In 2009, life was discovered on another dying planet. We sent them sent messages of peace and friendship. Unfortunately for us, they're not so friendly after all.
Released as a cash-in on the (then new) Michael Bay Transformers (2007) film and further taking cues from the Terminator and The Matrix franchises. Transmorphers, directed by Leigh Scott, is a 2007 film released by The Asylum.
The film focuses around what happened after the above-mentioned invasion 300 years later. A small, underground resistance group has decided to take action against the robots and reclaim the Earth. Which has since become shrouded in permanent darkness created by said robots in order for them to live.
A prequel, entitled Transmorphers: Fall of Man was released in 2009. Around the same time as both Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen and Terminator Salvation and also taking cues from Maximum Overdrive. It goes into more detail about how the Transmorpher invasion started.
Tropes associated with Transmorphers and its prequel:
- After the End: The first movie focuses on the aftermath of the invasion.
- Alien Autopsy: Serves as the source of one of the movie's reveals.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Well they did wipe out ninety percent of the planet.
- Alien Invasion: Of the killer robot variety.
- All There in the Manual: Fall of Man serves as this for the beginning of the invasion.
- Antagonist Title: Both movies are named after the invaders.
- Armies Are Evil: The Transmorphers are depicted as such.
- Art Evolution: The robot effects in Fall of Man are slightly better than those of the first film.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Apparently, guns in the future are both
lightweight and don't have pullback or recoil. - Attack Drone: There are Transmorphers that turn into these.
- Attack Of The Killer What Ever: Fall of Man starts off with a cell phone Transmorpher. Later on, there's an SUV, a helicopter and a satellite dish.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Though never really expanded upon, the robots cover the world in darkness so they can stay alive.
- Bland-Name Product: The Transmorpher that turns into an SUV in Fall of Man is clearly supposed to be a Nissan Pathfinder with the logo crudely taped over.
- Bury Your Gays: Karina Nadir was thought to have been blasted by the Transmorphers. But she's alive and well.
- Cannon Fodder: Implied with the humans, shown with the Transmorphers.
- Car Chase: One happens in Fall of Man.
- Cat Fight: Happens in the first movie.
- Cold Sniper: The Z-Bot units.
- Covers Always Lie: The movie barely has any warring against giant robots. Only a few show up and are as easily dispatched as the smaller ones.
- Crapsack World: What the robots do to the planet after landing.
- Creator Cameo: Leigh Scott as General Sabir in the first film.
- Cue the Sun: The end of the first film.
- Descriptively-Named Species: The Transmorphers, they morph.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Van Ryberg is a female version of this.
- Energy Weapon: From both sides.
- Enhanced on DVD: The initial rounds of the DVDs for the first movie were released with incomplete sound and visual effects. Later releases fixed these problems. Which does make the movie slightly more watchable.
- Exposition: The invasion, at least in the first film, is only brought up in passing during the Opening Monologue. Fall of Man expands upon what happened.
- Fighting for a Homeland: Earth, actually.
- Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Upon awaken, Warren Mitchell learns that his wife Karina Nadir married a woman. But she still has feelings for Warren.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Warren Mitchell knew it would come to this.
- Humans Are Morons: Until The Reveal, they quickly made the assumption that the robots are actually suits for the aliens.
- Jerkass: All over the place in the first movie.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: The Transmorphers, natch.
- Mockbuster: Leigh Scott has gone on record saying that it was not envisioned as one from the get-go. Asylum took an old script of his and put a Transformers-based title. Ironically, the first movie has more in common with the Terminator franchise than it does the 2007 Transformers film outside of the use of alien Transforming Mecha.
- The Night That Never Ends: What the robots cause in order to survive, and what the humans are trying to reverse.
- No Animals Were Harmed: The credits for the first film have one aimed toward the robots. They apologized.
- Product Placement: Very narrowly averted, see the Bland-Name Product entry.
- Rebel Leader: Warren Mitchell.
- The Reveal: Twice in the first movie - when Warren Mitchell is told that he's an android and when the robots are shown to be the actual invaders, not suits for the invaders.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Warren Mitchell and Suzy, Warren being one is set up as a twist.
- Robot War: Due in part of being inspired by the Terminator films.
- Rule of Cool: What the filmmakers were trying to achieve. Whether or not they succeeded is up to the viewer.
- Same Language Dub: It's clear that
most of the lines were dubbed in post. - Scenery Gorn: In the first film, the few times we see above ground, it's nothing more than a wasteland populated with killer robots.
- Scenery Porn: The underground city, to some extent.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: It takes five years to send a message 20 million light years to a dying alien planet.
- Sentient Vehicle: In Fall of Man, as there's an SUV Transmorpher.
- Standard Sci-Fi Army: Present on both sides in the first film. Though the robots are a bit more guilty.
- Starring Special Effects: Poorly done special effects, but still.
- Stock Footage
- Stuff Blowing Up: The buildings at the beginning of the first film and several robots.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Warren Mitchell is a robot too. For an Asylum film, it's a surprisingly good twist, even with token foreshadowing in the form of when arguing why he shouldn't be unfrozen, a character comments that he thinks more like a machine then a man. Though it makes his rambling about dreams make no sense at all.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Fall of Man goes into how it happened.
- Transforming Mecha: In the loosest sense of the term. The titular mecha change from a robot to a slightly different robot with guns. Fall of Man does this a little straighter, with a cell phone, an SUV, a helicopter, and a satellite dish.
- Villain World: The world in the first movie is populated with robots above the surface.
- We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: Heavily implied in the first movie's narration that this is what wiped out Humanity. It's shown in Fall of Man that this isn't the case, and the invaders instead infiltrated humanity in disguise.
