Why are the movies so criticised for not being 'G1-accurate'?

[Ralph Wiggum]

This is very, very different from the way that he's portrayed in the sequels where he is far more driven by anger, vengeance and hate. In RotF and DotM Optimus Prime executes prisoners of war... that's a war crime! In AoE he threatens to murder a human being (Attinger), although ultimately he does end up killing him in the heat of combat in order to save Cade Yeager. He even threatens Joshua Joyce (who defiantly dares Optimus Prime to carry out his threat). The sequels show an Optimus Prime who is willing to kill or consider killing others because of his rage and hate. Optimus Prime in the first movie was the antithesis of this, only killing when engaging enemy combatants (no executions of helpless individuals), and he explicitly showed lament and remorse for his actions later. There is no time to second-guess yourself in the middle of a fight, that'd just get you killed.

This is probably why I disliked OP's portrayal in the sequels. Seeing him transition to a yelly screamy "I'll kill you!" cold blooded executioner was a complete opposite to how he was portayed in the first movie and cartoons. I know the movies are meant to be more 'mature' and 'darker' but the sequels went way overboard and lost complete sight of the spirit of Transformers. The visual portrayal and designs of the characters was insignificant compared to the misfired characterisation of some of the characters.

I'm hopefully optimistic of The Last Knight as the previous writer (Ehren Kruger) will not return.

[drifand]

Is not about being g1 not g1 for me.

Is the load of unnecessary stuff that is added explaining what they are made off.
Poor character development other than prime and Megatron, humans get more focused than the bots.

For me is mainly the story telling isn't great after the first two movies, changing the actors played part of destroying the story as well.

When I watch the current marvel movies, they are all quite well done.

I have no issues with Megatron not bring a gun, I think that's fine.

[Magnus]

Trukk not munky is a top example. I mean, it's not even the same character and yet you still hear it thrown around, 20 years later!. One of the biggest laughs I've had recently was a guy on another board announcing he was going to sell his entire collection because Masterpiece Optimus Primal was announced. Apparently Masterpiece was for G1 characters only and with Primal's arrival, the line was no longer worth anything to him. What. The. Hell???

Was that guy trolling or otherwise being sarcastic? Because if he wasn't, that's kind of sad. Whatever happened to just not buying something you didn't want?

There are heaps of examples. It's why TFWiki has a dedicated entry for "Ruined Forever" because that expression it thrown around so often

Good point - I've read that page on a few occasions

I think the reason was that people thought the movie should have been based on what they think Transformers "is", and for those fans Transformers is the G1 toys/cartoon.

And that's also true for a big chunk of the audience for the movie who wouldn't know what a maximal, vehicon, a mini-con or a cyber planet key was, but would go see the movie based on memories of G1.

The movie used lots of elements from G1 but very superficially in most cases. If the movie had used new character names those complaints that Ratchet was green or Barricade wasn't a purple race car (a huge stretch that one but people make it) would have gone away. Instead people would have complained that there were new characters it the movie instead of the characters they "knew".

I think the difference is that us long time fans have been through X number of different versions of Optimus Prime or Megatron or whoever.... but all the normal people who liked transformers in the 80's just rocked up to the movie and went "what the hell???""

so we were used to the changes.... but the rest of the population wasn't.

To be fair, nostalgic thirty-somethings were a key part of the target audience; that's how Peter Cullen got cast as Optimus. Still, I can't help but wonder how many of them were active in the fan community and therefore would know that Transformers has already undergone several changes by then.

I think it was generally understood that the movies would be G1-inspired, but surely fans who had kept even a casual eye on Transformers would know that there would be changes.

And yes it happened in other series too. Anytime a G1 name gets reused for a new toy or character people complain if it isn't a perfect G1 homage. See RID Grimlock, Aramda's Laserbeak, Wheeljack, Sideswipe, Energon's Mirage, and so on and so on.

This is what I was wondering. I wasn't active in the fan community when these shows were out, so I had no idea if those shows were likewise criticised for their 'un-G1-ness'. Thanks for the answer!

That said, The movie makers explanation for why is totally logical. They said that using a Cab Over truck for optimus just does not have enough mass... have you actually locked at a truck? they are Empty Boxes on a metal frame! How do you hide all the robot parts? Same for Ratchet.... Looked inside an ambulance? they are huge empty boxes!

For this reason, use the bulkiest vehicles you can and ad some realism to this imaginary made up universe!

Yeah, that makes sense. Bigger truck = bigger robot.

It also explains why movieverse Starscream looks the way he does, with his wide chest: because an F-22A Raptor is bigger than any car, he has to fold and expand out so he's not ludicrously huge compared to the Autobots.

[CoRDS]

What irked me about it was that it was hard to tell who was who, there was just a mess of moving metal in many of the action scenes, i think it was the lack of hard colour from the way cartoons are drawn to how they decided to make them look on film. on film they really do look like giant robots with wires and gears and big chunks of metal all doing things. whereas in the cartoons were so simplistic in their depictions.

I am perfectly happy with every different existence of transformers being well different. that said if they made a live action G1 style movie id be all over it (only if they keep the characters personality's correct)

[Smint]

People just have a fondness for G1 because it started the craze and they grew up with G1. That's all really. Obviously if you're a old time fan you'd love to see a movie version of G1 Optimus but what we got with the movie and characters are so, so, so far from it.

I really dont mind if the transformers movies are not based on G1. I just want to watch a good movie. I'm just not someone that enjoys watching transformer testicles, transformers urinating and Ken Jeong acting like a psychopath. The way Bay pulls it off, it just comes off as juvenile but obviously there are fans of this stuff.

Honestly, there's more personality in Ken Jeong's character than 99% of the Transformers. That's sad.

[millhouse]

The biggest issue I have with the film series as, as noted above, the sheer amount of detail in robot modes, leaving every Transformer looking similarly messy and difficult to identify. Characters aren't particularly well developed and are so similar (given the fast moving scenes) that you can't really identify characters by style, design or traits, leaving things like their deaths (for example) undercooked.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I can understand the rationale behind the character designs truth be told: G1 designs were blocky and wouldn't translate to screen. The look was alien first, Earth based second.

Taken from Wiki:

The filmmakers created the size of each robot with the size of their vehicle mode in mind, supporting the Transformer's rationale for their choice of disguise on Earth. The concept of traveling protoforms was developed by Roberto Orci when he wondered why "aliens who moonlight as vehicles need other vehicles to travel". This reflected a desire to move to a more alien look, away from the "blocky" Generation 1 Transformers. Another major influence in the designs was samurai armor, returning full-circle to the Japanese origins of the toy line. The robots also had to look alien, or else they would have resembled other cinematic robots made in the image of man.

Also the whole "whatdafuq-is-happening-on-screen" problem was partly due to Bay's, imo, first-go at directing giant robots on screen. In Transformers 1, much of the action was filmed quite close, almost from the POV of the humans, which resulted in the bots filling up most of the screen and making things hard to work out. In subsequent movies, Bay utilizes a lot more wider frames to allow for full-body shots of the bots.

[Smint]

I can understand the rationale behind the character designs truth be told: G1 designs were blocky and wouldn't translate to screen. The look was alien first, Earth based second.

I hear this defense a lot but i dont accept it. As filmmakers they have the power to create the universe the characters inhabit. A good example of this is Brian Singer's Xmen and the Marvel movies. Colourful comic book Xmen wouldnt fit in Singer's movies because he created this "grounded, reality" movie version. Back in 2000 the excuse was the same: the costumes wouldnt translate to the screen (Ignoring the fact that Superman wore his costume in the 1970's movie).
Captain America's costume shouldnt work yet how can you imagine him without his costume now?

Singer built his universe and made a version of the XMen that fits in it. Marvel did it the other way around and molded the universe around the character, which i think is how to properly translate a comic or book to a movie.

If they can have the general audience accept the look of the alien proto form, which frankly looks awful, then theres no reason why they cant create a movie with the more traditional look. They just need the foresight and vision to do so which obviously seems lacking.

[GoktimusPrime]

The first movie was the one with most of the "blurry" action and that's because of the way that Bay shot the scenes - as Ralph Wiggum said, from the POV of humans watching giants fighting each other at high speed... yeah, it's gonna look blurry and messy. Real fights look messy, a real fight from a POV of an insect is going to look even more chaotic. While I understand that this can look confusing, it does lend a significant air of realism to the visual aesthetic of the fight scenes, and also importantly, a palatable reminder to the audience that these are "Giant Effing Robots." No other Transformers medium quite conveys this awesome sense of scale as Bay's movies can -- for all the flaws in the live action movies, one thing that I've got to give him credit for is that he does know how to make visual spectacles.

The action in the sequels are relatively less messy looking because that's when Bay started filming with IMAX and 3D cameras, which often encourage directors to use wider shots (in order to fill wider cinema screens). Although the sequels were progressively worse as stories, they were visually incredible. The forest battle in Revenge of the Fallen has got to be one of the most epic fight sequences ever choreographed in Transformers. The moment when Prime yells, "I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!" and goes to town on the unrelenting Decepticon assault gives me goosebumps! It's scenes like this which make Bay's movies feel like a cinematic roller coaster.

I think part of the reason why the Decepticons are hard to tell apart is because of the choice of alt modes which don't lend a wide palette of colours to work off. Military vehicles are, realistically, going to have a more limited range of colours. You're not going to get a jet in hot rod red or a tank in canary yellow etc. The Constructicons had a more varied colour combination (and I actually prefer their colours over the G1 Constructicons; in essence their colours were more reminiscent of the spirit of Diaclone Devastator's colours). Age of Extinction's Decepticons were more distinctive as their colours were based on civilian vehicles.

What's that? Still can't tell the AoE Decepticons (and Dinobots) apart? Ah, now here comes the main reason why they're so hard to tell apart -- absolute lack of personalities. The Autobots don't have much personality in the films, mostly being shallow caricatures rather than characters, but most of the Decepticons are much worse as they're not even caricatures. They're set pieces. So were the Dinobots. We know absolutely nothing about most of the Movieverse Decepticons as "people."

You can have near-identical characters that the audience can still emotionally link with if the character has a distinctive personality, and this is what most of the Bayformers lack. Look at "Sonny" from 'I, Robot.' He looks identical as other robots of the same make/model in the film (except when they go evil and switch eye colour ), but the audience is able to identify and relate to Sonny because of his distinctive personality. Heck, even Wall-E has loads more personality than most Bayformers and he hardly speaks!

People just have a fondness for G1 because it started the craze and they grew up with G1. That's all really. Obviously if you're a old time fan you'd love to see a movie version of G1 Optimus but what we got with the movie and characters are so, so, so far from it.

I really dont mind if the transformers movies are not based on G1. I just want to watch a good movie. I'm just not someone that enjoys watching transformer testicles, transformers urinating and Ken Jeong acting like a psychopath. The way Bay pulls it off, it just comes off as juvenile but obviously there are fans of this stuff.

Honestly, there's more personality in Ken Jeong's character than 99% of the Transformers. That's sad.

^This.

Fans may be initially hesitant when faced with a new concept, but if the concept is any good, then the majority of the fandom will come to accept and embrace it. Just look at Beast Wars. When BW first came out it faced a mountain of criticism and animosity from fans, with many crying, "Trukk Not Munky" and "Ruined Forever!" when news of it first came out. But soon fans started realising how awesome Beast Wars was. The toys proved to be amazing, and then when the show came out it gave us something completely spectacular and one of the best Transformers stories ever written. If I had to list the top 3 Transformers continuities, I would say:
1: IDW G1
2: Marvel G1
3: Beast Wars
That's how highly I would rate it. I wouldn't rate Bayformers anywhere near there. 20 years later many fans look back at Beast Wars with great fondness, and many more are eagerly anticipating the BW MP figures. How do Bayformer fans feel 9 years on?

Those of us who grew up with G1 in the 80s were in high school or uni when BW came out, so we were able immediately appreciate the more advanced story telling and adult humour embedded in the story. But I find it interesting when I hear younger fans talk about watching BW again as adults and noticing the higher levels of writing that flew over their heads as kids. This is what a good enduring quality story should look like. Not something that you just enjoy today, but something you'll continue to enjoy tomorrow. The live action movies really feel like they're not designed for any greater enjoyment other than being in the cinema. Michael Bay is an excellent "bums on seats" director... he draws massive crowds to flock to cinemas and each movie is a box office smash. But how do they fare after the box office run is finished? A good story is one that you never get sick of watching/reading (like say, the Original Star Wars Trilogy ). Watching the live action movies, especially the sequels, feels like a chore to me. I find them really hard to watch from start to finish without pause... and there are so many cringeworthy scenes that I just keep skipping through (like that stupid "Romeo & Juliet Law" scene in AoE... I wish that were it's own chapter on the DVD so that I could entirely skip it, but it's not, so I just hit fast forward every time it comes on).

I hear this defense a lot but i dont accept it. As filmmakers they have the power to create the universe the characters inhabit. A good example of this is Brian Singer's Xmen and the Marvel movies. Colourful comic book Xmen wouldnt fit in Singer's movies because he created this "grounded, reality" movie version. Back in 2000 the excuse was the same: the costumes wouldnt translate to the screen (Ignoring the fact that Superman wore his costume in the 1970's movie).
Captain America's costume shouldnt work yet how can you imagine him without his costume now?

Ever tried doing a Transformers Cosplay? Cos I gotta tell ya, those traditional blocky G1 designs are NOT easy to move around in! In a photorealistic movie, slavish G1 designs would make the Transformers look like Power Rangers Zords. Having said that, they didn't have to be that alien (and adding beards and other weird body/facial features flies against making the Transformers look alien). Perhaps something more like the general aesthetic of some of the Pacific Rim Jaegers might be better, as it seems to strike a better balance between Japanese Mecha & photorealism to me. Of course, the Jaegers were man made, so it would make more sense for the Transformers to look a bit more otherworldly. But yeah, some of the Transformers in the sequels looks just cartoonishly goofy... like Drift.

[Jaxius._]

I for one enjoyed the first 3. If you go in not expecting your 100% Pure G1 accurate! Even Wheelie is a little orange sh*t you remember then they are good!

The fourth though was the weakest (well next to ROTF) and i was peeved that the Dinobots got little screentime