One of the best things about the Bayverse designs was that they actually incorporated the ALIEN aspect to them. G1 never was made with that in mind since they just took the original Diaclone toys and ran with them and made up the plot and lore on the spot. Bayverse designs FEEL and LOOK foreign and alien, almost Lovecraftian in their complexity and geometry. It's what really got me into drawing and now I'm a freelance concept artist and illustrator that does a lot of TF work.
One of the few good things about the 3 Bay movies. They looked alien. It's something you couldn't think of without seeing it first, and that's what made it alien. Unfortunately, the latter 2 bayformer movies sort of lost this.
The way how pure humanoids in TF4 and TF5 shapeshift into cars and jets is truly lovecraftian. Their geometry is out of this world and breaks all the laws of physics
I do really like the designs for the robots the first three films did (although wasn't crazy with the animalistic designs for the Decepticons) but Bumblebee showed that the G1 designs can be modernized and be realistic.
My take is that Bayformers walked so Bumblebee could run. The 07 film laid the foundation for showing how to create hyper realistic robots using excessive mechanical detail, and because the Bay films had done a good job of presenting and building upon that, it meant that they took that foundation and were able to use it to craft realistic G1 designs seen in Bumblebee and gave us best of both worlds. Basically if we hadn’t got the Bay designs, I honestly think we would never have got the Bumblebee designs.
@@SM-th7pw exactly! I personally think the Bay designs, mainly those from the first 2007 film up until Dark of the Moon, fit the gritty and somewhat harsh universe that series of films is set in, while the Knight/Caple designs fit the more colorful and less harsh aesthetic that Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts had. They both work in their own respective ways, and I really do think that for the Bayverse, if they had more G1 inspired designs, it wouldn’t at all fit the tone or style those films had!
I always considered that the autobots made themselves look more human to appeal to humans whilst the decepticons went for a more monstrous look to use fear against the humans just like how they use tanks and jets. Like what looks more terrifying to see running towards you, a humanoid yellow robot or a giant triangle with a bird like head?
How can we forget the two War For Cybertron games? They actually did pretty good job on blending G1 designs with more modernized and realistic aesthetics from the Bayverse before Bumblebee + RoTB
@@Cotygeek If only they stuck with that instead of making it that from 2 onward he was a push over that worked for other people. Seriously how many employers did he have? The Fallen, Sentinel Prime(ok they were more like partners in crime than employer/employee, but sentinel ended up dominating him), Quintessa and they were angling at Unicron coming in as well, no doubt he would have worked for him too. He should have always been either the main villain or he shouldn't have been in it at all imo. In Age of Extinction, Lockdown was good as the main villain for example and Galvatron basically had no purpose in the movie.
The transformers movie concept arts were the reason of why I started to practice drawing and studying animation, and honestly, some designs are excellent reinventions, in my case, I love the design of optimus prime, but there's a detail that I love of these designs, and that is the fact that the robots have alien runes in some metal pads, what gives to them a more ancient and mysterious vibe, so sad that this detail get lost in the last movies, but Im agree with the fact that the robots could look more simple, accurate to G1 and alien looking at the same time.
The Bumblebee movie translated the cartoon looks well, while also making them realistic. I’d say a perfect combo of the bumblebee and Bay design would be the one from the Prime series.
Same here. More specifically the transformers animated series. Theres just something of how how they convey the use of shapes and features that got me into practicing character design
Hollywood needs to stop using the Bayverse design concepts and start with a whole new approach. I want to see things that show a sign of their G1 concepts but updated similar to the Cybertron scene in the Bumblebee Movie. But stop using that stupid Bayverse face for Bumblebee and give him his traditional horns on his head. But always give the job to someone who cares about the franchise to begin with and Michael Bay does not care about the Transformers franchise and never even wanted to do it to begin with.
@ultimateslinger9857 I don't think Bumblebee Movie did a good job at making "realistic" G1 Designs. As awesome as the Cybertron scene is, there is something about it that just feels more like a Video Game Rendered Cutscene than something that actually looks REAL. Not because it's necessarily too vibrant or due to the designs being more inspired by G1, but because the majority of the designs lean WAY TOO MUCH on G1 nostalgia. As in while I have no issue with the designs being G1 inspired, those designs look like they're the G1 designs with just a little bit more detail. So for me, still not convinced that G1 FULLY works in a REALISTIC grounded style. But I still like some of the designs.
To me, Shia kinda hit the nail on the head with that little comment in the beginning. The G1 designs were amazing for their time, and having them in live action would be a treat (as seen with Bumblebee and ROTB) but with the modern era you got to update things a little more to appeal for a wider audience instead of trying to limit yourself and keep everything 1:1 just to make some old fans happy. Having Megatron, a 20-30 ft tall blocky robot somehow shrink into a handheld pistol is going to require a MAJOR amount of suspending beliefs in a movie trying to convey a little more realism into the story -- at least as realistic as a world with giant sentient robots can get. That said, I'm not tryna argue that Bayformers were "peak fiction" since it definitely had some flaws as the designs got to a point that a lot of the characters became more and more unrecognizable (and this extends to their character too). But you could tell there was - at least in the beginning - an effort to start anew, while still giving just enough reference of the old.
Shia’s comment was also aimed at a theoretical straw man. No one was saying, “oh it has to be like the cartoon designs!” We just wanted the designs to be distinctive and recognizable. Also, if realism was so blasted important, why did Bay make Prime turn into a pimped out semi unlike anything you see in the road? Why couldn’t he just turn into a regular, working truck?
@@davidanderson4748 You would be surprised how many people WERE saying they just wanted the G1 designs; it was actually a good number of the same people cheering for the heavens once Bumblebee came out and said Transformers was finally back to peak from the Cybertron opening. Not even the rest of the movie as a whole.. JUST the Cybertron opening. Am I necessarily saying you are part of that crowd? No. And again, I also understood that Bayformers wasn't peak design, I went out of my way to state immediately after that there are flaws in the designs.
We literally saw the Allspark transform and shrink into a compact size. Now Im not saying Megatron ahould have been a gun, but that argument of mass shifting is moot.
@ That is a giant thing that also has enough power to run a planet and overload an individual's spark. It's like saying God follows the rules of His creation. He doesn't, so why should the AllSpark?
As a kid I thought these designs were the coolest thing on earth but as an adult and a huge fan of Transformers in general, I can appreciate them for what they meant at the time, but I think there are other ways they can approach these characters in the future and this definitely NOT "the only way to make the feel grounded"
@@giovonniiclayton Nah. The reboot's problems come from not being distinct enough to create it's own aesthetic. They were on a good track with bumblebee (despite the limited budget and time they got for the majority of designs) but kinda went back to AoE with the ROTB
I just want them to look like proper aliens. If they can do that with even more G1 designs, fine. I just dont want them looking like an engineering grad student's final project.
I think that it was a good idea to update the designs, but I DEFINITELY feel that they over designed many of the characters, to the point they're pretty hard to read. I find that BumbleBee did a better did a better job of having the characters transform, while still maintaining some semblance of their original vehicle forms.
@@weewoo695 honestly I dont evel feel like the problem with the designs are their detail. It's just that many of the bayverse designs (The decepticons especially) lack any sort of color variety, making the designs kind of hard to differentiate between one another when so many of them are predominately grey or black or some other really dark color. I think a lot of the designs really need some color break up at least
Disagree. I mean sure, you have the chest, wheels and other visible vehicle alt mode parts, but it still doesn't show any semblance that they can ACTUALLY transform into said alt mode. While it's true that the Bayverse designs were overdesigned, it just needs some color breakup.
I think it’s pretty funny that Michael Bay was like “it would look so lame if I just took the G1 designs and put it in the movie, and to most people the best live action Optimus design is from Bumblebee, which is just the G1 design in live action
thats because prime looked better on cybertron in the bumble bee movie instead of on earth. which is why prime in the rotb looked goofy when he was on earth and cant you forget they had some of bays counterparts to make it more appealing
@SEGANERD85 there’s no reason for us to hate each other, yet we for some reason do. did you ever consider why? people are far to annoying with hostility, so I’ll just calmly rebuttal your point (as a Bayverse fan, NOT a fanboy) While you may not be able to tell which is what, I can, but I don’t know if I just had enough prolonged exposure to know, or if I just can more easily identify them more than most. I personally like the look of them, you don’t. you can have your opinion, and I’ll have mine. I get liking the many split apart pieces look less than something more refined looking/block boundary looks, but I simply prefer the many moving pieces. Hope you have a good day!
In all honesty even if you hate the bay transformers movie you got to admit that the vfx where impressive especially for the times Also the design and engineering of the 3D models is really impressive, I remember watching the movie an pausing every time they transferred cuz I like seeing how every piece moved into place, yeah there's probably alot of times where they cheat an just make up parts of the transformation but as a kid watching it was so cool
@@WarpingFist they definitely got lazy with the transformations as the movies went on 4 had those transformers that morphed an 5 didn't even have prime transform on screen At least with the new movies they kept the over all realistic transformation with the new designs that are closer to the og cartoon
Let's just face the fact that no such form of entertainment can ever please an entire crowd. There will always be those that complain apart from those that appreciate.
My biggest issue with the Bay designs is that there’s so little defining features for these characters, regardless of how good the VFX is. Optimus and Bumblebee in the first movie look good enough, they’re a bit messy but they have the essence down. But Sideswipe, the red Lamborghini with a shoulder mounted rocket? Now he’s a silver car with swords and wheel feet. Wheeljack, the white and red sports car with a rocket launcher and head with fins and faceplate? Now he’s a blue, hideous Albert Einstein. There’s just no throughline. And don’t even get me started on the Decepticons. I loved these movies as a kid, and I think some things like the VFX hold up extremely well even today. But man, these films did a really poor job of representing this franchise, especially to casual audiences.
Right? When I was 6 or 7 I can literally tell who was who and what was happening. Personally sounds like a skill issue for those people. @@giovonniiclayton
@@mysterydude8757 I was 4 and i could identify what they looked like and still don't have any problems. Edit: wanna hear something funny i was born in 2009 and am 15 and still have no problem idk how you cannot identify it.
"Keeping the 80s designs would be great for the like, 25 of you on the internet." Preach it, Shia. Nowadays, the brand is just way too scared to branch out and try any designs different from G1, thanks to becoming desperate and hitting the panic button after TLK's failure. Now, everything is G1 again. Now, they can play everything safely for all 25 of the 40 year olds on the internet, lol.
@@Megajaybreaker4well to be fair, when they’ve already shown us how wheeljack looked like in the previous movie, i can see why people would be outraged
@@xavierramirez1911 It's not just Wheeljack, every single one of the designs in ROTB is a straight downgrade from ILM's work in Bumblebee, much like the movie its self.
I think the biggest problem with the (first 3) bayverse films is readability. The autobots are very easy to read, especially Bumblebee, who is our emotional connection through Sam, and Optimus who’s well…. Optimus. However, the Decepticons suffer from “Big Grey Bad guy” syndrome like with many MCU films, adding SOME variation of color could’ve helped tremendously instead of Megs and Starscream being grey piles, and the others being mute green, tan, or also grey.
I love the bayverse designs so much. In a franchise obsessed with resembling G1 all the time I love how alien, complex, and disproportionate they are. No other continuity in transformers looks like them, and I hope it stays that way.
The biggest misconception here between everyone is how designs work. In Halo CE, the Master Chief has a simple but effective design that's iconic and also woros for the low graphical resolution. It would look stupid if it wasn't updated for modern-day graphics, so in Halo Infinite the same armour has more detail and bells and whistles BUT it is and looks like the same armour. The proportions have also changed so that it doesn't make the armour's wearer look like a cartoonish cyborg. This is the point of a good character design. You can extrapolate details in your mind easily and naturally from the core features of the design. This is why anime works so well also, and why when the Bumblebee movie came out, the G1 designs looked so good but ALSO had extra details that weren't present in the original designs. The answer was never what people keep pretending is what those "25 people on the internet" want where it's just 1-1 with the original design. It has ALWAYS been keep the core design but add detail where needed and refine proportions to work.
I grew up getting into transformers with G1, RID2001 and the unicron trilogy. However when this was releasing, the bayverse designs are still my favorite aesthetics for these bots, the only thing that suffered was the writing as time goes on.
I think a mix of styles would’ve been better in retrospect. More along the lines of War for Cybertron. They may have aged poorly, but I really did love the Bayverse films as a kid.
I really love the first movie. I also think the designs are cool. My favorite design is Optimus Primes. He’s really hard to mess up design wise. That’s why he has so many different cool looks in different shows too
You know what, to me the only good thing about Bayverse are the design of the Character, how they brave enough to make a design that sometimes just wild and ridiculous (I'm looking at you Hightower) But of course geewunner have to ruin it because they fear change and Optimus Prime should be look exact like he did in 80 forever And The Bumblebee Movie are the perfect sample that G1 Design and Bayverse Aesthetic can combine and make something good
As someone who got into the franchise after the Transfomers 2007 movie I'm still a fan of the first 3 movie robot designs but have obviously grown to love the designs and characters in other bits of Transformers media, especially after the disasters that we're transformers 4 and 5 that killed my interest for awhile.....I'm way more open to the die hard fan approach with the stories and characters(Transformers Bumblbee 2018, Transfomers ROTB 2023 and Transfomers One 2024 and the shows of course but that goes without saying
Reading some of the comments saying that the Rebootverse (Bumblebee and ROTB) designs can prove the Bayverse designs wrong because the original G1 designs can work realistically, that's neither a yes and no. We already know the countless Diaclone and Transformers story over and over, so long story short, while they were depicted as "alien robots" in the cartoon, but that's the missing factor for those designs; the "alien factor". Because the original Diaclone toys were man-made human piloted mechs that were redesigned and rewritten into sentient alien robot beings from another planet, yet the cartoon and toy designs doesn't reflect that (before anyone can @ me, yes, I'm aware imagination exists). This is where the Bayverse takes it upon that idea and made it work. They actually made the designs look foreign and otherworldly that it doesn't belong in the same space and world as we are, hence why the alien factor really works tenfold with their very complex and detailed appearances, shapes and build that made them look advanced and ancient. But the same doesn't go for the Rebootverse designs (sorrynotsorry). I get that they're trying to be accurate to the G1 cartoon, but the simplicity kills the alien factor that they still look like man-made machines just like their cartoon counterparts. Also, the realism on the designs just doesn't clash very well; compensating it with a bunch of unnecessary gribbling, gears and wires which "tries to make it look realistic". The Bayverse designs had more smooth surfaces and gribbling, gears and wires in some places that makes sense, and the alt mode they scan and turn into represents as battle armor in their bot mode, allowing them to have free movement and mobility. (We're gonna be here all day if I have the gall to compare the AOE/TLK designs, can't have double standards on this) The best comparison would be that Bayverse Optimus takes the "a truck that turns into a robot" description perfectly than his Rebootverse design which looks like "a robot that turns into a truck or a robot that is made from a truck". Imo, I love both designs but Bayverse takes the cake in terms of the alien factor more than the Rebootverse counterparts. EDIT: Remember that the Cybertron scene in the Bumblebee Movie was a last minute addition, making the comparison worse and made the designs what they are and is what it is.
I agree. My favorite part of the bayverse trilogy designs is that they play into the “robot alien” aspect of cybertronians more than any other transformers adaptation. One of my big problems with the reboot designs especially rise of the beasts is that they can’t decide whether they want to play into the “weird alien robot” theme or if they want to be more like G1. I hope they decide on weird alien robots because it’s way cooler lol
Im sorry but i genuinely cant see how the vomit inducingly over designed looks of the bayverse transformers is “good design”. You can have good alien like design and jot have your robots look like they have 55 billion details in one single area. Im not even a g1 purist
In the 2007 movie, despite the characters being G1 inspired, the movie makers didn’t want to make Megatron a gun as they felt the equivalent of Dart Vader turning into his own lightsaber and someone else swinging him.
Something funny about the first live-action TF film is that most of the Autobots & Decepticons still take some design cues from their G1 incarnations, just buried deep under the surface. For example, look at their heads: Optimus Prime is technically the best example of this, but Bee's horns, Ironhide's rounded-out helmet with the crest and Jazz's visor are also pretty good at invoking some amount of familiarity (Ratchet was originally gonna look a bit closer to his cartoon appearance, but that was scrapped in favor of something Bay deemed "cooler" ig). Now for the Decepticons it gets trickier, but once I point it out it might surprise ya. Both Starscream and Megatron have vaguely similar head shapes to their cartoon versions, with the top of Megatron's helmet meeting at a point and Starscream's helmet having side vents (funny cus Starscream's head was originally meant to be Megatron's). Blackout's head design definitely invokes Soundwave since that's pretty much the role he plays in the film (I remember seeing a concept animatic of Soundwave turning into a helicopter on the 2-disc special edition, so that might have been the case at some point) As for the rest of em they seem to be unique designs entirely X3
Thats Not a Lot of Designs, remember that bayformers isnt Just the First movie which was the Most Solid movie, the sequels got shittier and shittier with more fodder decepticons that became more animalistic Just Gray, that Had No personality besides being killed by autobots
it was a good thing bay stretched these designs to the opposite extremes so that later films like bumblebee movie could dial it back to reach the perfect middle ground
I like that they change it. I might be the only one who differs here but I don't like the OG look of the transformers, especially Transformers One, I mean-, they're robots and they have a human mouth? That's weird, but except from that everything else I really loved about the movie, Bayverse design is the greatest readaptation I've ever seen of any franchise, Godzilla did a good job too, I never watched power rangers until the last movie they made and it got me inspired to actually get into their lore too, TMNT I prefer the cartoons since it's what I grew up on, but I loved their realistic design too, and I especially like when franchises do movies like that but they don't ruin the originality, what I mean is we've had so many Michael Bay movies and suddenly we got Transformers One bringing back a lot of Nostalgia (I guess I don't like the design of cartoon transformers because they look too similar to literally ANY japanese Mech Movie and it made them feel unoriginal, Bayverse however gave transformers a different look, a more wider audience design, wether the cartoon transformers reminded me of Yu-Gi-Oh Mech Monster Cards 💀)
Blackout and barricade wouldn’t been popular if it wouldn’t Michael bay didn’t take those no people characters and give them brand new designs and turn them icons.
Thing about these bay designs is that they're nothing more than this franchises attempt at their own designs for their new story like the franchise did with other different shows/media, even the beast wars show that was still canon to the G1 story still had vastly different designs. That creativity is now gone for the most part as now each new designs for the more recognisable characters are far more predictable just to satisfy the 25 of these people on the internet, i'm saying "most" as the out of touch film makers have characters like prime be a rip off of his g1 looks while the less iconic charaters like, battletrap, gets that bayverse treatment because in their mind people only care about the famous characters looking """identifiable"""" while the B list actors like blitzwing or scourge can still get their own fun makeover without worrying about the backlash
@@me_a_person yeah they are cuz the ignorant film makers will only give the "special" treatment to the more known characters like i said, while they just give less care to ones like blitzwing cuz they're not the big transformers fans they claim they are
Yeah, i am fine with optimus and megatron looking the same in different continuities. But every characters looking exact the same as g1 is just so boring
Dude there's plenty of new designs, they're mostly variations on the originals but there's still differences. Transformers is the only franchise where fans complain that characters look too much like themselves, it's wierd.
@@migovas1483 lol the 3 step changers dont have a place for live action films🤣 even rise of the beast proves that especially from the feedback it got, not everybody wants the same cartoon iteration over and over again to keep pleasing the G1 heads🙏🏿 paying homage to g1 is great but it doesnt need to look like g1 which is why we have several iterations of the transformers that keep primes color scheme and truck but still have CREATIVITY
@@_m3kh170 Rise of the beasts suffers from the crappy movies we got before,.. people were fed up from bayformers, specially after the hard pandering to China on 4 and whatever the heck the movie after that was.. not even worth mentioning.. and there are better forms of transformers media to watch, like series or even games.. Rise of beasts had a very bad plot, DEI checkboxes, horrible setting.. horrible soudntrack and marketing just threw it on the floor.. it was sad.. I felt bad for it. It was Hasbro's idea of going Woke so they would capitalize on it...before realizing , they were gonna broke for the same reason.. as everything is going now. The maximals themselves were mostly guests on their own movie. Not a bad design at all,.. The bumblebee was 'Ok' but came too late.
@@migovas1483 Rise of the beasts failure has nothing to do with that past bay films, in fact id say it did its best to rid itself from it. The one thing they did take from the old films was bays production because people actually liked michael bays action. Transformers 1-3 were actually great films that remained untouched imo, 4 wasnt awful but not the greatest and that abomination that came after doesnt even exist to me. I believe rise of the beast truly failed because it lacked that tone that the previous movies had brought before, it wasn’t as serious as the last movies nor was it finished, as much as people would like to hate on bayverse his impact on transformers cannot be denied. He bought millions of new fans into the franchise while giving us unique designs of characters that we love while giving them there own personality.
@@_m3kh170 even if you try, the previous movies are TOO close to be forgotten, Bumblebee is not even that far, but it failed to draw attention for the same reason, movies cannot easily get rid of the later bayformers "feeling" or whatever Michael Bay touches.. , is the same problem with bad Marvel movies ( end game forward ) or Disney Starwars movies, people associate new movies or series with their previous disappointments. Even if they are not part of the bayformerrs, there you have the same Bumblebee, and sky beam and everything from the previous movies. The franchise is ruined, and the stigma is there. Add some extra factors for people to avoid or dislike it more, like Directors comments, plot and settings, or unlikable characters.. and don't forget, i people got used to get things easily on streaming after a couple of weeks, instead of paying full ticket price.. in doubt, they will just let it pass and check it later.
I'm a huge g1 fan, was there when they first came out, but that's not the reason why I hate the designs for the movies. I know there is a group of 'not my transformers' g1 folks out there but that's the vast minority. Most g1 folks either don't care or like me their love of g1 isn't the reason why people don't like the bayverse designs. I just think they are just badly designed. Transformers prime designs aren't g1 redux but I like them. The war for Cybertron games designs are far from the g1 designs but still cool. So don't make the assumption that everyone who loves g1 who complain about the bayverse designs are in the small vocal minority who don't like anything else JUST because they are different.
If you keep covering Transformers, you should collab with Theorymus! He's one of the most popular TF channels around and he's a specialist when it comes to the movies and their development.
I understand why Bay couldn't mimic G1 for a live action/CGI flick....some of the G1 looked really strange even as a cartoon.......but he made them all look like loosely held together landfill garbage. He also made nearly all of them look way too insectoid, especially in the face. I totally get why Bumblebee would (duh, bumblebee) but even Megatron's face looks like a really meanass grasshopper.
Personally I don't think Michael Bay had bad intentions with redesigning the transformers, Bay and the team that worked on the movies wanted to make their own version of these characters, and honestly without that creative touch the brand wouldnt be as unique! Being accurate to G1 does not automatically make it the "best" it just means its accurate, which is a good thing too! We all can have our favorites, but we need to stop making every fan have "If its not G1, then it isn't transformers" mindset. I love G1, Beast Wars, especially the bayverse, ironically I believe there much more to the bayverse than meets the eye. Keep being fans of Transformers! And interact with others, but always be positive! Instead of tearing one down, how about we appreciate how different us fans are 🙏
Lets be honest, the Transformer desing dont work on live action cause theyre bad desings, not because theyre old desings, Gundam its form the 70s and it works perfectly on live action
@@mrscruffles801 i have to disagree, maybe it looks good for a 80s cartoon but you cant put a G1 desing on a live action or realistic setting, specially the ones that have a human mouth
I like how they try to explain that they dont want any metal to bend during transformations in the films… but in the beginning of Transformers ROTF, when you look at Ironhides first transformation HIS HOOD BENDS LIKE PAPER!!
It didn't bend. It split apart to multiple plates instead of "bending like paper". I have watched ROTF so many times that I have lost count. That transformation definitely has no bending
Skip the 10 minutes, here is the answer: The blocky and vibrant nature of the G1 designs just wouldnt work in live action, they wouldnt be taken seriously, there is also the element of “robots in disguise” you could spot Starscream a mile away if he was a bright red and white jet. Some transformers like Soundwave and Megatron wouldnt work if they were to transform into their G1 alt modes being a cassette player and a gun. People say that BBM “did it right” but we only saw Optimus on Earth and he looks out of place, the cybertron scene designs are super overrated and should stay as Cybertronian designs.
While they aren’t faithful and the reboot movies prove Micheal Bay wrong that the G1 designs can work in live action I still do like the idea of how very alien and unique the bay Transformers look.
The reboot doesn't prove anything. The cybertron designs aren't in a live action environment and all the other designs are either nothing like G1, match the bay aesthetic more, or just downright looks bad
When the movie was first announce, a freelance artist did a 1 minute movie clip of a white Optimus Prime and a few others that were spot on to the cartoon but looked perfectly real in the video. (Can't find the video now). Also, the various video games have proven it can be done as well. Like all directors, I feel like Michael Bay just wanted to leave his "foot print" in history with his designs. When they first came out, I recall a huge backlash, calling them "bionicle" like. I also think its telling how they seem to be moving closer to the cartoon design with each movie and further away from the designs of the original movie.
The issue I see with straying so far for the sake of realism is that when you diverge too far you lose the essence of characters. The bay films did this to an unholy extent except for Optimus and Shockwave.
Also IT isnt realistic, they Made IT so complex that the G1 Designs are more logical than the Most of the bayformers. Because many G1 Designs were actually Designed to Transform unlike bay WHO did some heavy flashy CGI to make belief that IT can Transform but its bullshit especially the later bay movies. Just compare the Toys and you See IT the G1 Designs mostly Transform Well, the bay Designs were a Nightmare to Transform, were shellformers or didnt Transform at all only lately you actually get more bayformers Toys that can Transform and even then they tweak the Design to make it Work where IT wasnt neccassery for Most of the G1 Designs
Honestly I really enjoy both. I still love the more alien looking live action designs and they really work in their specific movies, just as much as the classic G1 designs.
I can't believe anyone that thinks that the G1 designs were inferior to the Bayverse designs. G1 designs are objectively the best transformers designs ever made. The reason the robots looked human was the fact the robots were designed by the Quintessons. True, if you look at the Tv Show, the G1 designs look a bit boxy, but have any of you seen the Masterpiece series of Transformers toys? They look fantastic and would have looked amazing in live action. The problem with Bayverse transformers wasn't just the designs. IT was the lack of character to any of the actual transformers apart from Optimus Prime who if I"m not wrong was a pscychopatch. There is a TH-cam video on that. The Bay transformers took 10 mins to transform lol just to make it a movie event lol where as the whole point of alt modes was combat and disguise. It was supposed to happen almost instantly. Fuck bayformers and fuck the fact Michael Bay ruined transformers. The only good transformers movie is the 1986 cartoon one. Nuff said.
Bay didn’t use the G1 designs simply because it wasn’t HIS work. There was some dispute early on about the design of Optimus Prime and MB relented and at least kept that faithful.
they made sure to keep the iconic features of the autobots but michael bay shouldve tried to keep the iconic oculours of the decepticion they looked like demons
@@dylanhudec979 I don't think he's finding a reason to hate. Movie Megatron would have looked badass with black and red accents. Starscream Ig may have looked silly but movie Blitzwing did pull it off.
@ yes, but he had other colors, too that made the design more visually interesting. Heck, Bayverse Galvatron and TLK Megatron’s designs are have other colors in them that made their designs more visually interesting.
I think the biggest problem with Bay’s design is the colors. Biggest example is megaton and bumblebee. Megaton is nothing but gray making the complex/detailed design hard to read and can make the other gray chargers look very similar while bumblebee (and Optimus as-well) are probably the easiest to read and most distinct because the colors and color accents give the complex designs structure making easier to read. Going on more about Optimus, I noticed in the first 3 movies (I just say those because I recently rewatched them) it’s hard to read his face and I think part of the reason why is because the cheeks of his face and the front of his face are the same gray color. I think if the cheeks were blue it would make it way easier to read his face
Used to hate the bay designs As a g1 purest. Though overtime they grew on me, especially Starscream’s design. Now I will say the first time Shockwave graced the screen I thought that he was really badass!
Striving for realism when is about sentient machines made of living metal, is an oxymoron. Bayverse had peak CGI, the designs look cool but also uncanny. Unironically the G1 cartoons while meant for children, do cover rather mature topics and provide solid moral lessons; while the bayverse is all cartoonish plots, dialogues, and more like edgy teens writting fanfic.
I like most of the Bay designs just fine but I wouldn't make them the baseline for other iterations but I think incorporating different elements of different interations is great though, like with one of Megatron's IDW designs where he has mostly his G1 body but with the asymmetrical hands and cape from his Dark Of the Moon design.
I love how people argue abou the "25 peoplenon the internet". But when they didnt show up anymore the moviefranchise went downhill and noone showed up anymore.
I don't think anyone who grew up watching in the 80s or fans of that design expected them to literally copy exactly what they look like for the movie. Of course some sort of modernization was expected and anticipated. I didn't expect the change to be so drastic though (in my opinion). To me Optimus Primes design in rise of the beast is just about perfect. Thats what I was more or less expecting from the start.
I do enjoy the boxier design of the Bumblebee movie, it depends on the altmode. Arcee is more rounded due to the Ducati motorbike while Prime is a clasic flatnose Freightliner, Mirage pontiac is more curvier than a camaro. The idea is to make the bot recognizable enough while keeping consistency with the design language of the altmode.
I see where Michael Bay is coming from, especially after seeing how the robots transform in Rise of the Beasts. A lot of parts just seem to disappear, and the transformation just doesn't feel as satisfying as it did in the Michael Bay movies. Say what you will about the lore and design changes, I don't necessarily like that either, but Michael Bay perfectly captured the satisfaction of transforming a Transformers toy in movie form. Which I feel ROTB doesn't really do all that well.
I’ll be honest, I loved a lot of the movie designs even if they didn’t look like their G1 counterparts (Like Sideswipe, the Constructicons or Jetfire) But they really made a grave mistake with the designs of Age of Extinction and The Last Knight, as they made them very human and with a lack of kibble that was present in the first three films Hopefully, the designs Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts are finding a balance between the G1 and modern designs (I particularly like how Bumblebee, Dropkick, Arcee, Mirage and Battletrap look)
I think the Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts movies proved Bay was wrong. The Original G1 designs do work in a realistic setting. It just takes a director with the proper imagination to bring the designs to life. Also Bay didn't have the original TF fans in mind
2:02 lol Well, the Rise of the Beasts and Bumblebee films proved it's good as long as you put effort into transition of the 80s, lol. Still, Bay's designs are iconic now, I would say. - Luke
I love your channel❤❤👍👍. do Unused Concepts for 2017's Power Rangers, Green Lantern 2011, other DC Extended Universe films that you did with from Man of Steel to Suicide Squad.
One of the best things about the Bayverse designs was that they actually incorporated the ALIEN aspect to them. G1 never was made with that in mind since they just took the original Diaclone toys and ran with them and made up the plot and lore on the spot. Bayverse designs FEEL and LOOK foreign and alien, almost Lovecraftian in their complexity and geometry. It's what really got me into drawing and now I'm a freelance concept artist and illustrator that does a lot of TF work.
One of the few good things about the 3 Bay movies. They looked alien. It's something you couldn't think of without seeing it first, and that's what made it alien.
Unfortunately, the latter 2 bayformer movies sort of lost this.
@@sreedev8250 yeah, whoever was in charge before obviously wasn't anymore, in tf5 they were all just lame armor plate knights
@@bljet4388 Actually, bay was still in charge but was mad at hollywood for forcing him to make more after DOTM, so he ran the franchise to the ground.
@@jeremychicken3339 bay wasnt in charge of robot designs ffs
The way how pure humanoids in TF4 and TF5 shapeshift into cars and jets is truly lovecraftian. Their geometry is out of this world and breaks all the laws of physics
As transformer fan Who watches this channel sometimes this is gonna be a treat
On god
True
I do really like the designs for the robots the first three films did (although wasn't crazy with the animalistic designs for the Decepticons) but Bumblebee showed that the G1 designs can be modernized and be realistic.
My take is that Bayformers walked so Bumblebee could run. The 07 film laid the foundation for showing how to create hyper realistic robots using excessive mechanical detail, and because the Bay films had done a good job of presenting and building upon that, it meant that they took that foundation and were able to use it to craft realistic G1 designs seen in Bumblebee and gave us best of both worlds. Basically if we hadn’t got the Bay designs, I honestly think we would never have got the Bumblebee designs.
@@SM-th7pw exactly! I personally think the Bay designs, mainly those from the first 2007 film up until Dark of the Moon, fit the gritty and somewhat harsh universe that series of films is set in, while the Knight/Caple designs fit the more colorful and less harsh aesthetic that Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts had. They both work in their own respective ways, and I really do think that for the Bayverse, if they had more G1 inspired designs, it wouldn’t at all fit the tone or style those films had!
I always considered that the autobots made themselves look more human to appeal to humans whilst the decepticons went for a more monstrous look to use fear against the humans just like how they use tanks and jets. Like what looks more terrifying to see running towards you, a humanoid yellow robot or a giant triangle with a bird like head?
How can we forget the two War For Cybertron games?
They actually did pretty good job on blending G1 designs with more modernized and realistic aesthetics from the Bayverse before Bumblebee + RoTB
@@ekosubandie2094 oh yeah they worked for the tone of those games very well too, and I think the lighting and coloration also helped with that!
You gotta admit that Megatron's bayverse design was menacing and badass
Agreed
I also liked how Megatron wasn't just treated as a threat in the movie, he was treated like an unbeatable monster.
especially in the second and third one.
@@Cotygeek If only they stuck with that instead of making it that from 2 onward he was a push over that worked for other people. Seriously how many employers did he have? The Fallen, Sentinel Prime(ok they were more like partners in crime than employer/employee, but sentinel ended up dominating him), Quintessa and they were angling at Unicron coming in as well, no doubt he would have worked for him too. He should have always been either the main villain or he shouldn't have been in it at all imo. In Age of Extinction, Lockdown was good as the main villain for example and Galvatron basically had no purpose in the movie.
First time seeing that man i was terrified as a kid.
The transformers movie concept arts were the reason of why I started to practice drawing and studying animation, and honestly, some designs are excellent reinventions, in my case, I love the design of optimus prime, but there's a detail that I love of these designs, and that is the fact that the robots have alien runes in some metal pads, what gives to them a more ancient and mysterious vibe, so sad that this detail get lost in the last movies, but Im agree with the fact that the robots could look more simple, accurate to G1 and alien looking at the same time.
The Bumblebee movie translated the cartoon looks well, while also making them realistic. I’d say a perfect combo of the bumblebee and Bay design would be the one from the Prime series.
Same here. More specifically the transformers animated series. Theres just something of how how they convey the use of shapes and features that got me into practicing character design
What kind of art do you do for your personal project
Hollywood needs to stop using the Bayverse design concepts and start with a whole new approach. I want to see things that show a sign of their G1 concepts but updated similar to the Cybertron scene in the Bumblebee Movie. But stop using that stupid Bayverse face for Bumblebee and give him his traditional horns on his head. But always give the job to someone who cares about the franchise to begin with and Michael Bay does not care about the Transformers franchise and never even wanted to do it to begin with.
@ultimateslinger9857 I don't think Bumblebee Movie did a good job at making "realistic" G1 Designs. As awesome as the Cybertron scene is, there is something about it that just feels more like a Video Game Rendered Cutscene than something that actually looks REAL. Not because it's necessarily too vibrant or due to the designs being more inspired by G1, but because the majority of the designs lean WAY TOO MUCH on G1 nostalgia. As in while I have no issue with the designs being G1 inspired, those designs look like they're the G1 designs with just a little bit more detail. So for me, still not convinced that G1 FULLY works in a REALISTIC grounded style. But I still like some of the designs.
To me, Shia kinda hit the nail on the head with that little comment in the beginning. The G1 designs were amazing for their time, and having them in live action would be a treat (as seen with Bumblebee and ROTB) but with the modern era you got to update things a little more to appeal for a wider audience instead of trying to limit yourself and keep everything 1:1 just to make some old fans happy. Having Megatron, a 20-30 ft tall blocky robot somehow shrink into a handheld pistol is going to require a MAJOR amount of suspending beliefs in a movie trying to convey a little more realism into the story -- at least as realistic as a world with giant sentient robots can get.
That said, I'm not tryna argue that Bayformers were "peak fiction" since it definitely had some flaws as the designs got to a point that a lot of the characters became more and more unrecognizable (and this extends to their character too). But you could tell there was - at least in the beginning - an effort to start anew, while still giving just enough reference of the old.
Shia’s comment was also aimed at a theoretical straw man. No one was saying, “oh it has to be like the cartoon designs!” We just wanted the designs to be distinctive and recognizable. Also, if realism was so blasted important, why did Bay make Prime turn into a pimped out semi unlike anything you see in the road? Why couldn’t he just turn into a regular, working truck?
@@davidanderson4748 You would be surprised how many people WERE saying they just wanted the G1 designs; it was actually a good number of the same people cheering for the heavens once Bumblebee came out and said Transformers was finally back to peak from the Cybertron opening. Not even the rest of the movie as a whole.. JUST the Cybertron opening.
Am I necessarily saying you are part of that crowd? No. And again, I also understood that Bayformers wasn't peak design, I went out of my way to state immediately after that there are flaws in the designs.
We literally saw the Allspark transform and shrink into a compact size. Now Im not saying Megatron ahould have been a gun, but that argument of mass shifting is moot.
@ That is a giant thing that also has enough power to run a planet and overload an individual's spark. It's like saying God follows the rules of His creation. He doesn't, so why should the AllSpark?
@@davidanderson4748it definitely wasn’t aimed at a theoretical strawman lol, there was a very real crowd of people who felt how he was describing
As a kid I thought these designs were the coolest thing on earth but as an adult and a huge fan of Transformers in general, I can appreciate them for what they meant at the time, but I think there are other ways they can approach these characters in the future and this definitely NOT "the only way to make the feel grounded"
It’s not the only way but they should be the base for how future designs are approached instead of what the reboot is doing
@@giovonniiclaytonThe reboot designs looks so much better than what Bay did, though? The characters actually look like themselves.
@@giovonniiclayton Nah. The reboot's problems come from not being distinct enough to create it's own aesthetic. They were on a good track with bumblebee (despite the limited budget and time they got for the majority of designs) but kinda went back to AoE with the ROTB
I just want them to look like proper aliens. If they can do that with even more G1 designs, fine. I just dont want them looking like an engineering grad student's final project.
@@gavo7911not really, the box office says otherwise , general audience Still prefer bayverse design
I think that it was a good idea to update the designs, but I DEFINITELY feel that they over designed many of the characters, to the point they're pretty hard to read. I find that BumbleBee did a better did a better job of having the characters transform, while still maintaining some semblance of their original vehicle forms.
I feel like they all work if you just add less detail. But honestly they never felt over designed to me
@@weewoo695 honestly I dont evel feel like the problem with the designs are their detail. It's just that many of the bayverse designs (The decepticons especially) lack any sort of color variety, making the designs kind of hard to differentiate between one another when so many of them are predominately grey or black or some other really dark color. I think a lot of the designs really need some color break up at least
Disagree. I mean sure, you have the chest, wheels and other visible vehicle alt mode parts, but it still doesn't show any semblance that they can ACTUALLY transform into said alt mode. While it's true that the Bayverse designs were overdesigned, it just needs some color breakup.
Never forgetting Wheeljack...
2007 Megatron IMHO is one of the worst offenders given he didn't even look like he could transform into anything.
I think it’s pretty funny that Michael Bay was like “it would look so lame if I just took the G1 designs and put it in the movie, and to most people the best live action Optimus design is from Bumblebee, which is just the G1 design in live action
thats because prime looked better on cybertron in the bumble bee movie instead of on earth. which is why prime in the rotb looked goofy when he was on earth and cant you forget they had some of bays counterparts to make it more appealing
Not really ,prime in rotb look's goofy asf , Bro's chest is too big and his head look's small
I think it's pretty funny that a movies like bumblebee and rotb exist at all. They are at least too disgusting to exist😺
They really aren’t just G1 in live action. they have all those random fancy looking metal pieces on them.
@@mamamia7942 The models in ROTB were not the same. They were handled by a different studio.
The marshmallow man in Ghostbusters is iconic.
Imma be honest, in 2007 if the live action Transformers looked like G1, everyone would have clowned the film at that time
If it weren’t for the first Bayverse film, the gee-oners would have no franchise to complain about (and Bayverse fanboys wouldn’t be able to exist).
@@Megajaybreaker4the latter sounds good actually
@SEGANERD85 there’s no reason for us to hate each other, yet we for some reason do. did you ever consider why?
people are far to annoying with hostility, so I’ll just calmly rebuttal your point (as a Bayverse fan, NOT a fanboy)
While you may not be able to tell which is what, I can, but I don’t know if I just had enough prolonged exposure to know, or if I just can more easily identify them more than most.
I personally like the look of them, you don’t. you can have your opinion, and I’ll have mine.
I get liking the many split apart pieces look less than something more refined looking/block boundary looks, but I simply prefer the many moving pieces.
Hope you have a good day!
In all honesty even if you hate the bay transformers movie you got to admit that the vfx where impressive especially for the times
Also the design and engineering of the 3D models is really impressive, I remember watching the movie an pausing every time they transferred cuz I like seeing how every piece moved into place, yeah there's probably alot of times where they cheat an just make up parts of the transformation but as a kid watching it was so cool
right. The transformations are cool to watch even if parts of the transformations are nonsense.
@@WarpingFist they definitely got lazy with the transformations as the movies went on
4 had those transformers that morphed an 5 didn't even have prime transform on screen
At least with the new movies they kept the over all realistic transformation with the new designs that are closer to the og cartoon
@@natto4nowIn the 5th movie Optimus Prime never even transformed on-screen, it was all off-screen, which is insane considering the title of the movie
Let's just face the fact that no such form of entertainment can ever please an entire crowd. There will always be those that complain apart from those that appreciate.
Hate the movies, but the effects were awesome!
My biggest issue with the Bay designs is that there’s so little defining features for these characters, regardless of how good the VFX is. Optimus and Bumblebee in the first movie look good enough, they’re a bit messy but they have the essence down. But Sideswipe, the red Lamborghini with a shoulder mounted rocket? Now he’s a silver car with swords and wheel feet. Wheeljack, the white and red sports car with a rocket launcher and head with fins and faceplate? Now he’s a blue, hideous Albert Einstein. There’s just no throughline. And don’t even get me started on the Decepticons.
I loved these movies as a kid, and I think some things like the VFX hold up extremely well even today. But man, these films did a really poor job of representing this franchise, especially to casual audiences.
This becomes a huge problem in the fight scenes. You have no idea who’s fighting who at times.
@@WarpingFistcap when I was a good I could tell who was who with no problem you guys probably just didn’t pay attention
Right? When I was 6 or 7 I can literally tell who was who and what was happening. Personally sounds like a skill issue for those people. @@giovonniiclayton
@@mysterydude8757 I was 4 and i could identify what they looked like and still don't have any problems.
Edit: wanna hear something funny i was born in 2009 and am 15 and still have no problem idk how you cannot identify it.
@ordovicianinnova I do agree with more color should of been added especially with the decepticons
Optimus Prime's facial movements were based off of Liam Neeson
Well that explains it
"Keeping the 80s designs would be great for the like, 25 of you on the internet." Preach it, Shia.
Nowadays, the brand is just way too scared to branch out and try any designs different from G1, thanks to becoming desperate and hitting the panic button after TLK's failure. Now, everything is G1 again. Now, they can play everything safely for all 25 of the 40 year olds on the internet, lol.
and they probably are going to stay G1, because they got a lot of slack for making wheeljack look like that in ROTB.
@@Megajaybreaker4well to be fair, when they’ve already shown us how wheeljack looked like in the previous movie, i can see why people would be outraged
@@xavierramirez1911 It's not just Wheeljack, every single one of the designs in ROTB is a straight downgrade from ILM's work in Bumblebee, much like the movie its self.
@@sulphurous2656 it’s still wheeljack bro, regardless of our opinions
@@xavierramirez1911 Disingenuous. It's like taking a random trash can and naming it something that it isn't.
I think the biggest problem with the (first 3) bayverse films is readability. The autobots are very easy to read, especially Bumblebee, who is our emotional connection through Sam, and Optimus who’s well…. Optimus. However, the Decepticons suffer from “Big Grey Bad guy” syndrome like with many MCU films, adding SOME variation of color could’ve helped tremendously instead of Megs and Starscream being grey piles, and the others being mute green, tan, or also grey.
Shia LaBeouf's comments aged about as well as any Michael Bay movie.
He was right though, and if nothing else the CGI aged *very* well
Aged about as well as Shia himself did.
I love the bayverse designs so much. In a franchise obsessed with resembling G1 all the time I love how alien, complex, and disproportionate they are. No other continuity in transformers looks like them, and I hope it stays that way.
"I'd love to put these blocky robots on the big screen and show the fans how lame they'd look!"
Bumblebee Movie: "Huh! Doesn't look that lame to me!"
The biggest misconception here between everyone is how designs work.
In Halo CE, the Master Chief has a simple but effective design that's iconic and also woros for the low graphical resolution. It would look stupid if it wasn't updated for modern-day graphics, so in Halo Infinite the same armour has more detail and bells and whistles BUT it is and looks like the same armour. The proportions have also changed so that it doesn't make the armour's wearer look like a cartoonish cyborg.
This is the point of a good character design. You can extrapolate details in your mind easily and naturally from the core features of the design. This is why anime works so well also, and why when the Bumblebee movie came out, the G1 designs looked so good but ALSO had extra details that weren't present in the original designs.
The answer was never what people keep pretending is what those "25 people on the internet" want where it's just 1-1 with the original design. It has ALWAYS been keep the core design but add detail where needed and refine proportions to work.
They did such an amazing job on the cgi every transformation from the first one was just gorgoues
Man that starscream sketch resembles his transformers animated look. Big fan of transformers
I love the bayverse designs. And I adore the designs from Bumblebee. But I think some of the best designs came from Transformers Prime.
Michael’s Bay Bumblebee is one of the best thjng the franchise ever offered
Awesome video, also that Megatron sketch at 5:09 is amazing imagine if they actually went with that look
I grew up getting into transformers with G1, RID2001 and the unicron trilogy. However when this was releasing, the bayverse designs are still my favorite aesthetics for these bots, the only thing that suffered was the writing as time goes on.
I don't think I've ever hated the first 10 seconds of a 10 minute documentary video before. Well that's a new record.
I think a mix of styles would’ve been better in retrospect. More along the lines of War for Cybertron. They may have aged poorly, but I really did love the Bayverse films as a kid.
I really love the first movie. I also think the designs are cool. My favorite design is Optimus Primes. He’s really hard to mess up design wise. That’s why he has so many different cool looks in different shows too
You know what, to me the only good thing about Bayverse are the design of the Character, how they brave enough to make a design that sometimes just wild and ridiculous (I'm looking at you Hightower)
But of course geewunner have to ruin it because they fear change and Optimus Prime should be look exact like he did in 80 forever
And The Bumblebee Movie are the perfect sample that G1 Design and Bayverse Aesthetic can combine and make something good
I think the Cybertron games (WFC and FOC) did the designs best.
Nah bayverse has the best fight scenes and musics bumblebee movie and rise of the beast ar nothing compared to bayverse at that
As someone who got into the franchise after the Transfomers 2007 movie I'm still a fan of the first 3 movie robot designs but have obviously grown to love the designs and characters in other bits of Transformers media, especially after the disasters that we're transformers 4 and 5 that killed my interest for awhile.....I'm way more open to the die hard fan approach with the stories and characters(Transformers Bumblbee 2018, Transfomers ROTB 2023 and Transfomers One 2024 and the shows of course but that goes without saying
I remember how amazing the first film was despite the fan purists prefer box designs
Reading some of the comments saying that the Rebootverse (Bumblebee and ROTB) designs can prove the Bayverse designs wrong because the original G1 designs can work realistically, that's neither a yes and no.
We already know the countless Diaclone and Transformers story over and over, so long story short, while they were depicted as "alien robots" in the cartoon, but that's the missing factor for those designs; the "alien factor". Because the original Diaclone toys were man-made human piloted mechs that were redesigned and rewritten into sentient alien robot beings from another planet, yet the cartoon and toy designs doesn't reflect that (before anyone can @ me, yes, I'm aware imagination exists).
This is where the Bayverse takes it upon that idea and made it work. They actually made the designs look foreign and otherworldly that it doesn't belong in the same space and world as we are, hence why the alien factor really works tenfold with their very complex and detailed appearances, shapes and build that made them look advanced and ancient.
But the same doesn't go for the Rebootverse designs (sorrynotsorry). I get that they're trying to be accurate to the G1 cartoon, but the simplicity kills the alien factor that they still look like man-made machines just like their cartoon counterparts. Also, the realism on the designs just doesn't clash very well; compensating it with a bunch of unnecessary gribbling, gears and wires which "tries to make it look realistic". The Bayverse designs had more smooth surfaces and gribbling, gears and wires in some places that makes sense, and the alt mode they scan and turn into represents as battle armor in their bot mode, allowing them to have free movement and mobility. (We're gonna be here all day if I have the gall to compare the AOE/TLK designs, can't have double standards on this)
The best comparison would be that Bayverse Optimus takes the "a truck that turns into a robot" description perfectly than his Rebootverse design which looks like "a robot that turns into a truck or a robot that is made from a truck".
Imo, I love both designs but Bayverse takes the cake in terms of the alien factor more than the Rebootverse counterparts.
EDIT: Remember that the Cybertron scene in the Bumblebee Movie was a last minute addition, making the comparison worse and made the designs what they are and is what it is.
Glade to see someone else realize this especially the part about the reboot designs because there honestly kinda lazy in my opinion
I agree. My favorite part of the bayverse trilogy designs is that they play into the “robot alien” aspect of cybertronians more than any other transformers adaptation. One of my big problems with the reboot designs especially rise of the beasts is that they can’t decide whether they want to play into the “weird alien robot” theme or if they want to be more like G1. I hope they decide on weird alien robots because it’s way cooler lol
THIS! This needs to be said louder.
Im sorry but i genuinely cant see how the vomit inducingly over designed looks of the bayverse transformers is “good design”. You can have good alien like design and jot have your robots look like they have 55 billion details in one single area. Im not even a g1 purist
In the 2007 movie, despite the characters being G1 inspired, the movie makers didn’t want to make Megatron a gun as they felt the equivalent of Dart Vader turning into his own lightsaber and someone else swinging him.
Back when they can do design risk like these,now it's g1 slop because change is bad
Exactly and we won’t ever have another golden age of transformers with how hasbro is with the brand
There's a such thing as too much change you know.
@@mrscruffles801 nah
Something funny about the first live-action TF film is that most of the Autobots & Decepticons still take some design cues from their G1 incarnations, just buried deep under the surface.
For example, look at their heads: Optimus Prime is technically the best example of this, but Bee's horns, Ironhide's rounded-out helmet with the crest and Jazz's visor are also pretty good at invoking some amount of familiarity (Ratchet was originally gonna look a bit closer to his cartoon appearance, but that was scrapped in favor of something Bay deemed "cooler" ig).
Now for the Decepticons it gets trickier, but once I point it out it might surprise ya.
Both Starscream and Megatron have vaguely similar head shapes to their cartoon versions, with the top of Megatron's helmet meeting at a point and Starscream's helmet having side vents
(funny cus Starscream's head was originally meant to be Megatron's).
Blackout's head design definitely invokes Soundwave since that's pretty much the role he plays in the film (I remember seeing a concept animatic of Soundwave turning into a helicopter on the 2-disc special edition, so that might have been the case at some point)
As for the rest of em they seem to be unique designs entirely X3
Say what you want about the Bayformer films, but a lot of the designs were pretty solid. Blackout from the ‘07 film will always be my favorite design.
Thats Not a Lot of Designs, remember that bayformers isnt Just the First movie which was the Most Solid movie, the sequels got shittier and shittier with more fodder decepticons that became more animalistic Just Gray, that Had No personality besides being killed by autobots
Oh my, I watch this channel as a Marvel and Dc fan.....How did you know i was a Transformers fan!!!??
something about your account gave it away.
thank goodness i grew up off of bayverse. I dont think I would've loved/been interested in the series as much as i do without those designs.
it was a good thing bay stretched these designs to the opposite extremes so that later films like bumblebee movie could dial it back to reach the perfect middle ground
I like that they change it.
I might be the only one who differs here but I don't like the OG look of the transformers, especially Transformers One, I mean-, they're robots and they have a human mouth? That's weird, but except from that everything else I really loved about the movie, Bayverse design is the greatest readaptation I've ever seen of any franchise, Godzilla did a good job too, I never watched power rangers until the last movie they made and it got me inspired to actually get into their lore too, TMNT I prefer the cartoons since it's what I grew up on, but I loved their realistic design too, and I especially like when franchises do movies like that but they don't ruin the originality, what I mean is we've had so many Michael Bay movies and suddenly we got Transformers One bringing back a lot of Nostalgia
(I guess I don't like the design of cartoon transformers because they look too similar to literally ANY japanese Mech Movie and it made them feel unoriginal, Bayverse however gave transformers a different look, a more wider audience design, wether the cartoon transformers reminded me of Yu-Gi-Oh Mech Monster Cards 💀)
Blackout and barricade wouldn’t been popular if it wouldn’t Michael bay didn’t take those no people characters and give them brand new designs and turn them icons.
Thing about these bay designs is that they're nothing more than this franchises attempt at their own designs for their new story like the franchise did with other different shows/media, even the beast wars show that was still canon to the G1 story still had vastly different designs. That creativity is now gone for the most part as now each new designs for the more recognisable characters are far more predictable just to satisfy the 25 of these people on the internet, i'm saying "most" as the out of touch film makers have characters like prime be a rip off of his g1 looks while the less iconic charaters like, battletrap, gets that bayverse treatment because in their mind people only care about the famous characters looking """identifiable"""" while the B list actors like blitzwing or scourge can still get their own fun makeover without worrying about the backlash
Oh I can tell you, fans are still upset about Blitzwing
@@me_a_person yeah they are cuz the ignorant film makers will only give the "special" treatment to the more known characters like i said, while they just give less care to ones like blitzwing cuz they're not the big transformers fans they claim they are
Yeah, i am fine with optimus and megatron looking the same in different continuities. But every characters looking exact the same as g1 is just so boring
Dude there's plenty of new designs, they're mostly variations on the originals but there's still differences. Transformers is the only franchise where fans complain that characters look too much like themselves, it's wierd.
Idc how much complaining people did about it. Not everything needs to be g1
and somehow G1 based design, aged better and are coming back, and the 'pile of junk moving' design, is out ...
@@migovas1483 lol the 3 step changers dont have a place for live action films🤣 even rise of the beast proves that especially from the feedback it got, not everybody wants the same cartoon iteration over and over again to keep pleasing the G1 heads🙏🏿 paying homage to g1 is great but it doesnt need to look like g1 which is why we have several iterations of the transformers that keep primes color scheme and truck but still have CREATIVITY
@@_m3kh170 Rise of the beasts suffers from the crappy movies we got before,.. people were fed up from bayformers, specially after the hard pandering to China on 4 and whatever the heck the movie after that was.. not even worth mentioning.. and there are better forms of transformers media to watch, like series or even games.. Rise of beasts had a very bad plot, DEI checkboxes, horrible setting.. horrible soudntrack and marketing just threw it on the floor.. it was sad.. I felt bad for it. It was Hasbro's idea of going Woke so they would capitalize on it...before realizing , they were gonna broke for the same reason.. as everything is going now. The maximals themselves were mostly guests on their own movie. Not a bad design at all,.. The bumblebee was 'Ok' but came too late.
@@migovas1483 Rise of the beasts failure has nothing to do with that past bay films, in fact id say it did its best to rid itself from it. The one thing they did take from the old films was bays production because people actually liked michael bays action. Transformers 1-3 were actually great films that remained untouched imo, 4 wasnt awful but not the greatest and that abomination that came after doesnt even exist to me. I believe rise of the beast truly failed because it lacked that tone that the previous movies had brought before, it wasn’t as serious as the last movies nor was it finished, as much as people would like to hate on bayverse his impact on transformers cannot be denied. He bought millions of new fans into the franchise while giving us unique designs of characters that we love while giving them there own personality.
@@_m3kh170 even if you try, the previous movies are TOO close to be forgotten, Bumblebee is not even that far, but it failed to draw attention for the same reason, movies cannot easily get rid of the later bayformers "feeling" or whatever Michael Bay touches.. , is the same problem with bad Marvel movies ( end game forward ) or Disney Starwars movies, people associate new movies or series with their previous disappointments.
Even if they are not part of the bayformerrs, there you have the same Bumblebee, and sky beam and everything from the previous movies. The franchise is ruined, and the stigma is there. Add some extra factors for people to avoid or dislike it more, like Directors comments, plot and settings, or unlikable characters.. and don't forget, i people got used to get things easily on streaming after a couple of weeks, instead of paying full ticket price.. in doubt, they will just let it pass and check it later.
Like 80% of the designs are visual noise, atleast have a more enclosed chasie/armor plus their insignias are barely visible.
Micheal Bay is to Transformers what Zack Snyder is to DC but everyone’s not ready for that debate yet
Michael bay made 4 very successful movies, Snyder only made 1.
Go pout.
No. Snyder is the worst.
There's probably lots of overlap between the fanbases especially how obnoxious both are.
They did a great job modernizing g1 designs in Bumblebee.
I'm in my collecting transformers phase since I'm older and can afford them so this video is perfect timing
I'm a huge g1 fan, was there when they first came out, but that's not the reason why I hate the designs for the movies. I know there is a group of 'not my transformers' g1 folks out there but that's the vast minority. Most g1 folks either don't care or like me their love of g1 isn't the reason why people don't like the bayverse designs. I just think they are just badly designed. Transformers prime designs aren't g1 redux but I like them. The war for Cybertron games designs are far from the g1 designs but still cool. So don't make the assumption that everyone who loves g1 who complain about the bayverse designs are in the small vocal minority who don't like anything else JUST because they are different.
If you keep covering Transformers, you should collab with Theorymus! He's one of the most popular TF channels around and he's a specialist when it comes to the movies and their development.
The Bumblee movie transformers designs are the perfect compromise between the modern and classic look
Warpingfist Can you make a on Unused ConceptArt. Of Transformers 2007 please
this video is basically that already
@@WarpingFistwhat about the weaponry, or cut characters and alternate takes on the main cast and the unused versions of the storyline
Unused characters would have to be its very own video
Could you do a video on the Early Developement on Portal? (The game)
Oh yeah Eventually, I have tons of ideas on games to make videos on.
@@WarpingFist It'd be cool if you make videos on Resident Evil games and Stellar Blade
I understand why Bay couldn't mimic G1 for a live action/CGI flick....some of the G1 looked really strange even as a cartoon.......but he made them all look like loosely held together landfill garbage.
He also made nearly all of them look way too insectoid, especially in the face. I totally get why Bumblebee would (duh, bumblebee) but even Megatron's face looks like a really meanass grasshopper.
Personally I don't think Michael Bay had bad intentions with redesigning the transformers, Bay and the team that worked on the movies wanted to make their own version of these characters, and honestly without that creative touch the brand wouldnt be as unique! Being accurate to G1 does not automatically make it the "best" it just means its accurate, which is a good thing too! We all can have our favorites, but we need to stop making every fan have "If its not G1, then it isn't transformers" mindset. I love G1, Beast Wars, especially the bayverse, ironically I believe there much more to the bayverse than meets the eye.
Keep being fans of Transformers! And interact with others, but always be positive! Instead of tearing one down, how about we appreciate how different us fans are 🙏
And then they did the perfect designs in Bumblebee
Lets be honest, the Transformer desing dont work on live action cause theyre bad desings, not because theyre old desings, Gundam its form the 70s and it works perfectly on live action
Lol they were not bad designs, g1 prime megs, starscrem shockwave and soundwave have amazing designs
@@mrscruffles801 i have to disagree, maybe it looks good for a 80s cartoon but you cant put a G1 desing on a live action or realistic setting, specially the ones that have a human mouth
I like how they try to explain that they dont want any metal to bend during transformations in the films… but in the beginning of Transformers ROTF, when you look at Ironhides first transformation HIS HOOD BENDS LIKE PAPER!!
While that’s a fair point but for the most part they stuck to the design philosophy for the trilogy
It doesn’t feel like it’s morphing but just folding like a machine
It didn't bend. It split apart to multiple plates instead of "bending like paper". I have watched ROTF so many times that I have lost count. That transformation definitely has no bending
0:58 this scene has haunted me eversince i was a kid💀
If they used the g1 designs then that destroys the creativity of transformers, transformers is more than g1
And for this Michael bay was provin a disappointment compared to the travis knight films
I love your Transformers video!!!!🤩
Skip the 10 minutes, here is the answer:
The blocky and vibrant nature of the G1 designs just wouldnt work in live action, they wouldnt be taken seriously, there is also the element of “robots in disguise” you could spot Starscream a mile away if he was a bright red and white jet.
Some transformers like Soundwave and Megatron wouldnt work if they were to transform into their G1 alt modes being a cassette player and a gun.
People say that BBM “did it right” but we only saw Optimus on Earth and he looks out of place, the cybertron scene designs are super overrated and should stay as Cybertronian designs.
whats the first music?
While they aren’t faithful and the reboot movies prove Micheal Bay wrong that the G1 designs can work in live action I still do like the idea of how very alien and unique the bay Transformers look.
The reboot proves nothing if anything they prove the concept of what the design team and Michael bay was aiming for right
The reboot doesn't prove anything. The cybertron designs aren't in a live action environment and all the other designs are either nothing like G1, match the bay aesthetic more, or just downright looks bad
When the movie was first announce, a freelance artist did a 1 minute movie clip of a white Optimus Prime and a few others that were spot on to the cartoon but looked perfectly real in the video. (Can't find the video now). Also, the various video games have proven it can be done as well. Like all directors, I feel like Michael Bay just wanted to leave his "foot print" in history with his designs. When they first came out, I recall a huge backlash, calling them "bionicle" like. I also think its telling how they seem to be moving closer to the cartoon design with each movie and further away from the designs of the original movie.
As much i love g1 but bayverse made the cybertronian actually like alien robots and the bumblebee movie look like giant toy
The issue I see with straying so far for the sake of realism is that when you diverge too far you lose the essence of characters.
The bay films did this to an unholy extent except for Optimus and Shockwave.
Also IT isnt realistic, they Made IT so complex that the G1 Designs are more logical than the Most of the bayformers. Because many G1 Designs were actually Designed to Transform unlike bay WHO did some heavy flashy CGI to make belief that IT can Transform but its bullshit especially the later bay movies. Just compare the Toys and you See IT the G1 Designs mostly Transform Well, the bay Designs were a Nightmare to Transform, were shellformers or didnt Transform at all only lately you actually get more bayformers Toys that can Transform and even then they tweak the Design to make it Work where IT wasnt neccassery for Most of the G1 Designs
@laisphinto6372 Gotta agree there
Honestly I really enjoy both. I still love the more alien looking live action designs and they really work in their specific movies, just as much as the classic G1 designs.
I can't believe anyone that thinks that the G1 designs were inferior to the Bayverse designs. G1 designs are objectively the best transformers designs ever made. The reason the robots looked human was the fact the robots were designed by the Quintessons. True, if you look at the Tv Show, the G1 designs look a bit boxy, but have any of you seen the Masterpiece series of Transformers toys? They look fantastic and would have looked amazing in live action.
The problem with Bayverse transformers wasn't just the designs. IT was the lack of character to any of the actual transformers apart from Optimus Prime who if I"m not wrong was a pscychopatch. There is a TH-cam video on that.
The Bay transformers took 10 mins to transform lol just to make it a movie event lol where as the whole point of alt modes was combat and disguise. It was supposed to happen almost instantly. Fuck bayformers and fuck the fact Michael Bay ruined transformers. The only good transformers movie is the 1986 cartoon one. Nuff said.
Less screen time with swagg Shockwave Bayverse 🔥🙆
Bay didn’t use the G1 designs simply because it wasn’t HIS work. There was some dispute early on about the design of Optimus Prime and MB relented and at least kept that faithful.
I knew you were gonna do something like this after your tmnt video.
Bayverse ❤
they made sure to keep the iconic features of the autobots but michael bay shouldve tried to keep the iconic oculours of the decepticion they looked like demons
And that’s a bad thing? Sounds like you’re trying to find a reason to hate.
@@dylanhudec979 I don't think he's finding a reason to hate. Movie Megatron would have looked badass with black and red accents. Starscream Ig may have looked silly but movie Blitzwing did pull it off.
@@maxmocs5008MEGATRON WAS ALWAYS A SHADE OF GRAY
@ yes, but he had other colors, too that made the design more visually interesting. Heck, Bayverse Galvatron and TLK Megatron’s designs are have other colors in them that made their designs more visually interesting.
@@maxmocs5008 HE'S MOSTLY GRAY AND FAIR ENOUGH
I think the biggest problem with Bay’s design is the colors. Biggest example is megaton and bumblebee. Megaton is nothing but gray making the complex/detailed design hard to read and can make the other gray chargers look very similar while bumblebee (and Optimus as-well) are probably the easiest to read and most distinct because the colors and color accents give the complex designs structure making easier to read. Going on more about Optimus, I noticed in the first 3 movies (I just say those because I recently rewatched them) it’s hard to read his face and I think part of the reason why is because the cheeks of his face and the front of his face are the same gray color. I think if the cheeks were blue it would make it way easier to read his face
do one for pacific rim
Used to hate the bay designs As a g1 purest. Though overtime they grew on me, especially Starscream’s design. Now I will say the first time Shockwave graced the screen I thought that he was really badass!
Striving for realism when is about sentient machines made of living metal, is an oxymoron.
Bayverse had peak CGI, the designs look cool but also uncanny.
Unironically the G1 cartoons while meant for children, do cover rather mature topics and provide solid moral lessons; while the bayverse is all cartoonish plots, dialogues, and more like edgy teens writting fanfic.
Yeah
I like most of the Bay designs just fine but I wouldn't make them the baseline for other iterations but I think incorporating different elements of different interations is great though, like with one of Megatron's IDW designs where he has mostly his G1 body but with the asymmetrical hands and cape from his Dark Of the Moon design.
I love how people argue abou the "25 peoplenon the internet". But when they didnt show up anymore the moviefranchise went downhill and noone showed up anymore.
I don't think anyone who grew up watching in the 80s or fans of that design expected them to literally copy exactly what they look like for the movie. Of course some sort of modernization was expected and anticipated. I didn't expect the change to be so drastic though (in my opinion). To me Optimus Primes design in rise of the beast is just about perfect. Thats what I was more or less expecting from the start.
I agree. Los Angeles is a beautiful city
Yeah... and so is Kabul
Ever since I saw Tetsuo : The Iron Man and looked at the look of these Transformers...
I do enjoy the boxier design of the Bumblebee movie, it depends on the altmode. Arcee is more rounded due to the Ducati motorbike while Prime is a clasic flatnose Freightliner, Mirage pontiac is more curvier than a camaro. The idea is to make the bot recognizable enough while keeping consistency with the design language of the altmode.
I see where Michael Bay is coming from, especially after seeing how the robots transform in Rise of the Beasts. A lot of parts just seem to disappear, and the transformation just doesn't feel as satisfying as it did in the Michael Bay movies. Say what you will about the lore and design changes, I don't necessarily like that either, but Michael Bay perfectly captured the satisfaction of transforming a Transformers toy in movie form. Which I feel ROTB doesn't really do all that well.
0:54 you had to didn't you? 😂😂😂
I like the designs of the first concept arts or Optimus Prime. It looks like realistic yet anime-looking
I’ll be honest, I loved a lot of the movie designs even if they didn’t look like their G1 counterparts (Like Sideswipe, the Constructicons or Jetfire)
But they really made a grave mistake with the designs of Age of Extinction and The Last Knight, as they made them very human and with a lack of kibble that was present in the first three films
Hopefully, the designs Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts are finding a balance between the G1 and modern designs (I particularly like how Bumblebee, Dropkick, Arcee, Mirage and Battletrap look)
What do you mean by "kibble"?
@@kommissar.murphy The kibble is a term used by Transformers fans to refer to the vehicle parts on robot mode (Like windows, doors, wheels and more)
@@angelbasiliorodriguezbusto2065 wonderful!thanks for telling me.
I think the Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts movies proved Bay was wrong. The Original G1 designs do work in a realistic setting. It just takes a director with the proper imagination to bring the designs to life. Also Bay didn't have the original TF fans in mind
Travis knight proved that you can make g1 work in live action
yeah but it failed
i beg of you to do more transformers content
2:02 lol Well, the Rise of the Beasts and Bumblebee films proved it's good as long as you put effort into transition of the 80s, lol. Still, Bay's designs are iconic now, I would say. - Luke
Eh, Optimus is really the only one that looks close to his G1 design I feel like.
Some G1 designs are absolutely badass, but goddamn bumblebee didn't have to be so..... I- I mean he DOES look like a Bumblebee in G1 but goddamn 😭
Those aren’t G1 designs… those are humanoid designs.
So glad the New Movieverse used designs that are based on G1… for most characters.
Those aren't humanoid designs, those are transformers designs. I hope we will never get a new Transformers movies with awful G1 designs
Technology did wonders for bumblebee.
Man, transformers 1 to 3 was amazing. I know the story wasn't that good BUT, the special effect and the battles compensated.
What is wrong with squares and triangles?
I love your channel❤❤👍👍. do Unused Concepts for 2017's Power Rangers, Green Lantern 2011, other DC Extended Universe films that you did with from Man of Steel to Suicide Squad.
bro sounds like the number 15 guy.
Yes, I actually taught them everything they know