Transformers 4 News and Rumours

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 2:59 pm

Oh, it's real? Wow, must be an absolutely perfect choice for the name of a fictional quasi-everyman character. Hitler's surname is real, it doesn't mean you slap it on a fictional character (in most circumstances, obviously, cf. Bottom) because it'll jerk the reader out of the universe. Same goes for Itchyanus or myriad other less incendiary examples. It's Cybertron Metroplex shit all over again. Because I'm guessing you know or know of hundreds of people with the name and didn't just Google that to check, right?

If you can't suspend your disbelief while reading/watching Transformers enough to accept "giant, transforming alien robots" as part of the universe you're indulging in then I feel quite sorry for you and would probably advise that it'll be the better for you if you find something else - Doctors or Jeremy Kyle or something. If you follow that line of logic through to its' natural end why bother with anything because, y'know, giant, transforming alien robots don't exist so what's the point in even writing comics, films and episodes about them?

It's needless to jerk readers out of said universe by throwing obvious spanners like O'Nion, Brasnya, Carbombya, MTMTE RED ALERT etc. in their faces.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:33 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I dunno, the films are kinda breaking new ground by giving the majority of human characters names that aren't ridiculously stupid.

I don't know, it's an easy sop to the fans who care about that sort of thing and doesn't have any impact whatsoever on anything else. Carly being the name of the female lead in the last one probably made some people very happy and she'd have been the same bloody awful character no matter what name they used so it's not as if it made much impact.

Buster's not that odd a name is it? Am I not cool and down with the kids anymore?

"Hi, I'm Hunter O'Nion - like the vegetable but with a random apostrophy because that way it's a totally convincing surname like all those crazy Irish ones. You see that cloud in the distance? That's your willing suspension of disbelief."

I think the problem with Hunter was, in theory him having a slightly odd surname that likely led to him being bullied for years at school and was the beginning of him being something of an outsider is fine and dandy. Where it falls apart is its in a comic where the other recurring male is called Jimmy Pink. If everyone has silly names it just doesn't work.

Plus I think it was Spengs who pointed out the way he introduced himself was really stupid, saying his name and then explaining how to pronounce it. So he either said it wrong the first time, or knows he's being presented in a printed medium without sound. There'd certainly be less clumsy ways to have done that (I'm Hunter O'Nion" "Ohnnyon*? That's unusual, how'd you spell that" *Character name rant*. I said less clumsy, not Shakespeare).

You've lost me on the Cybertron Metroplex and MTMTE RED ALERT things.

*Or whatever the official pronunciation was.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:40 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:Oh, it's real? Wow, must be an absolutely perfect choice for the name of a fictional quasi-everyman character. Hitler's surname is real, it doesn't mean you slap it on a fictional character (in most circumstances, obviously, cf. Bottom) because it'll jerk the reader out of the universe. Same goes for Itchyanus or myriad other less incendiary examples. It's Cybertron Metroplex shit all over again. Because I'm guessing you know or know of hundreds of people with the name and didn't just Google that to check, right?

If you can't suspend your disbelief while reading/watching Transformers enough to accept "giant, transforming alien robots" as part of the universe you're indulging in then I feel quite sorry for you and would probably advise that it'll be the better for you if you find something else - Doctors or Jeremy Kyle or something. If you follow that line of logic through to its' natural end why bother with anything because, y'know, giant, transforming alien robots don't exist so what's the point in even writing comics, films and episodes about them?

It's needless to jerk readers out of said universe by throwing obvious spanners like O'Nion, Brasnya, Carbombya, MTMTE RED ALERT etc. in their faces.

Oh Calm down. I just thought I would make a funny joke at your expense. Dont get those knickers in a twist. Of course I can accept the concept of transformers just as I can overlook a bad name gag for a character. Hunter O'nion IS a stupid name and was probably picked just for a gag but it doesn't "jerk" (seriously?) a reader out of a plot. Its a minor irritant.

And whats wrong with Red Alert as a name? Or am I missing something there?

Anyway back to the movies and I guess Hugo wont be back as Megatron / Galvatron
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-v ... bay-379339

Cant say anyone would be suprised to hear that he phoned it in.

And good old Shia looks unlikely to appear even as a cameo. He seems to indicate that the studio had as much input into Transformers as Disney into Avengers (I'm reading between the lines on this one)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s ... ies-361943

Cant say i'm saddened by his departure from the studio system.
I'm not going to disagree with him over both Indy 4 and TF 3 being crap (his words, not mine) but I think its a bit shit to take the big pay cheque from a studio and then shit on it during promotion.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:50 pm

MTMTE RED ALERT and, IIRC, some random numbers were in a couple of Dreamwave comics as 'tech garbage' on read-outs and character POV shots - as, IIRC, was the Japanese TF logo and Jazz having a 'J NAME' of 'Meister' - needless little easter eggs that drag you out of the fiction by saying "Hey, look, TF media with in-jokes!" because there's no way any of that stuff has a reasonable in-fiction explanation. Obviously it's not a direct parallel to the O'Nion thing, more an example of something the writer/artist thought was funny and/or cool that just doesn't work well.

Cybertron Metroplex turned into a complete abomination which was modelled on a real mining rig; that state of affairs was constantly wheeled out by Hasbro apologists to justify it being a lousy-looking piece of shit. Comes back to the same "just because it's based on something real doesn't mean it's beyond reproach" thing.

I don't think that smattering of 'characterisation' really justifies O'Nion having a silly name myself; there are plenty of other ways to show that sort of thing and I don't think his surname being Jones, McDonald, Harris or, well, just about anything else would have affected the story. If anything it's lazy shorthand from the writer in my book as bad as calling someone John Everyman or Lance Uppercut. Have him bullied for being a cybernerd or whatever instead.

With Carly in DotM I think it was a case of there being a new female and there's an extant female character with a decent name so, yeh, why not? If the girls had all had bizarre and/or outdated names to the equivalent of Spike and Rad she probably wouldn't have been named after an extant character. But the girls do seem to have got off more lightly, so yeh, I can see the new girl being called something like Alexis or Marissa

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:56 pm

MTMTE RED ALERT and, IIRC, some random numbers were in a couple of Dreamwave comics as 'tech garbage' on read-outs and character POV shots - as, IIRC, was the Japanese TF logo and Jazz having a 'J NAME' of 'Meister' - needless little easter eggs that drag you out of the fiction by saying "Hey, look, TF media with in-jokes!" because there's no way any of that stuff has a reasonable in-fiction explanation. Obviously it's not a direct parallel to the O'Nion thing, more an example of something the writer/artist thought was funny and/or cool that just doesn't work well.

Isnt the point of an easter egg in a comic that its a hidden nod to the fans that notice it? I'm not going to argue that they all work (Heart of Darkness Galvatron swirl being particularly awful) but in most cases you either notice it as a quick gag for those in the know or it passes you by completely (for example I had no idea Jhiaxus was a play on Gee-Axe-us aimed at his bosses by Simon)

Anyway, if thats what takes you out a plot I think you may need to take things a little less seriously.

Seriously.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:18 pm

Red Dave Prime wrote:Oh Calm down. I just thought I would make a funny joke at your expense. Dont get those knickers in a twist.

No biggie, not sure what isn't calm about a rebuttal.

Hunter O'nion IS a stupid name and was probably picked just for a gag but it doesn't "jerk" (seriously?) a reader out of a plot. Its a minor irritant.

YMMV. TBH, a gag name for a gag character I can deal with - can't think of a good example within TFs off the top of my head though I'm sure there's one or two. But if it's someone we're meant to be accepting as an ongoing lead in a comic with the grown-up pretentions that Furman's IDW work had I think it's a serious misstep (as was Brasnya; were they worried that Chechnya would boycott?). It basically meant that I wasn't taking the character seriously from that point on.

As Dalek says the other two having slightly unusual names doesn't really help matters especially as the comic is trying to present them as three random ordinairy-ish people rather than, say, mobsters in a Tarantino film.

Furman does kinda have form for this with Amos Hume from the UK Armada comic, a character it's impossible to take seriously if you read the old comic's letters pages. And Irwin & Sterling Spoon. Coming up with natural-sounding names just obviously isn't one of his strongpoints.

He wasn't the only one, what with General Hallo and all... Bob seemed to have more of a knack for it, or at least for matching names to characters - Josie Beller gets a normal name because she's intended to be an ongoing dramatic character (stop laughing!), Joey Slick notsomuch because he's a one-off joke.

EDIT: Actually, Joey Slick's a good example of a working gag name - he's a silly broken-down mobster in a silly story who's then never mentioned again. It was a pretty lousy story, though.

And good old Shia looks unlikely to appear even as a cameo. He seems to indicate that the studio had as much input into Transformers as Disney into Avengers (I'm reading between the lines on this one)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s ... ies-361943

Cant say i'm saddened by his departure from the studio system.
I'm not going to disagree with him over both Indy 4 and TF 3 being crap (his words, not mine) but I think its a bit shit to take the big pay cheque from a studio and then shit on it during promotion.

Never really expected him to be back in any capacity for 4 and am still mildly surprised he never found any way to extricate himself from the one or both of the sequels... Regardless of his opinions I think it's quite good to be outspoken about that sort of thing; he just wants to be a bit careful or he'll struggle to find really well-paid work again.

I'm guessing his rough plan is to do the Depp thing of taking a blockbuster role with big money every couple of years so he can afford to appear in art/indy scripts for scale and/or direct and the like but Depp plays the game and doesn't slag off the studios and/or audiences while doing it.

It does seem a tad... ungrateful, though, doesn't it? Without four big franchise films making him such a household name he'd probably have fewer offers on the tables and less money. It's the sort of thing it's quite easy to bitch about after he's done it but it's not like anyone had a gun to his head in 2006 or whenever he signed the contracts...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:23 pm

Red Dave Prime wrote:Isnt the point of an easter egg in a comic that its a hidden nod to the fans that notice it? I'm not going to argue that they all work (Heart of Darkness Galvatron swirl being particularly awful) but in most cases you either notice it as a quick gag for those in the know or it passes you by completely (for example I had no idea Jhiaxus was a play on Gee-Axe-us aimed at his bosses by Simon)

Anyway, if thats what takes you out a plot I think you may need to take things a little less seriously.

Seriously.

Thing is it's not hidden - I read all the text in comic frames, that simple. Not entirely sure if there's a better way of doing it - imagine the details you'd miss in, say, Watchmen if you didn't. Something like Transformers offers ample scope for fun easter eggs - the Trainbots in a crowd scene and statues of Japanese G1 leaders both being good ones from Dreamwave because none of those characters are anything to do with anything else in the continuity and you need extras for crowd scenes and subjects for statues. But text? That involves the name of a character who's, like, in the comics at the time? When genuinely random text would do the job just as well? It comes back to the same thing as O'Nion - there's no need for the distraction, so why do it?

Easter eggs are all well and good if they don't disrupt the story. That one did.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:24 pm

It does seem a tad... ungrateful, though, doesn't it

I think so. After 2-3 years to turn around and say "yeah, that wasnt my best work. In fact I'm quite embarassed about it all" I wouldnt mind. But knocking something when its just come out? Thats a bit shit by any standards. I'm sure he didnt send back any of his pay cheque for TF3 (which I'm guessing was pretty decent) and he didnt walk of set and refuse to do the job either. Seems a shit thing to do in my opinion.

If you're not happy with the project - walk and leave the money behind.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:32 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:Thing is it's not hidden - I read all the text in comic frames, that simple. Not entirely sure if there's a better way of doing it - imagine the details you'd miss in, say, Watchmen if you didn't. Something like Transformers offers ample scope for fun easter eggs - the Trainbots in a crowd scene and statues of Japanese G1 leaders both being good ones from Dreamwave because none of those characters are anything to do with anything else in the continuity and you need extras for crowd scenes and subjects for statues. But text? That involves the name of a character who's, like, in the comics at the time? When genuinely random text would do the job just as well? It comes back to the same thing as O'Nion - there's no need for the distraction, so why do it?

Easter eggs are all well and good if they don't disrupt the story. That one did.

I dont think the detail level in watchmen (which is centered on the watchman world) is the same as an easter egg in a long running comic though. (And while you would miss a lot in watchman if you didnt read everything I think you'd still be able to follow the plot.)

The other stuff in the TF comics is just incidental detail - it has no bearing on the plot at all. Watchmen is different in that its part of the world they are looking to establish. In the Transformers comics, it seems its is simply a nod to the more knowing reader. As far as I know there are loads of little references back to the Marvel series in Last Stand of the Wreckers. They're a nice little homage and nothing more.

I'm guessing the writer/ artist feels its a cure thing to do. The other option is really just to have random numbers as its not something thats affecting the plot either way. I'd rather have the little easter eggs.

Of course if your arguing that the writer and artist should be more creative and fill it with stuff that builds the actual world their story is set in, then I kinda see your point, but it still would never take me out of the story in anyway.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:56 pm

Red Dave Prime wrote:If you're not happy with the project - walk and leave the money behind.

That's the thing, though, isn't it? At the end of the day one way or another Megan Fox got out of TF3 so it wasn't impossible for Shia - it might have hurt his wallet or his rep with the studios but you've got to ask yourself what's more important.

Red Dave Prime wrote:I dont think the detail level in watchmen (which is centered on the watchman world) is the same as an easter egg in a long running comic though. (And while you would miss a lot in watchman if you didnt read everything I think you'd still be able to follow the plot.)

Of course if your arguing that the writer and artist should be more creative and fill it with stuff that builds the actual world their story is set in, then I kinda see your point, but it still would never take me out of the story in anyway.

I do think it's something entirely possible; LSotW comes close to managing it. I think if you're going to put details in they should make sense. Squadron X are a great example of a good easter egg, for example - they could be random new characters without affecting the plot. However, making them very obscure extant characters adds "Squee!!" factor for those who recognise them (and a tiny tiny bit of depth as we 'know' Fang, Macabre etc. are dicks) but doesn't cause any confusion because most of them haven't been seen since 1986 in a totally different continuity.

Art references tend to work better because there's a lot more scope for making them non-intrusive. Seizan in a crowd is just a yellow generic to anyone who doesn't know who Seizan is. Putting the name of a current character on a read-out when there's no logical way it could actually have anything to do with him is a lot more intrusive, IMO. Same with the "J Name" thing - what can that mean on an Earth scanner? Nothing apart from "Hey, in the Japanese version of the toyline Jazz was called Meister"

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:59 pm

I just want to chime in here and say that the 'J-name: Meister' thing has bugged me for years. It's on the same level as fansite shout-outs scattered throughout the art.

I love that Hugo Weaving literally phoned in his Megatron voice and still did a pretty good job with it. Though I can almost hear Billy West's teeth grinding from here at the mention of his two hundred thousand dollar fee.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:34 am

I did think the Weaving thing was common knowledge since the first one. I'm not really going to miss him either way, though - he did a good job but nothing on the level of Cullen. And with any luck it'll secure a Megatron-less film - he's been killed twice now and spent most of the last two getting beaten up. ROTF and DOTM have proven that 'name' Decepticons are pretty irrelevant to most of the audience; we could well see Galvatron, for example, but I don't think it'll necessarily follow that he's Megatron rebuilt or even much more than a hardcore Decepticon who has a cool name stuck on him.

Spengs getting a mention up-thread reminds me of something he said about the Japanese logo being 'hidden' in a couple of DW frames - that as he read Japanese (fluently?) it was the same thing as the word 'Transformers' just being randomly written on the wall for no reason. Dreamwave really pushed that sort of thing a bit too far quite often what with the rubsigns, the too-frequent TF:TM paraphrasing and so on. It was possibly more distracting as there wasn't much else in the comics, though.

Viewed in retrospect War & Peace especially seems very much an attempt to 'do' a Last Stand of the Wreckers for the entire first half of the G1 line; there's barely a page that isn't a reference to something, be it a toy assortment, a cartoon episode or whatever. It might have worked if there had been a plot. As it is it's like you're reading the thing with Mad Brick sitting next to you jogging your elbow and going "Eh? Eh? Eh?". He probably is doing that to someone somewhere right now, actually.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:53 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:
Viewed in retrospect War & Peace especially seems very much an attempt to 'do' a Last Stand of the Wreckers for the entire first half of the G1 line; there's barely a page that isn't a reference to something, be it a toy assortment, a cartoon episode or whatever. It might have worked if there had been a plot. As it is it's like you're reading the thing with Mad Brick sitting next to you jogging your elbow and going "Eh? Eh? Eh?". He probably is doing that to someone somewhere right now, actually.

From snippets here and there it seems that Last Stand Of The Wreckers would have been a lot more like that if they'd gone with the first draft. To be honest, some of the references in the finished version are a bit annoying.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:06 pm

So the lesson there is don't stop at the first draft. If only someone had told Mick.

The worst such "Easter Egg" that hasn't been mentioned yet is an Earth powerplant being called Allspark in the DW Armada comic. makes no sense as a terran name and really stands out as odd.

As for Shia... He might well be genuine and spend the rest of his life making low budget indie (as opposed to Indy) films now he's made enough money to never need to work again. And he could well have done all three films out of a sense of obligation to fulfil his contract (and Bay himself has been fairly negative about the second film so he arguably set the standard for everyone else involved that it's OK to do that).

But... it is a fairly common thing for actors afraid of typecasting to lay into their most famous/iconic roles in order to distance themselves from them. And that Lawless he's just done looked like a fairly big film to me.

Then again, when I saw Everything Or Nothing last week the amount of bile from Sean Connery about Bond in interviews even before he left the role is fairly staggering, Shia's just an amateur compared to that.

With Megatron, I'd be amazed if he isn't in the film in some form considering its going to be a big anniversary film. If there's a short flashback to the war on Cybertron involving the character would Weaving really object that much to half an hours work at a good going rate of pay? And indeed, how many people would actually notice if they recast?

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:16 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:So the lesson there is don't stop at the first draft. If only someone had told Mick.

According to himself, Isaac Asimov never wrote a second draft of anything. But then he had being Isaac Asimov going for him.

The worst such "Easter Egg" that hasn't been mentioned yet is an Earth powerplant being called Allspark in the DW Armada comic. makes no sense as a terran name and really stands out as odd.

Even E.J. Su wasn't above slipping stuff like 'Binaltech' on calenders and the like in Escalation. That's worth a stout whack with the broom, E.J.

Then again, when I saw Everything Or Nothing last week the amount of bile from Sean Connery about Bond in interviews even before he left the role is fairly staggering, Shia's just an amateur compared to that.

I'm probably never going to see it - what did he come out with?

And indeed, how many people would actually notice if they recast?

I've have thought he'd still be locked into a contract but it seems that everybody is back to square one on that front. I wonder how much the suits estimate Weaving's name to be worth, especially with The Hobbit looming...

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:41 pm

I think Hugo would be an easy re-cast. Its not clear at all thats its him (which defeats the purpose of a big name as a voice) unlike Nimoy for example.

Plus I reckon its an easy enough job to copy his Megatron. There's nothing really distinct about it.

BTW, I'm really suprised so many of you get put out by the easter egg thing. Honestly, the only two times I can think where I thought "thats shite!" was the mentioned double page bit in Heart of Darkness with Megatron, Galvatron, Toy Galvatron, Leonard Nimoy all floating about, and there was a bit in War and Peace where the Dinobots ride off on Sixshot - made sillier when six shots shadow appears later on in the ongoing.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:54 pm

The problem with easter eggs is they're like 'ooh! its that, and that's him!!!' but on re-read they just stand out and make it feel like a slightly lazy stand up routine about Spangles or white dog sh*t that you don't see anymore. In stuff like 'War & Peace' that's stacked to the rafters with it, it becomes annoying. LSOTW gets away with it (just) because its rammed into various lines of dialogue and that book gallops along at such a pace it doesn't distract you so much. In lesser hands, it becomes like a tedious drinking game 'have a shot each time you see a Gobot being eviscerated' etc. Imagine how p*ssed you'd get playing that with Furmanisms...

I do like easter eggs that reference other stuff though - the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys in Generation 2 or the Dalek Transformer in the old M:UK stuff. That seems a bit more fun than labouriously referring to the minutiae of the franchise.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:45 pm

Terome wrote:According to himself, Isaac Asimov never wrote a second draft of anything. But then he had being Isaac Asimov going for him.

And one of the great originators of professional fan wank with his "Hey, lets merge my two big series into one glorious whole!" thing.

I've never actually read any Asimov, I've always vaguely planned to (and when I was a child my mother had a hardback of one of his Robot novels that had what looked like giant Super Gobots smashing up a city, which I thought was awesome but probably didn't happen inside anymore than Will Smith turning up) but being a mad bastard completist when it comes to shared Universe stuff I've always been put off slightly by the poor reputation a lot of the "Do you like Robots? Do you like Foundation? You'll love Robotey-Foundation!" novels have.

Even E.J. Su wasn't above slipping stuff like 'Binaltech' on calenders and the like in Escalation. That's worth a stout whack with the broom, E.J.

Hmm, though generally he wasn't to bad ("Binaltech" was in a garage IIRC and sound suitable mechanically to be plausibly something you might find on a list or whatever in there). Was it him or Nick Roche who had Eugenesis on a shelf in one issue? I'd guess Nick but I'm not sure without checking...

I'm probably never going to see it - what did he come out with?

The big one was from the same interview that's on the Diamonds Are Forever DVD where he's very, very smug, fully admited he's only come back because of the deal he's made ("I know what it's like to not have money, I know exactly what money means to me") and because he thinks the "failure" of the previous film had proved the point the success of the series is down to him.

I wonder if his derogatory comments about "The one I wasn't it" was the beginning of the perception OHMSS was a box office bomb when it actually did OK, if not spectacularly in comparison to the previous two films (but then, lower budget equals more profit so swings and roundabouts).

There's also a clip from a chat show post Bond where he responds to the question "Who was the first Bond villain?" with "Cubby Broccoli".

I hadn't realised how completely and utterly off his head George Lazenby was during the making of his film, from his own description of his behaviour after fame (and it would seem, LSD) went to his head makes it somewhat amazing he got as far as being paid his first fee for Diamonds Are Forever before walking away by his own choice before being sacked.

On the plus side, Pierce Brosnan is awesome. Just a big gleeful schoolboy about the whole experience. I'd love to see the promo pics he took in 1987 in readiness for being cast in The Living Daylights.

If you've a general interest in Bond there's probably not much in the documentary you won't already know, but it is a good solid overview, very much from the Broccoli perspective, basically being about the various people who've they've been sued by over the years in an attempt to take the franchise over. McClory is the only person to come off worse than Connery does.

Oh God, I'm going to hav to split this three ways now aren't I?

I've have thought he'd still be locked into a contract but it seems that everybody is back to square one on that front. I wonder how much the suits estimate Weaving's name to be worth, especially with The Hobbit looming...

Yeah, studios don't want to make multi-film contracts go on for too long, because they might avoid the problem of stars wanting more money with every film they also prevent the suits renegotiating the salaries down if one sequel doesn't do well enough.

Red Dave Prime wrote: BTW, I'm really suprised so many of you get put out by the easter egg thing. Honestly, the only two times I can think where I thought "thats shite!" was the mentioned double page bit in Heart of Darkness with Megatron, Galvatron, Toy Galvatron, Leonard Nimoy all floating about, and there was a bit in War and Peace where the Dinobots ride off on Sixshot - made sillier when six shots shadow appears later on in the ongoing.

Oh, we're just pointing out some of the bad ones, there's lots of ones that do work well. With Easter Eggs in Transformers pre-dating the use of that name for them (the earliest I can think of is right at the start when some GI Joe toys appear in Marvel US 2 as the American army) it's inevitable they'll be as many that don't work as do.

Skyquake87 wrote: I do like easter eggs that reference other stuff though - the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys in Generation 2 or the Dalek Transformer in the old M:UK stuff. That seems a bit more fun than labouriously referring to the minutiae of the franchise.

Yeah, that's more fun and adds more layers.

Ohhhhhhhhh Simfur. Bloody Simfur. Even if that was Ryall's idea (and I'm not entirely sure of the extent of Furman's input on the co-written film comics) naming one of the major locations in the story after one of the credited writers was just pure self indulgent bobbins.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:18 pm

The thing with easter eggs is they can be harmless if done well but Transformers of the past ten years (mainly DW, to be fair) tends to go over the line more than most other comics I've read. The DW stuff especially seemed to be intentionally trying to cram as many random references in per issue as possible and when you're doing that it ups the chance of it upstaging the plot. Some of the DW easter eggs are great - 'Bee and Brawn having their toy faces as battle masks, for example - but loads of them are really, really heavy handed and often cause plot problems (a great example is the need to have Shockwave's puppet council all being Year 2 Autobot cars - thus creating a continuity problem as Red Alert should have been with the Earth squad).

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:02 pm

Marky Mark Mark Wahlberg apparently isn't going to be in the film: -
http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=35588
I expect ongoing announcements from BIG MIKE detailing further actors who won't be in the film - my money's on Joseph Cotton to not be in it either.

Are we keeping tabs on "Bay's disinformation campaign LOL never fooled me" this time or are we not bothering after he trolled most of fandom with Shockwave last time round?