'Transformers' Live Action Movie from DreamWorks?

mr_don't writes "Apprently, CNN is reporting that Dreamworks might be in talks with Michael Bay (who directed the bomb Pearl Harbor) to direct a live action Transformers movie. The article says: A November 17, 2006, release date has been set. Bay's credits include the two "Bad Boys" movies, "Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon" and "The Rock." Well, as a child of the 80's I must admit I am interested, but could the movie be directed by Robert Rodriguez instead?"

Sombody's Got A Bone To Pick

[American AC in Paris]

The headline is confusing--it has very little to do with the thrust of the summary. It should read "mr_don't Says 'Michael Bay Sucks!'"

P.S. Pearl Harbor wasn't a "bomb"--it was a bad movie that did very well at the box office. To suggest that it was a bomb is just plain silly [rottentomatoes.com]. Pearl Harbor was a plodding movie with a trite script and stilted acting that performed extremely well at the box office thanks to aggressive marketing and some pretty good technical work. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can go around claiming it failed miserably.)

Wow.

[schild]

This movie is going to be fucking expensive. As in reallly really goddamn expensive.

I expect a lot of explosions. Terrible dialogue. An incredibly bad mixture of CGI and reality, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the end of Air Force One.

All in all, this is a silly prospect. Shouldn't they be working on more interesting things? I'd suggest something but the news of a Transformers live action movie (which isn't really "new news") has left me incapable of thinking on an intelligible level.

Sign of the Times

[jspey]

..."The Transformers," Hasbro's popular 1980s toy line of giant robots that morph into cars, trucks, planes, ships and other technological creations.

20 years ago, transformers would have been described as giant robots that transform into other things. Now CNN says they 'morph', depite the face that their name contains in it the word used to describe their shape-changing. What's worse is that the word 'morph' became popular because of the terminator in T-2, where it's used to describe something noticably different from what the transformers do.

I'll never understand the media.

I don't blame...

[stubear]

...Michael Bay for the pitiful excuse of a movie Pearl Harbor turned out to be. I blame Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett for sucking so bad at acting. For this one need only look to the casting director. Michael Bay is good at directing pure adrenaline fueled action sequences and he'd done three that in my opinion are tough to top; 1) the attack sequence of Pearl Harbor in Pearl Harbor, 2) the car chase between the H1 and teh Ferrari in The Rock, and 3) the F-18 approach/ bombing of Alcatraz in The Rock. Keeping in mind that The Rock never aspired to be the next Citizen Kane, I'd even go as far as to say that it was a pretty decent action movie.

Re:Sign of the Times

[nEoN nOoDlE]

From dictionary.com

morph: To be transformed

I don't know why you think it's a sign of the times that the media is using synonyms.

Re:Sign of the Times

[KillerDeathRobot]

Maybe they just wanted to mix up the vocabulary used in the sentence. "Transformers are robots that transform" sounds kind of redundant.

Re:I knew this was coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently here in the UK there's been some car commercial (don't know which brand) with a car which transforms into a dancing transformers style robot.

Citroen C4.

Music by Les Rythmes Digitales, same track as previously used in an ad for Sunny Delight of all things...

Urgh. Sunny Delight. If ever there was a product that illustrated the sheep-like stupidity of Britain's parental ranks, that was it. Bought as if it was basically fruit juice, anyone who'd bothered reading the label would have realised it was basically overpriced orange squash, full of sugar and additives.

Oh, but the adverts showed it being served by faintly-indulgent-but-responsible-and-caring-middl e-class-Mum to her kids, so it must be good- right? Then someone pointed out that it was, in fact, crap, and sales plummetted. I bet those same idiots are the type that buy "Cranberry juice drink" (3% cranberry, 97% garbage) because it comes in the same cartons as real juice and "sounds" healthy. Bah! Humbug!...

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The title's more than a little misleading as well. I thought everyone had known about the movie since the dawn of time - the only news here is the speculation about the director.

For the sake of consistency, perhaps we could rewrite the rest of the article headlines: "Sun's Schwartz Attacks GPL" becomes "Jonathan Schwartz is President of Sun Micro?", "Star Wars Fans in Line... at the Wrong Theater" becomes "New Star Wars movie to be released?" and so on.

Will it have the usual Plot?

[Andy Mitchell]

I assume I'm not alone in thinking the plot will be:

• Megatron comes up with a scheme to fill enough energon cubes to defeat the Autobots and generally take over the galaxy.
• Plot nears completion when Megatron gets greedy and decides one galaxy just isn't enough for a self respecting Deceptercon.
• Starscream points out he is pushing the system too far and is going to backfire on them soon.
• Megatron shoots Starscream.
• Autobots seise victory from the jaws of defeat thanks to Megatron being a "Muppetron".

The TV series followed a variation of that plot every time. Personally, I always thought it sucked when I was a kid.

Re:Which Generation of Transformer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this will be a Hollywood version, the writers are going to take some "creative leeway" - ie "I don't give a sh*t about continuity / I don't want [myself|the movie] to be branded a geek [flick] and actually watch the old series."

So I'm guessing the later.

Re:Sign of the Times

[Sc00ter]

What about Megatron.. He stands next to one of his evil buddies, then transforms into a hand gun that his buddy is now holding..

Re:RTFA

[Professor_UNIX]

The title's more than a little misleading as well. I thought everyone had known about the movie since the dawn of time - the only news here is the speculation about the director.

The only people that would have known about it are the kind of guys that would stand in line for a Star Wars movie a month before it opens... at the wrong theater.

I mean hell, I watched Transformers as a kid and loved it, but why on earth do you assume a 30 year old man would keep up on a cartoon, much less that it's apparently going to be made into a live action movie? That was news to me. How the heck are they going to do live-action robots transforming... lots of CGI?

Re:Directed by..

[sgant]

If I have to see another movie directed by this hack with "the hero or villian walks in slow-motion toward the camera while bombs/explosions go off in the background" I will stop watching movies.

Gems from Pearl Harbor:

Rafe: Danny, you can't die. You can't die. You know why? 'Cause you're gonna be a father. You're gonna be a daddy. I wasn't supposed to tell you. You're gonna be a father.
Danny: No, you are.

And:

Rafe: You are so beautiful it hurts.
Evelyn: It's your nose that hurts.
Rafe: I think it's my heart.

Plan 9 from Outer Space had better dialog! How this made millions at the box office I'll never know. My faith in my fellow man shrank that day.

Robert Rodriguez, king of overrated

[ArmenTanzarian]

I'm sorry, his treatment of Sin City may be nice, but it's because Miller already did the storyboards for him. Anyone who sat through all three Spy Kids movies in the theatres (with my nephew) can give you about 5000 reasons to distrust his direction.

Re:Directed by..

[King Fuckstain]

FUCK - just type it.

Shit, cock, ass, balls, fuck, cunt. It's not a big deal. What the shit is wrong with you? For fuck's sake, this isn't a fucking church - it's Slashdot. Consider that.

Re:Robert Rodriguez, king of overrated

[Wubby]

Agreed!

NPR did an interview with him a couple years ago. He talked about how people were surprised that he did the Spy Kids movies after such fare as "From Dusk 'Til Dawn" and "El Mariachi" (sp?). He said he always wanted to do the Spy Kids type movies, the others were just to make the money.

My point is I see him as a kind of George Lucas, he made "Star Wars" and everyone thought he was going to be this great scifi director, when in fact all he wanted to do was make cheezy kids movies with puppets and "Little People" in fuzzy costumes.

I'm not saying I don't like Rodriguez. He's very honest about what he makes. He doesn't try to pass "Spy Kids 3D" off as some great epic. I didn't like it, but my kids did and I think that's all that matters.

Re:durfy durfy

[BewireNomali]

PEARL HARBOR
domestic: $198,542,554
international: $250,678,391
worldwide: $449,220,945

A healthy profit. the numbers don't even include dvd sales. Most blockbusters are now designed to break even domestically and thrive internationally. DVD sales almost always trump box office anyway. So the film turned a healthy profit (www.boxofficemojo.com if you want more numbers).

Re:Robert Rodriguez, king of overrated

[dalmiroy2k]

Spy kids movies are a sucess, made with a relative low budget and gaining millons of dollars either at box office and product placement, it's enough to keep the suits in hollywood happy.
More info here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0227538/business [imdb.com]

Same thing happened with "El mariachi". A decent, cheap home made film that gained a lot's of money and sometimes it's used as an example of amateur filming in some schools..

News!

[Angron]

New! From the director who brought you Pearl Harbor and the screenwriter who brought you Catwoman! It's....your childhood being beaten with a baseball bat. Sigh.

-A

Re:Just bring back the original animated series

[David M. Sweeney]

They would be better off bringing back the original Transformers series using modern animation, and targeting it as scifi for adults rather than a silly cartoon for kids.

A movie about robots that transform into big rigs and boom boxes... aimed at adults. You lost me there, amigo.

Re:RTFA

[NanoGator]

" How the heck are they going to do live-action robots transforming... lots of CGI?"

Precisely. From an fx point of view, it's more than plausible. Not only have commercials featured this, but some ameteurs have pulled it off as well.

I think you'd be surprised, though, at how many people are Transformers fans today. I recently visited an FX studio and was shocked at how many Transformers models they had posed around their cubes. (next to LotR figurines...) There are also quite a few people wearing autobot/decepticon insignias in various forms. (Hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers...)

I think a LOT of people would like to see a live-action transformers movie. Unfortunately, it would be VERY easy for the director to really fudge it up. The animated Transformers movie from the mid-eighties showed a glimpse of being 'more grown up'. (main characters dying, swearing, etc...) For the people I'm thinking of, it'd be great if they did something more matrue and sci-fi. They've got a great mythos to draw from, but those tards are quite likely going to try to appeal to kids. (Inspector Gadget, anyone? )

So, yeah, expect a lot of news about it followed by moaning and groaning.

follow the sweet scent of money

[asoap]

Movie studios today are more like marketing companies then movies that actually want to create a decent story. There are exceptions, but they are mostly intereseted in making money. They are in the business of making money. That is why you are seeing so many geek movies, lord of the rings, xmen, spiderman, x2, spiderman 2, daredevil, hulk, elektra, etc, etc... The reasoning is that these movies are already "pre sold". They are garunteed that no matter how bad it is there will be enough geeks who will HAVE to go see it because they are a fan of the work. That way they are garunteed a return of MONEY. Money money money.

That is why we see movies like Transformers or Doom being made. If Sin City does well and makes a lot of money. I don't think a movie studio is going to give two shits if the director is in a union or not. If they can use him to make money, they will try to.

If they want Rodriguez, the union is not going to stop them.

I do admit that there are people out there that are more interested in making a good movie then money. Although, even when I rent "Finding Neverland" I'm still __FORCED__ to watch a commercial for a Chevrolet Montana Mini Van if i want to watch the movie.

Now, please do not reply how they are not actually coming to my house and tieing me down to the couch to watch it. If they do not let you fast forward or skip beyond a commercial, there intention is to make you watch it.

Re:Old news

[Rude Turnip]

The only "new" Transformers series that meshed perfectly with the old one were Beast Wars and Beast Machines. They even brought back Ravage for a few episodes and went *deep* into the original mythology with Vector Sigma. I can't get into that Armada stuff.

Re:Sign of the Times

[CasmirRadon]

morph: To be transformed
I don't know why you think it's a sign of the times that the media is using synonyms.

From dictionary.com

Synonyms for "Transform":
Alter, commute, convert, mutate, remodel, reconstruct, revamp, transmute....

Transformers are giant robots that mutate into technological creations.

Transformers are giant robots that remodel into technological creations.

Transformers are giant robots that convert into technological creations.

Do I need to go on? Synonyms have their use, but the whole point of different words, is that the definitions are not identical. How exactly is your blanket statement insight?