The Energon Pub

[-Kanrabat-]

Mistake #1 was to not make the movie in the same style as the intro of the Bee Movie.

And mistake #2 was the minimal marketing. Sure, the usual fans were already sold with the toys and overall fidelity. But the casuals were ignored. A shame.

[Sabrblade]

Mistake #1 was to not make the movie in the same style as the intro of the Bee Movie.

No. That was no mistake because this movie is gorgeous. There is no reason to make a fully animated film look photorealistic if there is nothing actually realistic in the movie to juxtapose it with (hello Disney's Lion King remake).

[Nexus Knight]

Honestly, I think the biggest mistake that they had was releasing alongside the second Beetlejuice movie (which had all the marketing and is a follow-up to a supposed classic) and Wild Robot, which was always going to be likely to draw in a bigger family following. I plan to see the latter, so I can't comment on the quality of the movie, but based on what I've seen marketing-wise... yeah, it's not shocking it's doing better. And I freaking loved TF1. I'm going to see it again with my brother soon, but I think it suffered the most from a poor release window. If it had released a week earlier like planned awhile ago, I feel it may have had a better chance to do super well before being dethroned bt Wild Robot.

[-Kanrabat-]

Mistake #1 was to not make the movie in the same style as the intro of the Bee Movie.

No. That was no mistake because this movie is gorgeous. There is no reason to make a fully animated film look photorealistic if there is nothing actually realistic in the movie to juxtapose it with (hello Disney's Lion King remake).

Personally, I too, find the style of the movie to be perfect.
But marketability dictate that it would have fared way better in the hyper realistic style.

The Lion King remake was totally unnecessary and was quite uncanny with their hyper realistic cartoon style. But it made enough money to warrant a sequel. A sequel that is panned by the hardcore, but the casual are exited to see. Comparing to what my family say VS what the comments/forums/content creators says.

So, it is sad to say, buy TF1 in super realistic Bee Movie intro style would have sold more tickets. Way more.

[SkyFire Prime]

Why do we have to boost imagines of it as failing?

Guys, if this fails, it will truly be the last good Transformers Movie. It has to succeed in some way.

[Glyph]

Well, we never know "what would have happened if X" or that there will be no good TF movies in the future, ever, so... By all indications, this movie should return a modest profit in the end and hopefully at least one sequel. But it's certainly not performed as well as we / Hasbro / Paramount were hoping, and there's little point pretending that isn't the case.

Where it's succeeded is in being well-reviewed and well-received by its (modest) audiences, and we can expect that more people will eventually watch it on streaming / disc than saw it in the cinema. So one big thing it can do is help rehabilitate the brand, which doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation at the movies right now, and maybe get more people interested in seeing the next one.

[Rodimus Prime]

Mistake #1 was to not make the movie in the same style as the intro of the Bee Movie.

And mistake #2 was the minimal marketing. Sure, the usual fans were already sold with the toys and overall fidelity. But the casuals were ignored. A shame.

Agreed on both counts.

The movie as it is looks pretty good. But it never establishes the illusion that these are actual living beings. For all of Bayverse's faults, when I was looking at the screen I was convinced (or at least could easily pretend) that I was looking at metallic living beings.

If we had gotten the style of the opening scene of Bumblebee, which was the best part of the movie aside from perhaps the fight scene with Bee and the triplechangers, it would have gone a long way in helping the general audience decide to see it. The way TFOne looks, we all knew it was gonna be an animated movie, and not a movie with CGI in it.

Now I can imagine how expensive that type of rendering can be for that long of a movie, but it most definitely would have boosted the box office. Probably not enough to turn a profit, so in the end financially this was the smarter choice, but if money was no object, it would have looked much better the other way.

[Bumblevivisector]

Yeeesh, will's description's making me picture a future Robot Chicken sketch where The Wild Robot literally lands on Cybertron beats up the entire population.

The video mentioned that TF ONE still did better than TWR outside the U.S. this weekend, and that's making me wonder what countries each film was released in. But no amount of data mining can change the totals.

[Sabrblade]

The movie as it is looks pretty good. But it never establishes the illusion that these are actual living beings.

The way TFOne looks, we all knew it was gonna be an animated movie, and not a movie with CGI in it.

Photorealistic CGI is still animation. It's impossible to make a truly live-action movie if there's nothing actually shot in live-action in the movie. No matter how realistic it appears, photorealistic CGI is still animation. I go back to Disney's "live action" remake of The Lion King. That movie was 99.9% animated with photorealistic CGI with no actual live action shots in it other than the opening shot of the sun rising over the horizon at the beginning of the movie. After that, everything for the remainder of that film was completely animated.

[Glyph]

For all of Bayverse's faults, when I was looking at the screen I was convinced (or at least could easily pretend) that I was looking at metallic living beings.

Really? Because one of the big issues I had with the Bayverse films was that the robots never felt right in the scene to me - they always seemed floaty, or the physics didn't sell, or some other thing. They always just looked like special effects IMO, and not at a level I expected from ILM. #shrug#

If we had gotten the style of the opening scene of Bumblebee, which was the best part of the movie aside from perhaps the fight scene with Bee and the triplechangers, it would have gone a long way in helping the general audience decide to see it. The way TFOne looks, we all knew it was gonna be an animated movie, and not a movie with CGI in it.

Matter of taste I suppose - for me, the Cybertron section was one of the less interesting bits of the film, and the most jammed-in-for-fan-service. (Not the bits I most disliked - that would probably be the very Bay-esque little brother / cringe stepdad.) The designs were vastly improved from the previous films though, in that they actually looked like Transformers ( ), but a whole movie that looked like that would have been (a) incredibly expensive and (b) targeted very much at older fans, not new kids and casuals. I thought the animation in the rest of the film, particularly between Charlie and Bee, did way better both at actual character acting and in feeling realistically grounded in the scene, over the same 'robot PAWNCH!' bouncy action we'd seen before. IMO, YMMV, etc.

I maintain that the timing of release - back to school, sandwiched between Beetlejuice and TWR, staggered by almost a month overseas - did far more to hurt its chances than the style. But who knows, in the end - there's a lot of variables in play.

[Sabrblade]

but a whole movie that looked like that would have been (a) incredibly expensive and (b) targeted very much at older fans, not new kids and casuals.

And here I think we've reached the crux of the matter, that it all comes back to the longstanding belief that live-action is superior to animation because, supposedly, live-action is for grownups and mature audiences while animation is for children, losers, and stupid people. That photorealism is somehow better than illustrated artwork.

The thing is, Transformers is a brand that thrives as illustrated art, whether moving pictures or stilled drawings. It's at its best when it's not trying to be super hyper-realistic as it's more focused on telling good stories with engaging characters, regardless of whether it looks like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, a Jack Kirby drawing, a PlayStation 2 game, or a Flash animation.

At the end of the day, Transformers doesn't and shouldn't belong to one specific demographic. Not adults, not kids, not fans, not casuals, but everyone. Transformers is and should be something that everyone can enjoy, as given in this excellent short video that the entire fandom could stand to watch and learn from:

[Glyph]

Amen to that, in the general!

In the specific, as an animation junkie and proponent of "it's a medium, not a genre"... that bias that sees non-hyperreal animated movies as "kids' stuff" and turns adults away is unfortunately a big factor. Unless you're a proven big name like Pixar or Dreamworks - and often even then! - you've got an uphill struggle if you're putting out an all-ages animated feature. There are always some standouts - Spider-Verse, Arcane etc - but the bias is sadly pretty pervasive.

But we also can't attribute everything to that - after all, the film currently kicking TF1's ass is another, much more polished-looking all-ages animated feature from Dreamworks. When I said a whole movie that looked like the BB movie's Cybertron scene would be targeted at older fans, I wasn't (only) talking about the "realistic" rendering but about the whole aesthetic: heroic-proportioned bots leaping around the place, blasting and punching each other to shreds over a constant backdrop of explosions. Though I haven't seen it yet, my understanding from the discussions is that that aesthetic would have been badly mismatched with TF1's overall tone and story style. (The other thing to note is that it would have been much more expensive, and on current performance would likely have turned TF1 from modestly profitable to a financial flop.)

I hear that the full movie has some gorgeous visuals, particularly vistas and individual scenes, but that initial trailer (the only thing I've really seen besides the Kayou cards, by intent, which puts me in a similar position to much of the prospective audience) looked fairly mid-tier on the level of both character design and animation - more like a game cutscene than a full movie in places. The character designs are serviceable but not really much more than that, pretty generic and interchangeable, and the animation was weirdly stiff at times (B-127 turning and running was a standout in my memory, along with that shot of Dread/Darkwing looking like a cheap, cobbled-together game extra). For contrast, TF Prime, while much less advanced in the rendering and 14 years older, managed some excellent character animation on a much lower budget!

If there's one thing I can assume for The Wild Robot, based on Dreamworks' past record, it's that it will be polished to a high sheen, with characters carefully tuned for audience appeal. That polish & appeal in the design is what I felt was lacking in TF1's marketing presentation, and the cut of the initial trailer ("Badassitron" ) really wouldn't help raise it to must-see rather than meh if I wasn't already invested as a TF and animation fan. Which is a crying shame, because from everything I've heard the rest of the movie is excellent.


--EDIT--
I'm probably coming off as more negative than I mean to. I'm tired. Really just rambling on designing for appeal and the need to make the story, presentation and marketing all line up the same direction for the target demo.

[Rodimus Prime]

The movie as it is looks pretty good. But it never establishes the illusion that these are actual living beings.

Bang your head all you want, it still won't change the fact that not everyone thinks like you. What you have are opinions and others are allowed to have differing ones.

The way TFOne looks, we all knew it was gonna be an animated movie, and not a movie with CGI in it.

Photorealistic CGI is still animation. It's impossible to make a truly live-action movie if there's nothing actually shot in live-action in the movie. No matter how realistic it appears, photorealistic CGI is still animation.

Fair enough. So let me rephrase. The animation in Bayverse looks much more organic than in TFOne. Again let me stress that I really liked TFOne. I even liked the animation. But just as with TF:Prime or TF:TM before it, I knew I was looking at animation. In Bayverse, I was able to suspend my disbelief and think I was looking at a real living alien machine on the screen who had just as much life as the human characters. With TFOne that's not the case. I still prefer the complete lack of humans, so no real complaints. But speaking strictly of the art style used, Bayverse still looks more believable.

[Rodimus Prime]

For all of Bayverse's faults, when I was looking at the screen I was convinced (or at least could easily pretend) that I was looking at metallic living beings.

Really? Because one of the big issues I had with the Bayverse films was that the robots never felt right in the scene to me - they always seemed floaty, or the physics didn't sell, or some other thing. They always just looked like special effects IMO, and not at a level I expected from ILM. #shrug#

To each her/his own. Bayverse wasn't perfect visually by any means. But as I explained in my response to Sabrblade, I still had easier time believing I was looking at a real living being in the live action films. Perhaps because real humans were also included in the scene?

Matter of taste I suppose

Full stop. You suppose correctly.

I maintain that the timing of release - back to school, sandwiched between Beetlejuice and TWR, staggered by almost a month overseas - did far more to hurt its chances than the style. But who knows, in the end - there's a lot of variables in play.

Agreed on the timing. This should have been either a June release or even a March or April release. Just seems that the producers already knew this would mainly appeal to TF fans so they just put it out there and didn't bother serious marketing to children. Which should anger Hasbro because that damaged their promotion of the toyline.

[Sabrblade]

Agreed on the timing. This should have been either a June release or even a March or April release. Just seems that the producers already knew this would mainly appeal to TF fans so they just put it out there and didn't bother serious marketing to children. Which should anger Hasbro because that damaged their promotion of the toyline.

It seems they went with September to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the G1 cartoon. But a May release would have better coincided with the actual 40th anniversary of the whole brand.

[Rodimus Prime]

Agreed on the timing. This should have been either a June release or even a March or April release. Just seems that the producers already knew this would mainly appeal to TF fans so they just put it out there and didn't bother serious marketing to children. Which should anger Hasbro because that damaged their promotion of the toyline.

It seems they went with September to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the G1 cartoon. But a May release would have better coincided with the actual 40th anniversary of the whole brand.

Absolutely Agreed. May 8th to be exact. It was a Wednesday, would've given the movie a nice 5-day opening.

[Sabrblade]

Agreed on the timing. This should have been either a June release or even a March or April release. Just seems that the producers already knew this would mainly appeal to TF fans so they just put it out there and didn't bother serious marketing to children. Which should anger Hasbro because that damaged their promotion of the toyline.

It seems they went with September to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the G1 cartoon. But a May release would have better coincided with the actual 40th anniversary of the whole brand.

Absolutely Agreed. May 8th to be exact. It was a Wednesday, would've given the movie a nice 5-day opening.

The only real competition it would have faced had it been released in May would have been Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and IF. Which, admittedly, is some pretty steep competition, but we'll never know what might have happened, alas.

[TFIta369]

it lays the smackdown on Transformers One’s candy ass

I cringed.

[Glyph]

Agreed on the timing. This should have been either a June release or even a March or April release.

It seems they went with September to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the G1 cartoon. But a May release would have better coincided with the actual 40th anniversary of the whole brand.

As I understand it, it was supposed to be July 19 for the summer crowd, but pushed back to September 13 (presumably for final crunch because it wasn't ready) then again to September 25 to avoid the Beetlejuice premiere. Which then, ironically, only gave it one week before TWR.

[Sabrblade]

Agreed on the timing. This should have been either a June release or even a March or April release.

It seems they went with September to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the G1 cartoon. But a May release would have better coincided with the actual 40th anniversary of the whole brand.

As I understand it, it was supposed to be July 19 for the summer crowd, but pushed back to September 13 (presumably for final crunch because it wasn't ready) then again to September 25 to avoid the Beetlejuice premiere. Which then, ironically, only gave it one week before TWR.

September 20.

[Glyph]

Yeah, that (brain fart, 13 + 7 != 25)

[JazZeke]

Transformers One is even better on the second go-around. Something about expecting the emotional beats and dramatic moments lets you savor them even more. Honestly this time I cried during Orion's ascension into Optimus.

[Immortal Starscream]

such a shame, because the movie is absolutely amazing. I feel this is mostly due to branding. People are sick of hyping up movie franchises only to get a lackluster, brainless, boring or dumb flick. But then again, many box office flops have gone on to be regarded as some of the greatest movies of all time. Citizen kane, john carpenters Thing, the 1986 TF movie. (ok ok, its not on the level of the last two, but it was a flop that most people here regard as gold)

[william-james88]

Yeeesh, will's description's making me picture a future Robot Chicken sketch where The Wild Robot literally lands on Cybertron beats up the entire population.

The video mentioned that TF ONE still did better than TWR outside the U.S. this weekend, and that's making me wonder what countries each film was released in. But no amount of data mining can change the totals.

Yeah, both films have odd stagerred release dates making it hard ti get a sense of their momentum internationally

And glad you liked my description, we have to find some fun in all this

[Quantum Surge]

So much for trying to boost TF out of #SaveTFONE LMAO, this flick's biggest defenders at least tried staying offline for once to be outside their homes rather than rinse and repeat the same "Bayverse and/or any non-G1 series bad" bs they'd say on forums or social media.