Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

Okay, cue the math music! Note that I'm more or less guesstimating each solid into a box shape to make calculations easier.

Camaro: 4 ft X 6 ft X 15 ft=360 ft^3
Bumblebee: 30 ft X 8 ft X 4 ft=960 ft^3

Truck: 8 ft X 10 ft X 30 ft=2400 ft^3
Optimus Prime: 50 ft X 15 ft X 6 ft=4500 ft^3

Unless these giant alien robots are mostly air, this is not conservation of volume.

Emoting without lips? That's what proper voice acting is for! Not to mention body posture, eye emoting, etc. How many seasons of Power Rangers have we had that don't have any facial expressions at all? Plus you got Iron Man, Steel, and so forth in the comics.

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must shove the cube into my chest! That will destroy it!" More or less. The only things in Optimus Prime's chest are his Spark and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. I doubt that his Spark could neutralize the cube, so what's left?

For that matter, what did kill Megatron in the end? I watched the climax twice and that's still bugging me.

[NAHTMMM]

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must shove the cube into my chest! That will destroy it!" More or less. The only things in Optimus Prime's chest are his Spark and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. I doubt that his Spark could neutralize the cube, so what's left?

Gremlins.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Okay, cue the math music! Note that I'm more or less guesstimating each solid into a box shape to make calculations easier.

Camaro: 4 ft X 6 ft X 15 ft=360 ft^3
Bumblebee: 30 ft X 8 ft X 4 ft=960 ft^3

Truck: 8 ft X 10 ft X 30 ft=2400 ft^3
Optimus Prime: 50 ft X 15 ft X 6 ft=4500 ft^3

Unless these giant alien robots are mostly air, this is not conservation of volume.

Where are you getting these numbers from? I read that the producers took great care to ensure that every transformation was feasible, and that the giant robots could indeed fold up into those cars. I think your solid boxes are introducing gross errors into the calculations. Was Bumblebee really 30 ft tall and only 8 ft wide? Seems awfully unstable.

While I'm on the subject, what are these strange foreign units you call "ft"?

[/quote]Emoting without lips? That's what proper voice acting is for! Not to mention body posture, eye emoting, etc. How many seasons of Power Rangers have we had that don't have any facial expressions at all? Plus you got Iron Man, Steel, and so forth in the comics. [/quote]

Speaking as an actor...mouths and eyes are two of the most important tools an actor has to convey expression. That's why all the aliens on Star Trek look like humans peering out and speaking from behind latex.

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must shove the cube into my chest! That will destroy it!" More or less. The only things in Optimus Prime's chest are his Spark and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. I doubt that his Spark could neutralize the cube, so what's left?

In the comics, he's got the Matrix of Leadership. I don't think they even mentioned the concept in the movie (wanted to avoid confusing people with Keanu's movie). Prime was going to merge his Spark with it, destroying them both. One Spark will serve just as well as another. Megs just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

For that matter, what did kill Megatron in the end? I watched the climax twice and that's still bugging me.

The MacGuffin.

[Nate the Great]

I guesstimated the numbers! I thought I'd made that clear. It's even right there in the thing you quoted!

Optimus has eyes. I'm not complaining about telescoping lenses.

If we're going to say that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership wasn't involved and we're treating the cube as a sort of Spark-specific antimatter, then why was Optimus talking about suicide missions?

Foreign units...hah. So I'm stubborn. I have to deal with meters enough in my engineering work enough to want a break from it. Besides, our official engineering specs are still in feet, so there.

Oh, come on, matrix has umpteen meanings. The target audience is the twenty- and thirtysomethings who remember the heyday of Transformermania in the eighties, right? We know what a matrix is.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[QUOTE=Nate the Great;75046]I guesstimated the numbers! I thought I'd made that clear. It's even right there in the thing you quoted![quote]

I know you guesstimated them, I'm just wondering about how you arrived at those numbers.

"Michael Bay stated in an early interview that Bumblebee stands about 17 feet tall [5], but the scale of his Deluxe concept toy suggests he stands closer to 18 feet tall." <-- Wikipedia

I don't know where you got 30 from. Bumblebee didn't appear to be six times as tall as the squishy meatbags he was running around with.

If we're going to say that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership wasn't involved and we're treating the cube as a sort of Spark-specific antimatter, then why was Optimus talking about suicide missions?

'cause it's an Optimus thing to do. Noble self-sacrifice and all that.

Foreign units...hah. So I'm stubborn. I have to deal with meters enough in my engineering work enough to want a break from it. Besides, our official engineering specs are still in feet, so there.

Pffft, engineers. You're just too lazy rip up the entrenched foundations on which the entire construction industry is built upon and throw everything into chaos by redefining the 2x4.

Oh, come on, matrix has umpteen meanings. The target audience is the twenty- and thirtysomethings who remember the heyday of Transformermania in the eighties, right? We know what a matrix is.

Don't talk to me, talk to the producers. There's nothing so simple that Hollywood will fail to get the point.

[Nate the Great]

First of all, I'd like to point out that phrase "concept toy," emphasizing "concept" as "not final." For another thing, an action figure will not have the same internal structure as a Transformer.

Well, maybe I did get dimensions wrong, but I stand by my original Persistant Niggling Question. To my eye it looks like additional solid mass was obtained during the transformation process.

Oh, and here's another PNQ (let's just save space, shall we): How many other people noticed the transformation from real car to the CG car right before transformation? I could. I was quite tickled by that. No matter how much these studios trump about the superiority of CG, when in fact it's not.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Well, maybe I did get dimensions wrong, but I stand by my original Persistant Niggling Question. To my eye it looks like additional solid mass was obtained during the transformation process.

I watched the same transformation process you did, and my hyperactive sense of "That Violates The Laws Of Physics" didn't twig. Maybe I should watch it again with a more critical eye.

[Nate the Great]

Hey, you should hear my rant about Pokemon technology. One of my cyberpenpals was quite tickled that I would watch an enjoyable cartoon and still go "that technology is totally bogus."