I really don't like the live action Transformers flicks. I know there are some that would tell me "It's been years, get over it". Well I'm not over it. They sucked when they came out and they still suck now! I'm not going to go into rant mode as to why they're such a chore to watch but I do want to bring up one of the things producers kept saying to fans when the first film was in production. The makers of the film wanted to focus on the human characters because they felt new comers to the series wouldn't understand what the Transformers were and that they would be confused if the movie started with robots talking to robots. I can't help but feel that's just a lazy argument made by producers and marketing morons who think that movie goers are all idiots.
The whole idea that unless you show something people are already familiar with ,they won't get it. There are countless sci-fi movies that open up with all kinds of ideas, places, and characters that aren't familiar to us and they seem to catch on pretty damn well. For example look at Star Wars, when that first movie opens up what do you see? One ship being chased by one big ass ship while they shoot at each other! We don't know that they're called yet or why they're fighting but it's not long till we do find out because it was well made. Next thing ya see, well it's a robot... talking to a smaller robot. Wait there's robots in this that talk? Holy shit my mind can't comprehend this! Least that's what today's movie makers would think. Next thing ya see, Some dudes in helmets with guns waiting for some kind of threat to blast through that door they're all worried about. And sure enough that threat does show up and, what?! Guys in white armor? Why are they wearing that armor? Why are they all shooting each other? And who's this guy in a dark black suit breathing heavy? I don't know who he is but I'm sure he must be a bad guy!
You see what I'm getting at here? Star Wars a movie that was pretty much founded on concepts we've never heard of before became one of the greatest and most recognized things of all time. That you can start a movie with all kinds of strange and unknown things and not treat your audience like they're idiots! Before Star Wars we didn't know what a Jedi ,or the Force, or why anyone would use a sword made out of light but it sure did a good job of introducing us to them. Getting back to Transformers I think it would've been entirely possible to start the movie on Cybertron and focusing on the robots. We all knew what a robot was in 2007 so there's something we could already understand and as the movie would go (if written properly) could've introduced us to all these characters and concepts.
And with these games having such a great story, world, and characters I just can't help but think that THESE stories should've been our movies. Not the shit fest that was Shia LeBouf's quest to get laid in explosion land.
What are your thoughts?
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