Technically, that one is still true. Look at how much they space out the Dinobots or Insecticons when they release them. At regular retail, non-core class, Devastator would probably take a couple years to complete.
April Fools! Real Transformers developments that would have seemed fake years earlier
- Thread starter Rufus
- Start date
Technically, that one is still true. Look at how much they space out the Dinobots or Insecticons when they release them. At regular retail, non-core class, Devastator would probably take a couple years to complete.
True. But I was just trying to underscore the types of conversations that were going on back then, as relates to the (then-very-unlikely) prospect of any type of new Devastator. Yes, we got one in a set, which is probably the smart way to do it. But the fact remains that we got one at all, and it still feels miraculous.
I miss those combiner sets!
Oh I get it, and while most of them were debunked, even if true at the time; its just my autism made me want to point out how that one was still a factor in how how Hasbro operates.
I knew we had been getting a lot of things lately that had seemed impossible before, but seeing them all laid out like this really makes me realize how much has changed from 20 years ago when I first got back into collecting (excuse me while I go crumble into dust upon contemplating how old I am).
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Me a few years ago: I bet that random Minerva Headmaster Takara did with their God Ginrai giftset is the closest we'll ever get to a new Minerva toy.
Me now, with my Walgreens-exclusive Minerva figure: Well...jive.
Me now, with my Walgreens-exclusive Minerva figure: Well...jive.
Please teach me how you got them to do that.
For some of us in places like Japan, some of those toys ARE still "jokes" as Takara hasn't sold them here yet.
Just waiting for Legacy to announce this guy...
Otherwise, I guess he'll be the new patron saint of "Ain't Never Gonna Happen."
Otherwise, I guess he'll be the new patron saint of "Ain't Never Gonna Happen."
Do they sell him pre-printed, sanded and painted?
Kind of tying this back to the first post, but…
What about a live action Transformers movie at all?
Not only a live action film, but one with a REAL budget, with a respected action director and story faithful to the brand? AND produced by Steven “I’ve-made-some-of-the-best-movies-of-all-time” Spielberg?!
Go back to 2002, if you had said that Steven Spielberg was making a Transformers film that was faithful to the ethos and mythology of the brand, who would believe you? Not only that, but who would believe that film would be SO successful as to justify pretty much everything we’ve mentioned in this thread?
To me, the first live action film is THE April Fool’s joke that came true.
What about a live action Transformers movie at all?
Not only a live action film, but one with a REAL budget, with a respected action director and story faithful to the brand? AND produced by Steven “I’ve-made-some-of-the-best-movies-of-all-time” Spielberg?!
Go back to 2002, if you had said that Steven Spielberg was making a Transformers film that was faithful to the ethos and mythology of the brand, who would believe you? Not only that, but who would believe that film would be SO successful as to justify pretty much everything we’ve mentioned in this thread?
To me, the first live action film is THE April Fool’s joke that came true.
To me, the whole movie franchise (with the possible exception of The BB film) was a huge, unfunny joke, made by someone beneath even the most modicum of respect.
You lost me when you said "respected action director and story faithful to the brand".
Well, at the time, Bay was known for Armageddon (which ran about 20 minutes too long, but was much more hopeful than the more critically acclaimed Deep Impact)*, The Rock (which I've not heard anything bad about) and making a movie about Pearl Harbor that actually did well in the Japanese market (the distributor played up the romance plot angle).
As for your second point, as I said on Livejournal back in 2007 (which Livejournal was a thing), the basic frame of Generation 1 is there in the first live action film, if hard to spot amidst the EXPLOSIONS! and the exposed-pistons-and-lots-of-tiny-blade-plates aesthetic. Optimus Prime (still a big red Trukk) is on Earth against Megatron (a different style of bucket-helmet, but he's got one) and Starscream (silver jet) trying to retrieve an artifact that gives life to machines (Vector Sigma, anyone?). Along the way a small yellow Autobot car befriends a human boy.
Also, and perhaps more importantly, the first film got back to basics and had fun, something that had been... not entirely absent from Transformers fiction since mid-2002, but arguably overshadowed by the cross-continuity metaplot of "Unicron is trying to eat the Omniverse!".
I think sometimes we forget that; which is not surprising considering how bizarre, mean-spirited, and self-contradictory and self-parodying in their plot pile-ups the sequels became, but the first film was as much of a brand reinvigoration as RiD (2001) was, for much the same reasons.
*Also, said film was supposed to have marked an American career launch for Japanese singer Seiko Matsuda (who has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it part), but for various reasons that never happened as Sony planned....
I will grant that at the time, the prospect of any kind of live action Transformers film was improbable and became very exciting. I will even go so far as to say that Michael Bay seemed like a reasonable-enough action film director to take a stab at the Transformers brand. And on first blush, yes, it does appear to hit the broad strokes of the general G1 source material: alien robots crashing on earth, big red trucks and little yellow cars fighting mostly-military vehicles, etc.). But for me, it still feels like The Transformers were background characters in their own film.
There were lots of explosions and shots of GMC vehicles driving around (and expensive military hardware being flung about), sure. But IMO, the movie really did not invest in the core characters enough for them to feel like anything more than props. I get that there has to be some human tie-in to make them relatable, but the focus was more on them than the robots that we were supposed to care about.
Anyway, yes, the time surrounding the development and eventual release of the first live-action film was exciting. It was a fun time to be a part of the fandom. Even though the film was disappointing to me, it did usher in an era of greater visibility for the brand, and I have enjoyed a lot of the residual effects of that.
There were lots of explosions and shots of GMC vehicles driving around (and expensive military hardware being flung about), sure. But IMO, the movie really did not invest in the core characters enough for them to feel like anything more than props. I get that there has to be some human tie-in to make them relatable, but the focus was more on them than the robots that we were supposed to care about.
Anyway, yes, the time surrounding the development and eventual release of the first live-action film was exciting. It was a fun time to be a part of the fandom. Even though the film was disappointing to me, it did usher in an era of greater visibility for the brand, and I have enjoyed a lot of the residual effects of that.
It's true. I thought the first movie was "ok." I enjoyed it for the most part, even though I wasn't crazy about the designs and thought that it definitely could have used some better plotting/editing, but I still had some hope that the franchise as a whole could end up middling to decent.
The second movie was much, much worse. The fact that it was made during the writers' strike and Michael Bay was more-or-less allowed to make up a script as he went was painfully obvious.
Still, though, Transformers on the Big Screen was still something I wanted to support, so when the third movie came out, I went to it, too. It was better, I felt, than Revenge of the Fallen, though that was a bar so low that it can't even be seen from sea level without the aid of powerful telescopes.
Age of Extinction I didn't really expect to be good. I ended up going to it while killing some free time I had out of town on a business trip. I regretted it.
The Last Knight I still haven't seen.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Of the five films under Bay's tenure, the first one is the one that most consider to be the most decent or most competently made. But when one takes a good hard look at it, it becomes clear that it really feels like at least two separate films mashed together.
On the one hand, you've got a military intrigue film about the U.S. Army facing an unknown enemy threat that has the Pentagon stumped enough to call in outside help from young analysts and hackers, while a small band of soldiers are on the run for their lives.
And on the other hand, you've got a whimsical coming-of-age film about a boy getting his first car in hopes of impressing the girl he has a crush on, and his car turns out to actually be an extraordinary being from outer space, who helps the boy get the girl and takes them both on a life-changing, whirlwind adventure.
...And somewhere in there, you've got a Transformers film with Autobots and Decepticons coming to Earth from Planet Cybertron and fighting each other over the AllSpark. This was used as the glue that helped tie those other two films together, but still really feels like Bay wanted to make the military intrigue film while Spielberg wanted him to make the coming-of-age film instead. Thus, the end result feels like a mashed-together compromise.
Consequently, because the film needed to hurriedly bring everyone together in its final act, some parts of this mashed-together compromise feel really underdeveloped. The aforementioned hacker subplot with Maggie and Glen gets hastily interrupted by having the two of them arrested and locked in an interrogation room for nearly the entirety of the film's second act, all to give more room to the other ongoing plot threads and to introduce yet another one whose inclusion felt really unfinished: Sector Seven. They just show up out of nowhere halfway through the movie to interrupt it for a while, only getting things back on track when they're suddenly used to bring all of the separate casts of characters together at Hoover Dam.
Sector Seven's inclusion might have felt more natural if there had been at least one scene earlier to foreshadow their arrival at the Witwicky home. Like, when Maggie and Glen are arrested, maybe show Simmons and Banacheck watching their arrest from afar, wearing their suits and sunglasses all mysterious-like. This would make us wonder about who the two of them are, so that when they both show up again later and formally introduce themselves to the Witwicky household and John Keller, respectively, the two of them and the secret organization they work for wouldn't have felt as randomly-inserted midway into the movie as they did.
On the one hand, you've got a military intrigue film about the U.S. Army facing an unknown enemy threat that has the Pentagon stumped enough to call in outside help from young analysts and hackers, while a small band of soldiers are on the run for their lives.
And on the other hand, you've got a whimsical coming-of-age film about a boy getting his first car in hopes of impressing the girl he has a crush on, and his car turns out to actually be an extraordinary being from outer space, who helps the boy get the girl and takes them both on a life-changing, whirlwind adventure.
...And somewhere in there, you've got a Transformers film with Autobots and Decepticons coming to Earth from Planet Cybertron and fighting each other over the AllSpark. This was used as the glue that helped tie those other two films together, but still really feels like Bay wanted to make the military intrigue film while Spielberg wanted him to make the coming-of-age film instead. Thus, the end result feels like a mashed-together compromise.
Consequently, because the film needed to hurriedly bring everyone together in its final act, some parts of this mashed-together compromise feel really underdeveloped. The aforementioned hacker subplot with Maggie and Glen gets hastily interrupted by having the two of them arrested and locked in an interrogation room for nearly the entirety of the film's second act, all to give more room to the other ongoing plot threads and to introduce yet another one whose inclusion felt really unfinished: Sector Seven. They just show up out of nowhere halfway through the movie to interrupt it for a while, only getting things back on track when they're suddenly used to bring all of the separate casts of characters together at Hoover Dam.
Sector Seven's inclusion might have felt more natural if there had been at least one scene earlier to foreshadow their arrival at the Witwicky home. Like, when Maggie and Glen are arrested, maybe show Simmons and Banacheck watching their arrest from afar, wearing their suits and sunglasses all mysterious-like. This would make us wonder about who the two of them are, so that when they both show up again later and formally introduce themselves to the Witwicky household and John Keller, respectively, the two of them and the secret organization they work for wouldn't have felt as randomly-inserted midway into the movie as they did.
I don't think it necessarily hurts the first film that the robots are largely in the background. It helps establish the concept. When Frenzy is completely surrounded by police cars and he just hops into one of them and rides off, it's a good twist that only works because the camera hasn't been following Barricade around on his adventures beforehand.