Transformers Reactions Thread - No spoilers until July 4th

[Admiral Valdemar]

No, no, no, he needs to be a spec-ops or recon vehicle. If Blackout can almost be mistaken for Soundwave by being a badass MH-53 Pave Low, Soundwave can be something similarly large and militaristic. A tape deck is just retarded and no one will accept mass shifting, doubly so when it's a ghettoblaster to a bloody hulking alien robot of death.

And I finally figured out what Megatron reminded me of. His Cybertronian jet form looks like the Swordfish II in Cowboy Bebop.

[McC]

Soundwave hasn't just been a tapedeck, too. He was something resembling a stealth fighter in Cybertron, for instance. That might be the origin of and the direction for the rumblings about Soundwave being a jet in the future movies.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Either way, Hasbro insisting on him being something so fundamentally wrong within the movie setting is annoying. Not having Bumblebee as a Beetle is one thing, but Soundwave as a tape deck is not going to work.

[VF5SS]

The whole no mass shifting thing seems kinda retarded when you actually watch Bumblebee squeeze into his car mode. Also watching Frenzy's head turn into a tiny cel phone. How about the fact that the other cel phone robot could grow missiles and bullets? Last time I check, cel phones don't come with teeny tiny bullets for their chain guns.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The whole no mass shifting thing seems kinda retarded when you actually watch Bumblebee squeeze into his car mode. Also watching Frenzy's head turn into a tiny cel phone. How about the fact that the other cel phone robot could grow missiles and bullets? Last time I check, cel phones don't come with teeny tiny bullets for their chain guns.

I guess you missed the part where the magical Allspark did that, yeah? What we're talking about is the TRANSFORMERS mass shifting, of which, nitpicking Bumblebee and Frenzy is not a factor. There's a world of difference between "ZOMG!!1 THE NEW CAMARO IS HEAVIER THAN THE OLD ONE!!1 MASS SHIFTING!eleven" and "That radio turned into a FUCKING GIANT ROBOT!".

[Bounty]

The whole no mass shifting thing seems kinda retarded when you actually watch Bumblebee squeeze into his car mode.

And how would that be? All his robot parts fold into the car. I'm still not sure where he shoves his seats, but for all intents and pruposes Bumblebee's robot mode is a Camaro folded open.

Same with Franzy's head. Ntoice how spindly he is? I see no reason why you couldn't fold a head made out of metal matchsticks into a cellphone without changing the total matter involved.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Bumblebee has a lot of empty spaces in his robot form and isn't exactly beefy. Same with Frenzy who could quite easily compact down given the stick thin exoskeleton he has. Really now, nitpicking the exact mass is just that; nitpicking. The designers said that they were going with the idea that the scan can enable a Transformer to take on the near equivalent mass and size of an object, so it can fudge a little by making more open spaces to increase volume and so on, just like the T-1000. The aesthetic appearance is all that matters for the disguise, since probing any deeper will naturally reveal that Pontiac Solstice is, in actual fact, more than meets the eye (yeah, I used that line).

In any case, I don't recall Mountain Dew machines having the capacity for sentience, so pointing out the Allspark enables them to grow weapons is rather beside the point when it's an unknown force. It. Just. Does.

[VF5SS]

Bumblebee has a lot of empty spaces in his robot form and isn't exactly beefy. Same with Frenzy who could quite easily compact down given the stick thin exoskeleton he has. Really now, nitpicking the exact mass is just that; nitpicking.

Bumblebee is still pretty beefy. He's not Ironhide the robot barbarian beefy, and I don't really see the empty spaces in his body. He's certainly no spindly like those car commercial transforming robots. I dunno, the scene where he transforms back in front of Sam and Mikaela and you see a big robot turn into a mostly empty car made me go, "Wait what?"

[Admiral Valdemar]

It could be that a lot of his armour pushes out and locks together to form a shell, rather than be fully solid with machinery. He doesn't need to make room for a real combustion engine when he can just arrange parts of his robot form into an appropriate facsimile and so on. For the older Camaro it seems less easy to fold up into given it's a smaller vehicle in general. I'd really like to see how the models were built and their transformations in slow-mo, given designing each character was more expensive and time-consuming than animating them.

In the end, if they go with something absurd like the original Soundwave (and then even add Ravage and Lazerbeak), it just totally blows SOD out of the water, whereas Bumblebee is still believable. At least you didn't see Devastator go from a tank to a convertible Mazda or anything, but then the Decepticons are overall much larger on average and suit military hardware.

[Bounty]

The transformations reminded me of the Alternators TF toys: on the surface, they're regular 1:28 cars, with doors that open, a normal passenger compartment with chairs and a steering wheel, a hood that opens to show an engine, working steering and if you turned them over they had a "real" chassis with a central axle. Except you'd then turn it into a big robot; granted, you had to move around a lot more parts than with "normal" TF toys, but they fit all the same.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Given the advanced nature of their technology, it's not hard to expect their motile power units for mechanical movement are far smaller and more efficient, as well as the materials being strong and light enough to be a fraction of the size of what would be needed if it was high carbon steel or composite. Folding pieces in on themselves could be done more then, though not to the extent of the mass shifting cube, of course.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I can't recall, but what was that aura all about with Blackout that showed up on the CCD of the camera used in the surprise attack? There was something on the comm. with the Hog crews about radar jamming, so I assume that every Decepticon, at least, had some form of ECM/ECCM to make targeting a bitch too, not that they could do any damage in the first place.

[NeoGoomba]

I thought what showed up on the scope-thingy might have been some sort of defensive shield, like the E-Web (or whatever the EA ships had)from B5. Not an outright shield, but perhaps something to mitigate incoming weaponry?

[Admiral Valdemar]

That's what I'm thinking too (I don't believe it's exclusive to Blackout), though the mentioning of jamming during the fight with Scorponok leads me to believe it may also be part of a stealth suite too, which may be why they kept using laser guided rather than radar munitions.

[NeoGoomba]

Was there any mention of range on the jamming at all? Blackout, well, blacked out, the base's systems, but he was right on top of the command tower when he went on a rampage. If it was only short range, perhaps it is a "standard" combat suite that the Transformers have?

I distinctly remember the Section 7 guys saying they couldn't get any IR readings when they were chasing Prime, they only had the special "Transformer Radiation" and visuals to track him by.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Blackout only started jamming when inside the base because I doubt they'd have let him get closer if he not only didn't squawk, but emanated hostile EW signals. They'd have likely shut down all the live connections to the networks he wanted.

I do also remember the IR mention as well, so the field may also help suppress thermal signature. It could be something like the plasma stealth the Russians have tested, only configured to work on common radio and IR spectrums as well. Capt. Lennox surmised that their armour was able to rebuild itself over time, so a field may not be the answer. It's likely smart alloys and nano- and micro-technological systems.

[NeoGoomba]

Yeah...well thats when I'll just let you smarty men theorize about what cutting edge technology the giant toys use to camoflage themsevles

[Admiral Valdemar]

Pfft, it's got to be a special smart material like what they're working on now. Materials science is getting to the point where you can make things invisible to radar, change textures and densities and have shape memory. Have that and mecha systems develop for a few millennia and you've got yourself a funky metal body to play in.

[NeoGoomba]

As long as its not SUBSPACE, its a fine rationalization to me

[Admiral Valdemar]

Also, notice when Blackout taps into the central server at the SOCCENT base. The cables connecting to it rip off and then attach on to his hand, making a connection.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

I thought Frenzy came about because Hasbro insisted on a tape deck transformer. He was originally Soundwave, but they changed teh name for various reasons so Soundwave would be a midget. I always assumed that since they got their tape deck transformer they would stop insisting SW be a tape deck.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You'd think that. However, because Bay et al saved Soundwave for the sequel until they could think of something suitable for him, Hasbro are now insisting on the character being like previous incarnations even though what he was originally has already been done by Frenzy and to a lesser extent, the energy wave weapon Blackout used.

[Clone Sergeant]

I personally would like to see Soundwave be a EA-18G Growler. Making him a fighter would allow him to keep tabs on/compete with Starscream while also allowing him to stay at the right hand of Megatron. (Once Soundwave resurrects him in the second film of course.) The two fuel tanks and 3 EW pods could be his "tapes".

[Anguirus]

Does anyone have a source for Hasbro being retarded about Soundwave?

[Admiral Valdemar]

That makes sense, I was thinking an E-2C myself. I think Jetfire needs to be the most needed aircraft in any sequels. The Autobots need the air support.