The Random Transformers Thoughts Thread

[griffin]

I was watching a bit of the 2019 How to train your Dragon movie on TV tonight, and a scene that had waterfalls with lots of flowing water and mist, had me thinking... just 23 years ago, the Beast Wars cartoon doing water and waterfalls... as Mainframe (like Pixar) was one of the early pioneers of making CGI effects like water, landscapes and curves easier and cheaper to produce.

I remember how amazed us fans were when Beast Wars first started, at this "new" cartoon medium (many of us hadn't seen Reboot, so the Toy Story movie the year before was really the only previous show that was entirely done in CGI), as previous CGI by 1995 was still either very expensive limiting its usage to just special effects in movies, or still too simplistic, leading to programs like Toy Story in 1995 and Reboot in 1994.

Kids these days just won't understand, how much the CGI landscape has changed... just look at computer games - remember the Beast Wars computer game in 1996, which was supposed to be a real form of 3D animation. Now computer games and virtual reality games have evolved even more than CGI cartoons.

[1AZRAEL1]

Computer graphics have come a long way. I remember playing Ski Free and Scorched Earth on MS DOS in 1991 and we all thought it was the bees knees. And Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. Almost 30 years later playing VR games and being visually and audibly immersive. Didn't watch Reboot. But I guess we're in a unique position to see how far it has all come in 30 years

[DELTAprime]

I remember when I bought the Bluray box set of the Fox Xmen movies and the CG in those early movies was terrible by today's standards. I'm betting that the CG in the early Bayverse movies will hold up better though, provided you watch at the mastered resolution of 1080p.

[Autocon]

They've done a reboot sequel series on netflix.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

This kind of came up on a twitter feed I was looking at where people were heralding T2 as being the last good "non-cg" movie. Despite the fact it was groundbreaking with the melting terminator and his reflecting morphing. It got me thinking also about how revolutionary the face morphing in Michael Jackson's Black & White video clip was at the time as well. It made the news for being groundbreaking, and extremely expensive to do.
No I can download a free app for a device in pocket that does the same thing, but better.

I think it's amazing how much technology had advanced, but often think about the things my grandparents must have seen as well. Born in the 1910s, they must have seen some amazing advancements too.

I think Beast wars (Season 2 onwards) looks pretty good even today.

[Paulbot]

This kind of came up on a twitter feed I was looking at where people were heralding T2 as being the last good "non-cg" movie.

What?! Is this like a youth thing? T2 was the film that made CGI in movies a thing!

[Sinnertwin]

Perhaps it was T1? Couldn't have been T2 as Paulbot noted above.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Perhaps it was T1? Couldn't have been T2 as Paulbot noted above.

Nerp definitely T2. It was bizarre! People going on about the greatness of the the truck chase scene etc. Later in the thread the Mercury Terminator was brought up. But yikes. Maybe they thought it was claymation

[Thurmus]

I remember The Abyss being the first movie everyone raved about CG on. T2 was the one they said took it to another level and made it indistinguishable from real life.

I still think the best looking is when they do as much as possible with real people, things and effects and fill out the rest or accentuate with CG.

[Paulbot]

There is nothing in the trailer for Michael Bay’s new film Ambulance that precludes it being a stealth Ratchet solo movie. It may be enjoyable to watch with that assumption: https://youtu.be/jZ7Wyb1rdG4