Transformers movie thread for people who saw it (spoilers within)

Hagakure_irl

faceman wrote:

and for anyone who says they would have preferred to see the G1 designs on screen, i was one of them - until i saw the sector 7 website teaser clips. There are 4 or 5 that i can remember, one for starscream, one for bumblebee, one for rampage, one for an insecticon and one for grimlock. They were dreadful. Didnt carry an ounce of realism and was deffo convinced me the G1 blocky look would not work on screen.

Well said, thats exactly how i feel about it as well.

rossie1977

HBK wrote:

eh was'nt devastator in this movie???.....when starscream calls the decpticons to rollout.....its shows.....bonecrusher(armoured van) ....and devastator(the tank)...rolling out...then he dies in the end battle????.....

It was this Devastator i was talking about; the huge transformer created from the 6 constructicons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructicons

I didn't realise Michael Bay named the Decepticon originally known as Brawl in the animated series, as Devastator :mad:; damn b**tard.

BlitzKrieg

when has hollywood not given us an action film like that would some ****ty ending!

Honestly even by hollywood standards the ending was very anti climatic.

You post is confusing tho, on one hand you say you enjoyed but on the other you are slaughterin it!

I have a habit of doing this.


How I rate films:

Every film by default gets 5/10 if they nail the essential 5 parts of filmmaking. That is there are no crucial physical flaws in the film such as big editing mistakes, really really poor cgi or blatantly obvious sfx, horrible beyond belief acting/directing and a plot that makes no sense etc.

Essentially the 5 cardinal rules Uwe Boll brakes on a daily bases

Now honestly I rarely have to remove points from a film for those 5 points, especially a blockbuster because they hire people to make sure they dont break it. Thats why its a rare sight for me to rate a film under 5.

Its the next 5 points they need to impress me with.

These are only handed out when the film excells at certain apects.

hence with transformers

5/10 for being a competantly put together film

6/10 for looking so god damn gorgeous

7/10 for characterisation/acting especially in Shia Lebouf's character and Bumblebee.


At the same time I refuse to give it 3 points because there are 3 points that dont go above and beyond the call of filmmaking and in fact tar it as a film.

The Soundtrack

The direction/editing in the action scenes

The use of the military in a plot element.


So my review covers those extra five points as I always assume the first five are universally accepted in the single line *well made film/I enjoyed it* and the rest of the review is filled up explaining where the other 5 points went.

the first two were explained away in the first 3 lines (or referred to in later parts in the rant)

and the remaining 3 are left to fill up the remainder of the review.


Honestly I enjoyed the film and intend to see it again when its quieter but I make a big deal out of faults in a film and like to talk them through, its sort of anti flame because I tend to be very good in validating my points, rather then simply saying i disliked this and having you flame me for being a G1 fanboy or some other stupid thing (ala my comments on Episode 3 two years ago) I sort of put forward in alot of writing why i disliked such and such point and you now have to argue my point instead of attacking me.

KdjaCL

re barricade is on the aircraft carrier at the end so deleted scenes ftw on the dvd



kdjac

Galvasean

What i loved is that Starscream was the big winner. My friends asked, "Why did he fly away after only taking out half of the jets?" My response, "Why indeed "
He obviously let Blackout and Megatron get killed because Megatron was the leader and Blackout was his most loyal soldier.
Its great to see Starscream's treachery finally pay off! Hopefully he will be the leader of the Decepticons in number 2.

BlitzKrieg

my hope for number 2

Starscream tricks new stupid autobots that they need to get the remains of the all spark off optimus, they come to earth and use dinosaur displays in the natural history museum as the base of their design hence Dinobots.

Starscream (maybe teaming up with Soundwave) uses the chaos they cause to steal the remaining piece of all spark which is then used to create the constructicons and set off to get the rest of the all spark out of megatrons remains but Sam brings the dinobots around and they with the autobots defeat starcream etc. Soundwave escapes with the remains of megatron to return in part 3 with galvatron and Unicron.


heh a man can dream

GWolf

I'd give it a 6, maybe a 7. Ok, no great.

sprinkles

just back from seeing it again. I agree with Blitz in that there are some battle scenes, not just the bumblebee barricade fight at the start but also during the end battle that we are left looking at rubble flying everywhere or the reaction of the military.... bit annoying but a minor flaw in the grand scheme of things.

There's so many nods to the cartoon and the original movie, didn't notice the "one shall fall" speech first time around.

Overall I give it 8/10

I don't think we've seen the last of Megs.

BlitzKrieg

the one shall fall speech really tied into my Camera looking the god damn way gripe...WHY THE HELL WHERE WE WATCHING SHIA STUCK IN A DITCH at the moment Optimus Prime said those words?

faceman

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Honestly I enjoyed the film and intend to see it again when its quieter but I make a big deal out of faults in a film and like to talk them through, its sort of anti flame because I tend to be very good in validating my points, rather then simply saying i disliked this and having you flame me for being a G1 fanboy or some other stupid thing (ala my comments on Episode 3 two years ago) I sort of put forward in alot of writing why i disliked such and such point and you now have to argue my point instead of attacking me.

i didnt flame you at all, i presume its my comment about g1 tf's onscreen you are referring to. My comment was general comment spurred by someone else's post about exo-skeleton transfromers and plenty of other fanboy posts on this site about g1 tf's FTW.

you have come back with your points and i will argue it with you later when i have time. I wasnt attacked you at all dude.

the one shall fall speech really tied into my Camera looking the god damn way gripe...WHY THE HELL WHERE WE WATCHING SHIA STUCK IN A DITCH at the moment Optimus Prime said those words?

that baffled me at first but i think what bay was trying to do (and he pulled it off quite badly) was use juxtaposition. ALtho prime was speakin to megatron, it echoes what could happen to sam and the all spark. or it might be supposed to anyway. either way i would have preferred a crane cam on prime as he said it followed by a close up of megatron.

Hagakure_irl

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Starscream (maybe teaming up with Soundwave)

Wouldn't count on that...not with Soundwave's huge loyalty to Megatron...but Megatron is dead and they aren't taking too much from the G1 although they did keep Jazz the second in command...maybe Soundwave could be linked to a revival of Megatron?

thelordofcheese

BlitzKrieg wrote:

And finally point 3:

THE US F*CKING MILITARY!

Well, i forgave this on the grounds that compaired to typical Micheal Bay stuff it was very toned down.
When i first heard it was Bay at the helm, i was expecting Megatron to be wearing a turban while optimus prime was draped in a giant american flag, and beat the crap out of megatron while singing the star spangled banner.

In comparison to that nightmare, it was kinda tolerable.

But yeah, it would have been nice to have a less of an emphasis on the US military.

GWolf

You know what it needed, sense of threat. When even Megs gets taken out like that, you feel, "Well, that easy" What we needed was amoment where it struck "we are so f*cked"

Ger_Hankey

Yeah, I liked it overall, but the first 2/3 were much better than the ending. The huge fight scenes were a bit of a mess, you couldn't make anything out at all.
Did anybody else notice a difference in the quality of the special effects for different robots? Bumblebee was perfect, aswell as Prime, Barricade Frenzy and Megs. Starscream, there was a couple of moments that didn't look as good, Jazz and Ironhide didn't look anywhere as real as some of the others, and Brawl/Devestator was the weakest of all IMO. There was one point where the military guys look like they are shooting at a projector screen with a picture of him on it.

The only other thing I had a major problem with was the last scene with bumblebee, for two reasons.
SPOILER:First, why was he unable to speak throughout the whole film, and then suddenly he's perfectly understandable? Did Ratchet suddenly decide to fix his voice box (while both his legs were hanging off, mind)?
And secondly, considering they did such a good job of putting across his character without a voice (the filmmakers get a thumbs up for this, it could have gone very badly), did they give him a voice that was so out of character?

BlitzKrieg

faceman wrote:

i didnt flame you at all, i presume its my comment about g1 tf's onscreen you are referring to. My comment was general comment spurred by someone else's post about exo-skeleton transfromers and plenty of other fanboy posts on this site about g1 tf's FTW.

you have come back with your points and i will argue it with you later when i have time. I wasnt attacked you at all dude.

Oh I know you didnt flame me, its just from experiance I feel one needs to lay their points out in full to avoid being tarred with the same brush as for example G1 fanboys.

Thats what happened with me when I turned up at the star wars episode 3 review stating it was the absolute worse one in the entire series.


Personnally I think the designs for the transformers (even Megatron) were briliantly done. They were right when they said that you needed to see them in motion to appreciate them. In the case of Megatron you needed to see how fecking BIG he was compared to the others to appreciate him.

Wouldn't count on that...not with Soundwave's huge loyalty to Megatron...but Megatron is dead and they aren't taking too much from the G1 although they did keep Jazz the second in command...maybe Soundwave could be linked to a revival of Megatron?
__________________

Well my theory is Starscream tricks Soundwave into thinking they are getting the construticons together to dig Megatron out of the sea, but he only really wants to take pieces of the all spark out of him and leave Megatron to rot.

professor kaos

I'm not sure if Barricade was dumped into the sea with the rest of the Decepticons, my hope is that he is still around as recon, keeping tabs on the remaining Autobots till Starscream arrives with reinforcments.

I would have liking to see Starscream make a grab for the Allspark while Megatron was battling prime, he was perched on a building watching Sam before Megs got to the roof.

For the sequel, I would like to see the some of the story of spotlight :Shockwave been used , in that Shockwave followed shortly after Megs crashed,and that the Dyno bots intercepted him on Earth, then following the comics are all buried and there scanners damaged ,explaining why they are now the Dinobots. Can't see studio going to use 2 characters that end in "-Wave" though.

thelordofcheese

Ger_Hankey wrote:

SPOILER:First, why was he unable to speak throughout the whole film, and then suddenly he's perfectly understandable? Did Ratchet suddenly decide to fix his voice box (while both his legs were hanging off, mind)?
And secondly, considering they did such a good job of putting across his character without a voice (the filmmakers get a thumbs up for this, it could have gone very badly), did they give him a voice that was so out of character?

I'd imagine it was from manipulating the All-spark, i mean it grew frenzy a new body, why not fix bumblebees voice box?
And i liked his voice, i might be the only person on the planet that did, but still.....

I thought his voice suited him too, I'm assuming that his legs were fixed as well.

Hagakure_irl

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Well my theory is Starscream tricks Soundwave into thinking they are getting the construticons together to dig Megatron out of the sea, but he only really wants to take pieces of the all spark out of him and leave Megatron to rot.

Hmmm that be a good theory, i was thinking about it a bit more and i would agree that Starscream could easily trick Soundwave into believing theres a recuse operation going ahead. ( Vaguely remember him being tricked before? ).

Ger_Hankey

I meant to say earlier, I really liked the way the transformations were done.
They made sense, and they took a few seconds to do, while the bots are moving around doing other things. Looked really cool!!

syklops

I saw it last night and would give it 6/10. And thats me being generous.

Don't get me wrong. I am a massive Transformers fan, though I thought Beast Wars sucked, though it was more the concept I disliked rather than the series.

BTW pretty much my entire post contains spoilers, so I have hidden all of it.

Reasons for my displeasure:

1. It was about 45 minutes until you saw any of the Transformers, with the exception of Frenzy and Bumblebee, and Bumblebee did not even transform, he just drove around like he was in "Herbie rides again".

2. There were way too many (human)characters in it, and not half enough time getting to know the transformers themselves, like jazz and Iron Hide.

3. When transforming, you could not see them properly transform. It was just a fast blur, and you have a robot. If you remember the Prisoner of Azkaban(harry potter) movie, when the bogort is transforming, it was like that . I would have slowed down the transformation scenes, so you could properly watch Optimus Prime go from Truck to Robot.

4. I would have included a couple of Independence Day-esque scenes showing large quantities of US Aircraft, tanks etc getting decimated by the decepticons.

5. The robots seemed to change in size quite a bit. When they are hiding in the garden, they are able to fit under the porch, but later they seem much larger.

6. The embarrassing scenes with Sam and his parents, especially the masturbation scene suggested to me they were not sure which age group they were targetting the movie at. I think there were alot of dads bringing their Kids to it who had to have serious conversations after it "When a man and a woman love each other very much....".

7. "There is only one hacker in the world who can crack this signal"... who turns out to be, yes! an american, not a Polish or Russian or Japanese Hacker. All the scenes with him in it just annoyed me. They could have been more modern and let the cute Australian be the l33t haxor, but no. They introduce a black Jar jar Binks, who does not come across as one bit smart, who cracks the code using a program with a GUI he just happens to have on his computer. Later he "hot wires" a computer to send morse code. At first I thought he might actually take the speaker off the motherboard, but it turns out luckily for him that there is a program on the computer, already installed which converts keyboard input into dots and dashes, and then converts it into electrical signals, which he manages to connect to the SW radio. I have no problem whatsoever believing that an alien technology is on earth which can cause cars and trucks to transform into gun toting robots. But do not get me to believe sheer stupidity. And dont get me started on that dance mat.

8. Section 7. WTF? They were meant to bring in a bit of humour, and instead came across as being annoying. The guy reminded me of Mr Brittas from the Brittas Empire. Every minute they were in it was time that I could have bonded with the real hero's of the story.

9. I dont remember any music in it. All I remember is the track at the end of the movie, which sounded like the track they had for the first Spiderman movie, which is a sort of nostalgiac ballady-rock tune. Music wise I would have used a techno/rock riff throughout the movie. Like a sort of modern day theme tune, done with electric guitars and keyboards for when ever they were transforming or preparing for battle. Something along the lines of the Metallica stuff from Mission Impossible 2.

10. Final point. This one sounds a bit daft, but.. When the toys came out, I bought the bumblebee transformer. Its pretty cool, and in the movie, the car looks very sweet, but half way through the movie he changes into a different car! Is this an attempt to make us buy more merchandise?

Galvasean

#4. Was Starscream taking on a whole squadron of F-22s or Blackout playing football with tanks not enough?

syklops

I dont remember Starscream taking out a squadron of F-22's. I remember him dog fighting with about 6 of them. And i think for the human Vs Machine theme of the movie, the build up with you seeing tough USAF pilots psyching up, and then being destroyed by Starscream would have been better....

General: You got something you want to add to this briefing pilot?
Pilot(not will smith): No sir! Im just getting anxious to get up up there and whip iPod's ass, thats all Im saying
(room fills with hung ho laughter)

razorblunt

i think the second one will go a bit Empire Strikes Back and show the true strength of the Decepticons. I mean they spent so long building up the human-autobot relationships, they couldnt give the same time to enforcing the autobots power.

I think Jazz was the logical one to be killed in the first film, think about it you have the medic, the weapons specialist and the leader and the humans friend, he was also the smallest, it also gave an indication to Megatrons evilness. If all the autobots survived itd make the sequel less tension filled. It was the same for Destroyer, probably the biggest decepticon gets killed by prime to show prime's superiority.

Anyway that the film was brilliant, one of the best blockbusters for ages.

faceman

syklops wrote:

.

Reasons for my displeasure:

1. character building - we all knew that bumblebee and prime were the main focus in this one to establish the characters. They will obviouslty have big parts to play in the sequels too. Plus they appeal to a wider audience.

2. yeah according to producers and Bay this came down to cost. They also again wanted to appeal to the wider audience.

3. i liked the transforming scenes alot.

4. Blackout's scene at the start establishes how strong the decepticons are against us humans. As did starscreams dog fight with the F22's. We didnt really need to see it again, the point was made. Its decepticons vs autobots we paid to see!

5. I agree. (As did the glasses size when prime picked them up!)

6. You dont have kids obviously!

7. a tad over-analytical for a summer blockbuster. Its a sub plot and ultimately who cares!

8. another sub plot. I thought john was funny given the material we had to work with.

9. bar the teen angst rock music (im old school meself), i thought the music was great.

10. this was for plot progression. Obviously sam wouldnt be able to afford a concept camero so they had to somehow start the relationship. He could hardly win it in a raffle or bump into bumblebee in the local boozer. When the relationship had been established he converted into the flashy model which will sell quicker from the toy shelves!

BlitzKrieg

4. Blackout's scene at the start establishes how strong the decepticons are against us humans. As did starscreams dog fight with the F22's. We didnt really need to see it again, the point was made. Its decepticons vs autobots we paid to see!

have to pull you up on that


8 deceptacons:

Frenzy: kills self while fighting humans

Barricade: disapears (no score)

Blackout: Killed by a combo of spec ops and airstrike again humans

Bonecrusher: Sliced by Optimus Autobots

Scorpinok: Runs away after being chased off by humans

Starscream: Runs away after being chased off by humans

Devestator: Killed By bumblebee Autobots

Megatron: Gets Raped by Air strike and then finished off by Sam Humans

3 kills to humans

2 to autobots

3 disapearing acts.

It was who vs who?

Not saying its a bad thing (but it does tie into my second and third complaint of the film) just that the guy has a point, The human side of the movie was played too strong and the movie should have had the decepticons having the military as a whole on the run.

Vokes

Regarding the so-so soundtrack. There was, I thought, a truly fantastic orchestral piece (anyone agree?) accompanying the arrival of the Autobots and their crash-landings on Earth - loved it! Shame whoever scored it didnt't lean more to this and away from the rock-ballads (Bay's influence I guess).

Dades

Enjoyed it a lot.

But like a few others mentioned - where the hell were all the wide shots of the robots fighting? I saw one good wide shot toward the end, other than that it was all in your face metal. Was like playing Gears of War.

I think because of this I enjoyed the "talkie" scenes all the more.

And why did they decide to "hide" the cube in a highly populated urban area, knowing full well there were enormous malicious robots with zero regard for humans intent on recovering it?

Meh - good fun.

Galvasean

BlitzKrieg wrote:

have to pull you up on that

Starscream was not 'chased off by humans'. He just decided to leave and let Megatron get killed. Im guessing (as usual) he wants to be Decepticon leader and will return in #2.
As for Barricade

Optimus Prime kills him. The scene was cut due to time constraints. I assume it will be on the DVD)

Vokes

I hear there is a prequel novel - is it worth getting ?