequately juggle everyone's screentime focus relatively evenly.

Whereas the G1 cartoon just threw in everyone from 1984 right out of the gate, and only kept adding more characters as time went on, and yet still chose to give the majority focus to a fraction of its main cast, leaving the large remainder an army of dudes we saw all the time but barely ever got to know.

That's partly why every cartoon afterward and some* of the live action movies (especially this Bumblebee movie) scaled back the main cast roster to a core group of characters that get ample focus and development between each of them, allowing us to get to know each of them more personally than most of the G1 cartoon's cast ever got, thereby further enhancing the meaningfulness of both the narrative of the ongoing storyline and our viewing experience overall.


* -- By "some" of the live action movie I mean those like the 2007 one, AOE, and this Bumblebee movie, where the characters were more clearly defined in their smaller units. ROTF, DOTM, and TLK, meanwhile, had expanded rosters full of generics and nobodies added to their robot casts.

I didn't mean to say that the strategy of G1 series was perfect. My point is that the G1 series had a large cast and it did you the impression that a war was going on. Unlike the avengers(superheros), Optimus Prime/Megatron was the commander but not the most powerful transformer. Later series scaled back the cast and this "war" atmosphere was no longer there. the movies were more like superhero movies and lost this "war" charm. You don't need to portray every soldier in the Lord of the Rings but you still need those soldiers to let the audience know a war was going on.

[Burn]

So how about that Bumblebee movie ...
(Though I can understand why it's gone off topic, I don't know what purpose this thread even serves any more now that we have a spoiler one.)

[D-Maximal_Primal]

hough I can understand why it's gone off topic, I don't know what purpose this thread even serves any more now that we have a spoiler one.[/size]

Some of us have done our best to avoid spoilers and still keep up with marketing.

Gonna see it tomorrow night with some coworkers/friends though!

[william-james88]

So how about that Bumblebee movie ...
(Though I can understand why it's gone off topic, I don't know what purpose this thread even serves any more now that we have a spoiler one.)

For adds and campaigns, like the news post I am about to write.

[william-james88]

For those not in the know, 2019 will be the last year Volkswagen will be releasing the Beetle. Their ad campaign for this farewell features the Bumblebee movie. The ads have been found in a variety of places. You can see a quick video below as well as a french ad from Montreal, Canada.

Of course, this isn't the same Beetle Bee transforms into, the car they wll be retiring is actually the second attempt at remaking the classic Beetle for the mdoern era.

Also remember, the Bumblebee Movie comes out tomorrow in several markets. If you wish to discuss everything about it including spoilers, you can head over to the spoiler thread.

[Short Circuit]

It's kinda saddening that such an iconic car is going away. I quite like the new beetles and the golf its based on isn't that inspiring...

[william-james88]

A big question regarding the Bumblebee movie was whether or not it was a reboot. We know the producer Lorenzo Di Bonventura said he would not call it that but now we have confirmation from the director, Travis Knight, that the Bumblebee movie is within the pre-established "Bayverse" continuity, whatever that may mean to you.

These were the exact words:

We set the film 20 years prior to the events of the first film, but so-we still needed some degree of continuity there.

So there you have it folks, the Bumblebee movie may be a step in the right direction, or a breath of fresh air, but it is not a full on reboot, and it is still embedded within the universe Michael Bay helped bring to life (Michael Bay is still a producer on this film after all).

Of course, that is not all Travis Knight had to say in the featurette below from IGN. He talks a lot about his choice behind the design changes we see in the movie and the heavy emphasis on G1. There is a really fun tidbit about Soundwave's chest window too, enjoy!

[Sentinel_Primal]

I really wish that they decided that Bumblebee would be a reboot... Would make the drastic shift in design easier to swallow... Now seeing that it's set in continuity, that makes me dislike the movie a bit because of things that occur in this movie that contradict previously established occurrences. It's still probably my favorite, but it's such a stark contrast that you'd think they'd ditch the Bay films. Especially cause it looked like they were setting it up to be the start of a new movie series at the end

[Deadput]

Well, you know that they could easily turn around and make this a reboot though right?

I don't think there is any doubt this film went into production as a prequel or anything and no doubt the film makers still have a lot of the thought process of this being a prequel.

But if they decided to keep this as a prequel after the box office results are in then this will be franchise suicide.

The Bay continuity cannot be salvaged anymore, Bumblebee is a great film on it's own but it is a horrible prequel that breaks a lot more continuity for the first film alone then it does tie to it.

For the good of the brand this cannot be allowed to be a prequel, at least Hasbro should know this, with all the excitement about people thinking Bee is a reboot Paramount should realize it would be very profitable to go clean slate and start anew.

You lose all tension when you have characters like Jazz or Shockwave in the next film when you know they cannot die in that film due to their role in Bay's films but you also prevent a deeper emotional connection to these characters because they get killed in Bay's films.

[Lore Keeper]

This really is a shame. The Bumblebee movie on its own is a great movie, but it works as well as a prequel as The Last Knight works as a sequel. It is a continuity nightmare with the 2007 movie.