I still really like the Transformers movies

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > I still really like the Transformers movies

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Armyman25 posted:

The original series dealt with something similar. The precursors to the Transformers were the Trans-Organics, cybernetic creatures using biological and mechanical components. They were seen in the episode Dweller in the Depths

The Spotlight: Shockwave comic actually has the Dinobots do exactly this on Earth to avoid some form of Energon loss that I don't remember the details of.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 02:00

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 00:48

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Neo Rasa posted:

You can say it reflects culture in the US because of autobots studied our culture and the internet for some time before contacting us, but all that says is that through all their learning about human history and how people communicate with each other, the autobots came to the conclusion that black people talk like this. This is the opposite of "dealing with uncomfortable things."

To be fair, the international reaction to it was much less vehement than in the US. To us not-yanks this is how America portrays black people pretty much all the time.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 23:20

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Well there's that approach, but I started to go back through the series again with the document open so I could compare but I pretty quickly noticed that it wasn't matching up. The whole "autobots are inherently violent because we see it happen" thing would make sense, were all modern tech not based on Megatron to start with.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 05:28

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I see where Lord Krangdar is going with this, and in the context of the movies as a criticism of hyper-capitalist libertarian utopia America it sort of works. The Transformers are a hyperbolic microcosm of the state as a whole, so it makes sense that they'll have hyperbolic negative stereotypes with the lampshade of "they learned it from watching YOU dad!".

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I'd remind that Jar-jar is the de facto protagonist of his film, and is badly mistreated by the white dudes around him even if he is clumsy and stupid.

I love this line of thought. I once spent a bunch of time trying to convince people that the prequel trilogy is all about a sociopathic Gungan getting revenge on his homeland and the Jedi dick who assumed he wasn't even sentient.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 18:49

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I don't think that'd bother him really. It'd not be much weirder than having live humans wiggle around in him while he's trying to fight Decepticons.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 22:00

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The MSJ posted:

edit:
In case you think Drift is the only anime robot this year.

Well now that's a nice Jetfire.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2014 15:50

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Sire Oblivion posted:

I don't think every beard and cigar is reference to an obscure war film.

Beard and cigar and helmet :pseudo:

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 05:43

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Armyman25 posted:

Steven Spielberg named the character of Short Round in Temple of Doom after a similar character in The Steel Helmet. Sam Fuller's films are a little obscure, but def well known in the movie industry.

Seriously though, Sgt. Zack is like the Ur-hardnosed soldier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db5kkXCrWg8

They're not all that obscure. The Big Red One is a well-known classic in which you get to see Mark Hamill stretch a condom over his gun. Merrill's Marauders is a pretty great film too.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 06:04

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

HiriseSoftware posted:

Le teaser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubGpDoyJvmI

I have no idea what is going on.

But I really want to.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 01:57

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Phy posted:

Nonsense, Cybertronians evolved from naturally occurring gears and levers!

Like this?

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 22:05

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Eh, kind of gives me a Man of Steel/General Zod vibe TBH.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 07:20

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

IDW Whirl would fit right into the Bayverse without anyone even questioning him. You could almost pretend that Ironhide was Whirl all along and it'd work as far as motivation and dialogue goes in the first movie.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 04:37

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

By "my kind" he means job creators.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 21:07

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The MSJ posted:

Here's some interesting words about Drift's face from a toy review. Emphasis mine.

The face of a monster.

That's.... actually really subtle and disturbing.

# ¿ May 19, 2014 06:49

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The MSJ posted:

I forgot to add that Drift is also described an ex-Decepticon. He's was a Decepticon and is now wearing a monster mask to hide his 'Con face.

Do we know if he's an ex-Decepticon in this too or is that just speculation based on the IDW continuity? He might have been an Autobot all along in Bayverse.

# ¿ May 22, 2014 03:12

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I guess it's been established that faction is just a choice in the Bayverse, so that's opening up an interesting situation. I wonder if the circumstances of his switch will be mentioned at all or will it just be glossed over?

# ¿ May 22, 2014 04:19

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The MSJ posted:

They are not spoiling the Dinobot transformations yet, though, and Hasbro has already said that will happen.

I could totally see Hasbro hiring a Whedon or a Whedon-associated director like Drew Goddard if they make a movie more in line with the current IDW comics. People have said/complained that everyone in the comics talk like Whedon characters, even Optimus and Megatron.

Not something I had considered before, but I see it. One that really sticks out in my mind is that someone remarks that things just get overblown and dramatic when Optimus Prime is around.

Leospeare posted:

Actually, this whole digression started because someone repeated the common criticism of Signs, that the aliens/Shyamalan are stupid because of water on Earth. That's what people always bring up when this movie is mentioned. If you want to argue whether the symbolism is well-executed or not then fine, but first you might have to convince people that it's not just a big plothole and there was a point to it in the first place.

I mean, the same thing happened with the Transformers series and then someone went and made a thread deconstructing it.

The thing is, it doesn't drag you out of the fun with the Transformers movies, whereas with Signs it brought my interest to a crashing halt. Any time something dumb happens in a Transformers movie that might maybe drag me out of it something explodes and I'm having fun again, gently caress whatever that was PEW-PEW-PEW! Awesome.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I don't like Signs either but that's not what "plot hole" means.

"We have FTL travel but not spectroscopes" is plenty pothole to me.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 11:13

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

verybad posted:

No one being around to hear "Rosebud" is a plot hole, and also completely loving irrelevant. What you have here, if I were to hazard a guess, is autism.

You have just compared Signs favourably to Citizen Kane and decided that I am autistic because a poorly executed symbol has irritated enough people who watched a film for it to be the prevailing opinion even after having that symbol deconstructed in a thread for analysing a vehicle for selling toys to children shot by shot.

I recant my dislike for the hamfisted execution of faith triumphing over adversity via deus ex machina, clearly you are correct.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 12:08

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The MSJ posted:

That's not any weirder than Martians with heat rays never figuring out microbiology. I also remember a short story where aliens with FTL and anti-gravity vehicles failed to invade Earth because they only have muskets and gunpowder cannons.

Even the IDW Transformers comics had a bit of this. The Cybertronians still get their entertainment from live stage performances instead of watching videos, and Rung still wears glasses instead of getting his optics fixed.

I give H.G. Wells a pass on the martian thing because TBH the book had gotten boring at that point and I was happy just to see the end of it. Also we hadn't really gotten that great a handle on it ourselves 1897, and antibiotics being relevant outside military use wasn't really a thing until post WWII. The examples you mention from Transformers are choices rather than technological limitations though. They have the technology to watch recorded entertainment (and I'd argue that Rewind DOES watch it, in his own perverse way) and Rung had his entire head rebuilt after Swerve shot him so if he kept them it was personal choice and also serves as another convenient reference to Carl Jung for the character. Neither of these things are the deux ex that resolves the plot, though Rung's alt mode being "decorate" might be down the line when he also has the choice of changing that right now. Also it's kind of hard to make a case for not being able to make glass prisms. They aren't exactly high-tech, even if you can come up with some reason that they didn't realise you could use them to determine the composition of a thing by looking at the light it reflects.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 13:24

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

sassassin posted:

Deus ex machina in a film about faith. Disgusting.

I know right? It's almost like I didn't complain about the execution thereof instead of the existence of it itself.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 13:33

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Usually the way things are played is that they're stronger in dinosaur mode, but if you want to get them through a door and still have a door standing afterwards you need to convince them to transform into robot mode.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 12:50

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Rap Record Hoarder posted:

One of the consistent complaints that I've seen from both professional reviewers and just average moviegoers alike is how difficult it is to distinguish between the robots in the movies. Granted, I've seen all of them several times, but I've literally never had trouble figuring out which robot is which, even in the midst of action scenes. Is it really that bad for most people? Seems to me more like someone said it once and people just ran with it as one more thing to complain about, but I'm genuinely curious.

For the first movie it was kind of easy to keep track of the Autobots what with Prime being a truck, Bumblebee being yellow etc, but the Decepticons were basically "mook, mook, mook, Megatron? mook, yellow mook, this guy has wings, must be Starscream" thanks to the comparatively less vehicle kibble in robot mode and the lack of time spent actually bothering to just say their names out loud. The second movie had far less of a problem with this (although I still don't know which is Skids and which is Mudflap) and the third was more distinct again. I suspect it was limitations of technology and the fact that when Decepticons were onscreen in the first entry they were usually moving and bits whirled everywhere.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 23:58

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

3 posted:

Disregarding for now the already kind of skeevy attachment of moral absolutism to a 30 year old franchise designed from the ground up as a vehicle for merchandising, I have to wonder what you'd think about the current IDW Transformers ongoing, in which... well:

EDIT: I suppose this seems apropos, from the same ongoing:

Relevant, because this guy administered the police brutality that turned Megatron from coffee-shop manifesto writer into.... Megatron.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 04:12

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Mornacale posted:

Especially given that the Autobots have already lost the war, and are simply trying to exterminate the rest of Cybertron via a terrorist campaign.

Emphasis mine. In the context of this it is interesting that when you exit the Transformers ride at Universal Studios the dudes standing around trying to pretend they aren't bored golfclap lazily and shout "welcome back, freedom fighters" at you.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 19:17

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

MisterBibs posted:

Of course I did. I took it with the same giant pile of salt one needs when reading, say, In Defense Of The Empire or when I trawl TVTropes for the mock thread in PYF.

If only that "In Defence Of The Empire" article hadn't been proven correct by the text where no less than Yoda realises and explicitly states that the Republic doesn't deserve to win the Clone Wars nor do the Jedi have any moral highground.

MisterBibs posted:

The best thing about the Megatron-With-An-Autobot-Logo is that it hits the emotional mark that Something Is Wrong.

Actually he just realised that HE was wrong and it's the start of a character redemption arc.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 21:41

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

MisterBibs posted:

Nah, it's still salt-worthy, since The Empire is, y'know, The Empire. Grey sagging skin, yellow eyes, black robe, lightning out the fingers..

Remember that line about democracy and the blood of tyrants? The Empire isn't actually the enemy, the Empire is what the Republic decides to change into voluntarily. Everything, up to and including the finger-lightning, is known to the public at this point in time and yet they still are super up for Palpatine taking charge.

I get the same feeling here that I had when I made the mistake of watching Fox News on a recent trip to America and wanted to shout at the TV.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 22:44

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

MisterBibs posted:

What do you call a race saved by Megatron? An army devoted to conquering and subjugating the galaxy. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 bucks, do not even bother arguing otherwise.

"Cybertronian". Your entire argument is bullshit, since your undeniable hero character is that same race that Megatron is trying to save.

Hbomberguy posted:

Isn't there a part in the movies where a character points out that wearing these logos is a symbolic choice made by the characters?

Stop using the text and basic logic to ruin his fascist fantasies okay?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 03:01

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

MisterBibs posted:

I'm glad someone brought this up; I didn't think I could cite an ex-Decepticon dismantling any pro-Deceopticon fanfic without being too about it.

He's wearing the badge though. By your own logic that means he's lying.

MisterBibs posted:

Megatron is simply trying to grow an slave army to further his personal goals of conquest and subjugation. What is the only reason Megatron betrays SP in the third film? He's not going to be the dude in charge of the conquest and subjugation.

Villanous Dictator, genocidal monster, and all-around horrible person.

And Sentinel Prime's badge is what colour again?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 03:31

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

MisterBibs posted:

That's not my logic. He's not a Decepticon. There's reason to worry about him, initially, until it's realized that he defected to the Autobots long ago for clearly defined reasons.

"The guy wearing the Decepticon badge isn't a Decepticon because he says so".

MisterBibs posted:

Yup. The trustworthy ones. As opposed to Megatron and the Decepticons, which are not trustworthy.

Not a single hole in your reasoning whatsoever, I concede to your superior logic.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 04:24

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Mornacale posted:

I'd love to know what the purpose of "civilian models" is. It's your car, but you can also hang out?

Maybe when you're drunk driving and are going to crash into the back of some cop car they can transform like Bumblebee does during the chase scene in the first movie and gently catch you and the kids with their metal hands so you don't end up losing custody?

Although TBH given sufficient controls it seems to neatly sidestep all the effort Google is putting into self-driving cars and just go "BAM, done. Enjoy the commute!".

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 05:20

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Milky Moor posted:

I have a feeling that Primus and Unicron won't exist in the Bay canon at all. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Unicron - or something like him - ends up as the ultimate way of the Creators 'wiping their chessboard' clear of mingling species. Lockdown knowing about something like that would put a lot of his comments in perspective - he certainly acts like he knows there's a big ol' storm coming.

The thing about that is that it kind of renders all of Lockdown's actions redundant. If Unicron is just going to eat everything and is unstoppable then why waste time with movies full of explosions?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 14:03

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Hbomberguy posted:

Nihilism. Get out.

E:
Nihilism, of course, was the enemy in Transformers: The Movie. Unicron was death, the ultimate fact that life itself is 'pointless'. Encounters with this truth transform cartoony villains into obscene monsters of insanity and death, obsessed with crushing the matrix of leadership, aka Hope Itself. In order to defeat Unicron - in order to defeat nihilism in real life also - one must embrace the message of Nietszche and others like him and triumph over cynicism and supposedly-realistic pragmatism.

You might complain that the Transformers Movie couldn't possibly have meant this. But the film's tagline is Beyond Good. Beyond Evil. Beyond your wildest imagination. You could argue that the film accidentally referenced Beyond Good and Evil on its motherfucking posters and trailers, but even if it's not a reference, the words have the same meaning.

I was more thinking along the lines of the old WH40k argument about even bothering to have Space Marines at all when you can just orbitally bombard any planets causing a fuss but what you said totally makes sense too.

Milky Moor posted:

Probably much like the first cartoon movie - they need the last Prime out of the picture before they get started, who knows?

See above. Turn up, eat planet, job done.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 15:34

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

CJSwiss posted:

The Aligned continuity is the only franchise explicitly outside of the multiverse but that's also sort of been torpedoed recently with the Rise of the Dark Spark game, which is a crossover between Aligned and the movies.

Not entirely. Cybertron is clearly sentient in WFC (because it talks to the player) and Unicron is, as mentioned, Earth.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 06:13

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

DoctorWhat posted:

Well yeah, the Aligned continuity does have Primus and Unicron, but they aren't the SAME Primus and Unicron as literally every other Primus and Unicron. Relatedly, the Aligned version of The Thirteen Original Transformers doesn't line up with the revealed members of the Thirteen in the greater Multiverse (i.e. Logos Prime).

Yeah but the thing about multiversal roles is that when you kill one Unicron you kill them all. It's just easiest to accept that "this universe is more different" rather than try reconcile 30 years of "gently caress it, sell more toys" continuity written across three continents in two languages.

CJSwiss posted:

Well you know, Doctor Who and Transformers are canonically tied together because of Death's Head...

Gotta love that canon-hopping freelance peacekeeper :allears:

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 06:29

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Sire Oblivion posted:

Really? I love that game but I don't remember Cybertron talking to you. Though it's been a while.

When you get to the core of Cybertron to fix it as Optimus Prime it has a chat with you about needing a nap and cuts off a bit of it's spark for you to keep safe.

Milky Moor posted:

For example, gender representation is still an issue with Arcee remaining, it seems, the only well-defined female character from that canon.

*snip*

Has there been any game ever that has yet people, I don't know, create their own Transformer character?

I regard Airachnid as pretty well-defined TBH. Also the multiplayer segments of the WfC/FoC games seem to allow customisation of a sort, but that's probably not what you mean. We get to wait and see with the new Universe game I guess.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 20:57

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Rita Repulsa posted:

The toys are just mini-cons. The generations toys are homages to past things and then worked into the comics one way or another, usually by showing up and saying something for a panel or two.

James Roberts is probably responsible for naming the Ammonites in the IDW comics. Some characters gave them the name "mini-cons" because they are tiny and want to kill you with guns.

They were in the comics way back when though. Whirl ends their war against the Terradores by... being Whirl at him. Hard. I always assumed they were named after the squid-snails though TBH.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 22:32

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Rita Repulsa posted:

You're looking for this guy then

I think they were introduced there as set up for their Dark Cybertron appearances, therefore always meant to be the "mini-cons". The writers knew Dark Cybertron and the toys-with-comics-co-sell thing would be happening, and several other characters have story roles that make more sense as set up for that (Scoop, Rattrap, etc)

At the end of the day every character in the comics exists for one reason. I didn't think that they'd actually go introducing ones that are so drat hard to actually make.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 23:03

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Just saw this yesterday, since it only came out on Friday here. Due to a fuckup with the cinema's booking system I missed basically everything until Prime gets delivered to the barn, so this is missing some context. A few bare-bones thoughts:

1: without Prime around to bully them into politeness the Autobots are literally at each other's throats looking for a reason to kill each other. It kind of implies that the only difference between them and the Decepticons is that the Decepticons can actually work together for five minutes without supervision.

2: that said, Hound was just FUN as a character. I loved how his entire being could be compressed down to just saying "ork" and leaving it at that. The gleeful diving into every fight, violence being the first resort "I'll cover you. If I stop covering you, I'm dead!". Gold.

3: Lockdown's introduction in the movie was far less effective than his introduction in the trailer was. I know we have to explain everything so the audience can keep up but it just didn't work as well as having him wander into a fight and start shooting. Also the open face wasn't as effective as the closed mask, in the same way Jango Fett will never be as cool as Boba Fett.

4: not really a plot point, but I loved how Shane's accent kept slipping from Hollywood Irish into his actual Irish accent. I have no idea why he felt the need to do that, but it amused the hell out of us anyway.

5: Grimlock transformed "correctly".

6:

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

At the end of the film, Optimus picks up THE SEED, essentially tucks it into his pocket, and promises it'll never be misused.

However - only minutes beforehand - Optimus grabbed one of Lockdown's SEED-GRENADES and set it off right on the outskirts of the city, destroying a grain elevator and lord knows what else. The imagery is recurringly of the Autobots taking these grenades 'for safe-keeping' and then immediately using them against the latest enemy. It's a pretty safe bet that Optimus is going to nuke god.

I loved that part. "I'll take it to where it will never be found" and all that. It's not like he tried this before and it totally failed leading to the events of the last four movies or anything.

7:

Wade Wilson posted:

I started laughing at Marky Mark taking a swig from an unbroken Bud Light bottle and throwing it at the guy demanding insurance for the car he just crashed into.

I love the choice of guy he threatens. It's like they just took Milton direct from Office Space, made him 20 years younger and called it a day. Perfect stereotypical TV nerd, being out-macho'd by the high-school quarterback reliving his glory days via gunsword.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 19:06

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Captain Magic posted:

ALSO! It was really fascinating to me how literal the metaphor of people buying into the Transformers' bullshit became with the new Transformium and the transformation process. They have a material that they show can literally become anything, at any time--MULTIPLE things, no less. And what do they make with it? They make Transformers that can only have two forms. Why? Well, because Transformers are only one of two things, stupid. They couldn't possibly be anything else. If you think otherwise, then you're just applying some interpretation that doesn't belong in the world of the giant fanboy who is creating his own Transformers universe based on the immutable facts of the Transformers as he sees them.

You missed how Drift is a triple-changer in the movie, right?

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 22:40

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 00:48

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Captain Magic posted:

While that's absolutely true, I don't believe it changes the point of the humans putting the Transformers they create into very "fixed" roles despite the Transformium allowing them to make giant Optimus-crushing fists or blowjob machines or whatever. 3 forms is still not limitless forms, no matter how you look at it.

The Transformers themselves can change their form quite a bit (Bee and Prime both alter appearance in the film), but it seems as though, without heavy retooling (ala Megatron in ROTF and DOTM) they can only shift between a set number of basic functions (robot to vehicle to other vehicle, for instance. They can't change from, say, robot to towel to ice dispenser to table to jet carrier to sandal to DVD.) They are still "toys" and must function with predefined roles AS toys; meanwhile, Transformium is a tool transformed into a hammer that its inventors can't find enough nails for.

When you put it this way I am imagining adaptive screwdrivers that fit any screw type and borescopes that grow into the space they're looking into. Obviously I've thought of making hyper-specialised versions of existing tools while they seem to be making really crappy Swiss army knives. For the most part the movies have avoided mass-displacement though, so table to jet carrier is probably out.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 23:52

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > I still really like the Transformers movies

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