Transformers Brand Info From New York Toy Fair 2019 Fan Media Panel #hasbrotoyfair

Windsweeper II

Oh, but in the first movie Bee peed on someone, he did a similar thing in the recent one if I heard right, in dotm they made gay jokes, in many arthouse movies they make fart-jokes and pee on other people or have a good bout of joking at the expense of minorities and its no different in the most adulated novels. Most of the world's renowned writers love to make jokes that would make a five year old cringe. Were you expecting to make a point?

Except the movies that use that stuff are MEANT to be crass and numerous. Transformers is supposed to be fairly serious, and this the type of humor involved should match the tone of the film. I groaned at the balls scene and it really took me out of the ending there.

drbeakman

You heard wrong!

Which arthouse movies are these? I honestly cant tell if you're being serious because of how crazy this sounds

And your point is what? "The best writers in the world write movies with racial stereotypes, inappropriate sexuality and unnecessary gross jokes, just accept it, shut your mind off and enjoy the ride." Sorry, ride's over!

Oh my God.
And your point is what?
Is it too hard to just admit that rotf was just a movie like there are thousands, that have cringy parts as well as fun parts but that is just as bad, in some ways worse and in some ways better than any of the millions of other garbage movies, art-shit or holly-shit, that have been made since people started filming each other?
And is it too hard to see that to raise the pitchforks like some crazy witchfinder general and act like it's the only Godforsaken creation ever made in american cinema whenever it comes up while lauding those buckets of puss Marvel has made is utterly laughable and makes you look ridiculous?

Music

You are talking about the movie where a robot was humping a person's leg and another robot was seen with a pair of metal testicles, right?

Ugh. Everyone focuses on those two scenes, regardless of what else was in the film.

And for good reason, those are two of the most offensive scenes in the film series. I won't lie, I laughed a little at Devastator's balls simply because it was so outlandish I couldn't believe it. It was more of a "LOL THEY WENT THERE?!" kind of laugh. It didn't help that the rest of the film is horridly incoherent so you HAVE to focus on those two garbage scenes.

Windsweeper II

Oh, but in the first movie Bee peed on someone, he did a similar thing in the recent one if I heard right, in dotm they made gay jokes, in many arthouse movies they make fart-jokes and pee on other people or have a good bout of joking at the expense of minorities and its no different in the most adulated novels. Most of the world's renowned writers love to make jokes that would make a five year old cringe. Were you expecting to make a point?

Arthouse movies are the voice of those on the fringe who cannot or will not work within the studio system. A lot of those movies are critiqued for that behavior, as well. Plus, a lot of those movies have a reason the character behaves like that, it's usually an arc and they become a better person in the end. Think Archie Bunker. He was a bigot in his words and sometimes his actions, but ultimately his heart was in the right place and he learned his lesson(s) in the end. Back then, you called people what you called them because that was the time. Whether or not it was right is a discussion for the ages, but as for Bunker himself? Misguided and sometimes stupid, but you could count on him in the end.

DOTM was needlessly offensive, ROTF was mindless and it's all a mess written by boys who never really became men. It's a shame when we have to admit that the first female writer was more mature and adult about it all. She was still able to provide humor and heart and it worked. We have to remember, everyone blames JJ Abrams for Star Trek's problems these days, but no. That's all Orci & Kurtzman. JJ's responsible for lens flare, but those two are responsible for a Spock and Uhura romance (which doesn't bother me, on the surface, but in the original timeline he was indeed married to a woman and they had the entire Pon Farr episode/storyline to explain things.) Kirk actually sleeping around (when in the original series he was making out, that's as far as it went. Granted it was TV and this is the movies, but still…) and a whole host of other problems, such as reusing the same gimmick (Kirk hanging on for dear life) over and over within the same film. That same mentality helped write the movie in which Bumblebee pissed on a guy, another movie in which Devastator had balls, etc.

Kruger, who helped write ROTF, and wrote DOTM and AOE on his own…has his own problems. That said, there's no saying Bay didn't ramp up the Gay jokes. He's dyed in the wool Republican (No, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being that. Hang on.) mixed with Hollywood idiot with too much money and too loud of a voice. (I know plenty of Republicans who AREN'T like Bay and wouldn't dream of joking like that simply because it would be offensive and hurtful. Bay's basically a backwoods redneck that hit the big time.)

The problem is, it's gone unchecked for so long that now the fringe voices are starting to be heard and old/classic movies are being seen in a new light. Thing is, they should've always been seen in that new light, to begin with. Just because you can do/say something doesn't mean you should and if you do, make it have a point. There was no point to any of the offensive parts of these movies. None.

TommyHawk

Add some blackface Autobots into that mix .

Honestly, I didn't see them as blackface. I saw them more of the out of his place white kid who's just moved into the city and thinks he's cool and doesn't get that he's not black. Basically Vanilla Ice in robot form. I can see why people found them racist, now, I didn't back then. I'm still not sold on the idea that they were intentionally racist. I think, IMO, they were tone deaf. I certainly hope they weren't trying to make them outright offensive. I really did find them to be two incredibly dumb fish out of water types rather than pissing on race type characters.

That said, we shouldn't need to worry about this anymore. Bumblebee is a fresh start and hopefully they'll continue the trend and if we do get a male writer back, he'll be more mature and won't bend to the whims of Hollywood. I'd hope Hasbro would say "more of this, a whole lot less of that, please. In fact, NONE of that."

Music

You are talking about the movie where a robot was humping a person's leg and another robot was seen with a pair of metal testicles, right?

Oh, but in the first movie Bee peed on someone, he did a similar thing in the recent one if I heard right, in dotm they made gay jokes, in many arthouse movies they make fart-jokes and pee on other people or have a good bout of joking at the expense of minorities and its no different in the most adulated novels. Most of the world's renowned writers love to make jokes that would make a five year old cringe. Were you expecting to make a point?

HeroicC300

I do wonder; if ROTF hadn't been kneecapped by the writer's strike, how much better would it have been?

Probably not.
There's nothing wrong with rotf that any writer could have made better.

Shin Densetsu

The Cybertron toy sales were good. The brand wasn't doing bad at all. However good the sales were for the Armada trilogy didn't compare to the 2007 movie though. The 2007 movie toy sales blew away the Armada trilogy sales substantially. Crunching numbers alone was enough to see why Hasbro wanted more movies.

Oh, no question, Armada era sales were good, but movie sales were on levels unheard of since G1 itself. It's just important to remind people that the brand was doing just fine without the films back before 2007.

Gzstg

I would hope so I would love for new A/E/C homages or even a reboot as Armada was what really got me into transformers after my older sister introduced me to them. Armada will always be my favorite of the UT.

Have you seen the revealed prototype hardcopy of the Armada Prime at Wonderfest? It looks gorgeous and will have super mode – there are fold out fists hidden in the back of the legs and a seam running straight down the middle of the codpiece.

Shin Densetsu

The Cybertron toy sales were good. The brand wasn't doing bad at all. However good the sales were for the Armada trilogy didn't compare to the 2007 movie though. The 2007 movie toy sales blew away the Armada trilogy sales substantially. Crunching numbers alone was enough to see why Hasbro wanted more movies.

I do wonder; if ROTF hadn't been kneecapped by the writer's strike, how much better would it have been?

stad

You can't argue that the movies didn't infuse a lot of new fans, although you can argue if they're still here.
But I'd hardly say TFs were dying – Classics had launched hard, and was cut off only because it was meant as a short "filler" line until the movie toys launched. Classics eventually became Generations, which Hasbro has acknowledged as their "main" TF line as of at least a few years ago.

Yeah, Armada was my introduction to the franchise, but I left at the start of Energon because even as the target market for Hasbro, I could tell the Energon show was shit. The movies brought me back, though regrettably not before I missed out on all the good figures from Cybertron and Classics (I'm still playing catch-up there).

But Transformers was hardly doing poorly – the movies simply made them a massive part of pop culture instead of just another media-driven toyline.

As for the "you should celebrate what's to come, instead of the death of something" you have to take into account that this thing that so many had so disliked for so long had to die, before we could get something better.

Yup.

Shin Densetsu

Hasbro is aiming for the current crowd most, not so much the G1'ers and bayverse fans. If they can catch either it's a bonus but not a priority. There's a lot of G1 nods as a reemphasized focus on brand recognition, they want a kid 10 years from now to still be able to generally recognize any new iteration of let's say Bumblebee or Prime.

And that's why the push to G1 – the designs are truly timeless because if nothing else, all major incarnations of the core characters like Prime and Megatron typically bear signature traits that tie back to the original 80s designs.

The current movie audiences were pretty receptive to the Bumblebee movie. That's what steered Hasbro into the direction they're going into now. I'm a fan of both G1 and Bayverse. I enjoyed Bumblebee more than Bayverse. It's not that Hasbro is killing off anything, they're just going in the direction the current audience seems receptive to. We had 10 years of Bayverse and TLK showed that it was time for a change.

I think a lot of this has to do with people being forced to accept that there always was more to the franchise than just their beloved Bayformers.

Hasbro is aiming for the current crowd most, not so much the G1'ers and bayverse fans. If they can catch either it's a bonus but not a priority. There's a lot of G1 nods as a reemphasized focus on brand recognition, they want a kid 10 years from now to still be able to generally recognize any new iteration of let's say Bumblebee or Prime.

The current movie audiences were pretty receptive to the Bumblebee movie. That's what steered Hasbro into the direction they're going into now. I'm a fan of both G1 and Bayverse. I enjoyed Bumblebee more than Bayverse. It's not that Hasbro is killing off anything, they're just going in the direction the current audience seems receptive to. We had 10 years of Bayverse and TLK showed that it was time for a change.

stad

You can't argue that the movies didn't infuse a lot of new fans, although you can argue if they're still here.
But I'd hardly say TFs were dying – Classics had launched hard, and was cut off only because it was meant as a short "filler" line until the movie toys launched. Classics eventually became Generations, which Hasbro has acknowledged as their "main" TF line as of at least a few years ago.

As for the "you should celebrate what's to come, instead of the death of something" you have to take into account that this thing that so many had so disliked for so long had to die, before we could get something better.

There's somewhat of a twist involved. Yes Classics was only intended as a filler line. When movie toy sales shot through the roof, retailers requested more Transformers with realistic vehicle modes(they didn't specifically request more movie figures IIRC, just for whatever future line could come). At the time, the 1st movie line was either ending or already over. Hasbro then made Universe/Classics 2.0 to address retailer desire for more realistic alternate modes. The rest is history because as we know, it led to Generations which continue to today.

I may have gotten some things wrong, it's been years since I read about this and discussed it.

Shin-Gouki

Yep, that clown is just as responsible and is responsible for G.I. Joe too.