I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you were first introduced to Akira long after you were introduced to any of these franchises, since you were able to actually give intelligent commentary on how to appeal to the same themes as the original and how that would actually require dramatically reinventing the aesthetics.
Godzilla is a terrifying, vaguely dinosaur-looking monster who destroys cities and is an increasingly strained metaphor for either forces of nature or nuclear war, depending on the writer. That is all you need to be Godzilla, everything else can be changed and keep the character recognizable. The idea of the poorly balanced, slow, and unwieldly creature made out of necessity in the 50's being considered a legitimate threat to a movie going audience familiar with modern nightmares like the xenomorph is laughable. As in, you would literally need to make Godzilla a comedy if you wanted to keep the old look. The problem with the American Godzilla is the way it handled the theme of the character. Godzilla is finally defeated by being bombed to death and never really seems to represent anything except a giant lizard that wants to kill us, but his actual aesthetic is actually a huge improvement, because he looks legitimately threatening. The fact that he doesn't breathe fire was another blunder, but it's the only valid point you've made.
The Michael Bay Transformers always bothered me. Where does all that extra mass come from? I probably would've given this a pass if the movie wasn't so godawful that I stopped watching halfway through.
Concerning Batman, Bob, you've openly admitted that the reason you can't get into FPS games is because you can't even conceive of the idea of going out and shooting people who are actually shooting back. You just aren't made for a warzone. Okay, fine, the whole point of fighting (legitimate) wars is so that other people don't have to (or so they can avert some worse fate), so I'm not going to begrudge you that, but you do have to understand that your lack of attention or concern for the practical realities of warfare are really obvious and really, really irritating. I'm not intimately familiar with modern body armor, but I know enough to see that the Nolan batsuit is a pretty impressive combination of protection and flexibility. It doesn't make any kind of sense for Batman as a character to be wearing anything else, either. He is defined by his pragmatism and his preparedness, you'd need an insanely good reason as to why he wouldn't wear armor if you didn't want to totally derail the parts of his character that actually matter instead of just clinging to old appearances for the sake of nostalgia and characterization be damned. As for what all those "buckles and straps" are for...I'm looking at the version of the Dark Knight batsuit used for the Got Milk ad [http://bittenandbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the-dark-knight-got-milk.jpg] right now, it looks like the exact same one to me and it's a pretty good body shot. I see no buckles or straps, just lots of armor plates over a more flexible mesh armor beneath.
I'm not familiar enough with the Street Fighter source material or the film to know whether M. Bison's redesign was a good thing. Unlike Batman and Godzilla, I don't really know what the themes of this character are, so I have no idea if a modern business suit is more evocative of them.
Galactus looks stupid. This isn't to say that the storm cloud of DOOOOOOOM was a good design decision, it wasn't, but really, Galactus looks stupid. I'm doing something with my little brother right now called Alternate Marvel, which is basically an excuse to get him to try out new art techniques by drawing a new Marvel continuity loosely based on a combination of our favorite movies and games on the subject. One of the biggest aesthetic challenges we've run into so far (which, fortunately, is several months ahead of our current storylines) is what on earth we're going to do with Galactus, such that he is still somewhat recognizable. Because absolutely nothing about the original character looks right. The character is a giant, planet-consuming monstrosity, but also sentient. A god of annihilation. If Mephisto is Marvel Satan, that makes Galactus the Marvel Cthulhu. Look at this guy [http://www.marveldirectory.com/pictures/individuals/g_1d/galactus.gif]. Look at him. When I think of the color scheme of planet-eating abominations, purple and blue is not what leaps to mind. Those boots and gloves just scream "cheap, decades-old sci-fi," which isn't exactly the image of awe and terror for modern audiences. That plate...Thing on his chest looks neither imposing nor practical (of course, being a planet-eating abomination, nothing is particularly practical for Galactus). And that helmet! The giant prongs coming out the sides, the absurdly elaborate crests, the incredibly boring and unimpressive human face that even loses Galactus what points he might have won with an "unfeeling, inhuman behemoth of steel" look...What's wrong with your faaaaaace?
The one place where you're spot on is Bowser. Shigeru Miyamoto is awesome at a lot of things, like making simple game mechanics with incredibly varied applications, exceptional level design, and really good mood and atmosphere with very limited resources in a wide variety of genres. Character design is another of his many and varied talents. Not only are his character instantly iconic, they're also perfect representations of their simple but powerful personalities, and they are timeless. Decades later, not one that I can think of needs to be updated in the slightest (partly he cheated by setting none of his characters in anything resembling reality, which means he doesn't need to worry about pop culture). Bowser is an evil overlord of immense personal power, but the really punishing parts of the Mario games have always come from his minions and fortifications. He kidnaps royalty (in later years, especially Princess Peach) pretty much for a living, and while he's never won any major encounter with Mario, keep in mind that he is otherwise a wildly successful conquistador, who's laid claim to dozens of lands long enough to entrench them with significant fortifications before our favorite pair of plumbers showed up to evict him. Every element of this is represented in his character design. He has a dragon-like appearance while still being incredibly original and distinct. Something about him seems demonic, but in a Saturday morning cartoon way that isn't genuinely frightening. He also appears intelligent, not just sentient, but actually very cunning. So, yes, the Super Mario Brothers movie was generally terrible, and part of that terribleness was in failing to execute a setting and set of characters that was already incredible and could've easily worked as a faithful adaptation.
Man. I should find a way to get the Escapist to pay me for this kind of stuff.
