TF4 & 5... details from Hasbro, & speculation

[GoktimusPrime]

The first movie, although corny was a great introduction to bringing the franchise into the 21st century. I liked what Bay did with the bots, with their many moving parts and complex transformations that were translated into their toyline.

Yeah, the first movie is my favourite because they kept it relatively simple. It captured the spirit of the G1 cartoon quite well.

The second movie had some great effects

I think on the whole all the movies are visually stunning spectacles. But of course, special effects are nothing more than fancy story telling tool. I prefer movies with less expensive effects but better written stories - like Star Wars: A New Hope (the original version). Produced with a "backyard budget" (by Hollywood standards) it's a pretty good story (it was even formerly studied as an HSC English text (examining the Hero's Journey I believe))! I know most people may prefer Empire or Jedi over Hope, but the sequels were bigger and more expensive productions - I think relative to the amount of money that was spent, A New Hope is a pretty good movie (it gave rise to the entire Star Wars phenomenon after all ).

and introduced many more one-dimensional caricatures

Fix'd. Although the G1 cartoon was guilty of this too (which is why many G1 fans prefer the comics)

The third movie I personally thought did G1 more justice by including several aspects of those stories such as Megs sitting on Abe Lincoln's chair, the ultimate doom story, etc.

All the movies made several references to G1, and the first movie had elements that were similar to G1 too. e.g. Bumblebee befriending the Witwicky boy

With the revival of the franchise that Bay brought, the new Generations line is impressive and the Prime series toyline is looking to be fantastic.

I think saying it was a "revival" is overrated. The franchise was never dead or even in danger of dying when the movie franchise came along. In fact, it was because of the strength of the franchise that prompted Hasbro and Paramount to consider making a live action movie in the first place (cos it'd an awful lot of money to invest into a failing franchise!). The Transformers revival really occured in 1996-97 with the debut of Beast Wars. Since then Transformers has gone from strength to strength.

I would agree that the movie franchise has absolutely given the TF franchise a massive boost (TF toy sales doubled after the first movie came out), but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a "revival" (in my personal opinion anyway).

I'm happy to keep pumping more money into Hasbro's pockets as long as they keep this franchise alive.

Thankfully the TF franchise has never died. Since 1984 there Transformers has always been in production - we've never had a year without Transformers for the past 27 years and I think that's pretty darn awesome. I've been supporting the franchise since it started and I have no intention to stop. So keep 'em rolling Hasbro!

[AJ_Prime]

Perhaps revival wasn't the best word, but Bay definitely increased the awareness of the franchise to a whole new audience. The space dedicated to transformers related toys on shop shelves has also increased somewhat since the movies were released.

This could only have been a good thing for me at least, because I had only started collecting a few months before the movie so my first figures were generations rodimus, starscream and mirage and my hunger for more needed to be satiated...