Even though I am of the right age group, I nevertheless succeeded in
missing the *entire* Transformers craze of the 80's and I didn't see
even one single episode of the animated series. Thus I have zero knowledge
on the franchise.

  I watched the two recent movies, though. Just watched the new one today.

  One thing I liked about the movies is the amount of effort they put into
designing their robots and their alternate vehicle forms: Rather than going
the cheap way and design them as they just saw fit, they actually went and
designed them 100% realistically: Every single piece, as connected to the
rest, does indeed form a part of the vehicle/robot, and moves in a way
required for the transformation to happen. Even though the robot might
look several times larger than the vehicle, they both nevertheless have
all the same material. No overlapping, no parts going through each other,
no physically impossible movement, no disappearing or appearing parts.

  It's this kind of attention to detail which makes me appreciate a movie
more.

  Anyways, my question is related to the Transformers story universe:

  If the Transformers are robots from a distant planet who came to Earth,
how come they can transform into modern vehicles (and other devices) just
like that? It's obviously impossible for them to have been "born" like
that. They must have aquired the ability to transform into those precise
vehicles on Earth. But in the movies it has never been shown that they
could alter their own bodies so that they could transform into something
new. So exactly how did they get the proper body parts to transform into
modern Earth vehicles?

  For example most of the Transformers which transform into cars have
glass windows, in both car form (obviously) *and* robot form, because
they are just composed of all the necessary parts needed to form the
car. They don't somehow magically convert matter into a different shape
(eg. create glass from nothing). Or at least that's the impression I get
from the movies.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:35:50 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   If the Transformers are robots from a distant planet who came to Earth,
> how come they can transform into modern vehicles (and other devices) just
> like that? It's obviously impossible for them to have been "born" like
> that. They must have aquired the ability to transform into those precise
> vehicles on Earth. But in the movies it has never been shown that they
> could alter their own bodies so that they could transform into something
> new. So exactly how did they get the proper body parts to transform into
> modern Earth vehicles?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ16d-qpBEE

The relevant part starts at about eight minutes in.



-- 
FE

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Fredrik Eriksson <fe79}--at--{yahoo}--dot--{com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ16d-qpBEE

> The relevant part starts at about eight minutes in.

  Felt a bit far-fetched, but I suppose it's better than no explanation
at all. :)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   If the Transformers are robots from a distant planet who came to Earth,
> how come they can transform into modern vehicles (and other devices) just
> like that? It's obviously impossible for them to have been "born" like
> that.

Are you asking for coherence from a child movie spawned from a child cartoon?

I watched the first one because they said the CGI was top-notch.  Well, the
animation of the robots turning into vehicles was really realistic and
well-done (and ever since brought to TV car ads) but rendering itself was not
all that staggering.  well, Megan Fox was worth it all, even the dumb story and
dialogue...

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On 28-6-2009 21:35, Warp wrote:
>   Even though I am of the right age group, I nevertheless succeeded in
> missing the *entire* Transformers craze of the 80's and I didn't see
> even one single episode of the animated series. Thus I have zero knowledge
> on the franchise.

I missed it too. Having a grandchild helped somewhat. For the most 
impressive things are the toys. Not only are they animated in the films 
and tv series as if they consist of the same parts, most of the toys 
actually work, so not only can they in a CGI way be morphed into 
something else, they even though about the hinges and ball joints and 
what have you. Some day I might try to find out who created this concept 
(yes, probably using google).

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Warp wrote:
> vehicles on Earth. But in the movies it has never been shown that they
> could alter their own bodies so that they could transform into something
> new.

In the first Michael Bay movie they showed precisely this.  The robots 
started out in a generic "proto-form" when they first arrived to Earth, 
and were able to alter themselves to transform into any appropriately 
sized vehicle.

Bumblebee was also shown choosing a new form (originally  '76 Camaro, I 
believe, and later a Chevy concept car which became the '08 Camaro). 
Frenzy, the little guy with the gremlin voice, took on a variety of 
forms (boombox, cell phone, and I think one or two others).

I think in the cartoon, the robots were all damaged, and repaired with 
parts from vehicles they could scrounge up.

-- 
Chambers

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nemesis wrote:
> Are you asking for coherence from a child movie spawned from a child cartoon?

... spawned by a child's toy, yet?

Funny how even their laser turrets look like plastic lego-like toys.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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Warp wrote:
>   I watched the two recent movies, though. Just watched the new one today.

I just watched this. It was both simultaneously awful and highly 
entertaining. I fully understand why the critics retched at it and the 
general public paid lots of money. :-)

> Every single piece, as connected to the
> rest, does indeed form a part of the vehicle/robot, and moves in a way
> required for the transformation to happen. 

Pretty much. It's hard to see on some of the machines with less screen time, 
like the sucker-upper machine.

I liked how much personality and realistic movement they managed to put into 
them. The panther machine, for example, was quite impressively animated. I'm 
surprised they got away with so few animators - I expected more names in the 
credits.

>   It's this kind of attention to detail which makes me appreciate a movie
> more.

I liked how you could tell which robot was the blender, which was the 
garbage disposal, which was the toaster, etc. Very cleverly animated even 
for a very short screen appearance.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Pretty much. It's hard to see on some of the machines with less screen time, 
> like the sucker-upper machine.

  I would have liked for this one to have more screen time:

http://nam206.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/female-motorbike-transformer-arcee-big1.jpg

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Pretty much. It's hard to see on some of the machines with less screen time, 
>> like the sucker-upper machine.
> 
>   I would have liked for this one to have more screen time:
> 
>
http://nam206.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/female-motorbike-transformer-arcee-big1.jpg
> 

She didn't even talk, did she?

And at one point, I thought they showed three of them sitting together.

-- 
Chambers

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