Yup.

I know everyone rags on Bay but he's clearly the best at what he does, better than Emmerich, Sommers and whomever else they want to get. Maybe if they could get James Cameron to do the next Transformers but other than that I don't see them being huge blockbusters.

Bay is excellent at making movies look expensive - he's an absolute pro at spectacle and he does make trash scripts more-or-less watchable.

He's probably the best director of bad (though occasionally entertaining) movies out there.

I think McG would be a decent choice as well. Not for story telling, but he seems to have a good eye for action. I thought Terminator Salvation had some solid action, particularly that chase scene with the Terminator bikes.

@whoopdido The Fallen wasn't a new character, actually. He first appeared in IDW's Transformers: Titanium before the first live action movie was released. But that aside, you're right in that they'll need new Decepticons. As a longtime Shockwave fan, I was disappointed by him being so peripheral in this film. I was hoping to see him go stone-cold gangsta. Like, I wanted the first shot of the movie to be him executing Megatron and taking over as the new leader and then show us the Paramount mountain. I'm not a fan of Monday morning quarterbacking, but Ehren Kruger should have called me.

As for the future director, I would think Zack Snyder has to be a consideration depending on how Man of Steel fares and whether he's committed to that series. The Transformers movies aren't an opportunity for nuanced, art house-type storytelling. They're a massive production that requires someone who can execute the game plan efficiently and that really seems to be Snyder's strength.

Another possibility, since it's likely Spielberg will continue to produce the series, might be Joe Johnson, whom he entrusted with Jurassic Park III ten years ago. Johnson's background is in effects, so that's got to be in his favor, right?

I didn't know that. I didn't watch any Transformers other than the G1 series.

FWIW he was referencing a comic story, not a new animated series.

I didn't know it, either, until I heard the writers say so on the ROTF Blu-ray. Then I looked it up to see if he had appeared in the Marvel Comics that I read as a kid, thinking maybe I had forgotten him, and I discovered he wasn't nearly that old. Those comics really established the most important template for the entire mythology in that leadership and characters were transient in a way that they weren't on the TV show. Grimlock led the Autobots for quite some time (and wasn't at all the buffoon he was in animation), for instance.

There's no shortage of characters to consider for the next film/trilogy. And, really, let's face it: few of these characters have really represented what I think most of us think of when we think of the characters so all they really need are names. I had no idea until I saw the credits on IMDb that the Autobot Que was supposed to be Wheeljack (credit reads "Que/Wheeljack"). I always liked Wheeljack and kept hoping he'd appear in these movies. Then he did, and I was entirely unaware.

You know, I saw the movie with my brother and wife this weekend (saw it solo the first time) and it was much better the second time around. I even saw it in 3D just to experience it, and it was easily the best 3D movie I'd ever seen. Including Avatar. The plot stuff that annoyed me (mostly the job interviews and job scenes) went by much faster, and the whole thing just seemed to move a bit better. I'd bump it up to "good" and still easily the best of the three, no question.

Plus the action just never gets old...so impressive. Especially the wing-suits, which is one of my favorite action scenes of recent memory. Diving out of the plane while everything crashes around them is simply incredible.

Still like the first one better but it was nowhere near the shit sandwich of the second. I give it a C.

Touché!

So you wan't the movies to go from dreadfully unfunny (Bay) to dreadfully boring (Snyder)? Seems like a latteral move to me.

I loved Grimlock in the comics because he was all about survival of the fittest and he was only subservient to Optimus Prime so long as Optimus could best him in battle. In a weird way, it was similar to the Starscream/Megatron dynamic.

At least Wheeljack had actual screentime and wasn't just a cadaver like he was in the '86 movie.

Oh and Dino (the Ferrari) was supposed to be Mirage.

@MinLShaw If you use twitter-style referencing again I'll kill you!

Didn't say what I wanted. Just that Snyder seems capable of handling a production of this scale, and that his resume suggests he wouldn't consider Transformers beneath him.

The entire tone of those Marvel Comics was markedly different from the animated series. I felt like I was privy to the "truth" of some kind.

Point.

It was easier than quoting spoiler'd text for the reply and...you know, I don't even feel like defending myself on this one. You wanna kill me over it, go ahead. I'll add it to my ongoing list of crimes against humanity.

Yeah I didn't read any comics. I've seen (but probably can't remember most) every episode of the original series and the movie of course and then the latest 3 live action movies. The live action movies sort of tried to tie in with the original G1 series but took a lot of liberties especially with the names and appearance of numerous Transformers. Take Ironhide for example. He was very distinguishable in the cartoons but I swear to God...he's been in all 3 movies and I have no idea what he looks like. I couldn't even pick Starscream out of a lineup and he was one of the most recognizable of all the G1 transformers. Same with Soundwave.

The biggest problem I had with all 3 live action movies is that I simply couldn't tell the transformers apart. I mean I KNOW what Starscream, Megatron, Soundwave, Shockwave and Ironhide look like, but honest to God if you put those 5 transformers in a line and asked me to identify each one there's no way in Hell I'd be able to do it and I've seen the first 2 movies multiple times and will eventually watch the third one multiple times--I'm a fan. Honestly, the only 2 I could I would bet my life on that I could identify would be Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. That's it.

By the way, would you mind telling me how Grimlock came to be the leader of the Autobots? Honestly, other than Prime, he's BY FAR my favorite Transformer. I agree that he was a complete and utter buffoon in the original series, but I still loved him. I would have loved him even more if he was actually a leader type and not an idiot like he was in the original. The Grimlock I know couldn't walk and talk at the same time so it's interesting that he could lead all of the Autobots. And where was Prime when Grimlock was in charge?

I know what you mean. I could probably identify most of the Autobots that actually spoke more than one or two lines. Of the Decepticons, I could pick out Megatron, Starscream, Frenzy, Ravage, Lazerbeak and Shockwave. Scorponok, too, and maybe Soundwave. Now, if you gave me just head shots of these guys, all bets are off.



Issue #24. Cover should answer both questions.

Ok so did he become super smart like that one episode where something happened to him (can't remember what exactly) but he got super smart and created his own transformers--I think they were called the technobots or did he just assume power because he was the strongest even though he was still his old dumb dinobot self?

Grimlock was never dumb in the comics. Just very aggressive. However, I don't think he built the Technobots in the comics. It's been a while so I'm not sure who did.

Ok...so the comics didn't necessarily follow the cartoon exactly?

In the cartoon Grimlock started out like you'd think a dinosaur would be...he was a big, brutish, lumbering aggressive dude that wouldn't listen to anybody.

I think pretty much starting with the movie and then into the third season he became a bumbling, blithering idiot that would just kind of stomp around and accidentally break things. He was like a 10 ton kid that didn't know any better. Except in one episode he got shocked or something and became super smart. His voice changed and he used big words and was suddenly the smartest of them all. I can't remember why exactly, but he created the technobots that transformed into Superion. Then somehow he lost his super smartness and went back to being a bumbling fool. Like I said, I never watched or read anything else beyond the third season of the original cartoon so I don't know what they did with him after that.

Also, what happened to the thread title?

Yeah, I remember that from the cartoon. He'd say "I, Grimlock" rather than "me, Grimlock".

The comics and the show were very different. For instance, Arcee was the first female Autobot and she was built because they were trying to better understand human gender distinctions. They'd get weirded out if people tried to identify them as male. At least, that's how it was in the UK comics. The US and UK comics also went in divergent paths from one another, in like manner to how they diverged from the cartoon continuity.

The comics were great.

I have the entire series run, and keep telling myself I'm going to read thru them. I just keep stopping around #40

But it's the funny Asian guy from The Hangover!

You know, when watching the movie I became apprehensive that the entire Sam-looking-for-work subplot was going to be bigger than it was. Before it became tedious, though, Lazerbeak showed up and that was that. I will concede, though, that I think Malkovich and Jeong could have been consolidated into a singular character. There's really no reason that Sam couldn't have been hired by a guy with key information who wanted to put it in Sam's hands.

But would that character have boxed Bumblebee?

I think not.

What's even sadder about Jeong's and Malkovich's characters is that they're clearly Michael Bay's response to the negative fan reaction over the fact that Leo was meant to return in DOTM and have an even bigger role than he did in ROTF.

I can't believe this thread has been derailed from appreciating an artistic cinematic masterpiece based on giant, talking robots to having discussions about a juvenile, long forgotten comics and cartoons series based on those same giant, talking robots.