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This image has popped up on various websites without citing a source but after some digging, we've found that it is from the newest issue of Time Magazine. The image is a still shot from the "Transformers" movie, with Bumblebee's face dominating the majority of the shot. Bumblebee has a significant amount of battle damage and is looking down at Sam (Shia Labeouf), who is holding that mysterious black box we've seen him with before. Bumblebee's face seems to be the final CGI version of him with extremely blue eyes, reminiscent to Optimus Prime's eyes.
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Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by faridzadeh on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 08:17:53 AM
Love the expression they were able to capture in his eyes.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by gigazarak on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 10:13:10 AM
I don't like the face! Wheres the mouth?
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by KOG on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 10:22:45 AM
I dunno, I've never seen a Transformer eat anything... why should they need a mouth?
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by jmandawg on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 02:56:39 PM
Same reason they need arms and legs... oh i guess they don't need those either.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by openwound on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 03:01:56 PM
You are witnessing the one and only instant that Time Magazine will cover Transformers...until they actually exist and walk the Earth itself stealing our precious natural resources.
MEGATRON -- IN VOGUE WITH ALI KHAMENEI? - AN EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION!
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Tramp on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 06:26:47 PM
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1)
by KOG on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 04:22:45 PM
I dunno, I've never seen a Transformer eat anything... why should they need a mouth?
Actually, yes, they do eat. They eat Energon; or, in most cases, drink it. This was true in G1 as well. On page 23 of , it says, " Cybertronians can ingest energon in several different fasions; they can refuel through recepticals in their alternate modes, directly through their robot mode's consumption orifice, or activate abient absorbtion circuits throughout their forms."
Therefore, yes, Transformers do use their mouths for eating/drinking. We do see this in one episode of the cartoons too, and in the movie.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by KOG on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 10:17:58 PM
One episode of the cartoon eh? No wonder I missed it. I've seen the old movie somewhat more recently than I've seen any episodes of the old show, but I guess I didn't notice the 'eating part'.
Oh well, no biggie. I guess the new movie version TFs just make due with alternate means of energy consumption. Do they even have energon cubes and whatnot in the new movie? I haven't heard anything about that aspect.
Erm, didn't some original G1 TFs not have mouths anyway? Prime and Soundwave and probably some others I don't know the names of? Or were we just supposed to assume that they had mouths hidden under their masks?
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by RodimusBen on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 11:24:59 PM
Actually, yes, they do eat. They eat Energon; or, in most cases, drink it. This was true in G1 as well. On page 23 of , it says, " Cybertronians can ingest energon in several different fasions; they can refuel through recepticals in their alternate modes, directly through their robot mode's consumption orifice, or activate abient absorbtion circuits throughout their forms."
Therefore, yes, Transformers do use their mouths for eating/drinking. We do see this in one episode of the cartoons too, and in the movie.
The problem with that, though, is that it's goofy and juvenile to depict an alien robot as eating something with its mouth. It crosses the boundary of anthropomorphism. It may work for a cartoon but it makes sense that it wouldn't work for a movie. Their options were a) have mouths that don't move properly, which would just look disconnected and weird; b) have mouths that move like human lips, which doesn't make any sense since they are supposed to be made out of metal; or c) figure out a way to work the already superfluous "mouths" out of the character designs. If you ask me they made the right call.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by NachoMon on Friday, April 06, 2007 @ 11:49:21 PM
With mouth or without it. Their face is ugly, and creeps me very much. I prefer the battle mode. At least, it is more elegant and dynamic. I don´t understand why any of the Bumblebee toys include that head variant.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by frogbat on Saturday, April 07, 2007 @ 01:13:55 AM
The mouth fits in very well as the transformers are obviously fashioned after bipedal humanoids. In the g1 mythos they were created as slave robots by the quintessons. Now if i were to create slave robots, I'd try and make them look like they fit in with their masters as much as possible.
I can see what they've tried to do with the heads for the movie characters - the only one that bothers me is Megatron cos he looks evil whereas all the rest could be either a decepticon or an autobot. Guess kids are so dumb these days that characters need to be ugly and scary to represent evil.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Primal-Convoy(primalconvoy@hotmail.com) on Saturday, April 07, 2007 @ 02:42:07 PM
He does indeed look battle damaged. Look what happened to his face-Most of what makes him recognisable has been ripped off the poor "little" fella!
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Tino on Saturday, April 07, 2007 @ 06:14:02 PM
i for one, welcome our machined faced overlords... the fact that their machine faced give them a bit more "real-world" credibility. i mean, seriously, would G1 faces even translate on screen? how would they explain the morphing metal it would take for bumblebee to smirk or make sad eyes? these TFs lean toward machine based humanoids rather than the G1 look of humanoid looking machines.
think #5 in Short Circuit rather than robin williams in bicentenial man. hehe.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Sunday, April 08, 2007 @ 04:57:06 PM
This is not the Transformers we all know and love unfortunaltely.
It always stings my brain when sh-t like this slips by.
Why couldnt they give both fans of the old and new an equal amount of visual integrity to sustain our geekish needs???? WHY!? Is it too difficult?
Heres my small idea and you can tell me if its stupid, then I'll shut up.
Make the robots first look raw and unidentifiable. Then, sport them faces that dont fully look like the plain faces you saw in the 80s cartoon, but something more detailed and close so that people who walk by the theater dont wonder what theyre looking at until they finally read the title "transformers".
These robots all look UGLY. I dont care what anyone says. They look f-cking UGLY.
A little more respect to their likenesses would have been a smarter move.
"oh but it wouldnt make sense in real life" OH STFU!!! xP
This ISNT reality. This is a story about robots that came from CYBERTRON and can transform into earth objects, mostly transportational objects.
Optimus was almost a good design but they killed it with his "Johnny Five" -Short Circuit camcorder eyes. Why couldnt they be more rectangular leads that look cool and not stupid.
Oh I know. Because it wouldnt make f-cking sense in the real world. Well boohoo.
The real world sucks.
The only place any drop of reality SHOULD apply, would be in the story. NOT THE VISUALS.
LEAVE THE VISUALS ALONE!
THEY ROCKED BEFORE, DONT CHANGE THEM TOOOOOOOO MUCH.
In this case, they should just rename the movie "Mech Wars" or something.
...On the other hand... this sh-t is really starting to make me wonder... I love Transformers so much... I dont have all the money in the world to buy every toy like some other fans do.
I however own nearly every important G1 toy from Japan in nice condition.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 06:45:24 AM
And youre not alone man. Sure, theres people here who defend it, but just think of how much of a better, more exciting response we couldve gotten had the Transformers in this film production look just A TAD bit close to the icons of the cartoon show.
Yeah, the show is cheesy by today's standards. But thats because in the 80's Life was simpler and easier to explain. SO FINE, update the movie. Update the visuals even. But dont go tooo far.
You dont see people changing the TMNT into alligators just because they think turtles are too slow to be ninjas. Thats what made them even more attractive.
For Transformers, their transformations were amazingLY COOL and made a hell of a lot more sense than the way Michael Bay made these fraudulent machines change from one object to another.
They all look like droids. Unfinished droids equivalent to C-3P0 from Star Wars Episode One.
Ive a big feeling this movie will end up like the american version of Godzilla. They all thought the big change was genious and more realistic, but FANS DONT GIVE A F-CK WHAT MAKES SENSE TO A DIRECTOR. You RESPECT the icons. RESPECT.
Michael, SHia and the rest of em ARE NOT true fans. If they were, they'd do anything possible to keep the Transformers looking as close to what they are remembered as.
("but it wouldnt make sense in the real world" "Itd be a campy movie" STFU!! Just because you lack the vision and creativity doesnt give you the right to piss all over what we know and love. I mean how could this not have been obvious. It isnt about beastwars fans. It isnt about Armada fans. Im sorry but they hardly matter in this case when youre going to make a movie about something so phenomenal like Transformers. You gotta go back to its roots. And the roots are both the Diaclone made toys and tv show branded as The Transformers.
This ISNT it.
PERIOD.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 07:15:16 AM
You lack imagination. I say that with no intent on hurting your feelings. Your brain reaches a limit when it comes to visual creativity. Your statement using the word juvenile is incorrect. Whats juvenile about putting a mouth on a machine that already has eyes?
Juvenile?
Try a different word and be careful what you choose. It comes off as igonrant and annoying.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 07:17:44 AM
Its not the kid's fault. Its the grown ups in the media stations who teach them ugly is evil.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by KOG on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 09:22:47 AM
I don't see why you guys get so uptight about 'mouths' when so many old school transformers have no mouths.
Prime, Soundwave, Wheeljack, Shockwave, and many many more.
So 'mouths' are not an essential element of Transformers.
I've never liked the idea of 'human' faces made of metal, complete with eyes, nose, and mouth. It's just too similar to so many old school 'giant robot' cartoons... so corny.
And for that reason, I am totally fine with the movie designs.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by ShockwaveRider on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 09:42:55 AM
It's not Bumblebee's lack of a mouth that bothers me half as much as his lack of SPEECH in the film. To have the Autobot who likes and communicates with humans the most be MUTE has always struck me as colossally shortsighted.
But he does looks like some inbred Teddy Ruxpin offspring doesn't he? I think the battle damage is from an ugly stick in one hand and a clue-by-four in the other.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by KOG on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 09:47:53 AM
I get the feeling that the head is designed to be as harmless and non-threatening looking as possible. As a sharp contrast with the Decepticon heads.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 06:08:54 PM
I don't see why you guys get so uptight about 'mouths' when so many old school transformers have no mouths.
Prime, Soundwave, Wheeljack, Shockwave, and many many more.
So 'mouths' are not an essential element of Transformers.
I've never liked the idea of 'human' faces made of metal, complete with eyes, nose, and mouth. It's just too similar to so many old school 'giant robot' cartoons... so corny.
And for that reason, I am totally fine with the movie designs.
UGH!!! Uptight? Corny!?!? NO, YOURE CORNY. .... sigh.. sorry. I didnt mean that, but im still going to leave it. lol Im sick of reading the same defense tactics when one expresses they want REAL transformers and not war mechs of the third kind.
Let me explain. NO ONE is saying they should have the same metal humanoid faces like the cartoon. SIMPLY put, I wish, he looked A LITTLE more like the Bumblebee we know AND LOVE unlike SOME people. Fine, leave his body how it is now. Fine, so he transforms into a sports car leaving out any handicap morals he once had a little guy that turns into a COUPE (couldnt they have used a frikken coupe instead of a muscle car??). But his head. MY GOODNESS. What the hell is that garbage??!?
A very detailed looking robotic face with a slight dash of human features like nose, mouth and eyes ISNT F-CKING CORNY. This movie design however, IS. Youre telling me that you think kids are going to remember the details on these robots? Did you know that the secret in recreating icons is to keep it SIMPLE?
And you mean to tell me that you think its not possible for an alien creature to sport such human like features? WHO GIVES A SH-T. Thats the way they were created. Thats the way they were loved. SO BE IT.
As an artist, I can think of many ways to recreate bumblebee's face without taking too much out and leaving enough in excluding any corny'ness. It couldve looked frikken awesome! But no. And just be
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 06:12:02 PM
PS this site needs a lot of work. I tried quoting another poster but it came out as my own. Now my previous post is confusing. When it says "reply to this" IT NEEDS TO REPLY TO JUST THAT POST. Whats the point?
Fix this problem. Theres no html help around this site either.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by KOG on Monday, April 09, 2007 @ 07:57:40 PM
Would you like some cheese with that.... oh never mind.
A) Not all people worship every single detail of the G1 show... memorizing every voice actor and cherishing every alt mode and every single personality quirk. Some people just enjoy the series for what it is, and like the concept/premise in general. And MOST of the people who will go to see the movie (i.e. the general public) don't care about the original series, or ANY of the newer series, at all.
B) I really don't understand the whole thing about 'handicap morals' that the old Bumblebee had.
C) Eyes aren't corny at all. Mouths are a little corny. Noses are extreeeemely corny. And you know, corny is OK for saturday morning cartoons aimed at kids, and for toys based on cartoons aimed at kids. But the new TF movie is not aimed just at kids. It's a simple fact that Bay doesn't make kids' movies. Whether you like his movies or not, it's true that Bay always makes adult movies. Just go to IMDB and look at the list of movies he's directed or produced. The Rock, Bad Boys I and II, The Hitcher, and many more. He doesn't make movies for kids. The TF movie will surely ATTRACT kids, but I really don't think the movie is being aimed at JUST kids.
D) And can it with the 'I'm an artist and you don't have imagination' nonsense. I focused on art at university myself as well. Who bloody cares. Could they have done things differently? Sure. But I didn't work on the movie. You didn't work on the movie. The movie is the result of other peoples' ideas about how the movie should look. The actors put work into it, the writers put work into it, the lighting technicians put work into it, the special effects crew put work into it, hell, even the bloody caterers put work into it. All the people here and on other message boards are simply consumers who can choose to view the finished product or not.
E) You really need to think about why you're so mad. If you hate the movie, you've still got your cartoons, you'v
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 07:07:52 AM
Ugh..paleeze. First off, I seen all of Bay's movies throughout my 28 years of life. I dont find them to be ...inspirational. The Rock was decent, yes youre right. But I didnt like them. My f-cking op right? Right.
Noses arent corny, Mouths arent corny. And if you could understand what I was aiming at, Im simply talking about their design. Stop arguing with me. If you want to go see it, go. Your defense was lame.
You took everything I said and flipped towards your own ground just to say what you were dying to say to others. I dont jump on bash bandwagons. Im f-cking intelligent enough to know what I like and dont like under my own reasons and not anyone elses.
Im not trying to put you guys on blast, although as saddened or upset i am on the outside about this piece of entertainment, Im really aiming at this crap. Its helping me release inside, so YOU CAN IT will ya?
I dont care about your art university adventures. I never went to art school but I got lucky enough to surpass many who did and get paid like one. Yeah, sounds f-cking arrogant of me to say that doesnt it? Well, you wanted to go with it didnt you.
My point about the artist thing was that everyone seems to think there was NO possible way to make these guys look more IDENTIFYABLE.
And youre totally wrong about the people who are going to watch this flick.
Theres a TOn of people im betting, who once they see this will be like "I dont remember him looking like that.. hey wasnt he a gun? hey wasnt he a ..."
Sadly, some of this is unavoidable because who wants a tapeplayer in 2007 right? But man.. their heads. Thats the subject matter here. Their heads.
And the funny thing is, Im not going to see it like you think I am. For one, I dont have time. I never have time. I missed 300, what the f-ck does that tell you?
However, I wouldve seriously made time for this had it been SLIGHTLY different. SLIGHTLY.
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by ShockwaveRider on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 07:18:43 AM
Aww. Looks like somebody needs a hug!
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 07:20:14 AM
Hey KOG, dont get difficult. Im not really bashing you as a person. I dont even know you. Yeah Im upset. But Im not smashing my keyboard about this.
BTW. "Would you like some cheese with that.... oh never mind."
No no... it's "Would you like some crackers with that cheese" lol..come on man. :p
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 07:21:10 AM
"Aww. Looks like somebody needs a hug!"
Hey so long as you dont look like a bionicle, I'll take that hug! :(
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by KOG on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 10:39:04 AM
Man... if you hate Bay movies so much, why do you keep going to see them? I mean, you said you've seen all of them. If you hate his movies so much, why did you keep going to see them? Personally, I've only seen a handful. I have to admit, I wasn't too excited about Armageddon (although I didn't hate it either), and I rather disliked Bad Boys II (mostly because the main characters were a lot less likeable than in part I). But I did enjoy The Rock and The Island. I have Pearl Harbor on DVD but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I hear it's not great but... I just want to see all the air combat scenes.
Now, you DO realize that not everyone in the moviegoing audience is from our age group, right? Not everyone was a kid at the time Transformers G1 was playing on Saturday morning TV. Some people are younger, and may have grown up with other favorite shows. Heck, some kids probably like Gundam a lot more than Transformers, just because Gundam was all over TV a while back. And some people are older... some people were already adults when G1 was on TV. So they probably didn't watch it either. And I still say that, if you didn't grow up with Transformers, you'd probably look at humanoid TF faces with mouths and noses and think 'that's just kids' stuff'.
Personally, I like the new heads more. Mostly. I still don't like Starscream's head at all. Not because it isn't humanoid... but because it just doesn't look good. My opinion of course. But some other heads I've seen look quite good. Ratchet, Blackout, etc. The problem with old TF faces is that a lot of them are so similar. Silver face with blue eyes, nose, and mouth. The main difference is the sort of 'helmet' that they had. With these new heads, every character is more distinctive.
If you're fine with noses and mouths.... would you also be fine with ears? What if all TFs had humanoid ears on the side of the their heads? Would that look cool too? I'm thinking most people wouldn't like ears. So why the distinction... why
Re: Movie Still of Bumblebee Face In Time Magazine (Score: 1) by Prowl78 on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 06:10:34 PM
"Now, you DO realize that not everyone in the moviegoing audience is from our age group, right? Not everyone was a kid at the time Transformers G1 was playing on Saturday morning TV. Some people are younger, and may have grown up with other favorite shows. Heck, some kids probably like Gundam a lot more than Transformers, just because Gundam was all over TV a while back. And some people are older... some people were already adults when G1 was on TV. So they probably didn't watch it either. And I still say that, if you didn't grow up with Transformers, you'd probably look at humanoid TF faces with mouths and noses and think 'that's just kids' stuff'."
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Ok, I understand what youre saying about that. But I still think it couldve been pulled off in such a way, that the facial aesthetics would be the last thing people would criticize. No one is saying plain silver faces. No one. Think harder and visualize something close but not the same. A little mechanical yes, but not so far out, that they look like frikken bionicles.
And to cover your point about the new vs the old audiences, I personally couldnt give a rat's a--- about the new fans when it comes to making the FIRST live action TF film ever. Im sorry, I know I sound like an ahole and thats fine with me but the point is, TF is an ICON. It wasnt an icon because of beastwars even though bw saved TF universe from extinction, and it wasnt armada nor any other new shows that made it an icon or important.
It was the first shows that did it with the first high quality toys. Period!
Its like Spiderman. They didnt change his costume much in the new movies (thank god) and people who are all into that 100% realism jive, claimed that it would be campy and an unrealistic decision. Well the jokes on them because that movie was incredibly well received, again, unlike Batman Begins. Dont tell me that movie was incredibly received. It wa
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