I took the bullet. Don't bother following my example.
It is as brain-dead as ever. The special effects and CGI were fantastic, but aren't they always. To its credit, the more Bay-esque aspects of the film weren't nearly as egregious as they were in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon. But this is still a Bay Transformers movie. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence is going to be rolling their eyes every other minute. At one point a character delivers the line "My face is my warrent" without irony. The movie is constantly more cringe-worthy than an 80's action film.
If you're just desparate to see some ILM hotness, go ahead. As forgettable as everything is, it's at least not the constant assault of stupid that was Revenge of the Fallen. But definitely be prepared to check your cerebellum at the door, you won't be needing it.
I was a little shocked to see some of the vocal talent that they snagged. For previous films, they tended to keep the stunt casting to the human characters. This time around they had John Goodman and Ken Watanabe playing robots. John Goodman playing Hound actually made for one of the best Transformer characters that the series has ever had. His character was was more appealing even than Optimus Prime. (who keeps getting written inconsistently)
If you didn't like the movies before, give it a pass, it's more of the same. If you did like the movies before, have fun. If you just want to see ILM going wild, have fun. If you want to see decent acting and a coherent story, go see absolutely anything else.
The film is longer than long cat, and long cat is loooooooooooong.
It's a pretty painful movie to watch. I had zero expectations going in and just wanted to see some destruction goodness, but after it was all over I really felt disappointed in the flick itself. Like I said, zero expectations for anything other than a movie with great FX and riddle with plot holes and acting that could make a Baywatch actress go, "Pshhh, you call that acting?"
Typically these films are a guilty pleasure of mine. I think they are total trash, but I love the special effects so I'm there every time on opening night. Unfortunately this time around, I kinda wish I skipped the theater.
Liked:
Transformers are cool as always. Loved the new designs for Optimus and Bumblebee.
I thought Lockdown was an awesome character, maybe the best in the film. He was kind of what I wanted from Shockwave but never got. His design was pretty fresh too.
I loved the "origin story" this time around. It's hilarious how every Transformers film goes back further in time to explain their history here on earth, but I thought this one was the coolest.
On that note, I loved the themes presented about
the creators
, and transformers
having a soul or not, etc.
I loved the ending, and the possibility of Optimus
running off into space, and having his own adventure
in a fifth film.
But of course I know that could never happen because you have to have (see first "hated" bullet below.)
Hated:
Humans, humans, humans. Not a single human being from the previous films was in this one. The takeaway here is that the humans DO NOT MATTER. Nobody cares about them. So why, WHYYYYYYYYYY are we still bloating the film to almost three hours with characters no one wants to see?!
Cohesion: These films never made any sense to begin with, but this one had to set a new standard for that crap. So many inconsistencies. Something that bothered me in particular, is how much
Optimus was changing. By the end of the film, he was straight up super man. In previous films he needed "parts" to fly... this time he just magically acquires the ability.
Dinobots. More wasted potential than Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2.
Score/tone. The entire film had this weird, depressing atmosphere to it. It really sucked the fun out it imo. A good example is when the Dinobots are rolling in for the first time, which should be the most fun moment in the movie. And the score is slow, sad, almost mystical. What am I supposed to be feeling right now Bay?!?! You managed to make robots not fun. Incredible.
Galvatron and the rest of the manufactured Transformers.
I really wish they weren't included in the main plot at all. It should have just been something to leave open ended at the end.
Galvatron's design was pretty terrible too. I think that was kind of the point, because it was a human design, but still.
Another inconsistency,
the manufactured Transformers at the end died just like any regular ones. In the first fight with Galvatron, he seemed almost invincible because he can just rematerialize or whatever... they didn't do that at the end.
Length. This sucker was waaay to long. As I mentioned before, cutting most of the human BS would have helped a ton, but even the action got really old. Which is pretty crazy.
I'm pretty sure Michael Bay quit directing these after the first one and let his android doppelganger take over. At this point, the android is malfunctioning. It's going haywire and it thinks it can just keep throwing more money/vfx at the problem. Unfortunately the editor is still a real human being, and he has the unfortunate job of trying to piece together the cybernetic chicken scratch the Bay Bot created, and ultimately we're just left with a three hour incoherent mess.
Went with the wife and we had fun. I enjoyed transformers growing up, but the cartoon stays in my childhood. I go to these for the guilty pleasure of enjoying robots punching other robots in the face. If you go into it thinking you're going to get an oscar worthy movie, you're going to have a bad time. If you go in expecting some sort of miracle revival of G1, you're going to have a bad time.
If you're going to enjoy a blockbuster movie with bay-splosions, you might enjoy it, but honestly at this point I'm pretty sure you should know whether you enjoy these movies or not.
Somehow Chicago was fixed and back to normal after 5 years? I feel like they just wanted to reuse VFX work. Also they reused an abandoned church with almost the same shots and angles.
Also the Romeo and Juliet law thing for the daughter boyfriend relationship was weird. A lot of content seemed like forced plot points to make cool scenes. The daughters boyfriend is a rally car driver, and really is only relevant once, doesn't add anything to the characters or relationship. There's the rally scene at the start, some basic driving in China, and then they do the old "Star Wars Snowspeeder wraps a cable around a AT-AT trick", but that doesn't have anything to do with rally racing.
Also humans blocking an attack from transformers with a small piece of metal? Really? I also hate it when a person can some how fight off a human sized transformer.
A bit too much of NSA and CIA is pure evil, but somehow the evil "Steve Jobs" turns into a good guy with a 1 minute phone call?
The megatron corrupting manufactured transformers wasn't integrated into the story well.
I don't enjoy TF films as much as the next guy but you know these movies aren't designed to cater to us anymore right?
TF movies are predominantly for the under 14 crowd...mainly because they know that they will make a ton off of global merchandising. Its a shame, but its the same reason a lot of the remakes of older films that we cherish are made PG-13. Kids (or specifically, families) make up a larger percentage of the audience than game artists who want to reminise our childhood.
We've now become the age group where we can say 'In our day...' :poly141:.
HOWEVER...this doesn't excuse bad movie-making. There are plenty of PG-13 films that cater to adults just as much as their intended audience, but if your expecting miracles from Michael Bay....(He's suckered you in 4 times, he's laughing at you right now!).
It depresses me sci fi garbage like Transformers makes 300 million dollars opening weekend and fantastic sci fi flicks like Edge of Tomorrow are struggling.
I haven't seen Age of Extinction yet, but the way the humans took the spotlight in the last movies was really disappointing. It would be like if Avengers 2 had a large focus on the agents of Shield.... *shudders*
My inner 5 year old is dying to see Grimlock, if only for that brief millisecond of bliss, sort of like the whole, "hand on the oven before the burning kicks in" thing.
After that I'll just feel dirty and want to leave.
I'm not going to see this movie unless it pops up on TV and I'm too lazy to find the remote, but based on the trailer, it looked like they might have done some work on the Transformers designs to give them something approaching a somewhat readable silhouette and make them a smidgen less eye wateringly terrible. Is that actually the case?
approaching a somewhat readable silhouette and make them a smidgen less eye wateringly terrible. Is that actually the case?
Yeah. People will probably still complain, but I thought it was a big improvement. There's different factions and some of them still have the spikey look though, you'll see what I mean.
One character had a more k3loid/bulgarov look to him; I thought that one turned out really well too.
Transformers Age of Extinction has a frigging T-Rex in it so its got my Vote Mark Wahlberg is a great idea as well, I will try and see it soon.
I never could pay money to watch these because when I look at those transformers designs I get completely lost. Their designs are muddy and nearly completely unreadable.
All you can tell from their surfaces are indications of "metal" and maybe some "paint". But where the metal ends and the paint begins I'd have a hard time saying.
I'm sitting here staring at this poster and I can barely tell wtf I'm looking at. If it didn't have "Transformers" written under it, I might have never guessed.
Do people really expect a movie like this to be good in any other area?
When they spend 200+ million to create a film like this, I don't think it unreasonable to hope that they might spend a pittance of that sum on writing. At the moment, it honestly feels like they spent no money whatsoever on writing.
Transformers is the worst children's movie series of all time. They are films targeted at children, that can only truly be appreciated by children, but are woefully unsuited for children. All of the lessons they teach and influences that they expose children to are terrible. Showing children these movies is like leaving them in a frat house for an afternoon. They'll probably be okay at the end of it, but they are going to see and hear (and possibly do) some things you probably didn't want them to.
A film doesn't have to be smart in order to avoid being brain-dead. There are levels of mediocre intelligence that can be aspired to. Right now the Transformer series' writing is far below F-. I would hope that it would at least be trying for a D+.
There's no heinous racism, no robot genitalia, no tiny dogs humping, no moments where he displays his immense contempt for audiences, so in that regards it's better. But on the other hand, those horrible moments have given the previous Transformers films some kind of personality, albeit a personality I loathe. But Transformers: Age of Extinction is just… there.
Wasn't Bay quoted that he wasn't familiar with Transformers before doing the movies and he thought they were dumb kids toys? I think that's the big reason for Bay-hate, we can imagine a Transformers movie made by someone who likes Transformers. Imagine a Transformers movie done like Avengers and weep.
Guys, guys guys, your analyzing this film far too deeply.
Think of Transformers like taking a crap, its not an Armitage Shanks interface defecation scenario its just a crap, so just enjoy it for what it is.
This is why the keep getting made. If folks who believe that the movies are rubbish and still go out and pay the exorbitant cinema ticket prices didn't... well, they'd still probably make $850 million dollars but at least it'd bring us ever so slightly closer to the inevitable reboot.
I personally loved it, went turned my brain off and bathed myself in the effects and nostalgia. Way more bearable human cast then previous iterations and the Transformers were ace. About to set off and see it for a second time in an hour or so
Just saw the movie. Felt like a little boy during some parts, bored during others. The movie is far too long imo, but the VFX makes up for it. And Kassem G was an unexpected surprise.
Shut your brain off and it's all good. I loved it. Saw it twice, once in D-Box (really fun experience!).
It helps if you aren't looking for a plot, but instead BIG shiny robots and BIG explosions.
I hardly ever go to the theater, I wait for Netflix ect. But when I go, it better be be badass. In my case, Micheal Bay delivers.
I tried turning my brain off, as I do for most movies of this type, but that only lasted so long, imo the movie was about 45 minutes too long. Splosions were awesome, dinobots were awesome. Story, acting, dialogue (things I rarely notice/care about) were just bad. Absolutely one I should have waited to rent.
Utter nonsense and a waste of a ticket. I don't want to turn my brain off. We can have both you know - good story and good FX. I don't like to be treated like some braid-dead idiot that just looks for shiny things and explosions.
I hate the new Transformer designs - I agree their read is terrible. High Moon Studios did a better job re-designing Transformers on War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. New designs, yet stayed true to the originals.
I don't mind some popcorn-guzzling flicks here and there that I don't have to think about. But come on, there are limits.
If they want to make the movies more about the people... okay. But if that's the case give us some decent human characters we can care about. Four movies running and I'm usually rooting for all of the human characters to get killed. (and being constantly disappointed when they continue to miraculously not die) If you actually get serious about having the robots take center stage, then give us a few of those that aren't treated as disposable eye-candy. As it stands there are zero characters for us to hang our hats on in any of these films.
And if you really want to put less effort into the plot, just make it simple. These robots are evil, these other robots are good, humans are trapped in the middle. Done. There are any number of ways that you can spin that extremely basic premise into a capable film. You don't need a bunch of pointless myth-building that you aren't going to take seriously. You don't need conspiracies or schemes. Bad guys try to do something bad, good guys try to stop them, humans are caught in the middle. Keep it simple. Stop with all the tangents and side-stories and characters who are just there to bloat out the run time.
At the end of the day, we're left with an over-long bloated mess. And we've endured four of these now. A movie that you don't have to think very much about can still be good. This series is still so very far from good.
we work in an industry where shutting off your brain to plotlines and looking for big shiny shit going bang is an every day thing.
why the fuck would you look for the same thing in another entertainment source?
Why would you not? Is an equally as valid a question
In some cases it's not a coincidence that the thing you do is also the thing you love which entertains you.
It's also true that we can have a deep and intricate story with all the action to go with it, but remember people, this film is based on a kids cartoon, if it were to feature a Prestige or Inception like narrative then chances are you'd be alienating your core audience.
In my opinion they have to much story and not enough robot screen-time and the 4th film did have a lot of robot screen-time
The "turn your brain off" thing needs to stop being used to excuse Hollywood from turning out terrible films.
It's not that these movies are unashamedly dumb. That's fine - Some of the most enjoyable movies around are your silly 80s actioners. It's that the Transformers and their ilk are badly made films.
Take a look back at when Arnie and Stallone and Willis were in their heyday. Those films - the ones we remember at least, are simple, strong and coherent in terms character and story writing and decent editing in terms of coherency, balance and film length. Nothing remotely arty, deep or even particularly smart in most cases. Just solid film making - something which Transformers fails at pretty much every level.
The "turn your brain off" thing needs to stop being used to excuse Hollywood from turning out terrible films.
It's not that these movies are unashamedly dumb. That's fine - Some of the most enjoyable movies around are your silly 80s actioners. It's that the Transformers and their ilk are badly made films.
Take a look back at when Arnie and Stallone and Willis were in their heyday. Those films - the ones we remember at least, are simple, strong and coherent in terms character and story writing and decent editing in terms of coherency, balance and film length. Nothing remotely arty, deep or even particularly smart in most cases. Just solid film making - something which Transformers fails at pretty much every level.
Replies
It is as brain-dead as ever. The special effects and CGI were fantastic, but aren't they always. To its credit, the more Bay-esque aspects of the film weren't nearly as egregious as they were in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon. But this is still a Bay Transformers movie. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence is going to be rolling their eyes every other minute. At one point a character delivers the line "My face is my warrent" without irony. The movie is constantly more cringe-worthy than an 80's action film.
If you're just desparate to see some ILM hotness, go ahead. As forgettable as everything is, it's at least not the constant assault of stupid that was Revenge of the Fallen. But definitely be prepared to check your cerebellum at the door, you won't be needing it.
I was a little shocked to see some of the vocal talent that they snagged. For previous films, they tended to keep the stunt casting to the human characters. This time around they had John Goodman and Ken Watanabe playing robots. John Goodman playing Hound actually made for one of the best Transformer characters that the series has ever had. His character was was more appealing even than Optimus Prime. (who keeps getting written inconsistently)
If you didn't like the movies before, give it a pass, it's more of the same. If you did like the movies before, have fun. If you just want to see ILM going wild, have fun. If you want to see decent acting and a coherent story, go see absolutely anything else.
It's a pretty painful movie to watch. I had zero expectations going in and just wanted to see some destruction goodness, but after it was all over I really felt disappointed in the flick itself. Like I said, zero expectations for anything other than a movie with great FX and riddle with plot holes and acting that could make a Baywatch actress go, "Pshhh, you call that acting?"
Liked:
- Transformers are cool as always. Loved the new designs for Optimus and Bumblebee.
- I thought Lockdown was an awesome character, maybe the best in the film. He was kind of what I wanted from Shockwave but never got. His design was pretty fresh too.
- I loved the "origin story" this time around. It's hilarious how every Transformers film goes back further in time to explain their history here on earth, but I thought this one was the coolest.
- On that note, I loved the themes presented about
the creators
, and transformers
having a soul or not, etc.
- I loved the ending, and the possibility of Optimus
running off into space, and having his own adventure
in a fifth film.
But of course I know that could never happen because you have to have (see first "hated" bullet below.)
Hated:- Humans, humans, humans. Not a single human being from the previous films was in this one. The takeaway here is that the humans DO NOT MATTER. Nobody cares about them. So why, WHYYYYYYYYYY are we still bloating the film to almost three hours with characters no one wants to see?!
- Cohesion: These films never made any sense to begin with, but this one had to set a new standard for that crap. So many inconsistencies. Something that bothered me in particular, is how much
Optimus was changing. By the end of the film, he was straight up super man. In previous films he needed "parts" to fly... this time he just magically acquires the ability.
- Dinobots. More wasted potential than Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2.
- Score/tone. The entire film had this weird, depressing atmosphere to it. It really sucked the fun out it imo. A good example is when the Dinobots are rolling in for the first time, which should be the most fun moment in the movie. And the score is slow, sad, almost mystical. What am I supposed to be feeling right now Bay?!?! You managed to make robots not fun. Incredible.
-
Galvatron and the rest of the manufactured Transformers.
I really wish they weren't included in the main plot at all. It should have just been something to leave open ended at the end.
Galvatron's design was pretty terrible too. I think that was kind of the point, because it was a human design, but still.
Another inconsistency,
the manufactured Transformers at the end died just like any regular ones. In the first fight with Galvatron, he seemed almost invincible because he can just rematerialize or whatever... they didn't do that at the end.
- Length. This sucker was waaay to long. As I mentioned before, cutting most of the human BS would have helped a ton, but even the action got really old. Which is pretty crazy.
I'm pretty sure Michael Bay quit directing these after the first one and let his android doppelganger take over. At this point, the android is malfunctioning. It's going haywire and it thinks it can just keep throwing more money/vfx at the problem. Unfortunately the editor is still a real human being, and he has the unfortunate job of trying to piece together the cybernetic chicken scratch the Bay Bot created, and ultimately we're just left with a three hour incoherent mess.If you're going to enjoy a blockbuster movie with bay-splosions, you might enjoy it, but honestly at this point I'm pretty sure you should know whether you enjoy these movies or not.
Also the Romeo and Juliet law thing for the daughter boyfriend relationship was weird. A lot of content seemed like forced plot points to make cool scenes. The daughters boyfriend is a rally car driver, and really is only relevant once, doesn't add anything to the characters or relationship. There's the rally scene at the start, some basic driving in China, and then they do the old "Star Wars Snowspeeder wraps a cable around a AT-AT trick", but that doesn't have anything to do with rally racing.
Also humans blocking an attack from transformers with a small piece of metal? Really? I also hate it when a person can some how fight off a human sized transformer.
A bit too much of NSA and CIA is pure evil, but somehow the evil "Steve Jobs" turns into a good guy with a 1 minute phone call?
The megatron corrupting manufactured transformers wasn't integrated into the story well.
TF movies are predominantly for the under 14 crowd...mainly because they know that they will make a ton off of global merchandising. Its a shame, but its the same reason a lot of the remakes of older films that we cherish are made PG-13. Kids (or specifically, families) make up a larger percentage of the audience than game artists who want to reminise our childhood.
We've now become the age group where we can say 'In our day...' :poly141:.
HOWEVER...this doesn't excuse bad movie-making. There are plenty of PG-13 films that cater to adults just as much as their intended audience, but if your expecting miracles from Michael Bay....(He's suckered you in 4 times, he's laughing at you right now!).
After that I'll just feel dirty and want to leave.
Bayformers Rides Again.
Yeah. People will probably still complain, but I thought it was a big improvement. There's different factions and some of them still have the spikey look though, you'll see what I mean.
One character had a more k3loid/bulgarov look to him; I thought that one turned out really well too.
That didn't end up happening, a deal was reached where it wasn't cut in exchange for a smaller, limited release.
Idiocracy popularizing eugenics, without people even realizing it, is the real tragedy :P
I never could pay money to watch these because when I look at those transformers designs I get completely lost. Their designs are muddy and nearly completely unreadable.
All you can tell from their surfaces are indications of "metal" and maybe some "paint". But where the metal ends and the paint begins I'd have a hard time saying.
I'm sitting here staring at this poster and I can barely tell wtf I'm looking at. If it didn't have "Transformers" written under it, I might have never guessed.
When they spend 200+ million to create a film like this, I don't think it unreasonable to hope that they might spend a pittance of that sum on writing. At the moment, it honestly feels like they spent no money whatsoever on writing.
Transformers is the worst children's movie series of all time. They are films targeted at children, that can only truly be appreciated by children, but are woefully unsuited for children. All of the lessons they teach and influences that they expose children to are terrible. Showing children these movies is like leaving them in a frat house for an afternoon. They'll probably be okay at the end of it, but they are going to see and hear (and possibly do) some things you probably didn't want them to.
A film doesn't have to be smart in order to avoid being brain-dead. There are levels of mediocre intelligence that can be aspired to. Right now the Transformer series' writing is far below F-. I would hope that it would at least be trying for a D+.
That sums up my feelings quite well actually.
Wow that girl has 100% perfect teeth
Think of Transformers like taking a crap, its not an Armitage Shanks interface defecation scenario its just a crap, so just enjoy it for what it is.
this is why people keep coming to cinema
I'm not gonna let Optimus Prime on a T-Rex deceive me.
I must look away.
It helps if you aren't looking for a plot, but instead BIG shiny robots and BIG explosions.
I hardly ever go to the theater, I wait for Netflix ect. But when I go, it better be be badass. In my case, Micheal Bay delivers.
why the fuck would you look for the same thing in another entertainment source?
http://www.bulgarov.com/tf4_weapons.html
I hate the new Transformer designs - I agree their read is terrible. High Moon Studios did a better job re-designing Transformers on War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. New designs, yet stayed true to the originals.
If they want to make the movies more about the people... okay. But if that's the case give us some decent human characters we can care about. Four movies running and I'm usually rooting for all of the human characters to get killed. (and being constantly disappointed when they continue to miraculously not die) If you actually get serious about having the robots take center stage, then give us a few of those that aren't treated as disposable eye-candy. As it stands there are zero characters for us to hang our hats on in any of these films.
And if you really want to put less effort into the plot, just make it simple. These robots are evil, these other robots are good, humans are trapped in the middle. Done. There are any number of ways that you can spin that extremely basic premise into a capable film. You don't need a bunch of pointless myth-building that you aren't going to take seriously. You don't need conspiracies or schemes. Bad guys try to do something bad, good guys try to stop them, humans are caught in the middle. Keep it simple. Stop with all the tangents and side-stories and characters who are just there to bloat out the run time.
At the end of the day, we're left with an over-long bloated mess. And we've endured four of these now. A movie that you don't have to think very much about can still be good. This series is still so very far from good.
Why would you not? Is an equally as valid a question
In some cases it's not a coincidence that the thing you do is also the thing you love which entertains you.
It's also true that we can have a deep and intricate story with all the action to go with it, but remember people, this film is based on a kids cartoon, if it were to feature a Prestige or Inception like narrative then chances are you'd be alienating your core audience.
In my opinion they have to much story and not enough robot screen-time and the 4th film did have a lot of robot screen-time
It's not that these movies are unashamedly dumb. That's fine - Some of the most enjoyable movies around are your silly 80s actioners. It's that the Transformers and their ilk are badly made films.
Take a look back at when Arnie and Stallone and Willis were in their heyday. Those films - the ones we remember at least, are simple, strong and coherent in terms character and story writing and decent editing in terms of coherency, balance and film length. Nothing remotely arty, deep or even particularly smart in most cases. Just solid film making - something which Transformers fails at pretty much every level.
^ Yep. All of the above.