Sabrblade wrote: Capt.Failure wrote: Sabrblade wrote:
SKYWARPED_128 wrote:And yes, I know it's a movie about transforming alien robots,
I think a more appropriate phrase would be "a movie about a guy whose life features transforming alien robots."
There's that "It's not a Transformers movie" arguement again. Is it fun living with your head in the sand? Is it at least comfortable?
Seriously, you give the fandom a bad name.
Is it wrong to ask for the bots to be the stars of their own movies? I don't get why some people WANT them to shifted into the background. Seriously, they're the most interesting characters in these movies (barring the Twins, that is), and yet they're used more as plot devices instead of main characters.
When watching Batman or Superman, I want to focus on Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent in the prominent role, not James Gordon or Jimmy Olsen. Why can't the same be applied to these movies?
Just my two cents' worth, but I think it's partly because of the expensive CG and because they needed a human to lead the audience into the world of the transformers--that, sadly, being Shia LeBeuf.
That said, there were so many missed opportunities where they could have injected characterization into the TF's. In TF1, they said something about yanking Arcee from the cast because there wasn't enough screen time to explain gender, and Bay hated her small size. The latter, I can accept. But to say that you need a lot of time to explain TF gender is an excuse for laziness.
They could have easily had Optimus, while intro'ing the Autobots to Sam in the alley, explain that Arcee is one of the last surviving females of their species. While TF's don't procreate, females are needed to temper the aggressiveness of male Cybertronians for a more stable society. Megatron sees this as a hindrance to his ambitions of a military society, and thus ordered the killing of all females.
Oh, and please don't shoot me for adding non-canon stuff into TF mythology. Since Bay's deviated so much from G1, why not just run with it?
With that, you actually ADD characterization to Arcee as well as add a deeper layer to the fabric of TF lore, making it more realistic. Also, in order to save money from CG animation, they could just focus on Sam's bewildered face as OP explains everything. Mikaela could even chime in with her disapproval of Megatron's mysogynist ways, and add help flesh out her character [pun not intended] more as the strong female type.
With a little creativity, they could have added loads of characterization to the TF's without digging too deep into the budget.
There are many other areas where they could have done the same, but I don't think there's enough space in this post for it.