ZeroWolf wrote:Who said the movie should look like G1 in the first place? I mean it's not like they haven't changed styles at all during the thirty years run, and banking on nostalgia only works for so long.
To settle this, I propose that Hasbro reboot the series with the next film and use a different style completely. Not the one used before, and not this one. The style should be constantly changing as much as the toystgo from one mode to another. I mean Transformers is all about change,why do we fear it so?
To be fair the G1 crowd hasn't had a live action G1 styled live action film yet while we have had 10 years and 5 films of Bayformers so I'd say it's fair to have one more film with this style for them, and with the likely hood Bumblebee doesn't do so well in the box office Paramount/Hasbro are gonna have to since we need a big hit Transformers film for the franchise's future, so it needs to make money and we need 3 things to make it happen.
1: Give the aesthetic that draws in the biggest crowd and hence the most money, that aesthetic so happens to be the G1 stuff over anything else in the franchise. (Is Transformers Prime or Armada anywhere near as beloved?)
2: They need to have a good movie with a good plot and a good ensemble cast, this is where the originality can sort of start to peak without going to far from the G1 image, the best thing to do is have 7 Autobots against another group of Decepticons you can mix up well known characters like Prime, Bee and Jazz with more obscure guys like Hot Shot or Metalhawk same goes for Decepticons, story wise it's best to keep things simple so no end of the world plots or magic Macguffins
3: They need to have a better premier date, Bumblebee going up against Aquaman, Spiderverse, Mary Poppins, etc has probably hurt this movie's sales bad.
Alienating the G1 crowd with both it's unfamiliar character designs compared to their counterparts (Not the aesthetic just that characters like say Ironhide don't look anything like the G1 guy) combined with the over complicated and juvenile save the world plots that's been the plot for all 5 movies is part of why the Bay films stopped working as we have seen with the dropping box office and poor critical reception.
There is no reason why the Bumblebee movie couldn't be a fresh reboot itself, outside of Bumblebee with his design and Sector 7 the biggest things tying to the Bay films is dealt with by the end of the movie, the Allspark and Megatron aren't mentioned leaving their fates open to being dealt with differently in a later movie and the ending has Optimus as well as 7 Autobots arriving on Earth at the end of the film which already breaks continuity with the 2007 film alone.
What other Transformers aesthetic would Hasbro/Paramount even possibly come up with, anything is just going to resemble the "realistic" Bayverse type designs whether they be more "Car wraps around the Transformers skeleton" or boxy style G1 type looks, that's always been the case Transformers changes how the stories happen and the cast but the actual style of Transformers has never changed that much, it's always the Autobots vs the Decepticons (Or groups with similar roles like the Maximals vs the Predacons) the aesthetic of Transformers only has two different styles:
The original boxy toy like looks such as G1 or the Unicron Trilogy or the more stylized curvy (as well as mostly toy design unfriendly) looks of the movies and Transformers Prime.
Only Transformers Animated sort of denies this by being a stylized cartoon style that is basically a combination of the other two styles and this wouldn't work for a live action movie.
No popular franchise can "change" that damn drastic without losing the audience and it's identity, your idea is possibly the worse thing Hasbro/Paramount can do, yes even worse then sticking with the Bayverse continuity which itself is probably an awful move.
This ideas basically what crippled Star Wars as a franchise with The Last Jedi, because it changed so much and even worse "disrespected" a lot of what came before like Luke god damn Skywalker the hero of that franchise.
The Marvel movies can take what's familiar, change it slightly and make good plots and make that work why can't Transformers?
You change it so much and what makes it Transformers anymore besides robots transforming into vehicles? Literally no other franchise does this.
