Transformers Prime (new cartoon)

I just watched a new Transformers cartoon (well, CGI anyway) last night called Transformers Prime and it looked pretty good. One of the better Transformers re-incarnations since the first show in the 80's, next to Transformers: Cybertron. What I thought was really cool they were able to use the original voice for Optimus Prime in this series. No other actor does Prime as well as Peter Cullen I may have to go see Transformers 3 when it comes out.

Has anyone else whatced it yet? I think it was one of the digital cable channels called Hub or something.

 

I've not watched it, but my understanding is that Frank Welker has also returned to portray Megatron, albeit with different vocal intonations than Welker used during the G1 cartoon.

 

Yeah he did and you can still tell it's him, I think his Megatron for Prime is just not as Shouty as the 80s one.

 

I had my initial reservations (G.I. Joe was really my thing more than Transformers were), but I'm totally digging Transformers Prime. Love how the personalities of the Autobots and Decepticons are coming through--Ratchet and Arcee are my favorite of the lot--and the Human characters aren't bad either, IMO.

Really prefer this show to the movies, even though Orci and Kurtzman are behind this one too as exec producers...

 

Fortunately, they're not doing the writing.

I thought the first couple episodes were hit-or-miss, but it seems to be shaping up well after all. The CG looks disappointingly cheap, though.

 

I have seen a few eps recently...it is pretty good. The kids are annoying and I wish there were more autobots.

 

Yeah, probably to save Welker's voice, since he's not as young as he used to be. And maybe there's also an influence from other Megatron portrayers who played the character as more subtle and devious.

Well, O & K don't really have any creative control over the Transformers movies, because they're just screenwriters on them, not producers. In general, writers have little power in the movie business; they're treated as hired contractors whose job is to assemble the stories that the directors, producers, marketing execs, etc. decide should be told. Transformers Prime is different because O & K actually are executive producers there, as they are on Hawaii Five-O and Fringe and previously were on Alias. So while on the movies, O & K are just hired guns following Michael Bay's instructions (and getting rewritten by other hired guns), on this show they're actually in charge (though I imagine Duane Capizzi & Jeff Kline do most of the writing, since O & K have a ton of other stuff on their plates).

 

For real TP seems like it would have made a great premise for a live action series...I would even accept the animation for the Transformers in robot mode as long as the vehicle modes looked real. I would make all the kids like 16 or 17...I think Raf is 12 and Miko is 15 and Jack is 16...even that might would could work in live action...maybe make Raf 14. Still a cool show.

 

I wish they would do something new instead of just rehashing the first season of G1 over and over again, adding progressively more annoying human children in each incarnation. Then again we're in an age where all those kids that grew up watching those terrible anime Transformer cartoons from the 2000's wouldn't know any better anyway.


I also love how it's been more than a decade and the best CG they could muster looks barely more complicated than Beast Wars's first season. Weak.

 

I know, that's why I said they were behind this show as executive producers. Still, they did co-write the story and screenplay for the movies together.

 

Which, as I've said, doesn't mean much in the movie business. When they're just screenwriters hired by other producers/directors, they aren't the ones with creative control. Feature films are not a writers' medium. Writers are treated like bricklayers, hired help brought in to assemble the pieces according to someone else's plan. This is why so many Hollywood feature films are so badly written.

This was particularly the case on the second Transformers movie, which Bay "plotted" during the writers' strike, coming up with the action set pieces he wanted to feature. Then, when the strike ended, he got Orci & Kurtzman to add dialogue stringing his action set pieces together into something resembling a story. They turned in a draft which was then rewritten by a different writer, Ehren Kruger, who added comic-relief elements such as the widely-reviled racial-stereotype Autobots (which, again, was probably on Bay's instructions).

 

In your opinion.

 

No, it's not my opinion, it's my description of how the filmmaking process works. It's well-documented that this is the case. In television, writer-producers have the dominant creative role, but in feature films, directors and producers are dominant and writers are subordinate, unless the writers also produce and/or direct. (This is why the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer film, which Joss Whedon only wrote, diverged so profoundly from his creative vision, while Serenity, which he both wrote and directed, was true to his vision. Directors are the ones with creative control in the feature film industry. You can easily confirm this for yourself if you do the research.)

And it is an easily verified fact (just read the credits) that Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are not credited as producers on either Transformers movie; therefore, their role on those films is not equivalent to their role in Transformers Prime. That is no more my "opinion" than if I pointed out that Barack Obama's responsibilities as the junior Senator from Illinois were different from his responsibilities as President of the United States. It is a straightforward fact.

 

It's still your opinion in this case.

 

^I'm basing my comments on specific information that has been reported before. I don't spout unsupported opinions. I report my best understanding based on the evidence. Why don't you try doing some actual research of your own rather than just lazily dismissing information you're unfamiliar with as mere opinion?

 

The idea that this is the case for every film out there is absurd. As a film major myself, I'm well aware that many movies are made in committee and that a screenwriter's work is pretty much out of his hands once he turns in his final draft.

However, I don't buy your idea that Orci and Kurtzman had no creative input in the Transformers movies, which was my assertion from the get-go. That is what you're arguing with me about, aren't you? Because I said nothing else about their involvement with the films--that was all you.

 

Actually Christopher I've seen Orci and Kurtzman treatment for "Transformers 2" which they had written prior to the writers strike. It was a big action piece where we would have seen a Deception civil war between Starscream who crowns himself leader of the Decepticon group after the first movie (in a homage straight from TF:The Movie) and Megatron . This was scrapped due to the massive budget it would have cost and then re-written. Remember too that Ehren Kruger wrote the bulk of the TF2 script including the dialogue. Bay plotted the rewrite. The wikipedia article for "Revenge of the Fallen" has a pretty good summary of the film's development.

 

I'm enjoying the Transformers cartoon, especially Ratchet with his almost pseudo-Weyoun vibe going on. I, also, like how Decepticons are not a bunch of buffoons losing every week. They do lose in the end, but they make the Autobots kick metal butt to achieve the win.

 

Watched Transformers Prime "Deus Ex Machina"...think this was ep 10. Very good ep...this series is very well done.

 

Huh? Aside from being played by Jeffrey Combs, Ratchet has nothing in common with the smooth, obsequious toady Weyoun. He's much more like Shran with his gruffness and sarcasm.