TFTM - Optimus Prime Concept Art

Post by **Best First** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:35 pm

Harbx.com has posted an image of Optimus Prime's concept board. This is is a clearer look at what we have already seen, notably teh face details and the weapons...

you can see the image (minus the extr wallpaper bits Harbx.com has added) at Siebertron.com, here:

http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=8341

News care of: www.seibertron.com
original source: www.harbx.com

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:03 pm

When it couldn't get worse... it does.

"Why the long face, Prime?"

Frankly, why?

That gun is soo unrealistic. It could never collapse into that arm. But then, I hardly think this can be made into a toy... Hasbro's designers will get bald really soon from the frustration.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:11 pm

Yeah, that's horrible. Who decided that there needs to be a battle mode, where the faces slightly resemble something coherant, and a standard mode which looks F*CKING RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:13 pm

I guess Bay saw the 'mutant heads' of the first BW toys and said: "Hey, cool! We should do that to Optimus and Megatron too!" Not notticing that there is a reason that concept was axes after the first BW toys...

Post by **Kaylee** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:42 pm

Their faces look very strange- sort of like Megatron's general look of just being a bunch of wires and sharp razory bits stuck together.

The rest of him looks alright, quite Gundamish, how they're going to put much expression on his moosh when he looks like the inside of a cardiac transplant patient though I can't guess.

He needs more armour. First stray pair of wirecutters that come his way will cause awful damage otherwise...

Autobot 420 · Post by **Autobot 420** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:50 pm

Prime looks great. but that face is so weird. why do so many of the TF's look like monkies?

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:12 pm

Karl Lynch wrote:Their faces look very strange- sort of like Megatron's general look of just being a bunch of wires and sharp razory bits stuck together.

The rest of him looks alright, quite Gundamish, how they're going to put much expression on his moosh when he looks like the inside of a cardiac transplant patient though I can't guess.

He needs more armour. First stray pair of wirecutters that come his way will cause awful damage otherwise...

*leans over and cries on Karl's shoulder* It's true! It's all true! Oh God, why? Why???????

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:31 am

I'm not crazy about it.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:45 am

what I dont understand is this big up-roar ws made about them being 'realistic' - these TF designs look like they are more unrealistic then the orginal G1 TF designs - I can imagine lots of lil plates and parts spinning around and into place.

Essentially there is so much on these designs that seems un-realistic - Look at OP 4 panel windscreen? - why would it split into 4 bits? its not to make it 'real' its not because the engineering of the TF dictates it must, its purely cosmetic - there are tiny plates everywhere which are only there to make the TF look good - and I dont belive TF care about these things, im pretty sure its function first, then form.

"Im OP, Today im going to make tiny lil plates on the backs of my legs that make me look cool!"

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:45 pm

Karl Lynch wrote: how they're going to put much expression on his moosh when he looks like the inside of a cardiac transplant patient

Impy wrote:there are tiny plates everywhere which are only there to make the TF look good

...and we wouldn't be here if we didn't think TFs looked good already. So who is this aimed at? If this is what a focus group thinks 'robots' should look like then, I can understand how the designs have been commisioned. However, IMHO a TF isn't just a generic robot, and thats what they're missing here. That could be Voltron, or a Gundam, Power Rangers, or any manga-esque robot.

Why go for the generic? If TFs (as WE know them) are 'different' to what the public expect, surley thats an advantage for a big-budget movie? Especially when Prime is probably the only true pop-culture icon that TFs have generated.

Take the head off and there is no resembalence to anything TF ever.......I just don't understand.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:10 pm

what I mean by looking good is. A normall TF design is goverend by his alt form - these new TF have lots of cosmetic touchs that seem un-realisitc.

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:21 pm

Yeah, thats it. Eliminating any hint of the alt-form is kinda sterilising it of everything transformery.

Ah well. I'm glad I've not tried to avoid all the spoilers. If my first view of this was in the cinema after two years of anticpation I think I'd have had a heart-attack.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:58 pm

I bet the toy takes a million years to transform.

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:42 pm

Scraplet wrote:Yeah, thats it. Eliminating any hint of the alt-form is kinda sterilising it of everything transformery.

Ah well. I'm glad I've not tried to avoid all the spoilers. If my first view of this was in the cinema after two years of anticpation I think I'd have had a heart-attack.

Too true, too true...

I was optimistic when the 'early script' was reviewed, thinking it was fake and all that. But now, I feel we should spread the word that the movie is gonna suck, because, I dare say, not even Spielberg or Zemeckis could make anything good out of that script!

So I will dare say: anyone who wants to read the script, PM me! If the script can be made into common knowledge, more and more people would turn against Bay and maybe stop ***-licking Murphy. Not that I think this would change anything, I just hate to see Bay tell us he's making a fan-movie where he 'listens to fans'.

Yeah, when you'll see what the role and fate of 'Frenzy' is and that Bay was ready to make that ... thing into Soundwave first - and changed it with a flip of his wrist, you gotta wonder where character building went. Down the drain?

He needs more armour. First stray pair of wirecutters that come his way will cause awful damage otherwise...

S

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!

IF

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Bay or, Orci, or the guy who killed Catwoman, had this marvellous idea about the TF's body structure that reminds me of Terminator 2 and what makes putting Ratchet into the movie utterly illogical and needless...

Post by **Kaylee** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:55 pm

I'd be interested to see a potential leaked script. I've nothing better to do.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:45 pm

Me too, even though I've got a lot of better things to do. Or a lot of things that I need to do, at least.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 7:18 pm

That's not Prime.

That's the offspring of Optimus Prime and General Grievous.

Henceforth, movie Prime shall be known as.....

GRIEVOUS PRIME!!!!

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:26 pm

Grievous Prime, classic...

Btw, Prime is still closest to his 'true' persona in the script. Jazz could be renamed Sideswipe or Trailbreaker, you wouldn't notice the difference....

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:17 pm

For Prime to TF from the truck into his new robot form will require loads of pointless psinny plates and stuff - the only reason they would do this in reality was to look good - I expect thats a transformer work with function in mind rather then form.

PM the script please xxx

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:40 am

spiderfrommars wrote:I bet the toy takes a million years to transform.

And I thought 20th Anniversary Prime was bad! Perhaps the toy should be made by Rubick's rather than Hasbro

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:53 pm

The script has some good ideas in it.

However it's also got a lot of shocking things in it. The human characters might as well have been ordered straight out of a catalogue of generic film archetypes (teenage kid, sassy girl, knowledgeable headstrong female, shadowy arrogant secret agent etc.). Things tend to happen because the script says so rather than for any meaningful rationale. None of the Transformers are developed or expanded on other than Decepticons = bad and Autobots = good (they don't even seem to have individual personalities).

That and I can't escape the feeling that various scenes/lines are just... cribbed from elsewhere. Most of Prime's dialogue sounds like a mash of Uncle Ben from Spiderman (or possibly the maker of curry sauces) and Marlon Brando's Ka'lel.

None of Megatron's motives or reasoning is explained other than greed, nor is his presence on Earth.

Finally that drudge involving the energon cube is mad- I'm not even clear on why it's in the film other than to be 'the thing everyone wants and actually gives the film a point'. The glasses bit actually works quite well imo, although the selling on ebay definitely doesn't.

No spoilerinos in there, I was quite careful. If anybody wants to start a spoilery topic though that might be fun

Assuming this script is genuine, and it certainly seems it. It fits perfectly with everything I've heard so far.

In short, the casual fans who watched a few eps of the cartoon and owned the some of the toys (who make up the majority of the TF audience I think) who are expecting lots of fighting and things going bang will be happy. These are the same people who will no doubt cheer at the pure fandrivvel snippets of dialog thrown in... "There's more to this than meets they eye!" for example. F***.

Anyone else I think may be in for a disappointment, the script just doesn't do anything good with the characters or the story. Best frame of mind to view it with I think would be to forget it's meant to be anything to do with TFs and just try and appreciate it for a mindless action flick without disturbing the rice-pudding-skin-thickness plot.

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:44 pm

Karl Lynch wrote:Assuming this script is genuine, and it certainly seems it.

Murphy *puttup* is quite ademant that this is an "early draft" and that we should not put too much relience on it. But, as you said Karl, every spolier so far is right there in the script.

Doesn't say much for the redraft does it

Yeah, lets start a spolier topic

- its getting very hard to inch around these points without saying specific things....you want to start it?

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 4:02 pm

Karl Lynch wrote:
Anyone else I think may be in for a disappointment, the script just doesn't do anything good with the characters or the story. Best frame of mind to view it with I think would be to forget it's meant to be anything to do with TFs and just try and appreciate it for a mindless action flick without disturbing the rice-pudding-skin-thickness plot.

Greatly put, Karl... It's gonna be exactly like that.

At TFW2005, some people are still saying "but Orci and Kurtzman promised they'd change it!" Not realising how hard that'd be. I'll be curious how they'll put some 'characterisation' into the Megatron-BugeyedScream relationship, when they talk to each other, say twice?

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 4:03 pm

I think BBShockwave deserves the honour of starting the topic :3

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 4:23 pm

Karl Lynch wrote:In short, the casual fans who watched a few eps of the cartoon and owned the some of the toys (who make up the majority of the TF audience I think) who are expecting lots of fighting and things going bang will be happy. These are the same people who will no doubt cheer at the pure fandrivvel snippets of dialog thrown in... "There's more to this than meets they eye!" for example. F***.

Anyone else I think may be in for a disappointment, the script just doesn't do anything good with the characters or the story. Best frame of mind to view it with I think would be to forget it's meant to be anything to do with TFs and just try and appreciate it for a mindless action flick without disturbing the rice-pudding-skin-thickness plot.

Well, that sucks. Because there's lots of people out there that just want fighting and things going bang.
Like all the people I know who saw Superman Returns, and were like, "I wanted to see more action and things blowing up". You're saying that these people will be happy.
So I guess the question becomes is it going to be "Masters of the Universe" bad, or "Street Fighter" bad? *Shudder*

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:22 pm

I don't think the studio are quite as dumb as we may have thought- they know the majority of the TF fanbase is very casual, has no real interest in anything too heavy (like plot) and would start crying "Why is Prime so GAY?!" if he did anything vaguely regarding characterisation like self-doubt or addressing insecurities.

Hence they're making a film targetted exactly at that market and with enough leverage to hook the average shmoe cinema goer.

As far as the slightly more highbrow TF enthusiast goes I think we may just be considered acceptable losses against the otherwise potentially high profits such a dumb yet accessible film may deliver.

Shame really. There are some good ideas going on in that script, if only they had a bit more intelligent thought put behind them and a little more exposition on why instead of devoting time to cinematic grandstanding.

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:34 pm

Karl Lynch wrote:I think BBShockwave deserves the honour of starting the topic :3

'Sniff'... Thanks! I feel priviledged!

I started it (after a bit of thinking) in the G1 discussion, even if it's only remotely G1.

http://transfans.tfarchive3.com/phpBB2/ ... 5608#85608

Aaron Hong · Post by **Aaron Hong** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:34 am

Maybe, just maybe, the FBI or someone from higher up are pressing Michael Bay and his people to do a deliberately bad job of it, because they've worked out the underlying message of Transformers - a bunch of soldiers going to another country/world, on one side claiming to liberate the population, on the other side trying to steal their energy. And half the time you can't see them for what they are.

I know two Singapore cents aren't that much, but hey.