Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [** SPOILERS FROM POST 823 ONWARD **]

johnny_ultimate

Mickeroo wrote: »

Are you talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion?

Nah, Mechagodzilla :P

They totally need to give Optimus Prime an Absolute Zero Cannon. Much better than the Matrix of Leadership.

senordingdong

constitutionus wrote: »

now i should point out i saw the 2D version as my bro cant see the 3D ones and i got the sense that some of what made the film drag was the fact alot of scenes were meant to be seen in 3D for their full effect, essentially giving you "avatar" syndrome ,i.e LOOKS cool, but when ya see it on 2d DVD its actually ****ing boring .
.

Yeah, I saw a 3d film a few months ago and recently bought it on dvd.
The visuals were awful on the dvd.

Finally went to see it tonight and all I can say is that for all its faults it was entertaining as hell. Visually it is one of the most impressive films ever made and the 3D was used superbly. Obviously Bay wasn't telling lies when he talked about brighter prints as every single scene looked like it could have been from a traditional 2D print and the level of detail in the image was truly impressive.

Story wise it's a bit all over the place, bringing the parents back for a few point less scenes and lets not forget the complete waste of time that is John Malkovich's role. It's as if he stopped by set one day and someone decided to write a few scenes for him.

The last hour though more than makes up for any of the early faults, its just balls to the walls robot on robot action and watching Optimus Prime go all bad ass was something truly wonderful. It's as if he completely disregarded his moral compass and decided that to defeat the baddie you must become the baddie.

senordingdong

Deleted User wrote: »

Finally went to see it tonight and all I can say is that for all its faults it was entertaining as hell. Visually it is one of the most impressive films ever made and the 3D was used superbly. Obviously Bay wasn't telling lies when he talked about brighter prints as every single scene looked like it could have been from a traditional 2D print and the level of detail in the image was truly impressive.

Story wise it's a bit all over the place, bringing the parents back for a few point less scenes and lets not forget the complete waste of time that is John Malkovich's role. It's as if he stopped by set one day and someone decided to write a few scenes for him.

The last hour though more than makes up for any of the early faults, its just balls to the walls robot on robot action and watching Optimus Prime go all bad ass was something truly wonderful. It's as if he completely disregarded his moral compass and decided that to defeat the baddie you must become the baddie.

I've been finding it really hard to want to see it after ROTF but you're making a good case for it.

Mickeroo

Deleted User wrote: »

Finally went to see it tonight and all I can say is that for all its faults it was entertaining as hell. Visually it is one of the most impressive films ever made and the 3D was used superbly. Obviously Bay wasn't telling lies when he talked about brighter prints as every single scene looked like it could have been from a traditional 2D print and the level of detail in the image was truly impressive.

Story wise it's a bit all over the place, bringing the parents back for a few point less scenes and lets not forget the complete waste of time that is John Malkovich's role. It's as if he stopped by set one day and someone decided to write a few scenes for him.

The last hour though more than makes up for any of the early faults, its just balls to the walls robot on robot action and watching Optimus Prime go all bad ass was something truly wonderful. It's as if he completely disregarded his moral compass and decided that to defeat the baddie you must become the baddie.

I agree with you on a lot of your points man,. The main point I disagree with you on though is the balls to the wall robot on robot action, for me there was very little of this in the climactic battle or the film in general, the autobots disappeared for long periods and only showed up to save humans at the last second only to run off again, get tangled in construction cables or inexplicably get taken hostage seemingly only to allow

a minor character to be killed and make us think for a split second they were going to kill bumblebee before he remembered about his canons

. Most of prime's big action bits were in the trailer, although the final fracas between him

sentinel and megatron

was decent.

pixelburp

I swallowed my pride & went to see it with 6 other people. I figured best to experience these things with others to soften the blow. That way at least we could drown our sorrows afterwards. One of us didn't make it - went to the toilets half-way through & didn't come back. Though the very first thing I did was knead some feeling back into my ass because God, those 2.5 hours show.

Anyway, the movie. Well, what can I say that hasn't been said already? Nothing really, because other people here have summed it all up much better than I have.

It's loud, brash, ignorant (and proud of it), explosive & one suspects that Michael Bay is now (un?)knowingly making movies that play up to the stereotypes of his directing style; I certainly agree that the he needs a calming influence ala Don Simpson. Yes, it's better than the 2nd one, but to be fair that doesn't take a lot of effort. I have no desire to see this, or the previous movies, again on DVD as let's face it - part of the thrill in these movies is the notion of explosions on the big-screen; they're "event" films & watching them in your living room would feel a bit drab.

So yeah; you know what you're going to get, so either just roll with the insanity of it all, or don't. If nothing else, Bay certainly doesn't aim for the mediocre.

The only thing that has stuck with me throughout the 3 movies is that they all did a line in humour that was distinctly ... odd. Random. Batsh*t? Is it just me or were all the human characters in T3 completely bonkers? All the characters acted as if they were on coke; John Malkovich in particular was a noteworthy maniac (although Turturro came a close second)

BlitzKrieg

All the characters acted as if they were on coke

Well you know what they say...direct what you know!

senordingdong

senordingdong wrote: »

I've been finding it really hard to want to see it after ROTF but you're making a good case for it.

For the sheer spectacle on offer it's well worth going to see, no one and I mean no one handles spectacle the way Bay can. There isn't a director alive today who can shoot action as well as Bay, there are some genuinely breath taking moments in the film and the final 45 minutes is pretty much the epitome of cinematic awesomeness. It really needs to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated.

The stories of brighter prints seem to be true which makes the 3D scenes far more impressive than any attempt in recent memory. In fact I imagine that it's difficult tofind much difference regarding brightness between either 2D or 3D versions so really you owe it to yourself to see it on tbh biggest 3D screen possible.

seraphimvc

havent looked back the past few pages but do people see this yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7kcqB3thJM

i personally dont mind but surely it is an interesting movie trivia :pac: i actually enjoyed The Island quite alot (didnt realise it was directed by Bay at all back then).

Mickeroo

Mickeroo wrote: »

I agree with you on a lot of your points man,. The main point I disagree with you on though is the balls to the wall robot on robot action, for me there was very little of this in the climactic battle or the film in general, the autobots disappeared for long periods and only showed up to save humans at the last second only to run off again, get tangled in construction cables or inexplicably get taken hostage seemingly only to allow

a minor character to be killed and make us think for a split second they were going to kill bumblebee before he remembered about his canons

. Most of prime's big action bits were in the trailer, although the final fracas between him

sentinel and megatron

was decent.

I agree that it could have benefited from a little bit more robot carnage but for that to be effective it would require a longer runtime, no point killing off autobots that we haven't been introduced to early on and grown to like. There's something quite stirring about the way Bay handles last minute saves, he puts a loved character in danger and then just before that finger hits the trigger a savour swoops down in glorious slow motion and saves the day. Cheap, contrived and unoriginal but entertaining as hell.

It's going to be interesting where the series gies next, thankfully they're not pulling a cheap stunt like rebooting it. But that said a prequel setentirelt on Cybertron would very much be appreciated. I'm struging to think of a director who could take on the franchise, I'd have no problem with Bay staying as long as a competent writer was hired. A writer who understands that the viewer could does not care at Sam's kooky parents or his quest to get a job.

The one great idea Kruger brought was the concept

of the decepticons working with humans, it's something I'd like to see fleshed out.

you gotta live the entire Apocalypse Now homage with Megatron. Took me a minute to figure out why he had a cape and then I realised just who he was supposed to be.

I'm assuming that Bay pissed off Empire somehow, they call Dark of the Moon a better film to the previous film yet only give Dark 2 stars in comparision to Revenge's 3 stars. Im assuming their free mug got lost in the mail.

BlitzKrieg

well if they cut the stupid something something in the past plan now comes to fruitition plotline that they have run with 3 times now it'll be a step in the right way.

faceman

Deleted User wrote: »

For the sheer spectacle on offer it's well worth going to see, no one and I mean no one handles spectacle the way Bay can. There isn't a director alive today who can shoot action as well as Bay, there are some genuinely breath taking moments in the film and the final 45 minutes is pretty much the epitome of cinematic awesomeness. It really needs to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated.

Really? What about John McTiernan, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Wachowsky Brothers, Robert Rodriguez? In edition to top class action scenes, they were able to add dramatic tension, character development and empathy to the mix, making the viewers involvement in the action of greater worth.

Bay is at the bottom of the ladder IMO.

syklops

careca11 wrote: »

i went to see it last night , utter shyte really (IMO)

the only entertaining part I thought was the peach Rosie Huntington-Whiteley., an unbelievebly fine ass ,

if your thinking of going just To pass the time ....don't go ,

I had to laugh at this, because you went on about how fine she was, and I clicked on your link expecting Rosie whats-her-name in leathers, and instead I got her wiki entry with no picture.

Galvasean wrote:

- Too many Autobot characters with abut 3 lines each
-A lot of the Transformers' transformations are lazy. No effort was made to make it look like the robots could possibly change into their alt. modes. A lot of them just become a blur of pixels and suddenly, they're something else entirely.

Funnily enough, these were my two main gripes with the first movie, and by extension the second movie. So it seems there has been no improvement. I wont be able to see this in 3D, so maybe I'll just say to hell with it and wait for the DVD. If people are saying that the 3D is the best part, perhaps Ill save my money.

Tbh, the way in which Megan Fox was sacked, shows to me how little respect Bay and Spielberg has for the fans(I use the term loosely) of the Genre. After building up La Boeuf and Foxs relationship to them saying 'I love you', during or just prior to the final battle in ROTF, to just replace her just smacked to me of brand and money, not loyalty to fans.

Cookie_Monster

what a horrible mess of a film. wanted to see The Guard but SWMBO said otherwise.

visually nice and all but some awful scenes, looks like it had huge amounts cut out of it. Story and premise make little sense and action scene at the end was just crap...

also question:

where do the hundreds of decepticons on the moon come from

Mickeroo

Deleted User wrote: »

I agree that it could have benefited from a little bit more robot carnage but for that to be effective it would require a longer runtime, no point killing off autobots that we haven't been introduced to early on and grown to like. There's something quite stirring about the way Bay handles last minute saves, he puts a loved character in danger and then just before that finger hits the trigger a savour swoops down in glorious slow motion and saves the day. Cheap, contrived and unoriginal but entertaining as hell.

Heh, it sounds like you saw a different film to me man! More robot carnage would have been good, more robot characterisation would have been better though. Longer running time? I think they actually could have added more robot action and characterisation while shortening the running to boot!

Deleted User wrote: »

The stories of brighter prints seem to be true which makes the 3D scenes far more impressive than any attempt in recent memory. In fact I imagine that it's difficult tofind much difference regarding brightness between either 2D or 3D versions so really you owe it to yourself to see it on tbh biggest 3D screen possible.

THe 3D is undeniably well used in this, but having said that I took off the glasses for the few scenes where it wasn't utilised and the picture looked far more colourful and lush.

azezil

For an action packed film I found it one of the most boring I've watched in years, didn't like it at all. Is it just assumed people know who all these characters are? were we meant to feel nothing when

Ironhide dies?

.

Beefy78

People saying that there should have been more robot action need to remember that these things cost a stupid amount of money. The films have had more and more robot action as the series has gone on because the budget has kept getting bigger. I'm sure they'd have featured the Transformers much more heavily in all three films but financially and logistically it wasn't possible.

On the massive plot hole that was

the Decepticons being on the Moon

, do we know 100% that that actually was

the Moon? I can't remember for sure whether we saw the Earth from wherever that was and the point of the Spacebridge was that it can transport people from anywhere. Don't get me wrong, that bit confused the hell out of me at the time and has since but I'm just wondering if it's possible that it wasn't actually the moon that they were all buried on.

EDIT - apparently this bit is revealed in the novelisation/comic

it is Earth's moon but they are not Decepticons - they are Autobots loyal to Sentinel Prime

Cookie_Monster

Beefy78 wrote: »

EDIT - apparently this bit is revealed in the novelisation/comic

it is Earth's moon but they are not Decepticons - they are Autobots loyal to Sentinel Prime

still even given that,

where did they all come from, if you take if a few were on the ship, that's fine. but 100 plus?

cena

I seen it yesterday and can say the 3d was a waste of time. I never seen anything come out of the screen.

Beefy78

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

still even given that,

where did they all come from, if you take if a few were on the ship, that's fine. but 100 plus?

It was a big ship?

Beefy78

cena wrote: »

I seen it yesterday and can say the 3d was a waste of time. I never seen anything come out of the screen.

If 3D survives (which i don't think it will) it won't be because things "have come out of the screen". That's a cheap (****) gimmick. It'll be because it's adding depth and perspective to the image and that enhances the story. When films moved from black and white to colour it wasn't a waste of time if the filmmaker didn't then use all of the colours of the rainbow.

One think I'd have thought that most people would be able to praise about the way that Bay made this film is that he resisted the urge to throw in scenes purely to go 'OMG LOOK AT 3D'. The film looked amazing in 3D and he managed to achieve it despite going light on things coming out of the screen and the other clichés which will likely kill 3D off.

BlitzKrieg

Beefy78 wrote: »

People saying that there should have been more robot action need to remember that these things cost a stupid amount of money. The films have had more and more robot action as the series has gone on because the budget has kept getting bigger. I'm sure they'd have featured the Transformers much more heavily in all three films but financially and logistically it wasn't possible.

On the massive plot hole that was

the Decepticons being on the Moon

, do we know 100% that that actually was

the Moon? I can't remember for sure whether we saw the Earth from wherever that was and the point of the Spacebridge was that it can transport people from anywhere. Don't get me wrong, that bit confused the hell out of me at the time and has since but I'm just wondering if it's possible that it wasn't actually the moon that they were all buried on.

EDIT - apparently this bit is revealed in the novelisation/comic

it is Earth's moon but they are not Decepticons - they are Autobots loyal to Sentinel Prime

The novelization also had a different ending from the wiki:

Eventually, the Autobots are overpowered by the Decepticon forces and captured. Soundwave kills Mirage, and just as he prepares to kill Bumblebee he is knocked aside by a Wheelie piloted Decepticon flagship who massacre a horde of Decepticons. The Autobots manage to escape, and Bumblebee kills Soundwave. Starscream is also killed by Sam. The group attempts to blow the control pillar from afar but that plan fails, and the building that they are in is tipped over by the Driller. Sentinel Prime also betrays Megatron and knocks him off the building, having no intention to work for him.

The Autobot inventor, Wheeljack, outfits Optimus with a jetpack, before being killed by a group of Decepticon protoforms. Optimus arrives and massacres a horde of Decepticons, including the Driller before battling and killing Shockwave. He then uses Shockwave’s laser blaster to destroy the control pillar. The main piece of the pillar falls in front of Sam who attempts to retrieve it only to be confronted by Dylan. A fight ensues, in which Dylan is killed by the piece of the control pillar as it disintegrates him. The military also arrive.

An angered Megatron is persuaded by Carly to destroy Sentinel Prime. Megatron and Optimus join forces and battle Sentinel Prime. While Megatron distracts Sentinel, Optimus gets hold of Sentinel’s rust cannon, and destroys Sentinel with his own weapon. Following the battle, Megatron and Optimus Prime make peace to end the war. Megatron and the remaining Decepticon forces return to Cybertron. Sam and Carly have rekindled, and Bumblebee produces a gasket ring and forces Sam into unwittingly proposing as the two share a kiss.

Optimus Prime and the remaining Autobots remain on Earth; their new home.

Agricola

Had 2 hours to kill yesterday so I went to this. First transformers film Ive seen. Would rather have burned me 9 quid. Absolute bilge. After the first half hour I lost interest and it was just a case of watching the moving pictures on screen of things exploding. All I kept thinking throughout was what a waste of time and money this was, not my own, but the studios.
The sad thing is this will make a huge profit Im sure.

YouTookMyName

Wheelie and Brains are the highlight for me.

The lack of tie in to the first 2 is unreal.

Beefy78

Agricola wrote: »

Had 2 hours to kill yesterday so I went to this. First transformers film Ive seen. Would rather have burned me 9 quid. Absolute bilge. After the first half hour I lost interest and it was just a case of watching the moving pictures on screen of things exploding. All I kept thinking throughout was what a waste of time and money this was, not my own, but the studios.
The sad thing is this will make a huge profit Im sure.

Hardly a waste of either time or money for the studio. It's already the biggest film of 2011, has smashed through $600m in less than two weeks (before its opened in China or India) and is odds-on to become the 9th film to break the $1bn mark.

Agricola

Beefy78 wrote: »

Hardly a waste of either time or money for the studio. It's already the biggest film of 2011, has smashed through $600m in less than two weeks (before its opened in China or India) and is odds-on to become the 9th film to break the $1bn mark.

An artistic waste



That sounds very wanky, but you know what I mean.

Kashkai

I'm not a movie snob by any stretch of the imagination and I'll watch almost anything (chick flicks excepted:rolleyes:). I thought the first Transformers movie was great, both in terms of humour and action. The second movie was a much poorer affair but still had some elements of the first movie to make it watchable.

I brought my kids to see T3 yesterday (they've watched the first two movies multiple times and know all the lines) and we came out almost 3 hours later feeling very very disappointed. My eldest girl thought it was "very long", my Transformers mad son kept asking (during the movie) "when is it over?" and his twin sister actually fell asleep for much of the movie. I thought it had taken itself far too seriously, what was supposed to be humerous, wasn't, and the action was utterly overblown. Michael Bay evidently believes that bigger explosions are better explosions. The storyline had potential but it just didn't seem to come together for me. I avoid reading spoilers or looking at movie trailers that give away most of the storyline but I had guessed, before it was revealed that Sentienel Prime was going to be the baddie. He wasn't even that good being the bad guy and I was rooting for Megatron to "save the day" for the Decepticon cause.

The new eye candy girlfriend was easy on the eye but a bit whiney. A more action orientated girlfriend would have been a better choice, e.g. Michelle Rodriguez or is she too "ethnic" for Michael Bay.

John Turturro was always my favourite character in the first two movies due to the over the top performance of his character Simmons but he was very wishy washy in this one and his sidekick, Alan Tudyk (he's put on a lot of weight since Firefly/Serenity days) was pointless.

John Malcovich has fallen a long, long way if he's happy to sign up to the pathetic part he played.

As for that Ken Jeung guy, if I see him in another movie, I'll gouge my eyes out.

Looks like there won't be another Transformers movie as they've killed off Megatron and Starscream. All I can say is I'm glad as this franchise has died an overblown death.

Beefy78

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

Looks like there won't be another Transformers movie as they've killed off

Megatron and Starscream.

All I can say is I'm glad as this franchise has died an overblown death.

Are you kidding? It's making $50m a day at the moment. I'd be surprised if they don't green light TF4 within weeks.

'T3' Again Crunches Best Numbers Overseas

johnny_ultimate

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

As for that Ken Jeung guy, if I see him in another movie, I'll gouge my eyes out.

Ah here, he's not in it is he? Just when I thought Transformers as a franchise couldn't get shriller. The man is a comedic blackhole.

constitutionus

dont worry, he gets murdered for acting like a homo pretty quickly.