Why can't they ever get it right?

Rating: 2/10 (28 December 2007)

Why can't anybody ever get the Transformers right? It's possibly one of the coolest concepts ever to be conceived and yet in every nearly incarnation, the execution has been wanting.
First, there was the so-called G1 TV series, which I fondly remember but, sadly, it just doesn't stand the test of time.
Then we had Beast Wars, an idea which never appealed to me, despite some good things I'd heard about it.
Then we had various crappy anime series.
Then we have this. Others have already ably described the various things that are wrong with this movie, so I won't bother to do the same, except to add that it's a damned shame that Frank Welker couldn't reprise his role as Megatron's voice and also that Optimus Prime seemed fairly powerless against Megatron and needed Spike to defeat him. BOOOO! As for the designs, I can appreciate the need or desire to update the designs but I don't see how that translates to changing them completely or making them overly complex. Less is more.
And now, we have the new animated series, the pilot of which aired recently on Cartoon Network. Early returns don't look promising on that one either (in other words, I don't care for what I've seen so far).
Sigh. I wonder if we'll ever see the Transformers done right.