Revenge of the Fallen Toys comments/discussion

[GoktimusPrime]

I'm not too fond of the movie aesthetic when it's applied to transforming toys-it works on screen, but not so much in plastic transforming form.

I can understand your sentiment.

You're right, it's a very difficult concept to "translate" into toys. Transformers are traditionally engineered as toys first, then artists and animators adapt them into comic books and cartoons - it seldomly works the other way around. And in the case of the movie, it's even harder because of the aesthetics used in the movie. For example, the CGI model of Optimus Prime has 10,108 individual parts, 1,830,898 polygons, 27,744 rig nodes and 2336 texture maps. The volume of all pieces combined came to 153 cubic metres! And like you said, it looks fantastic on screen - which is what it was intended for. The movie designers aren't toy designers (obviously).

So really, HasTak has to do the best with what they've got. With that in mind, I think they did a pretty good job with most toys - and disappointingly with others. The Leaders could've been done better if Hasbro hadn't insisted on them having electronic gimmicks (meaning that the torsos must be blocks, limiting the engineering). But even with that limitation I thought the leaders were reasonably well done - particularly Optimus Prime. There were some disappointments here and there... Scorponok was a complete WAFTAM as a Deluxe action figure (he really should've been a non-transformable scaled down accessory for Blackout, like maybe Scout or Mini-Con size) - but overall I was pleased with the line considering the challenges the designers had.

I think when appraising the movie toys we need to be mindful of the fact that HasTak have had a daunting task of translating highly complex models into miniature and relatively affordable (remember that they do work to a budget) action figures. And for me, I personally prefer a good, well engineered toy that's fun to play with over visual movie accuracy any day. That's why I'm disappointed with what they've done with the Constructicons/Devastator. I understand that they've sacrificed the Constructicons' ability to merge and Devastator's ability for his components to transform into their individual Constructicon forms because they're striving for greater movie accuracy... but for me, I'd rather have movie accuracy sacrificed for the same set of Constructicons who cane transform from robot to vehicle and merge into Devastator. Yeah, I'll admit that a big factor in this is money - this hobby is expensive enough as it is. But another big factor is the play value... to me the way they've engineered the movie Constructicons makes them _less_ like a real Transformers gestalt in my eyes. But that's JMHO of course.

I have never been a fan of the movie aesthetic at all, just seem to lack a certain character and they also favor complexity of intuitive creative simplicity.

I like the movie aesthetics. I like them because firstly they really make the Transformers look otherworldly - there's no reason why Transformers should have human-like facial/body features. Secondly because they're more practical in real life. Having done Transformers cosplay several times I gotta tell you that the orthodox "boxy" Transformers body design makes it really bloody hard to move around. In a real life setting they're just going to look like Power Rangers Zords - i.e. people in cardboard boxes (as my costumes are! ). These complex designs allow them to do basic things like fold their arms, touch their toes, cross their legs, scratch their bottoms etc. - something not even Binaltech or Masterpiece toys can do. Transformers have human like movement in comics and cartoons because artists cheat by basically warping their bodies and ignoring laws of reality - something that doesn't work in a live action film set against photographed backgrounds, actors, vehicles etc.

Having said that, the designs are very different to the standard Transformers aesthetics, so I can understand how they wouldn't be everyone's cup of oil.