Remember the casting call for female motorcycle riders for Transformers 2? A facebook group has posted photos from the Bethlehem, PA set which include shots of what appear to be the extras, who play holodrivers for Arcee. It’s likely one of these women buzzed right by our own Tony Bacala and BMGFX yesterday! Check them out in their matching head-to-toe leather by clicking the thumbnail!
Enigma2K2
As I said, with enough alcohol, even the guys don't look half bad…
………………..
…………. what?
Infosaur
BAY Sucks!
(note to self: this board needs more explosion smilies)
Ramrider
That Michael Bay lad – he's silly.
Laser_Optimus
Yeah, that was a pretty awesome little side story going on within the main plot. One of the many great things about those comics I think. If the movie could capture some of that I think it'd be great.
AutobotMarine
Damn they're hot. Just imagine how the female TF's will be like in the movie.
airfox
Agree.
One of my fave parts of the Generation 2 comics was how Leadfoot and Mantaray "choose" to be Autobots even though they were created as part of Bludgeon's plan, after witnessing Razorclaw's "attitude".
-airfox
Laser_Optimus
Ops_was_a_truck
I just want to drop in and say that, despite all of the gender-equality and male-hormone-judgment that occured in this thread, thems be some hot broads, even if they are a bit mannish.
Rawwr.
SMOG
There's entirely too much agreement in this thread.
Quick! Someone trash-talk Michael Bay!
zmog
Laser_Optimus
My thoughts exactly! Glad to see I'm not alone in that opinion.
Not a bad idea. I was kind of sad about the lack of femmebots in DW. Such a shame that they were shut down before the Femmes could be introduced… though they did ellude to them being created by the Quints. For what puprose? Who knows. Could lead to lots of different things. Pitty.
Also, I agree that being a Decepticon or an Autobot is a choice. I can see some robots being created specifically for either faction, but that doesn't mean that they're always goind to go along with their created programming.
SMOG
That's not a bad way to wrap them up with the Quintesson origin (which I'm not partial to, but your take works).
And I agree… allegiance is by choice, not design. Of course it's quite possible that some TFs were "born" as Decepticons, but I don't agree with the notion that there is some indelible physical difference between Bot and Con. Likewise I always thought the Red Eyes vs Blue Eyes thing was a bit lame.
zmog
UltraDevmodious
Chromia, Elita-1, and Arcee?! That would be nice to see!
Infosaur
I always wondered where the Dreamwave arc COULD have gone.
That "Fembots" are a Transformers version2 made by the Quintessons.
(Who I've always considered oppertunists who reversed engineered TF tech from Primus's little project)
Since the Quints are merchants, they may have found the female form and personality more marketable. And since they are derivative tech they might be smaller and "slightly inferior". Hence leading to a "sexist" attitude by version 1 Autobots and Decepticons.
But after that, they could become Autobot or Decepticon by choice. I've always prefered the concept that allegence is a choice and not a programing parameter.
SMOG
True… this topic does come up periodically, and this isn't really a thread devoted to it.
But your point of view is exactly my own. If there is no such thing as sexual reproduction, then they don't really have a gender. TFs could pair bond for all sorts of reasons, and only sometimes be interpreted as a "mated pair". The distinction between human conjugal love and platonic love wouldn't exist.
zmog
Laser_Optimus
Well, if they're genderless than it's not gay at all. It wouldn't surprise me if the robots bonded in a sense (not speaking sexually or anything… just that if they have humanoid emotions and what not that most living things desire friendships that are closer than friends so to speak), but gay really would have nothing to do with it in a genderless society. Genderless Transformers would probably be attracted to different personality types and so on… I could go on, but it's probably a subject best left to another thread.
SMOG
Yeah, this.
Though there some people who don't like this explanation at all… presumably because it makes the Springer/Arcee/Hotrod love triangle seem sort of gay.
zmog
Laser_Optimus
Good point. I hadn't even thought of it that way… which is funny, because one of my favorite Marvel G1 issues as a kid was the one where Cloudburst hooks up with that Amazon type leader.
I always figured that a good portion of the femmes left when the war broke out or were slaughtered (one could interpret Shockwave and Starscream's comments about them supposedly being extinct as such, but perhaps I'm reading too much into this).
Yeah, that's probably the simplist explanation. They don't see themselves as having a different gender, but because they have a slighter frame and perhaps a more pleasant voice humans are the ones who've started to impose gender on the Transformers.
I do wonder if Orci & Co. have wrote an explanation into the movie or if they're just going to go 'here's a female robot'.
VAwitch
I think femCons would be possible – some cultures might want protectors, say for young where caregivers are female – but it is secondary to their being protectors. Alternatively, if it's a matriarchal society, they'd only want fem-warriors.
Wouldn't be much market, I think – and perhaps that's why there's never been many femmes on Cybertron. Them existing due to their origins, ok – but as they no longer fulfill their "original" function, which would be to have been built for a client(s), they saw no need to expand upon that product sub-line.
Myself, I prefer the regional (a la the "Datsun club" or Seekers) or the form=subgroup, much like Seekers, hovers, etc.; and that in humans' languages, there's male, female & it – and given their slighter build, "we" call them "female".
Laser_Optimus
Thanks. Knew I had those spellings wrong, but my books are in my attic. >_<
Well, I've always preferred the cartoons Quintesson origins for the Transformers race (I don't know why, but I'm not a fan of Primus at all… and godlike Unicron in all the new series seems like less of a threat than the on in the original movie that was created by a darn space-monkey!) and given that female Autobots makes sense (as the Autobots were consumer good products), but female Decepticons did not to me (as, being built for war… just wouldn't be necessary in my mind I guess… and it's not meant to be sexist, I'm just saying I don't see them designing war machines that resemble females of other species… though I guess they could be even more rare than female Autobots if they did exist as it would take only one Quint with some 'interesting' ideas). In that context it female Autobots always made sense to me and any female Decepticons added to the G1 mythos later (in my mind) were former Autobots that switched sides. Just my take though I know.
So, basically, you're saying that in the animators attempt to make them seem female they went overboard with the feminine design?
I guess I can totally agree with the fact that it wasn't necessary to designate them as female Transformers or robots even (as GoBots had done so before Transformers w/Crasher, Small Foot & Pathfinder) and they were believably female even if they didn't look totally feminine. Still, it's what they ran with so it's how female Transformers have largely been defined.
And, I agree, that GoBots, largely did the female robot thing better than Transformers. Even if you take away the way they looked; Crasher, Small Foot & Pathfinder all had very distinct personalities and characterizations. None of them came off as generically female as the original four Autobots or even Arcee for that matter… they all were very believable characters.
This would be something worth exploring. Regional and cultural differences and such.
SMOG
Naturally there's NO reason for them to resemble humans. They might as well look like the robot bug monsters we got in the Bay movie… and even that might be a stretch. Why bipeds? Why have faces or an audible language at all if they can communicate through radiowaves?
No, the only reason for them to look vaguely humanoid and to have eyes/nose/mouth faces, and hands with (usually) 5 fingers, is for the same basic science-fantasy reasons that we see vaguely humanoid aliens in ANY sci-fi property. We just relate to it better. It's the conceit of the genre… the "Fiction" in Science-Fiction if you will.
So as I conceded already in my above post, Transformers are already an improbable and fanciful enough idea that having spacegirl Transformers really isn't that much of a stretch.
But again, what bugged me about the introduction of girl transformers is that they flew in the face of some of the already established traits that had come to be associated with TFs. It hinted at gender divisions, roles and identities (not to mention sexuality) that are not supported by their machine ecology, and worse, they were even more compromised by the need to resemble cute, dainty, curvy human girls… which is again why I give GoBots props for not going that route.
The logical part of my mind (and yeah, I'm aware of the pointlessness of getting the logical part of my mind involved with Transformers science ) just doesn't appreciate why Fembots should exist. Or at least demands some kind of explanation, as well as reasons why they look like…
this:http://www.crownover.com/Arcee2.jpg
this:http://images.wikia.com/transformers/images/c/c5/ArceeManga1.jpg
this:http://www.actionfigurecustoms.com/blogs/uploaded_images/art32-757176.gif
and even… this (caution not work safe, or any kind of safe really) :http://www.nemesismatrix.com/cybertron/transformers/arcee.JPG
Instead of say, like
this:http://images.elfwood.com/fanq/z/a/zachariah3/TF02mudslinger.jpg
this:http://www.retrojunk.com/img/art-images/bfq812.jpg
or this:http://tgr59ca.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/446f.jpg.w300h225.jpg
zmog