Are the books and graphic novels any good?

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Lufbery
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Are the books and graphic novels any good?

Post by Lufbery »

Hi all,

I'm looking for reviews/impressions of the novels by Alan Dean Foster and the graphics novels of the movie and the "prequels."

I went to Borders this weekend and looked at all four products. I was not impressed by the artwork of the graphic novels -- just not my style, I guess. It also seemed to me that the graphic novel version of the movie differed greatly from the actual movie.

I looked at the novels, but something in the back of my head reminded me that I've been unimpressed by Alan Dean Foster's novelizations in the past. So I passed them up for now.

My questions: am I being unfair to Foster? Should I give the graphic novels a try even though the artwork put me off? Is there much of real value in the comics and novels?

Thanks,

-Drew
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Lufbery
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Post by Lufbery »

Thanks!

Good reviews on the movie prequel comics/graphic novel.

Does anyone have a review of the novels?

Thanks,

-Drew
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Post by RID Scourge »

I wasn't really impressed. The artwork was a bit confusing, at points, especially in the prequel, and very much so, during scenes, where the only color was the outline of the pictures.

The prequel story is decent, but definitely ruined by the art work. The characters weren't really referred to, by name, aside from Megatron, from what I remember, so a lot of character recognition would be lost to people, who don't keep track of the toys.

The movie adaptation felt very rushed, especially with the dialogue. I guess that's what happens when you cram a two-hour movie into 4 issues of a comic, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

All in all, I'm still in limbo, as to whether or not I want to actually buy a few issues of their main stuff and/or beast wars stuff, based on the fact that I really wasn't all that wowed by these books.
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Post by Angus »

Just finished reading "Ghosts of Yesterday". I didn't like it.
Made me wonder if the author even knew what Transformers were when he was hired to write the novel. To be honest, I think he still didn't know when he finished writing it.
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Re: Are the books and graphic novels any good?

Post by Warcry »

Originally posted by Lufbery
My questions: am I being unfair to Foster?
Nope. I've read a lot of stuff he's written, and his best work only barely manages to qualify as mediocre in my books. And Ghosts of Yesterday is far from his best work.

The Earth-based sections of the story, focusing on human characters, flowed very well and were quite entertaining. The parts of the story that featured the Transformers, on the other hand...just fell flat. Angus hit the nail on the head when he says that Foster doesn't know what Transformers are; battle scenes are a jumbled mess in which the reader usually can't tell what mode the characters are in, and that's just a rookie mistake when it comes to TF writers.

To make things worse, none of the Autobots except Optimus had any personality whatsoever. The other 'Bots act exactly the same, switching between being reckless and talking like Perceptor seemingly at random.

The 'Cons fared better, though. Starscream, Blackout and Barricade were all fleshed out pretty well, which was a bit of a treat since they were all fairly nondescript in the Movie itself. I wouldn't recommend the book just for that, though...fifteen minutes flipping through their articles on the TF Wiki would give you the same info without all the frustration.
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Post by Prons »

I read the prequel comic, I don't think it was anything worth writing home about
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Post by Angus »

One thing that really bothered me is that both humans and transformers would stop in the midde of chaos of battle to have very long dialogues with very little substance. Really annoying!

Also, Ghosts of Yesterday doesn't really add anything to the Movie continuity. The prequel comics do that a lot more effectively. Read below for a synopsis with spoilers.
SPOILER! (select to read)
Sector 7 builds a ship based on reverse engineering the frozen Megatron. The ship accidentally travels through a wormhole and goes to another galaxy. Both Autobots and Decepticons detect the ship, and move to inspect. They are both curious about the Cybertronian designs, and want to know what's the story behind the ship.

The Ark's crew consists of the 5 Autobots in the movie. The Nemesis' crew consist of 6 of the 8 Decepticons in the movie (minus Megatron and Brawl/Devastator). They are being led by Starscream, who doesn't really care about finding Megatron, and will do anything to avoid losing his leadership. Barricade is curiously described as a huge decepticon.

The ship fleas to a nearby planet. Bumblebee and Starscream leave their respective ships to investigate. Bumblebee gets there first, but before he can do anything, Starscream arrives and he runs away. Bumblebee gets trapped in a cave, and is hunt down by oversized stone-eating worms (so original, haven't seen anything like that since Empire Strikes Back). Starscream goes back to the ship to learn more about it. He downloads everything he can from the ship's computer, and start talking to the humans, pretending to be one of the good guys.

Optimus decides to go rescue Bumblebee, and tells the other autobots to protect the Ark from the Decepticons. Optimus gets trapped in the same cave as Bumblebee. Starscream lies to the humans to get them to join him in attacking Optimus and Bumblebee. But later, the humans realized they were being mislead, and get trapped in the same cave and are abandoned by Starscream. The humans decide to help the Autobots in fighting the Decepticons, because they realize they can't go back to Earth without having one of the Transformers following them home, and also because they want revenge against Starscream (I know, lame).

In space, the Decepticons are figthing the Autobots outside the ship, in sort of (very poorly written) space dogfights. When the autobots are about to be destroyed, Blackout decides to fight Starscream for the leadership, and gets beaten up. This gives enough time for Optimus and Bumblebee to join the fight. When the fight is almost over, and the decepticons are winning, the human ship attacks Starscream. The ship is destroyed by Starscream, who is severely damaged and tell the Decepticons to retreat. Optimus tells the Autobots they need to find the planet Earth, because that's where Megatron is, and maybe also the Allspark. They only hope the Decepticons won't get there first.

That's pretty much the story. In the meantime, on Earth, on a completely unrelated subplot, Sector 7 is trying to move Megatron from the Artic to the Hoover Dam. The convoy carrying the "Ice Man" gets attacked in the snow by russians. Megatron wakes up, only to be shot down a couple of times, and then get frozen again. He doesn't even do any damage to anything, really pointless.

The End
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Post by Angus »

Here is an interview with the author, where he admits he didn't know anything about Transformers:

http://seibertron.com/people/interviews ... view_id=32

(apparently, he didn't even bother to watch the cartoons to familiarize himself...)
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Post by Lufbery »

Ugh.

Okay, guys, thanks for the responses. I'll just let the movie stand on its own and get the DVD when it comes out.

Regards,

-Drew
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Originally posted by Angus
Here is an interview with the author, where he admits he didn't know anything about Transformers:

http://seibertron.com/people/interviews ... view_id=32

(apparently, he didn't even bother to watch the cartoons to familiarize himself...)


Interesting- all the pre-publicity for IDW's Movie tie-ins claimed that the books, comic and film people were all working closely together, but it would seem Foster never had any contact with them. Does Bumblebee talk in the book?

I was put of buying it by the SFX review (which slated it) revealing the whole thing of him having to rewrite another authors book that was considered subpar.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Angus »

Originally posted by inflatable dalek
Does Bumblebee talk in the book?


No.

I was put of buying it by the SFX review (which slated it) revealing the whole thing of him having to rewrite another authors book that was considered subpar.
I'd like to read it. Could you point me to it?
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Post by Philister »

I wrote a short review of the official novel of the movie at Transformers-Universe.com. Find it here:

Transformers Movie Novelization review
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Post by Nevermore »

Originally posted by Angus
No.



I'd like to read it. Could you point me to it?


The Seibertron interview contains some additional information.

http://seibertron.com/people/interviews ... view_id=32
Looking for a complete Energon Sky Shadow (from Superion Maximus).
Offering: Binaltech Hound, Swindle, Ravage (Corvette), Skids.
Can buy in stores: Robot Heroes Tigatron/Inferno, Ricochet/Predaking.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

For those in the UK the novelisation and the Ghosts of Yesterday book have made their way into The Works at half the retail price. I picked both up for the journey to Cardiff. There and back I'd normally manage about 200 pages of a book like that but barely got through 50 of the Prequel. The idea that America in 1969 would ever send a woman into space is actually more ludicrous than anything else in the book (one hopes ector 7 have advanced on the space suit design. According to my Mother one of NASA's official reasons for taking till 1985 till send a woman up was that the toilet facilities weren't compatible with the female form. Seriously. Apparently the Russians just used to have them piss straight into the suits and therefore achieved equal oportunity space travel decades earlier...).
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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