Y'know I think there's one thing Bay has been overlooking that would hugely improve his Transformers movies: have Bumblebee talk! IDW's G1 ongoing comics are great.
I might have to check it out, I tend to stay away from IDW as they seem to always have terrible art but it's been years since I've followed the comic scene. The story sounds intriguing.
You could say the same of Star Wars and Star Trek, or Highlander and Firefly, or Quantum Leap and Sliders, or.... The question is, even if that wasn't a factor, is there a story worth telling by doing so that would enrich both universes - or would the combination just be a stunt with the potential to ruin both? And even assuming that the former is possible - it probably is - do you trust people who have given us racist ice cream trucks and robot piss jokes to pull it off? 'Cause I don't.
Yeah, I knew this would be something like that as soon as I saw you were the last poster on the thread. You will RUE the day, Gaith. RUE IT.
Funny thing about Robotech and Transformers, originally Hasbro had a deal with other Japanese companies other than Takara to incorporate some of their toys into the Transformers line, including those based on some anime. The most famous example of this is Jetfire, which was originally a toy version of the Valkyrie from the Macross TV series. Eventually of course the Macross series was incorporated into the Robotech series (as it's first and arguably most popular part) as the Veritech, and things went kind of weird from there, including renaming the cartoon version to Skyfire Jetfire also had to be redesigned a good deal from the toy version into the animated design (Granted, this was true of a lot of the other Transformers as well). Nevertheless, subsequent figures of Jetfire (Including the recent "Leader class" figure) often feature a few design nods to the "original" Jetfire. Exceot for the Revenge of the Fallen version, which is pretty much totally different (Although with a similar backstory of sorts to the animated incarnation) The whole Macross/Robotech/Transformers story is a complicated thing I think, that's sort of a summary IMO
You're basically right. The legal stuff regarding Jetfire becoming Skyfire had to do with the fact that it was a non-Takara mold, and Hasbro didn't want to give Takara the impression that they were helping the competing companies (Bandai etc) by using molds that Takara couldn't make. This is also why molds from similar animes, like those used for the Deluxe Insecticons, Whirl, and Roadbuster were rarely mentioned outside of the toy information itself. In large part it was simply a matter of economics, as Hasbro couldn't really afford to make a lot of original molds until the series took off and became successful enough. Takara made their share of original characters as well, since their animated series and toy lines continued longer than their western counterparts.
I'm all for an expansion of concepts within the Transformers world. Exploring their Universe in the many ways their universe allows is actually a logical extension of where things are with this muddled film series. Maybe the spin off films will be done in a more cohesive manner even? I'm very curious as to their plans at least.
They've recently made new versions of Roadbuster and Whirl for the Generations line that are pretty faithful to the original toys, although more articulated and robust. So at least whatever company owns the original designs been relaxed a bit I think.
Transformers 5 release date, updates: confirmed for 2017, cinematic universe is moving forward with Akiva Goldsman http://www.christiantoday.com/artic...7.cinematic.universe.akiva.goldsman/53130.htm All-Female Autobots to Come Out in Comics and as Toys to Drumbeat ‘Transformers 5’ http://masterherald.com/all-female-...and-as-toys-to-drumbeat-transformers-5/15875/ I hope they can get good "female" Transformers in this next phase of movies and it won't just be comics and toys only.
Transformers Cybertron movie in development http://spinoff.comicbookresources.c...adds-ant-man-scribes-cyberton-movie-possible/ Although it's unclear whether Bay has any involvement in this whole thing, it could work out. Although Goldsman's involvement doesn't exactly inspire that much confidence. However, the Cybertron element should make at least the fans happy. The Humans have often been stated to be weakest part of the franchise, from the old TV show and especially Bay's films (Although the military guys from the original trilogy were OK). Certainly, the War On Cybertron video games and the IDW comics which don't feature that many human characters have worked OK, although not sure how that'd work in a film. Although being set on an alien planet kind of hurts the whole "Robots in disguise" element since they'd probably just turn into alien cars and stuff(Like in the first episode of the cartoon, the War for Cybertron series, etc. and Megatron's alt mode in the first two films). So in other words, no product placement, apart of course from the transformers themselves. It would be nice if they just chucked out the various contradictory backstories used in all four of the Bay films and started fresh as well with an origin story with no Macguffin.
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development If there's no human characters, why even bother to make it a "live action" movie? Why bother to construct sci-fi planet sets if you're just going to put CGI characters against them?
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development This news, if it eventually proves to be viable, makes me very happy.
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development This news would have made me really happy and excited... if we hadn't already gotten three utterly awful sequels from Michael Bay that completely killed any interest I had in the Transformers universe.
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development The Transformers world is diverse enough to tell stories from several angles. From a "connect with the audience" perspective I recognize the possible flaw in their being no humans in the film. The comics work just fine w/o humans but then again the core audience isn't that concerned cause they're buying the book for the bots vs bots anyway. A general audience mass distributed film has larger concerns...such as it's audience empathizing with someone. That's what the human character(s) are for in these films to a wider audience.
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development Jokes on you. The fans loved the Bay movies. They paid money to go watch this pile of feces (especially the Chinese fandom for AOE) and defended Bay online against his critics. The fans are the franchise's worse enemies. Not even a complaint about Hasbro dumbing down and screwing up production for all the new toylines to save money and how shit RID is. If we had ten more Bay-tier sequels they'd still be asking for more.
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development General audiences clearly love them, but I'm not sure many diehard TF fans do (at least beyond the first movie which was actually pretty cool and clearly had more of a Spielberg influence).
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development I am a huge TF fan, grew up on them like many. Keep up with the cartoons when I can even if I haven't seen all the recent ones. I love movies and own a number of core genre franchises to re-watch. I'm talking I still find something to like in a Rocky V, Die Hard 5, PotC 4 type film. I only own the first TF film.
Re: Transformers Cybertron movie in development a) Transformer fans were defending ROTF and claiming Ebert was a know nothing hack because he dared speak again our savior Michael Bay. So yes people were defending that trash. b) AOE made a lot of money in China where you have a substantial non-English fandom for the franchise due to its popularity in the 80s there.