Reply With QuoteBecause they are totally about the same thing.Originally Posted by madkevin
Even the best Transformers toys look like...er...toys. If the cably, sinister-looking design of the movie is what it takes to make the characters look more realistic and less cartoony, I'm all for it. If the whole thing was CG, I'd be upset that the characters depart from their cartoon counterparts. But since it has to blend live acting and CG, this seems like the way to go.
Because they are totally about the same thing.
No, what I meant was: seeing as I thought V For Vendetta made some huge errors of judgement in adaptation, and also seeing that Watchmen is an order of magnititude more complex and difficult to attempt to translate into film, I'll be perfectly happy if nobody ever tries.
When it comes to blending live action and CG, it really has less to do with design and everything to do with animation, lighting and compositing. With a few tweaks to some of the character's 'flesh-like' faces and added details to joints and such, a good vfx crew should have no problems making *anything* made of metal and other mechanical components share screen space with a real person. By your logic Scooby-Doo should have been a trained dog rather than CG.
Actually, they should have used traditional cell animation for Scooby, compositing it with the live action elements ala Roger Rabbit.
And heeeere's Megatron:
Holy fuck that's ugly. What the hell are they doing in the design department for this movie? It's like they went to a junior artist at Image Comics and asked him to make a Power Rangers villain more "edgy." It's an absolute mess. There's nowhere for your eye to go, the face is nebulous at best, it's not in any way memorable or iconic as the primary villain. Again, I don't care that they're redesigning the characters for the film, I just wish their designs weren't complete shit.
Does he transform into a tree of thorns?
My guess is a pile of broken glass.
no, a tribal tattoo.
Anyway, nice codpiece.
Oh, or maybe he turns in to one of those cubed blocks of metal they crush cars in to. Maybe he *was* a car, but then had a bad run-in with a scrap yard. Now he's *really* angry.
It's the Shrike from Hyperion.
Minus a couple arms and glowing red eyes, yup.
*slinks away, mutterring to himself*
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
?
...
Boo to that! I see neither Mega nor Tron there.
Okay. You're right. That's a horrible mess.
Judging from the last batch of leaked designs, Megatron transforms into... "Alien Jet". Well, that's one way to avoid showing him turn into a Walther that fits in Starscream's hand!
In other news, Bumblebee transforms into a Camaro. That makes about as much sense as the Bond BMW and the X-Men RX-8.
Terrible. The script I read was worse, though.
Ok, in all fairness, that's fugly.
CG Scooby Doo looked utterly stupid and out of place. Not that the movie could've been improved using a real dog, mind you. But even the best lighting and animation will make something that looks like a toy just look like a very realistic toy.
That said, I really don't like Megatron.
Seriously, how can you deface a cartoon devoted to selling toys?
Behold Megatron:
Y'know, I'm okay with the Autobot designs I've seen. They look like cars that turn into robots, and they're all flashy and updated for the 00's, and whatever. I can still be okay with them.
But every Decepticon I've seen looks like crap. I was okay with Blackout, because helicopters have blades on them and they were continuing the theme, he was the only one who looked like that, etc. But this Megatron is garbage for the reasons listed above and so much more. He looks like average evil bladey anime thing. And every time I look at it, I see his eyes and mouth in different place because I can't tell where the hell they are at a glance.
Where's the majestic, bad-ass tyrant we all know and love/hated?
Also, I found a pic of Starscream in that talkback on the AICN article linked earlier. No time to scrounge for it now, but he's arguably worse. He looks like a goddamn gorilla-insect with jet wings. Starscream, who was all about stealth and guile compared to Meg's brute force, is a GODDAMN gorilla. With bug legs.
They brought me back with Peter Cullen, now they're pushing me away again. Fuck Michael Bay.
That's what makes it so impressive.
Meanwhile, in the Land of Designs That Don't Suck, IDW revealed art for its upcoming series Transformers: Hearts of Steel, an alternate reality story taking place in the Industrial Revolution era.
I love these. They're big, powerful, and look like they could take a speeding locomotive to the chest without flinching. As opposed to the spindly Johnny-5 things from the movie, which look like something you can buy on a belt buckle at Hot Topic.
What the hell was wrong with something like this?
Nice. That looks way more exciting then the transformers movie. Is that going to be a comic or a cartoon?
It's a comic from IDW. In the past, Hasbro has actually done toys of the War Within versions of the characters, so maybe there will be a Hearts of Steel line. They certainly seem designed to be feasible in toy form.
Nothing. It simply has to do with the man with the money thinks he knows better what people want to see, ie, his shitty ideas diluted through freelance artists who keep tweaking them towards nonsense because he himself doesn't know what he wants.
It can only be the only reason this happened :
And that Loonatics shot looks to be toned down after the backlash from the original concepts shown.
Posting Permissions
