Sandrock wrote:Sorry if I was unclear earlier, 1-3 are all part of the same theory.
Ah. My apologies, then.
Considering what Renegade has been saying I get the feeling that the movies are still in the character intoduction/development stage
( a trilogy maybe?)
It's confirmed. Dreamworks/Paramount have greenlighted T2 and T3 (still starring Shia and Megan), although Bay has only signed up for T2...and even right then he was talking about scrounging up some production guarantees before making any further decisions. I guess he'll see whether he'll be satisfied enough with T2 to keep going with T3.
An interesting tidbit I saw on Yahoo! news yesterday: despite being only
half as pricey as
Pirates of the Carribean 3: at World's End,
Transformers is 2007's
third highest-grossing movie, after
Spiderman 3 and
Shrek the 3rd. It is also the highest-grossing
non-sequel of the year, with 702 million dollars worldwide.
Aegis wrote:Looking at Proctor's site, I really, really, REALLY wished that some of the old heads were used instead of the current ones in the movie. Reason being? Simplicity. A number of them were given way too much detail as far as I'm concerned;
That was Bay's idea and in a way I approve with him - had they kept the 'walking toaster' look, I'm not sure the Autobots would have looked realistic. Sure, the fans would've gone all giddy on it but he wanted to make them look as mechanical as possible by adding lots of moving parts. The idea behind, he said in the DVD commentary, was that he wanted to make people believe that every cell of their body was a machine in itself, that their
entire body was alive.
I saw an early ILM animatics movie (as part of a Transformers AMV on YouTube, I must concede) using the old G1 design (and in there, instead of at least thirty or a hundred parts moving at once, there were once six to twelve maximum) and I couldn't help but cringe at how outdated it seemed. For better or for worse, I'm actually quite pleased - and impressed - by the intricate designs. But I get your message - too much detail can spoil your appreciation.
with the more simple faces like the Optimus ones in the first couple of pages, it would've gone a longer way. Felt the same way with Blackout as well. Same with Rachet v01. Mind you, I'm glad they didn't go the old skool route, either. Afterall, the preliminary Megatron sketch... just... isn't... all that...
In the double DVD edition, they showed in the extras that they had to make research and notes on
every face Optimus bore, in each generation, so as to create a 'middle' design. Moreover, as an unspoken homage to Takara (let's not forget that Hasbro took the idea from them BUT created the Transformers universe and story themselves), they wanted to have his face look like that of a samurai - with cheek pads and everything.
As for the early Megatron face (*chuckles*), well, let's be glad Bay actually
listens to the fans, although he's become nearly impervious to flak as he stated himself. The pic got leaked (and at one point his laptop was even
hacked by an over-eager fan who wanted to retrieve the final character names AND movie script) and fans started screaming bloody murder, forcing Ben Procter to backtrack and edit his designs.
It wouldn't be the first time a designer is told his sketches aren't really the next best thing since sliced bread. IIRC, H.R. Giger (the one who created the xenomorph design in
Alien) managed to have Ridley Scott's staff laugh at him when he submitted his idea of chestbuster's appearance....namely some sort of skinny turkey rather than the phallic-looking, armless pink creature that burst out of its host's body. Things like that happen but I think Megatron's final face is quite well-done, as it shows how bestial he is. It comes as no surprise, though, as the animators took inspiration from a gorilla's movements to determine the way he'd move (Starscream was mostly based on bird animations, if my memory serves well and Bonecrusher' moves were inspired by real-life hockey players).
-- Light travels faster than sound: this is the scientific explanation as to why people appear brilliant...that is, until you hear what they have to say.
