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THe 80's movie had Zero character development...they killed all the major characters off and replaced them with new ones.
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zero character development.... Prime freaking died, he went from a character youd think could never back down from anything to one lying in his death bed revealing secrets we had never known.
Yeah, the goal was to sell new toys but who cares it WORKED.
Hot Rod went from a young punk to becoming leader. Megatron who was arrogant and power hungry became a small fish compared to a greater enemy. Kup gained total faith in Hot Rod. So where is the character development in the robots in this movie?
Yeah it wasn't the greatest movie. Infact it went downhill after the first 20 min, ironically AFTER Prime died but stuff happened, and you cared about it happening. Personally I don't about any characters in the movie i saw last week.
There was a lot more heart in the animated movie IMO. I don't mind you saying it stole its template from Star Wars or Joseph Campbell. But don't try ad tell me it had zero character development at least not when you are comparing it to the movie that is in theatres right now.
I still have no idea why someone would just expect a movie to be shallow and lack character and decent storytelling abilities just because "its about giant robots"
Actually Im seeing a divide here between people who as kids knew the original premise and those who only knew of re-runs or (worse) rewrites. (This is in no way a absolute separation however)
For those in the know, the new movie is just about as silly as the Go-Bots show was.
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I'll have to disagree. I grew up with Transformers back when they first aired.
As far as the 80s movie goes, I can really only watch the first half. The second half is really bad in my opinion. The 80s cartoon was just a toy commercial. Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
went to see it, in the moment they began talking about the cube i knew the story was crap , so i turned off my brain for that and just minded the FX and i was really happy, damn awesome.
Actually Im seeing a divide here between people who as kids knew the original premise and those who only knew of re-runs or (worse) rewrites. (This is in no way a absolute separation however)
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I think you're seeing the divide here between people who treat the original show as the Divine Gospel of the Matrix, handed down to mere mortals by Optimus Christ in an act of benevolence, and people who were expecting ROBOTS THAT ARE ALSO CARS.
As for all the humor in the movie, the original movie had WEIRD AL YANKOVIC IN THE SOUNDTRACK. It was not a super serious cinematic masterpiece, it merely seemed that way because our toys were dying to fight an unknown evil.
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So many plot holes that if it was clothes even porn stars would say it was a little immodest.
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What plot holes are you referring to? They leave some things unfinished but I can't recall any gaping plot holes.
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zero character development[!?!].... Prime freaking died, he went from a character youd think could never back down from anything to one lying in his death bed revealing secrets we had never known.
Hot Rod went from a young punk to becoming leader. Megatron who was arrogant and power hungry became a small fish compared to a greater enemy. Kup gained total faith in Hot Rod. So where is the character development in the robots in this movie?
Yeah it wasn't the greatest movie. In fact it went downhill after the first 20 min, ironically AFTER Prime died but stuff happened, and you cared about it happening. Personally I don't about any characters in the movie i saw last week.
There was a lot more heart in the animated movie IMO. I don't mind you saying it stole its template from Star Wars or Joseph Campbell. But don't try ad tell me it had zero character development at least not when you are comparing it to the movie that is in theatres right now.
I still have no idea why someone would just expect a movie to be shallow and lack character and decent storytelling abilities just because "its about giant robots"
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With the exception of Optimus Prime dying in the original movie, the characters were incredibly one dimensional and lacking any real characterization. Kup is not Othello. This isn't Shakespeare. The characters of Megatron, Optimus, Bumblebee and Sam are at least as fleshed out, if not moreso, than any character in the 80s movie. Optimus Prime is prepared to make a sacrifice to save the day, Megatron is egomaniacally evil, and the scenes with Bumblebee and Sam flesh out Bumblebee pretty well despite him not being able to talk, which is pretty cool.
All in all I really rather enjoyed the movie. The effects were cool, although I would have liked to see less jump cuts at the end of the transformations (but I doubt they actually were created to transform correctly), I would have liked to see the secondary transformers fleshed out a bit more, especially the decepticons, and I could have done with less of the hackers, because I hate hacking in any movie because its usually unrealistic as fuck or half-assed deus ex machina, but all in all I enjoyed the movie. The Witwickys were all enjoyable, John Tutuirro (however you spell it) was enjoyable, the military was enjoyable when they were fighting Scorponok, and most importantly of all, the toys that I have in my apartment are awesome, boasting a number of really cool designs that wouldn't have existed without the movie happening
whether it's the 'best film ever' is subjective and not my point.
My point is that even with all this complaining, you can't argue the fact that the movie makers did their job well.
It even broke the record for first 5 day opening or so I've heard.
It's a film made to sell toys and entertain the masses. Nothing more, nothing less. This was never meant to be Shakespeare or win Oscars for best plot.
Anyone going in with such high expectations was setting themselves up for a let down.
I think Bay is just not very good at directing fight scenes. Honestly I could not tell what the hell was going on. It didn't help that the robot designs look like a jumbled mess, so you could be looking at a head or a hand or a gun or a foot and it all just looks the same. Is there any reason Prime has his mouth on his chin now? That is just plain bad design.
Besides the army dudes, the human characters were either annoying or pointless. Even the army dudes were pretty pointless.
Seems that with a cool villian like Megatron you could have him in more of the movie.
I think they should have kept Starscream as an F-15. Really, I didn't mind the other changes to the characters vehicle forms, and F-22s are cool-- I just think it would make more sense for him to be an F-15 since they are more common.
They could have edited 45 minutes out of the movie if they got rid of pointless characters and product placement.
The subtitles that came up as symbols first were dumb and hard to read.
Really, it shouldn't have been hard to make a really cool Transformers movie. A lot of the stuff they did in this was actually pretty good, but it failed in having characters I cared about or decent fight scenes, and so just wasn't a very good action movie.
haha man, I don't know... this thread if awfully funny to read at how 'disappointed' people are with the movie.
It's Transformers. You know, giant robots that come to earth and fight each other? They transform from vehicles into robots 4x the vehicles size ? (IMPOSSIBLE!) The fact that there's a cheesy "unknown government division", some human characters, and some corny one-liners just added to the experience. (UNTHINKABLE!)
Again, this is Trans-flipping-formers: I reaaaaally can't understand how people can have so many problems with this movie. Giant robots. Explosions. Effects. Humans. Sexy humans. Sci-fi. Transforming XBox 360.
C'mon...
Its like you went expecting have your minds blown and provoked thoughts that change your lives.
Starscream as an F-22 instead of an F-15? Really? That's an ACTUAL gripe with the film you have?
Pointless characters?
Have you read the comics lately or still have the 80's cartoon in your head?
The subtitles, I found, were easy to read and added to the 'campiness' of the film (which, lets face it, it wouldn't be Transformers if it wasn't campy).
I thought that the Autobots were really well portrayed as protectors, and that the Decepticons were really well done as shit disturbers.
Optimus Prime was Optimus Prime. New design, same awesome characteristics.
Now, I'm not saying the points made here that are negative towards the movie aren't valid, but to say it ruined the experience for you really confuses me. Were you disappointed with King Kong also? A movie about a giant ape that terrorizes NYC and failed to completely blow your minds visually and intellectually?
No, I don't really have a problem with Starscream being an F-22. I just think it would have been cooler as an F-15. that is what he was originally, and those planes are still very common so why not, you know?
As action movies go I just didn't enjoy it much. I couldn't tell what the hell was happening in the action scenes with the busy character design, swooping cameras and motion blur. I hated the teenage characters. I thought they were annoying. Do annoying characters and bad action scenes ruin an action movie for me? Yes.
I thought that chick was not hot. Like a bitchier uglier Lindsey Lohan. What is it with nasty fake-tan skin anyway? It looks like she had the skin of a 40 year old.
I have not read the comics. I haven't watched the TV show in 20 years or so, so I can't really remember it well. I don't need to really. I have seen a lot of cool anime and movies with giant robots to compare this to and I just don't think it was very good.
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To quote my friend: "I went in expecting Independence Day with giant robots and what I got was Pearl Harbor with giant robots"
Adam, *every* single time people post their gripes with the latest Hollywood blockbuster drivel, you jump to its defense with the same ol' tedious 'what did you expect, you were meant to leave your brain at the door' argument. There is nothing for you to be confused about, bless your cotton socks. Purely and simply, some people have more discerning taste in film than you, it's that simple. Still confused?
I'll repost some quality prose from danr, since it works just as well as a counter now, to the time you expressed the same righteous indignation at anyone daring to dislike 300:
"i'm pretty sure most people don't want to be lectured on how to watch or appreciate a film that they've paid money to see. I mean, i could sit here until the cows come home and post a stack of lectures on how the "leave your brain at the door and stop complaining" mentality has bred a whole legion of ugly puppy-like mongoloids, pawing at their masters leg for a taste of whatever shitty leftover cultural morsel he can be arsed to throw down into their dumbfuck drooling chops after he's sucked it dry of all charm and invention, and in it's own way leading most of modern civilisation to the edge of a communal boredom and distress that's one day going to tip us over into total destruction. But, hey, it's just a chat about a film, y'know?"
Comics: I read some of the Dreamwave? Issues. They were decent. Still like the original Marvel series the best.
Why should we have to turn off our brains to enjoy a movie to such a degree? I have never understood that argument when trying to justify flawed movies. Why cant we enjoy it because it was good? Not because we had to look at it only from one perspective.
Of course there is some disbelief of transforming vehicles. That doesn't have to stand in the way of a good story and character development now does it? Honestly Brome, I just don't think you "get" what Transformers are and how they are not just generic robots. You.. You Go-bot lover!
The best point I read on a blog was the editor of the Previews "got it". That they should have instead directed the film versus Michael (I'm such a creative sell out) Bay. The previews at least gave a bit of hope that there might be some seriousness and depth to the film.
Campiness? Star Wars (original) is campy, but still serious and fun, with great character development. This was just a trainwreck of generic Hollywood commercialism. By trying to justify this movie, all you are doing is empowering Hollywood to create more crap.
And I probably always will be when people get uppity over action movies. Even more confusing are those who've an opinion of the 'check your brain at the door' mentality of movie-going.
And with that said...
I never once said to check your brain at the door. Nor did I suggest it be done. There's taste in film, and there's realistic ideals as to what it is I've bought in to. I figured I'd get cheesy, campy, high-energy action. It's Michael Bay + Transformers, remember?
No brain checkage here, just a bit of good-old fashion realistic expectation.
I laughed aloud at Daz's comment on people with a more discerning taste in film than me, yet we all went to the same movie. Foolish.
I'm not trying to say to those who didn't enjoy it, 'You're wrong', nor am I one to belittle over an opinion. I'm quite simply asking what they could have possibly expected going in to a movie such as the one in question and form an opinion of the movie being abysmal.
Oxy, I'm quite aware of who the Transformers are. I've watched the movie, the TV show(s) and have read a lot of the newer comics. I even work with one of the Armada illustrators to which I've divulged an opinion as to what the "Transformers" are and speak often about the topic. (But don't love it enough to know the difference between Prime's!) And with all of that, I really enjoyed the movie. Weird.......
Foolish? I can't think of anything more fool like than arguing with people that express a dislike for something you like. What are you hoping for? A change of heart? Contrary to what you've just said above, clearly it bugs you that people didn't like it, and you express that with a smugness that's quite painful to read. A bunch of folks didn't like it, accept it, get over it, move on.
Brome,
See, with your "realistic expectations" and Michael Bay comment; you are saying the same thing as those talking about leaving the mind at the door. Again, it should be about the movie, not having to go in to only enjoy it by looking at it in a two dimensional perspective.
Knowing Transformers, and understanding them are two different things. What made Transformers so popular other than the toys, was the characters, stories, and surrounding mythos. That one didn't have to mentally force themselves to overlook some of the physics involved, or the randomness of Robotic Aliens who are Anthropomorphic. The character development and stories drew you in so that these facts didn't bother you. They reinforced your sense of belief in the unbelievable.
As an example, much of Star Trek and Star Wars (originals) makes no sense scientifically, but the characters and stories are enough to allow one to not get caught up in the details.
This movie though was extremely poor in both. I was agonizing at the shallow genericness of it. Which in turned made me disbelieve. I no longer wanted to have that belief.
Thats why I think you don't get it... you Go-bot lover!
I think people have a problem with this movie simply because it was easy to make it awesome, but instead they did what we got. I was entertained, but the fight scenes should of been clear and the ending should of been impressive. When it ended I was thinking are you kidding that can't be it. A lot of build up and nothing, the ending was very lame. Maybe the director of the tranfomers the movie (toon) should of directed this, at least he could do very cool fight scenes.
haha ok Oxy yah got me! I luvr me some Go-Bots. You may find that in the coming sequels to the movie there's more character & story development than the first. Perhaps as an introduction, this movie makes more sense. Yet admittedly, thats a terrible waste of some Transformer-goodness.
Daz, just once a conversation would be nice where questions can be asked without lines being so quickly drawn. Again my friend, I'm not trying to say that those who disagree are wrong in doing so, I'm simply asking why. At this point, however, repeating myself is wasteful. I'll have to wait for the next movie to come out so I may drop the next CYBATD Bomb.
I'm with SouL... Megan can be sweaty and Tig O'Bitties +100 in all her movies.
It has always been the way of the arteests to beat the crap out of any movie of this genre. To be one who helps in creating such works it's easier to see the flaws and more difficult to be objective. It has always been that way in this forum. I found the movie to be amazing. The CGI was awesome. The movie over all was action packed, laughable at times, serious at times....really all the things that make a decent piece of entertainment. I'll buy the DVD and recommend it to my friends. Definitely see it in a theatre to appreciate the great work put into it.
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Adam, *every* single time people post their gripes with the latest Hollywood blockbuster drivel, you jump to its defense with the same ol' tedious 'what did you expect, you were meant to leave your brain at the door' argument. There is nothing for you to be confused about, bless your cotton socks. Purely and simply, some people have more discerning taste in film than you, it's that simple. Still confused?
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More discerning taste in film? When you knowingly pay money to see a Michael Bay movie with a story based on Hasbro talking robot toys, I think you automatically forfeit the "discerning taste" argument.
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There's one thing about the movie mentioned in many reviews and now on this board that I strongly disagree with... since when did b-cup become "big"? DAMN YOU MICHAEL BAY
FUNNY READ: I read this on a Blog of a friend of a friends:
[ QUOTE ] Transformers is the story of robots sent from outer space to help a geeky kid score the hot chick. To accomplish this, they send their kinkiest robot man down to the planet, where he immediately whores himself out to the kid for $4k. Unfortunately, this chick is wilier than most, and resists their best efforts, which include semi-romantically stranding her with the kid, trying to show her the kid's porn collection, and staging a golden shower scene. Finally they determine that she gets off on violence, and so they flatten a city so that the kid can get laid.
Why do they do all of this? Well, it turns out that autobots like to watch.
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Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
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that's the wickedest awesomest excuse i've heard yet. "Cmon guys its the budget give them a break". Listen when a movie is bad because its budget affects the level of quality in the effects it's a bad movie. Why wouldn't that hold true when it affects the writing?
i got an older brother that really dug this movie, so i went to see it yesterday. it's going to be hard to talk to him about it, because boy i just couldn't dig it.
i'm sure somewhere in these nerd-ragin' 8 pages my position has more or less been covered, but mostly i don't like this film purely on aesthetic grounds.
even with the facile racism, spastic hamming by most of the actors, lopsided plotting that relegates the titular robots to supporting roles at best, i could have enjoyed this film, since like people keep saying over and over, it's about giant robots fighting, right, so how do you screw that up?
foremost, design. i'm not a transformers fan, so i'm not coming from that oldschool type angle at all. just that the robot designs are extremely unreadable and difficult to distinguish from each other. you can tell Optimus and Bumblebee readily, mostly from color, but not the rest of them. despite some obviously impressive rendering and animation, there are some pretty fundamentally flawed designs. cluttered visual designs, poor silhouettes.. they're chocked full of cool bits, but cool bits don't necessarily make for a strong whole. aren't these akin to the crits we give newbies? designing giant robots for film come under much of the same guidelines as designing for videogames or related fields--i just think it's a lot of surprisingly weak design.
and why are all the transformers designed around an excessively repeated turbine motif? turbine eyes, spinny turbine bits in the torso, spinny turbines for the gun barrels. i admit, glowing hot turbines on jets are way cool, but aren't there some more interesting design elements for giant robots? aren't giant robots cool enough, where you don't need to trendwhore them up with some spinny glowing bits and overall designs resembling exploding shrapnel?
this has probably already been posted, because i know most of you have seen this: http://www.3dblasphemy.com/OPTIMUS/OPTIMUS.html
i remembered that and came back to it after the movie.. and while it's not as impressive as i remembered it, i do think that it's closer to a design style that would have made sense for the movie. in the film, Optimus Prime's transformation sequence was an almost completely abstract swirl of moving parts... and spinny bits. don't forget the spinny turbine bits. also, red and blue are not cool enough colors. you need crimson and purple. pimp that shit, son.
i know i'm a little hung up on the designs... they might have worked, as complicated as they were, if we got a better look at them sometimes, but of course, we're saddled with Bay's frantic camera movement and editing style. so you get overcomplicated robots doing complex movements (with lots of secondary motion, with the spinning and transforming bits) with complex, rapid-fire camera movements and cutting. awesome. for such apparently popular, popcorn-munching type of movie, why do i have to work so hard to keep track of whats going on?
even after all that, i might have been behind this movie. there are definitely a lot of good fights in there (yes, once you wait through a whole lot of hammy teen sex comedy type sequences).
but then comes the sound design... i'm trying to track the genesis of this particular 'style', but does anyone else know what i'm talking about when i say that a good number of major action and especially scifi movies have started sounding the same? this trend might have started earlier, but i trace it back to the pod race sequence from Episode I: an awesome sequence with a very distinct sound design--everything sounded like, well, enormous engines flying apart at high speeds. whud whud whud whud screeeeeeeeeee. particularly those elliptical sounding bits punctuated by a lot of high pitched keening noises.
now fast forward to the transformers, where the entire movie seems to sound like the pod racing sequence, with the screeching amped by about 300%. abrasive is about the only word i can use to describe it.
oh, and the boombox bot (that moved like the robot from Red Planet--does anyone enjoy these robots, other than animators tired of designing/animating robots?) was also very obnoxious. i'm with the AVC rating, this movie is about a C-, maybe solid C.
that is all. thank you, internet, for being a place where people post opinions nobody wants to hear.
also, all of you are obviously not as clever or tasteful as me if you enjoyed this movie at all! teeheeheehee
I'm not trying to say to those who didn't enjoy it, 'You're wrong', nor am I one to belittle over an opinion. I'm quite simply asking what they could have possibly expected going in to a movie such as the one in question and form an opinion of the movie being abysmal.
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being that the filmmakers have publicly advised that this movie would fall under the same category and spirit of E.T. and Jurassic Park. I would hope that the concept would be treated with the same level of respect and be portrayed equally as believable.
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even after all that, i might have been behind this movie. there are definitely a lot of good fights in there (yes, once you wait through a whole lot of hammy teen sex comedy type sequences).
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I'll state it again: American Pie with robots... Sorry, I got really tired of the teen awkwardness jokes... Everyone's openly a virgin and the mom likes to discuss masterbation. Great movie to take your kids to (like I did)
I also agree that there was very little distinction between robots, especially between decepticons. I easily couldn't tell if I was looking at Starscream or Megatron. Did devastor even transform? I think he stayed as a tank the whole time.
"
Transformers is the story of robots sent from outer space to help a geeky kid score the hot chick. To accomplish this, they send their kinkiest robot man down to the planet, where he immediately whores himself out to the kid for $4k. Unfortunately, this chick is wilier than most, and resists their best efforts, which include semi-romantically stranding her with the kid, trying to show her the kid's porn collection, and staging a golden shower scene. Finally they determine that she gets off on violence, and so they flatten a city so that the kid can get laid.
Why do they do all of this? Well, it turns out that autobots like to watch.
I saw the film last week. (during my 4th of July vacation) I have to say, I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was not true to the original source material. It in no way followed the plot of the cartoons, the comics, or anything else Transformer-related. It was often juvenile in its humor and approach to the premise. Yet despite all of that, it was thouroughly entertaining. The pacing, especially, was very solid. The movie grabbed your attention, and effectively kept it through to the end. It actually helped that it didn't take itself too seriously. (the premise is pretty ridiculous, after all) The main character (Shia Lebouf) was surprisingly competent as an actor. He handled absolutely ludicrous lines, and managed to make them seem appealing. And of course, Peter Cullen was fantastic. I was so glad that they gave Optimus Prime so many speaking parts. I could listen to that voice for hours.
It's not going to win any awards for dramatic aspirations. But it was a very entertaining big-budget summer blockbuster. The one real issue I had was that Megatron had such a miniscule part. (spoiler warning) Also, the fact that he died at the end of the movie was a bit dissapointing. Bit of a shot in the foot on producing a sequel. (spoiler ending)
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even after all that, i might have been behind this movie. there are definitely a lot of good fights in there (yes, once you wait through a whole lot of hammy teen sex comedy type sequences).
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I'll state it again: American Pie with robots... Sorry, I got really tired of the teen awkwardness jokes... Everyone's openly a virgin and the mom likes to discuss masterbation. Great movie to take your kids to (like I did)
I also agree that there was very little distinction between robots, especially between decepticons. I easily couldn't tell if I was looking at Starscream or Megatron. Did devastor even transform? I think he stayed as a tank the whole time.
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what else.. we see how the autobots arrived but do we see at all how or when the Decepticons arrive on earth? We barely ever see any of them together. I think if each time had some sort of "base of operations" we'd have a lot better feeling for each faction.
The Decepticons underwater base with the rising elevator and the Autobot's crashed ship in the volcano would have been awesome to see in live action.
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Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
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that's the wickedest awesomest excuse i've heard yet. "Cmon guys its the budget give them a break". Listen when a movie is bad because its budget affects the level of quality in the effects it's a bad movie. Why wouldn't that hold true when it affects the writing?
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So, are you saying that they could have given the bots more characterization when they were off screen?
You may see it as an 'excuse', but it's simple logic. If you can give someone/thing more screen time, then you can develop their character further.
Granted, you can develop a character off screen by having someone else speak of them, but when you're talking about alien robots that no one is familiar with, then that can't really be done when you're focusing on human characters.
So yes, budgets come into play when you're talking about paying ILM to animate and render these scenes out.
So again, I state that you can get more characterization out of the 80's movie because it was all 2d and creating a human character costed just as much as creating a robot, not true when using a live action / 3d mix.
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Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
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that's the wickedest awesomest excuse i've heard yet. "Cmon guys its the budget give them a break". Listen when a movie is bad because its budget affects the level of quality in the effects it's a bad movie. Why wouldn't that hold true when it affects the writing?
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So, are you saying that they could have given the bots more characterization when they were off screen?
You may see it as an 'excuse', but it's simple logic. If you can give someone/thing more screen time, then you can develop their character further.
Granted, you can develop a character off screen by having someone else speak of them, but when you're talking about alien robots that no one is familiar with, then that can't really be done when you're focusing on human characters.
So yes, budgets come into play when you're talking about paying ILM to animate and render these scenes out.
So again, I state that you can get more characterization out of the 80's movie because it was all 2d and creating a human character costed just as much as creating a robot, not true when using a live action / 3d mix.
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We could go on for hours but yeah I know exactly what you meant and its just a cheap cop out to me. Even if they were to develop a character offscreen as you say that would not be good enough because film is about SHOWING not telling. Regardless, the budget is apparant in both the EFFECTS (not enough robots) and WRITING (they have made the story revolve around many human characters to take screentime away from transformers.)
but then comes the sound design... i'm trying to track the genesis of this particular 'style', but does anyone else know what i'm talking about when i say that a good number of major action and especially scifi movies have started sounding the same?
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i haven't seen transformers (and am incredibly unlikely to, having had whatever vague dribble of interest might have been floating around my brain firmly kicked out by the Modern Internet) but i know exactly what you're talking about. I dismissed outright the new fantastic four film purely on similar sound design in the trailer. WSHEEUGH DUFFF (fade)... WSHEEEEEUGH DUFFFF (fade) ... god it annoys me.
btw, it's really good to see someone criticising a film based on what really matters. Many people don't even notice this uncomfortable shit when they're in the cinema, due to them being - in the spirit of the thread - a bit thick. Duuuh me likes the colours and the big boom and the zoom zoom, it goes fun in my brain. Doesn't matter that someone's talking nearby or slowly opening foil wrappers or fucking kicking the back of their fucking seat or jabbing knives into their neck or being shown a movie so fucking excruciating it's at odds with every natural human sense - me happy with eyes and ears occupied so me don't have to go home and cry inside.
well i think its relevant to a lot of trends in filmmaking overall, not just action movies--though as we've seen, many of those trends are presented in their most excruciatingly virulent form in action movies. the aforementioned abrasive sound design, and our current overall fixation, good ol' shakeycam.
in ten years time, it's hard not to think that we'll finally see camera stabilization/extra smooth camera movement or something like that coming around as the big new thing, once filmmakers start to realize how obnoxious they've been.
though of course, some people have already realized it. in true academy form, Children of Men was passed over for many of the Oscars it probably deserved, particularly for cinematography.
i know a lot of polycounters saw it, and they know what i'm talking about--seeing the extended tracking shots in that movie were not only technically impressive, and seriously ratcheted up the tension the longer the shot went, but were simultaneously sort of a relief, as a movie goer. the action (as in the ambush sequence) can be plenty frantic, but with skillful camera placement and direction we know what we're focusing on and the impact is that much greater... Clive Owens throwing a door open to smack two guys right off their motorcycle. the scene has tremendous visceral impact, especially in the theater. and yet the entire scene is fully "readable" to the audience.
contrast that to some of the extended shots in Transformers of some of the best fights in the movie--Optimus taking out.. uhh.. whichever Decepticon that loses his head, also the flying sequence with StarScream matching wits with the F-22s. those scenes play out largely in single, fluid shots--doable since most of it is CG--and yet camera placement and direction obscure large portions of the action.
i'm 25 years old, a gamer working in the videogame industry, so i think i have as quick a visual uptake as the next guy in my generation--but instead of really enjoying those extended scenes in Transformers, i kept feeling like i had to work to catch up.
it was exhilarating, yes, but like some sort of visual puzzle, first to identify which robots were in a scene, and then to figure out which part of the robot i was seeing (is that his arm, or his head? is it his ass? just an abstract mass of spinny turbines?), and then finally what the robots were doing to each other. granted, i think a lot of that means that the film will probably play better on a second or third viewing, since you can spend more time rewatching scenes to see what's going on... but good luck getting me to rewatch that movie.
not that i think Transformers needs super long, quasi-verite style tracking shots like Children of Men; i'm just using that as an example of a recent film that's pushing away from the shakeycam/quick cut/aggressive sound design axis that seems so popular now.
here's the thing: for as much as Mr. Bay and company self-identify and are generally considered to be lowest common denominator populists, i think visually Bay is so out there as to be practically avant-garde. the Transformers in motion are so abstract, the scenes so dizzying and quick and difficult to discern that, ironically, a more "arty" movie like Children of Men comes off as kind of traditional and conservative by comparison.
Bay's work visually just gets denser and denser, positively baroque even, to the point where something's got to give in the next few years...
even if he's not quite there yet, one of Bay's popular contemporaries, Tony Scott, just went through his own stylistic meltdown after/during Domino. you know, the acid green/yellow film with Keira Knightly?
it was the cinematic equivalent of bloom shaders and gonzo normal mapping: so high contrast, quick-cut verging on the abstract, that it betrayed the populist ethos Scott so ostensibly espouses. Scott finally backed off (or maybe got off the drugs), and then made Deja Vu, which doesn't look like it was made by a crazy person.
okay, this is a different topic, maybe worth actually starting its own thread for (gasp). just a bit of a film nerd these days, eh?
So yes, budgets come into play when you're talking about paying ILM to animate and render these scenes out.
So again, I state that you can get more characterization out of the 80's movie because it was all 2d and creating a human character costed just as much as creating a robot, not true when using a live action / 3d mix.
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It probably would reduced costs dramatically to allow more robot time versus corny humans with generic personalities if they had as Gauss pointed out used more traditional transformations. Versus a ILM wet $$ dream of making overly complex rigs where almost every square inch of the character moves.
As my local comic book shop owner said, they looked overly fragile versus bulky and tough like the old.
If this is supposed to be a three parter, I hope for the love of God they get Bay off the project and decent writers for the next two. Just look at the Empire Strikes Back did when Lucas was off the directing reigns.
One point that I want to go a bit more into detail which Gauss mentioned was the overt stereotyping. I'm especially thinking of the hacker character here. "Lets use this as an excuse to put in a funny black man" musta been the thinking. I recently listened to a series on African Americans that was originally on PBS. When they interviewed black actors, some mentioned how tiring it was that the black actor had to be seen as the comic relief.
What would have made more sense and interesting? The hacker being from the Ukraine or Russia, and had Russian Mafia ties.
I don't follow that comparison, oXY. Empire is the high point of the Star Wars saga, but the original is a mythic film in its own right. Lucas could have done some things better, but he still created the most significant film of the last 30 years - I don't think Bay will ever be able to make a claim like that.
In other news, reading this thread shows me the pointlessness of these kinds of discussions. I frankly cannot understand how people with any interest in the original source material don't mind the campy, self-referential Bay interpretation. I'm reminded of Batman & Robin, with neon Batmobiles and George Clooney damn near winking at the camera. The Transformers cartoon wasn't War & Peace, but it took itself seriously. We didn't see Spike get his pants pulled off by Frenzy or endure masturbation jokes from Sparkplug in the cartoon. Those things are as appropriate to Transfomers as the molded nipples on the costumes were to B&R. These things may not BE serious fare, but they're vastly more compelling when they TAKE themselves seriously. Batman Begins > other Batman films because it wasn't campy, nod-at-the-audience fare.
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The Transformers cartoon wasn't War & Peace, but it took itself seriously.
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wow... did you just type that?
you obviously haven't seen much of G1...
Should I remind you of the episode where Seaspray turns into a 'merman with big metal feet' and falls in love with a human female?
What about when all the Autobots desguised themselves in giant labcoats?
How about the episode named 'Hoist Goes Hollywood'?
Good ol Lord Chumley...
What about the female ninja robot, Nightbird, created for world peace?
How about the one episode named, 'The Girl That Loved Powerglide.'
How about when Soundwave used subliminal messages in a night club's music to turn everyone into zombies?
How about when the Dinobots and Hound played football?
Giant robots in medieval times?
Or Optimus playing basketball with Spike?
This picture alone debunks your entire statement.
How about the Junkions speaking in 'TV'?
surfing!
How about when all the Decepticons drink Energon and get drunk?
Don't get me started on the other cartoons after G1...
So yeah... I really wouldn't say it 'took itself seriously'... it was an 80's cartoon used to sell toys, period. You seriously can't sit there and tell me that they took themselves seriously, especially after what I cited, and trust me, there's much, much more in G1 alone. Maybe it's nostalgia fooling your memories?
By the way, Arcee, in the comics, was created by the Transformers as an answer to Earth's feminists demanding a female robot.
Oh noes, I've been 'debunked!' Ha ha ha ha, look at Jesse taking it all soooooo seriously - Check your brain at the forum!!!!1
Really, are you just totally not getting my point or something? Batman Begins is about a millionaire playboy who dresses up in a costume, jumps off buildings and fights criminals. The concept is completely absurd, it is laughable if you pass it through even the most lenient reality check. But it (the characters, whatever) takes itself seriously, as opposed to the Schumacher debacle, in which the actors are all seemingly a frame away from waving at the screen and saying "look at me, I'm in a Batman movie!" The G1 cartoon doesn't involve self-mocking humor in the way of Optimus Prime saying "my bad" after accidentally mauling Sparkplug's carefully manicured lawn - look at me, I'm not a wise and experienced warrior but actually a big silly clumsy giant who can't watch where he puts his feet!
I don't know how to explain this any more clearly, and certainly not in a way that will keep you from posting more pictures...
The 60's Batman show was campy, but the first film didn't try to reflect that. It was only when the new director of the later films tried to give it a glitz campy feel that Batman failed.
I think Batman and Robin is a perfect comparison for this Transformer movie as Vermillion pointed out. I tried to rewatch that again recently just to see if I missed something in my interpretation. Even with all its glitz and action starting out, I couldn't get past the first 5 minutes without turning it off.
I know we wont change anyones minds, but its a fun arguement. While maybe, juuuust maybe someone is keeping tabs on reactions like ours and surfing the net for threads like these. Besides, I get to call people Go-Bot lovers.
Thank you Gauss for showing me I'm not just a grumpy old cunt. You're a wee bit younger than me, and your opinion basically mirrors mine, except you probably wouldn't say cunt.
Ghost, I could go into the plotholes in great depth, but reliving the film makes me shudder in my undergarments, so I'd rather not. If you didn't spot any of them you were A) too taken up with the joy candy and nostalgic glow to notice them Intoxicated C) Stupid from birth or D) Dead.
Answer me this though, because I swear I missed something important, but not a sngle person has been able to give me a sensible answer as to what I may have missed. Where the fuck was Prime for the first 5 minutes of the Downtown battle? Eh? Stopped off for an oil change? Taking a robo dump? Maybe pausing for a quiet fag before the carnage? Or maybe they just wanted him to turn up in dramatic style but forgot to give him any reason at all for being late to the party.
That's not "leave your brain at the door", that's the film makers saying "You guys are all retards, and we're making pots of cash despite being too lazy to make anything even approaching sense. After all, why bother when you'll pay for and enjoy any old shit we put in front of you?" The sad thing being they're apparently 100% correct.
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The G1 cartoon doesn't involve self-mocking humor in the way of Optimus Prime saying "my bad" after accidentally mauling Sparkplug's carefully manicured lawn - look at me, I'm not a wise and experienced warrior but actually a big silly clumsy giant who can't watch where he puts his feet!
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How is that any different from the examples I posted above? I must not be getting it, because I don't see G1 as 'taking itself seriously'.
When I think about a cartoon that takes itself seriously, I think of something like Justice League Unlimited for example. That cartoon in itself is meant to sell comics and toys, but you would never know it.
While I can't think of any exact quotes from G1, I can assure you there are plenty of 'oops, my bad.' moments.
While I can't think of any exact quotes from G1, I can assure you there are plenty of 'oops, my bad.' moments.
I mean, come on... robots on surf boards?
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Yeah but its not so much the fact that Prime did that, but when they did it in the story (first action of Prime). He should have been a warrior first, dumb ass second. Not dumbass first, warrior second.
Robots on surfboards, that was one episode. Man, Michael Bay made this movie silly and campy because that's what he thought Transformers was about. It wasn't. He missed the mark, Michale Bay missed the mark, is that so hard to believe? Michael Bay has said that he watched the first 15 minutes of the Transformers '86 movie and wanted to kill himself". So he didn't even watch the original freaking moie to try and find the spirit of it, to try and recapture what had helped create the huge fan following of a film he was about to make.
I agree with these guys, the G1 cartoon took itself FAR more seriously than this movie did. Yes, there were times where Prime would be playing basketball and say "i'm going for a layup!" But the corny stuff was just put in there for the kids, because after all it was a toy commercial. It had to have humour. You have to have some fun with the characters. Youd have fun if you had giant robot buddies too.But DO THE NOBLE WARRIOR STUFF FIRST.
But lets get this straight, because it was a toy commercial does not take anything away from the style, rich underlying mythos, awesome character portrayals or the relative maturity of the show. The writers never considered it "just writing a toy commercial". There would also be issues of god and religion brought up in the show you barely ever saw that in toons.
The thing is the movie is a pale imitation of the G1 characters. A buddy of mine at work yesterday said, "that wasn't Prime to me". It was like Episode 1. Prime just seems to be trying to do the Prime thing, say the Prime things. But it's not him. There was far more depth to the character in the pilot episodes of Transformers. More than Meets the Eye. First of all:
-NOONE says the words More than Meets the eye.
-Prime NEVER gives up.
-You see Prime get angry. You hear Prime YELL at the Autobots out of frustration when they are trying to help him out after he was just beaten by Megs.
-A human doesn't win the battle but the unsuspecting Autobot, Mirage.
The 3 biggest problems with this movie to me were the "Boy and his Car" theme (WTF?, buying an Autobot just makes no sense. Bumblebee should have just spoke to him, told him about Optimus Prime so that there was some build up to Sam meeting the great Autobot leader)).
The silly representation of the Autobots. First impressions are big. And when Prime meets Spike the conversation is just a conversation it doesn't really tell us of Prime's character. We wait til we actually SEE his character instead of just hearing them toot their own horn. So the next scene, the real first impression. Is Prime in Spikes yard stepping on lawn ornaments and saying my bad. Look at the build up to that.... compared to the build up to say King Kong. Or even the build up to Neo meeting Morpheous. It's just not there.
The waste of time on the millitary hacking!!!!!! First of all, they have the "sound" that hacked the computer. Now they want to analyze it to see which country it came from? This just makes zero sense. What purpose did all this serve honestly? To tell us just what it was that the Decepticons were doing? To bring the big hackers together so that they could figure out the Decepticons weaknesses and then send it to the military?" It didn't work whatever it was.
BRUTICUS: "Michael Bay made this movie silly and campy because that's what he thought Transformers was about. It wasn't. He missed the mark, Michale Bay missed the mark, is that so hard to believe?"
Did you read skankers post? Looks like Transformers was nothing but silly...
Yes, Autobots on surfboards was one episode... one episode of many. G1 was silly, I don't know what to tell you if you argue against that. Maybe the idea wasn't, or could have been serious, but in the end, the cartoon was silly, hands down.
I can agree that Micheal Bay should have watched more, but come on, would it have made it a better movie if he would have sat down and watched it all? Would it have altered the type of movie he wanted to make? I think not. Not really defending him on that, but it's the truth. He knew what kind of movie he wanted to make from day 1. Watching all the episodes would have driven him to the conclusion that 'it's just a kids show' that much faster because it's true.
Take this example when Ang Lee released the Hulk. The majority hated it because they wanted to see the Hulk destroy things, (mind you, I enjoyed the movie), but Ang Lee was all about 'art', 'presentation of character', and characterization. What he failed to realize is that people just wanted to see an action movie with the Hulk beating stuff up. How would this be any different? The movie could have spent over an hour before the first sight of any bot, or have drawn out scenes with the bots talking, but in the end, the mass populace would not have enjoyed it as much as they have now. Is that not the truth? People watched this movie because they wanted to see robots blowing stuff up and fighting.
So, in G1, Prime was a deep character? I argue against that. He was a cowboy from episode 1 until the end. He never had any inner conflict that would evolve his character. He was a cowboy at the beginning of the episode, and by the end, he was still a cowboy. How is that a deep character? Hell, Beast Wars Prime has been the deepest Prime so far in my opinion because his character evolved over BWs and BMs. I don't get why everyone always tries to make G1 so much more than it ever was.
It reminds me of this guy that posted at the Allspark saying that G1 was more influential than Star Wars and the most successful 80s cartoon, even more so than Ninja Turtles. I mean, really... I can understand if it affected anyone person that much, but to claim it had that affect on society as fact is just delusional.
Oh yeah, I can always pull this one out of my hat, 'It's not G1 Prime.' Your buddy was correct. It didn't really feel like G1 Prime because it's not him. It's 'Movie Prime'. No amount of arguing can change that. Sure they reused G1 names that they haven't used before, sure Cullen is the voice, but that doesn't matter. Just because Gary Chalk does Primes voice in the beast era, does that make him the same character as in the Unicron Trilogy? Just because Hasbro reuses a name across different continuities, does that make them the same character? No, it doesn't. So there's always that for you if it makes you feel better.
I hate arguing, and the only reason I've done so is because so far, this is the only forum where the majority has a negative view on the movie. Hell, even on TF sites, the outlook is mainly positive. I think we're just so jaded here that we can't just take a break and enjoy something that's mindless. Instead we call people idiots because they can enjoy something with plot holes. That's not cool. Just because we can find entertainment is some of the simpler things does not make us idiots. It's all subjective. I don't need to know every single detail to accept an idea or action. I don't need 24-style panels to see where everyone is at all times. It can be argued that because I don't need it explained that I'm more creative and imaginative because I can fill the holes on my own and not need them explained to me.
I'll agree that the hackers were useless though.
As far as Prime getting frustrated in the pilot, he was getting frustrated in the movie as well. He even put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in frustration when Sam was looking for the cube. He snapped at his troops too.
Sam buying Bumble Bee was just the way he could infiltrate and scope out the situation. I don't really see the problem with that. It led to a lot of great scenes.
Oh, by the way, stepping on something because you're large doesn't make you a dumb ass. Especially if you've only had your new body for a couple hours. A dumb ass would continue to step on things and never learn from his mistakes. Do you think you're a dumb ass when you stub your toe by accident? Did you think you were a dumb ass the first time you tried something and failed? If you did, you're being very unfair to yourself.
Either way, here we have, a couple adults, arguing over a cartoon that's 20+ years old and an action movie. I think we've pretty much made most of the points that are to be made. If you want someone much better to argue against, please, go to the Allspark forum and post your thoughts in the movie forum. There are guys there that love this kind of stuff. I don't.
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The 60's Batman show was campy, but the first film didn't try to reflect that.
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I must have watched a different Batman than you did. It was campy, but in a Tim Burton way. The second one, which he also directed, HAS PENGUINS WITH MISSILES STRAPPED TO THEIR BACK. Tim Burton said in numerous interviews that he didn't read the comics, and was mostly familiar with Batman through the 60s show and movie.
If you go back and watch these movies and shows that you loved during your childhood, you'll realize they're not the masterpieces you thought they were. What works on small children doesn't work for adults, and we're adults now.
You can either bitch from here to eternity about the movie or accept it has happened, a lot of people enjoy it, no it's not G1 or any of the other series and move past it. A lot of other fans have had to endure their franchises being raped in theatrical form(Resident Evil, Batman, He-Man, Star Wars etc), now it's Transformers' turn. That's the way of things, no amount of fanboy bitching will change this. Hollywood is the god here, they will make their version of the movie regardless. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get someone who cares about the source and does a good job with it (XMen, Spiderman[first two at least], Superman Returns).
For me this movie brought back a lot of fond memories of big robots fighting other big robots. Seeing the transformations on screen was amazing to my eyes, even as convoluted and busy and whatever else they are, as busy as the action sequences are, how hard it was to see things.
Screw all that, Transformers for a lot of people has always been about one thing: TOYS!!
After watching this movie I went downstairs and dug through so many totes of toys and pulled out all the Transformers I could find. Now a few of my faves are sitting on top of shelf here in my room along with the movie toys I went out to get, a few of the little Robot Heros plastic figures and the newer Devastator figure I bought yesterday.
I'm sorry Bay didn't treat this movie as a piece of ART. This wasn't made for the fanboys who have kept up with lore and history and all that for 20+ years. The majority of people HAVEN'T done that. They remember cool robots that transformed into vehicles and that's what they went to see.
Now take this movie, accept it happened, put it to the side and play with some toys.
Replies
THe 80's movie had Zero character development...they killed all the major characters off and replaced them with new ones.
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zero character development.... Prime freaking died, he went from a character youd think could never back down from anything to one lying in his death bed revealing secrets we had never known.
Yeah, the goal was to sell new toys but who cares it WORKED.
Hot Rod went from a young punk to becoming leader. Megatron who was arrogant and power hungry became a small fish compared to a greater enemy. Kup gained total faith in Hot Rod. So where is the character development in the robots in this movie?
Yeah it wasn't the greatest movie. Infact it went downhill after the first 20 min, ironically AFTER Prime died but stuff happened, and you cared about it happening. Personally I don't about any characters in the movie i saw last week.
There was a lot more heart in the animated movie IMO. I don't mind you saying it stole its template from Star Wars or Joseph Campbell. But don't try ad tell me it had zero character development at least not when you are comparing it to the movie that is in theatres right now.
I still have no idea why someone would just expect a movie to be shallow and lack character and decent storytelling abilities just because "its about giant robots"
Actually Im seeing a divide here between people who as kids knew the original premise and those who only knew of re-runs or (worse) rewrites. (This is in no way a absolute separation however)
For those in the know, the new movie is just about as silly as the Go-Bots show was.
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I'll have to disagree. I grew up with Transformers back when they first aired.
As far as the 80s movie goes, I can really only watch the first half. The second half is really bad in my opinion. The 80s cartoon was just a toy commercial. Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
Actually Im seeing a divide here between people who as kids knew the original premise and those who only knew of re-runs or (worse) rewrites. (This is in no way a absolute separation however)
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I think you're seeing the divide here between people who treat the original show as the Divine Gospel of the Matrix, handed down to mere mortals by Optimus Christ in an act of benevolence, and people who were expecting ROBOTS THAT ARE ALSO CARS.
As for all the humor in the movie, the original movie had WEIRD AL YANKOVIC IN THE SOUNDTRACK. It was not a super serious cinematic masterpiece, it merely seemed that way because our toys were dying to fight an unknown evil.
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So many plot holes that if it was clothes even porn stars would say it was a little immodest.
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What plot holes are you referring to? They leave some things unfinished but I can't recall any gaping plot holes.
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zero character development[!?!].... Prime freaking died, he went from a character youd think could never back down from anything to one lying in his death bed revealing secrets we had never known.
Hot Rod went from a young punk to becoming leader. Megatron who was arrogant and power hungry became a small fish compared to a greater enemy. Kup gained total faith in Hot Rod. So where is the character development in the robots in this movie?
Yeah it wasn't the greatest movie. In fact it went downhill after the first 20 min, ironically AFTER Prime died but stuff happened, and you cared about it happening. Personally I don't about any characters in the movie i saw last week.
There was a lot more heart in the animated movie IMO. I don't mind you saying it stole its template from Star Wars or Joseph Campbell. But don't try ad tell me it had zero character development at least not when you are comparing it to the movie that is in theatres right now.
I still have no idea why someone would just expect a movie to be shallow and lack character and decent storytelling abilities just because "its about giant robots"
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With the exception of Optimus Prime dying in the original movie, the characters were incredibly one dimensional and lacking any real characterization. Kup is not Othello. This isn't Shakespeare. The characters of Megatron, Optimus, Bumblebee and Sam are at least as fleshed out, if not moreso, than any character in the 80s movie. Optimus Prime is prepared to make a sacrifice to save the day, Megatron is egomaniacally evil, and the scenes with Bumblebee and Sam flesh out Bumblebee pretty well despite him not being able to talk, which is pretty cool.
All in all I really rather enjoyed the movie. The effects were cool, although I would have liked to see less jump cuts at the end of the transformations (but I doubt they actually were created to transform correctly), I would have liked to see the secondary transformers fleshed out a bit more, especially the decepticons, and I could have done with less of the hackers, because I hate hacking in any movie because its usually unrealistic as fuck or half-assed deus ex machina, but all in all I enjoyed the movie. The Witwickys were all enjoyable, John Tutuirro (however you spell it) was enjoyable, the military was enjoyable when they were fighting Scorponok, and most importantly of all, the toys that I have in my apartment are awesome, boasting a number of really cool designs that wouldn't have existed without the movie happening
so far:
Domestic: $107,403,000 74.8%
+ Foreign: $36,253,961 25.2%
= Worldwide: $143,656,961
looks like they did their job well.
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Titanic = best film. evar.
My point is that even with all this complaining, you can't argue the fact that the movie makers did their job well.
It even broke the record for first 5 day opening or so I've heard.
It's a film made to sell toys and entertain the masses. Nothing more, nothing less. This was never meant to be Shakespeare or win Oscars for best plot.
Anyone going in with such high expectations was setting themselves up for a let down.
so far:
Domestic: $152,500,000 62.0%
+ Foreign: $93,600,000 38.0%
= Worldwide: $246,100,000
I think Bay is just not very good at directing fight scenes. Honestly I could not tell what the hell was going on. It didn't help that the robot designs look like a jumbled mess, so you could be looking at a head or a hand or a gun or a foot and it all just looks the same. Is there any reason Prime has his mouth on his chin now? That is just plain bad design.
Besides the army dudes, the human characters were either annoying or pointless. Even the army dudes were pretty pointless.
Seems that with a cool villian like Megatron you could have him in more of the movie.
I think they should have kept Starscream as an F-15. Really, I didn't mind the other changes to the characters vehicle forms, and F-22s are cool-- I just think it would make more sense for him to be an F-15 since they are more common.
They could have edited 45 minutes out of the movie if they got rid of pointless characters and product placement.
The subtitles that came up as symbols first were dumb and hard to read.
Really, it shouldn't have been hard to make a really cool Transformers movie. A lot of the stuff they did in this was actually pretty good, but it failed in having characters I cared about or decent fight scenes, and so just wasn't a very good action movie.
It's Transformers. You know, giant robots that come to earth and fight each other? They transform from vehicles into robots 4x the vehicles size ? (IMPOSSIBLE!) The fact that there's a cheesy "unknown government division", some human characters, and some corny one-liners just added to the experience. (UNTHINKABLE!)
Again, this is Trans-flipping-formers: I reaaaaally can't understand how people can have so many problems with this movie. Giant robots. Explosions. Effects. Humans. Sexy humans. Sci-fi. Transforming XBox 360.
C'mon...
Its like you went expecting have your minds blown and provoked thoughts that change your lives.
Starscream as an F-22 instead of an F-15? Really? That's an ACTUAL gripe with the film you have?
Pointless characters?
Have you read the comics lately or still have the 80's cartoon in your head?
The subtitles, I found, were easy to read and added to the 'campiness' of the film (which, lets face it, it wouldn't be Transformers if it wasn't campy).
I thought that the Autobots were really well portrayed as protectors, and that the Decepticons were really well done as shit disturbers.
Optimus Prime was Optimus Prime. New design, same awesome characteristics.
Now, I'm not saying the points made here that are negative towards the movie aren't valid, but to say it ruined the experience for you really confuses me. Were you disappointed with King Kong also? A movie about a giant ape that terrorizes NYC and failed to completely blow your minds visually and intellectually?
Huh?
*confused*
As action movies go I just didn't enjoy it much. I couldn't tell what the hell was happening in the action scenes with the busy character design, swooping cameras and motion blur. I hated the teenage characters. I thought they were annoying. Do annoying characters and bad action scenes ruin an action movie for me? Yes.
I thought that chick was not hot. Like a bitchier uglier Lindsey Lohan. What is it with nasty fake-tan skin anyway? It looks like she had the skin of a 40 year old.
I have not read the comics. I haven't watched the TV show in 20 years or so, so I can't really remember it well. I don't need to really. I have seen a lot of cool anime and movies with giant robots to compare this to and I just don't think it was very good.
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To quote my friend: "I went in expecting Independence Day with giant robots and what I got was Pearl Harbor with giant robots"
I'll repost some quality prose from danr, since it works just as well as a counter now, to the time you expressed the same righteous indignation at anyone daring to dislike 300:
"i'm pretty sure most people don't want to be lectured on how to watch or appreciate a film that they've paid money to see. I mean, i could sit here until the cows come home and post a stack of lectures on how the "leave your brain at the door and stop complaining" mentality has bred a whole legion of ugly puppy-like mongoloids, pawing at their masters leg for a taste of whatever shitty leftover cultural morsel he can be arsed to throw down into their dumbfuck drooling chops after he's sucked it dry of all charm and invention, and in it's own way leading most of modern civilisation to the edge of a communal boredom and distress that's one day going to tip us over into total destruction. But, hey, it's just a chat about a film, y'know?"
Why should we have to turn off our brains to enjoy a movie to such a degree? I have never understood that argument when trying to justify flawed movies. Why cant we enjoy it because it was good? Not because we had to look at it only from one perspective.
Of course there is some disbelief of transforming vehicles. That doesn't have to stand in the way of a good story and character development now does it? Honestly Brome, I just don't think you "get" what Transformers are and how they are not just generic robots. You.. You Go-bot lover!
The best point I read on a blog was the editor of the Previews "got it". That they should have instead directed the film versus Michael (I'm such a creative sell out) Bay. The previews at least gave a bit of hope that there might be some seriousness and depth to the film.
Campiness? Star Wars (original) is campy, but still serious and fun, with great character development. This was just a trainwreck of generic Hollywood commercialism. By trying to justify this movie, all you are doing is empowering Hollywood to create more crap.
And I probably always will be when people get uppity over action movies. Even more confusing are those who've an opinion of the 'check your brain at the door' mentality of movie-going.
And with that said...
I never once said to check your brain at the door. Nor did I suggest it be done. There's taste in film, and there's realistic ideals as to what it is I've bought in to. I figured I'd get cheesy, campy, high-energy action. It's Michael Bay + Transformers, remember?
No brain checkage here, just a bit of good-old fashion realistic expectation.
I laughed aloud at Daz's comment on people with a more discerning taste in film than me, yet we all went to the same movie. Foolish.
I'm not trying to say to those who didn't enjoy it, 'You're wrong', nor am I one to belittle over an opinion. I'm quite simply asking what they could have possibly expected going in to a movie such as the one in question and form an opinion of the movie being abysmal.
Oxy, I'm quite aware of who the Transformers are. I've watched the movie, the TV show(s) and have read a lot of the newer comics. I even work with one of the Armada illustrators to which I've divulged an opinion as to what the "Transformers" are and speak often about the topic. (But don't love it enough to know the difference between Prime's!) And with all of that, I really enjoyed the movie. Weird.......
See, with your "realistic expectations" and Michael Bay comment; you are saying the same thing as those talking about leaving the mind at the door. Again, it should be about the movie, not having to go in to only enjoy it by looking at it in a two dimensional perspective.
Knowing Transformers, and understanding them are two different things. What made Transformers so popular other than the toys, was the characters, stories, and surrounding mythos. That one didn't have to mentally force themselves to overlook some of the physics involved, or the randomness of Robotic Aliens who are Anthropomorphic. The character development and stories drew you in so that these facts didn't bother you. They reinforced your sense of belief in the unbelievable.
As an example, much of Star Trek and Star Wars (originals) makes no sense scientifically, but the characters and stories are enough to allow one to not get caught up in the details.
This movie though was extremely poor in both. I was agonizing at the shallow genericness of it. Which in turned made me disbelieve. I no longer wanted to have that belief.
Thats why I think you don't get it... you Go-bot lover!
Alex
She should be sweaty... IN ALL HER FUTURE FILMS.
On topic: I liked the movie. Thought it was fun. Actually makes me want to go out and buy all those old toys I never got my parents to buy me.
Daz, just once a conversation would be nice where questions can be asked without lines being so quickly drawn. Again my friend, I'm not trying to say that those who disagree are wrong in doing so, I'm simply asking why. At this point, however, repeating myself is wasteful. I'll have to wait for the next movie to come out so I may drop the next CYBATD Bomb.
I'm with SouL... Megan can be sweaty and Tig O'Bitties +100 in all her movies.
:P
Adam, *every* single time people post their gripes with the latest Hollywood blockbuster drivel, you jump to its defense with the same ol' tedious 'what did you expect, you were meant to leave your brain at the door' argument. There is nothing for you to be confused about, bless your cotton socks. Purely and simply, some people have more discerning taste in film than you, it's that simple. Still confused?
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More discerning taste in film? When you knowingly pay money to see a Michael Bay movie with a story based on Hasbro talking robot toys, I think you automatically forfeit the "discerning taste" argument.
There's one thing about the movie mentioned in many reviews and now on this board that I strongly disagree with... since when did b-cup become "big"? DAMN YOU MICHAEL BAY
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Loud agreement!
(I haven't seen the movie)
Frank the Avenger
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Transformers is the story of robots sent from outer space to help a geeky kid score the hot chick. To accomplish this, they send their kinkiest robot man down to the planet, where he immediately whores himself out to the kid for $4k. Unfortunately, this chick is wilier than most, and resists their best efforts, which include semi-romantically stranding her with the kid, trying to show her the kid's porn collection, and staging a golden shower scene. Finally they determine that she gets off on violence, and so they flatten a city so that the kid can get laid.
Why do they do all of this? Well, it turns out that autobots like to watch.
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Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
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that's the wickedest awesomest excuse i've heard yet. "Cmon guys its the budget give them a break". Listen when a movie is bad because its budget affects the level of quality in the effects it's a bad movie. Why wouldn't that hold true when it affects the writing?
i'm sure somewhere in these nerd-ragin' 8 pages my position has more or less been covered, but mostly i don't like this film purely on aesthetic grounds.
even with the facile racism, spastic hamming by most of the actors, lopsided plotting that relegates the titular robots to supporting roles at best, i could have enjoyed this film, since like people keep saying over and over, it's about giant robots fighting, right, so how do you screw that up?
foremost, design. i'm not a transformers fan, so i'm not coming from that oldschool type angle at all. just that the robot designs are extremely unreadable and difficult to distinguish from each other. you can tell Optimus and Bumblebee readily, mostly from color, but not the rest of them. despite some obviously impressive rendering and animation, there are some pretty fundamentally flawed designs. cluttered visual designs, poor silhouettes.. they're chocked full of cool bits, but cool bits don't necessarily make for a strong whole. aren't these akin to the crits we give newbies? designing giant robots for film come under much of the same guidelines as designing for videogames or related fields--i just think it's a lot of surprisingly weak design.
and why are all the transformers designed around an excessively repeated turbine motif? turbine eyes, spinny turbine bits in the torso, spinny turbines for the gun barrels. i admit, glowing hot turbines on jets are way cool, but aren't there some more interesting design elements for giant robots? aren't giant robots cool enough, where you don't need to trendwhore them up with some spinny glowing bits and overall designs resembling exploding shrapnel?
this has probably already been posted, because i know most of you have seen this:
http://www.3dblasphemy.com/OPTIMUS/OPTIMUS.html
i remembered that and came back to it after the movie.. and while it's not as impressive as i remembered it, i do think that it's closer to a design style that would have made sense for the movie. in the film, Optimus Prime's transformation sequence was an almost completely abstract swirl of moving parts... and spinny bits. don't forget the spinny turbine bits. also, red and blue are not cool enough colors. you need crimson and purple. pimp that shit, son.
i know i'm a little hung up on the designs... they might have worked, as complicated as they were, if we got a better look at them sometimes, but of course, we're saddled with Bay's frantic camera movement and editing style. so you get overcomplicated robots doing complex movements (with lots of secondary motion, with the spinning and transforming bits) with complex, rapid-fire camera movements and cutting. awesome. for such apparently popular, popcorn-munching type of movie, why do i have to work so hard to keep track of whats going on?
even after all that, i might have been behind this movie. there are definitely a lot of good fights in there (yes, once you wait through a whole lot of hammy teen sex comedy type sequences).
but then comes the sound design... i'm trying to track the genesis of this particular 'style', but does anyone else know what i'm talking about when i say that a good number of major action and especially scifi movies have started sounding the same? this trend might have started earlier, but i trace it back to the pod race sequence from Episode I: an awesome sequence with a very distinct sound design--everything sounded like, well, enormous engines flying apart at high speeds. whud whud whud whud screeeeeeeeeee. particularly those elliptical sounding bits punctuated by a lot of high pitched keening noises.
now fast forward to the transformers, where the entire movie seems to sound like the pod racing sequence, with the screeching amped by about 300%. abrasive is about the only word i can use to describe it.
oh, and the boombox bot (that moved like the robot from Red Planet--does anyone enjoy these robots, other than animators tired of designing/animating robots?) was also very obnoxious. i'm with the AVC rating, this movie is about a C-, maybe solid C.
that is all. thank you, internet, for being a place where people post opinions nobody wants to hear.
also, all of you are obviously not as clever or tasteful as me if you enjoyed this movie at all! teeheeheehee
I'm not trying to say to those who didn't enjoy it, 'You're wrong', nor am I one to belittle over an opinion. I'm quite simply asking what they could have possibly expected going in to a movie such as the one in question and form an opinion of the movie being abysmal.
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being that the filmmakers have publicly advised that this movie would fall under the same category and spirit of E.T. and Jurassic Park. I would hope that the concept would be treated with the same level of respect and be portrayed equally as believable.
...
even after all that, i might have been behind this movie. there are definitely a lot of good fights in there (yes, once you wait through a whole lot of hammy teen sex comedy type sequences).
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I'll state it again: American Pie with robots... Sorry, I got really tired of the teen awkwardness jokes... Everyone's openly a virgin and the mom likes to discuss masterbation. Great movie to take your kids to
I also agree that there was very little distinction between robots, especially between decepticons. I easily couldn't tell if I was looking at Starscream or Megatron. Did devastor even transform? I think he stayed as a tank the whole time.
Transformers is the story of robots sent from outer space to help a geeky kid score the hot chick. To accomplish this, they send their kinkiest robot man down to the planet, where he immediately whores himself out to the kid for $4k. Unfortunately, this chick is wilier than most, and resists their best efforts, which include semi-romantically stranding her with the kid, trying to show her the kid's porn collection, and staging a golden shower scene. Finally they determine that she gets off on violence, and so they flatten a city so that the kid can get laid.
Why do they do all of this? Well, it turns out that autobots like to watch.
"
that made me laugh heartilly !!!!!!
It's not going to win any awards for dramatic aspirations. But it was a very entertaining big-budget summer blockbuster. The one real issue I had was that Megatron had such a miniscule part. (spoiler warning) Also, the fact that he died at the end of the movie was a bit dissapointing. Bit of a shot in the foot on producing a sequel. (spoiler ending)
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...
even after all that, i might have been behind this movie. there are definitely a lot of good fights in there (yes, once you wait through a whole lot of hammy teen sex comedy type sequences).
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I'll state it again: American Pie with robots... Sorry, I got really tired of the teen awkwardness jokes... Everyone's openly a virgin and the mom likes to discuss masterbation. Great movie to take your kids to
I also agree that there was very little distinction between robots, especially between decepticons. I easily couldn't tell if I was looking at Starscream or Megatron. Did devastor even transform? I think he stayed as a tank the whole time.
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what else.. we see how the autobots arrived but do we see at all how or when the Decepticons arrive on earth? We barely ever see any of them together. I think if each time had some sort of "base of operations" we'd have a lot better feeling for each faction.
The Decepticons underwater base with the rising elevator and the Autobot's crashed ship in the volcano would have been awesome to see in live action.
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Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
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that's the wickedest awesomest excuse i've heard yet. "Cmon guys its the budget give them a break". Listen when a movie is bad because its budget affects the level of quality in the effects it's a bad movie. Why wouldn't that hold true when it affects the writing?
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So, are you saying that they could have given the bots more characterization when they were off screen?
You may see it as an 'excuse', but it's simple logic. If you can give someone/thing more screen time, then you can develop their character further.
Granted, you can develop a character off screen by having someone else speak of them, but when you're talking about alien robots that no one is familiar with, then that can't really be done when you're focusing on human characters.
So yes, budgets come into play when you're talking about paying ILM to animate and render these scenes out.
So again, I state that you can get more characterization out of the 80's movie because it was all 2d and creating a human character costed just as much as creating a robot, not true when using a live action / 3d mix.
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Sure, you got a bit more characterization from it, but it was animated. You didn't have to worry about budgets for having the robots on screen at all times.
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that's the wickedest awesomest excuse i've heard yet. "Cmon guys its the budget give them a break". Listen when a movie is bad because its budget affects the level of quality in the effects it's a bad movie. Why wouldn't that hold true when it affects the writing?
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So, are you saying that they could have given the bots more characterization when they were off screen?
You may see it as an 'excuse', but it's simple logic. If you can give someone/thing more screen time, then you can develop their character further.
Granted, you can develop a character off screen by having someone else speak of them, but when you're talking about alien robots that no one is familiar with, then that can't really be done when you're focusing on human characters.
So yes, budgets come into play when you're talking about paying ILM to animate and render these scenes out.
So again, I state that you can get more characterization out of the 80's movie because it was all 2d and creating a human character costed just as much as creating a robot, not true when using a live action / 3d mix.
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We could go on for hours but yeah I know exactly what you meant and its just a cheap cop out to me. Even if they were to develop a character offscreen as you say that would not be good enough because film is about SHOWING not telling. Regardless, the budget is apparant in both the EFFECTS (not enough robots) and WRITING (they have made the story revolve around many human characters to take screentime away from transformers.)
The budget affected everything.
I have my problems with the movie, don't get me wrong, but I roll with the punches and take things for what they are.
In the end, all I asked for was to be entertained for a couple hours, and not have a 'Catwoman' on our franchises hands, and we didn't.
but then comes the sound design... i'm trying to track the genesis of this particular 'style', but does anyone else know what i'm talking about when i say that a good number of major action and especially scifi movies have started sounding the same?
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i haven't seen transformers (and am incredibly unlikely to, having had whatever vague dribble of interest might have been floating around my brain firmly kicked out by the Modern Internet) but i know exactly what you're talking about. I dismissed outright the new fantastic four film purely on similar sound design in the trailer. WSHEEUGH DUFFF (fade)... WSHEEEEEUGH DUFFFF (fade) ... god it annoys me.
btw, it's really good to see someone criticising a film based on what really matters. Many people don't even notice this uncomfortable shit when they're in the cinema, due to them being - in the spirit of the thread - a bit thick. Duuuh me likes the colours and the big boom and the zoom zoom, it goes fun in my brain. Doesn't matter that someone's talking nearby or slowly opening foil wrappers or fucking kicking the back of their fucking seat or jabbing knives into their neck or being shown a movie so fucking excruciating it's at odds with every natural human sense - me happy with eyes and ears occupied so me don't have to go home and cry inside.
in ten years time, it's hard not to think that we'll finally see camera stabilization/extra smooth camera movement or something like that coming around as the big new thing, once filmmakers start to realize how obnoxious they've been.
though of course, some people have already realized it. in true academy form, Children of Men was passed over for many of the Oscars it probably deserved, particularly for cinematography.
i know a lot of polycounters saw it, and they know what i'm talking about--seeing the extended tracking shots in that movie were not only technically impressive, and seriously ratcheted up the tension the longer the shot went, but were simultaneously sort of a relief, as a movie goer. the action (as in the ambush sequence) can be plenty frantic, but with skillful camera placement and direction we know what we're focusing on and the impact is that much greater... Clive Owens throwing a door open to smack two guys right off their motorcycle. the scene has tremendous visceral impact, especially in the theater. and yet the entire scene is fully "readable" to the audience.
contrast that to some of the extended shots in Transformers of some of the best fights in the movie--Optimus taking out.. uhh.. whichever Decepticon that loses his head, also the flying sequence with StarScream matching wits with the F-22s. those scenes play out largely in single, fluid shots--doable since most of it is CG--and yet camera placement and direction obscure large portions of the action.
i'm 25 years old, a gamer working in the videogame industry, so i think i have as quick a visual uptake as the next guy in my generation--but instead of really enjoying those extended scenes in Transformers, i kept feeling like i had to work to catch up.
it was exhilarating, yes, but like some sort of visual puzzle, first to identify which robots were in a scene, and then to figure out which part of the robot i was seeing (is that his arm, or his head? is it his ass? just an abstract mass of spinny turbines?), and then finally what the robots were doing to each other. granted, i think a lot of that means that the film will probably play better on a second or third viewing, since you can spend more time rewatching scenes to see what's going on... but good luck getting me to rewatch that movie.
not that i think Transformers needs super long, quasi-verite style tracking shots like Children of Men; i'm just using that as an example of a recent film that's pushing away from the shakeycam/quick cut/aggressive sound design axis that seems so popular now.
here's the thing: for as much as Mr. Bay and company self-identify and are generally considered to be lowest common denominator populists, i think visually Bay is so out there as to be practically avant-garde. the Transformers in motion are so abstract, the scenes so dizzying and quick and difficult to discern that, ironically, a more "arty" movie like Children of Men comes off as kind of traditional and conservative by comparison.
Bay's work visually just gets denser and denser, positively baroque even, to the point where something's got to give in the next few years...
even if he's not quite there yet, one of Bay's popular contemporaries, Tony Scott, just went through his own stylistic meltdown after/during Domino. you know, the acid green/yellow film with Keira Knightly?
it was the cinematic equivalent of bloom shaders and gonzo normal mapping: so high contrast, quick-cut verging on the abstract, that it betrayed the populist ethos Scott so ostensibly espouses. Scott finally backed off (or maybe got off the drugs), and then made Deja Vu, which doesn't look like it was made by a crazy person.
okay, this is a different topic, maybe worth actually starting its own thread for (gasp). just a bit of a film nerd these days, eh?
So yes, budgets come into play when you're talking about paying ILM to animate and render these scenes out.
So again, I state that you can get more characterization out of the 80's movie because it was all 2d and creating a human character costed just as much as creating a robot, not true when using a live action / 3d mix.
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It probably would reduced costs dramatically to allow more robot time versus corny humans with generic personalities if they had as Gauss pointed out used more traditional transformations. Versus a ILM wet $$ dream of making overly complex rigs where almost every square inch of the character moves.
As my local comic book shop owner said, they looked overly fragile versus bulky and tough like the old.
If this is supposed to be a three parter, I hope for the love of God they get Bay off the project and decent writers for the next two. Just look at the Empire Strikes Back did when Lucas was off the directing reigns.
One point that I want to go a bit more into detail which Gauss mentioned was the overt stereotyping. I'm especially thinking of the hacker character here. "Lets use this as an excuse to put in a funny black man" musta been the thinking. I recently listened to a series on African Americans that was originally on PBS. When they interviewed black actors, some mentioned how tiring it was that the black actor had to be seen as the comic relief.
What would have made more sense and interesting? The hacker being from the Ukraine or Russia, and had Russian Mafia ties.
In other news, reading this thread shows me the pointlessness of these kinds of discussions. I frankly cannot understand how people with any interest in the original source material don't mind the campy, self-referential Bay interpretation. I'm reminded of Batman & Robin, with neon Batmobiles and George Clooney damn near winking at the camera. The Transformers cartoon wasn't War & Peace, but it took itself seriously. We didn't see Spike get his pants pulled off by Frenzy or endure masturbation jokes from Sparkplug in the cartoon. Those things are as appropriate to Transfomers as the molded nipples on the costumes were to B&R. These things may not BE serious fare, but they're vastly more compelling when they TAKE themselves seriously. Batman Begins > other Batman films because it wasn't campy, nod-at-the-audience fare.
The Transformers cartoon wasn't War & Peace, but it took itself seriously.
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wow... did you just type that?
you obviously haven't seen much of G1...
Should I remind you of the episode where Seaspray turns into a 'merman with big metal feet' and falls in love with a human female?
What about when all the Autobots desguised themselves in giant labcoats?
How about the episode named 'Hoist Goes Hollywood'?
Good ol Lord Chumley...
What about the female ninja robot, Nightbird, created for world peace?
How about the one episode named, 'The Girl That Loved Powerglide.'
How about when Soundwave used subliminal messages in a night club's music to turn everyone into zombies?
How about when the Dinobots and Hound played football?
Giant robots in medieval times?
Or Optimus playing basketball with Spike?
This picture alone debunks your entire statement.
How about the Junkions speaking in 'TV'?
surfing!
How about when all the Decepticons drink Energon and get drunk?
Don't get me started on the other cartoons after G1...
So yeah... I really wouldn't say it 'took itself seriously'... it was an 80's cartoon used to sell toys, period. You seriously can't sit there and tell me that they took themselves seriously, especially after what I cited, and trust me, there's much, much more in G1 alone. Maybe it's nostalgia fooling your memories?
By the way, Arcee, in the comics, was created by the Transformers as an answer to Earth's feminists demanding a female robot.
oh, and p.s.
Really, are you just totally not getting my point or something? Batman Begins is about a millionaire playboy who dresses up in a costume, jumps off buildings and fights criminals. The concept is completely absurd, it is laughable if you pass it through even the most lenient reality check. But it (the characters, whatever) takes itself seriously, as opposed to the Schumacher debacle, in which the actors are all seemingly a frame away from waving at the screen and saying "look at me, I'm in a Batman movie!" The G1 cartoon doesn't involve self-mocking humor in the way of Optimus Prime saying "my bad" after accidentally mauling Sparkplug's carefully manicured lawn - look at me, I'm not a wise and experienced warrior but actually a big silly clumsy giant who can't watch where he puts his feet!
I don't know how to explain this any more clearly, and certainly not in a way that will keep you from posting more pictures...
I think Batman and Robin is a perfect comparison for this Transformer movie as Vermillion pointed out. I tried to rewatch that again recently just to see if I missed something in my interpretation. Even with all its glitz and action starting out, I couldn't get past the first 5 minutes without turning it off.
I know we wont change anyones minds, but its a fun arguement.
Ghost, I could go into the plotholes in great depth, but reliving the film makes me shudder in my undergarments, so I'd rather not. If you didn't spot any of them you were A) too taken up with the joy candy and nostalgic glow to notice them
Answer me this though, because I swear I missed something important, but not a sngle person has been able to give me a sensible answer as to what I may have missed. Where the fuck was Prime for the first 5 minutes of the Downtown battle? Eh? Stopped off for an oil change? Taking a robo dump? Maybe pausing for a quiet fag before the carnage? Or maybe they just wanted him to turn up in dramatic style but forgot to give him any reason at all for being late to the party.
That's not "leave your brain at the door", that's the film makers saying "You guys are all retards, and we're making pots of cash despite being too lazy to make anything even approaching sense. After all, why bother when you'll pay for and enjoy any old shit we put in front of you?" The sad thing being they're apparently 100% correct.
The G1 cartoon doesn't involve self-mocking humor in the way of Optimus Prime saying "my bad" after accidentally mauling Sparkplug's carefully manicured lawn - look at me, I'm not a wise and experienced warrior but actually a big silly clumsy giant who can't watch where he puts his feet!
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How is that any different from the examples I posted above? I must not be getting it, because I don't see G1 as 'taking itself seriously'.
When I think about a cartoon that takes itself seriously, I think of something like Justice League Unlimited for example. That cartoon in itself is meant to sell comics and toys, but you would never know it.
While I can't think of any exact quotes from G1, I can assure you there are plenty of 'oops, my bad.' moments.
I mean, come on... robots on surf boards?
While I can't think of any exact quotes from G1, I can assure you there are plenty of 'oops, my bad.' moments.
I mean, come on... robots on surf boards?
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Yeah but its not so much the fact that Prime did that, but when they did it in the story (first action of Prime). He should have been a warrior first, dumb ass second. Not dumbass first, warrior second.
Robots on surfboards, that was one episode. Man, Michael Bay made this movie silly and campy because that's what he thought Transformers was about. It wasn't. He missed the mark, Michale Bay missed the mark, is that so hard to believe? Michael Bay has said that he watched the first 15 minutes of the Transformers '86 movie and wanted to kill himself". So he didn't even watch the original freaking moie to try and find the spirit of it, to try and recapture what had helped create the huge fan following of a film he was about to make.
I agree with these guys, the G1 cartoon took itself FAR more seriously than this movie did. Yes, there were times where Prime would be playing basketball and say "i'm going for a layup!" But the corny stuff was just put in there for the kids, because after all it was a toy commercial. It had to have humour. You have to have some fun with the characters. Youd have fun if you had giant robot buddies too.But DO THE NOBLE WARRIOR STUFF FIRST.
But lets get this straight, because it was a toy commercial does not take anything away from the style, rich underlying mythos, awesome character portrayals or the relative maturity of the show. The writers never considered it "just writing a toy commercial". There would also be issues of god and religion brought up in the show you barely ever saw that in toons.
The thing is the movie is a pale imitation of the G1 characters. A buddy of mine at work yesterday said, "that wasn't Prime to me". It was like Episode 1. Prime just seems to be trying to do the Prime thing, say the Prime things. But it's not him. There was far more depth to the character in the pilot episodes of Transformers. More than Meets the Eye. First of all:
-NOONE says the words More than Meets the eye.
-Prime NEVER gives up.
-You see Prime get angry. You hear Prime YELL at the Autobots out of frustration when they are trying to help him out after he was just beaten by Megs.
-A human doesn't win the battle but the unsuspecting Autobot, Mirage.
The 3 biggest problems with this movie to me were the "Boy and his Car" theme (WTF?, buying an Autobot just makes no sense. Bumblebee should have just spoke to him, told him about Optimus Prime so that there was some build up to Sam meeting the great Autobot leader)).
The silly representation of the Autobots. First impressions are big. And when Prime meets Spike the conversation is just a conversation it doesn't really tell us of Prime's character. We wait til we actually SEE his character instead of just hearing them toot their own horn. So the next scene, the real first impression. Is Prime in Spikes yard stepping on lawn ornaments and saying my bad. Look at the build up to that.... compared to the build up to say King Kong. Or even the build up to Neo meeting Morpheous. It's just not there.
The waste of time on the millitary hacking!!!!!! First of all, they have the "sound" that hacked the computer. Now they want to analyze it to see which country it came from? This just makes zero sense. What purpose did all this serve honestly? To tell us just what it was that the Decepticons were doing? To bring the big hackers together so that they could figure out the Decepticons weaknesses and then send it to the military?" It didn't work whatever it was.
Did you read skankers post? Looks like Transformers was nothing but silly...
Just sayin'
I can agree that Micheal Bay should have watched more, but come on, would it have made it a better movie if he would have sat down and watched it all? Would it have altered the type of movie he wanted to make? I think not. Not really defending him on that, but it's the truth. He knew what kind of movie he wanted to make from day 1. Watching all the episodes would have driven him to the conclusion that 'it's just a kids show' that much faster because it's true.
Take this example when Ang Lee released the Hulk. The majority hated it because they wanted to see the Hulk destroy things, (mind you, I enjoyed the movie), but Ang Lee was all about 'art', 'presentation of character', and characterization. What he failed to realize is that people just wanted to see an action movie with the Hulk beating stuff up. How would this be any different? The movie could have spent over an hour before the first sight of any bot, or have drawn out scenes with the bots talking, but in the end, the mass populace would not have enjoyed it as much as they have now. Is that not the truth? People watched this movie because they wanted to see robots blowing stuff up and fighting.
So, in G1, Prime was a deep character? I argue against that. He was a cowboy from episode 1 until the end. He never had any inner conflict that would evolve his character. He was a cowboy at the beginning of the episode, and by the end, he was still a cowboy. How is that a deep character? Hell, Beast Wars Prime has been the deepest Prime so far in my opinion because his character evolved over BWs and BMs. I don't get why everyone always tries to make G1 so much more than it ever was.
It reminds me of this guy that posted at the Allspark saying that G1 was more influential than Star Wars and the most successful 80s cartoon, even more so than Ninja Turtles. I mean, really... I can understand if it affected anyone person that much, but to claim it had that affect on society as fact is just delusional.
Oh yeah, I can always pull this one out of my hat, 'It's not G1 Prime.' Your buddy was correct. It didn't really feel like G1 Prime because it's not him. It's 'Movie Prime'. No amount of arguing can change that. Sure they reused G1 names that they haven't used before, sure Cullen is the voice, but that doesn't matter. Just because Gary Chalk does Primes voice in the beast era, does that make him the same character as in the Unicron Trilogy? Just because Hasbro reuses a name across different continuities, does that make them the same character? No, it doesn't. So there's always that for you if it makes you feel better.
I hate arguing, and the only reason I've done so is because so far, this is the only forum where the majority has a negative view on the movie. Hell, even on TF sites, the outlook is mainly positive. I think we're just so jaded here that we can't just take a break and enjoy something that's mindless. Instead we call people idiots because they can enjoy something with plot holes. That's not cool. Just because we can find entertainment is some of the simpler things does not make us idiots. It's all subjective. I don't need to know every single detail to accept an idea or action. I don't need 24-style panels to see where everyone is at all times. It can be argued that because I don't need it explained that I'm more creative and imaginative because I can fill the holes on my own and not need them explained to me.
I'll agree that the hackers were useless though.
As far as Prime getting frustrated in the pilot, he was getting frustrated in the movie as well. He even put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in frustration when Sam was looking for the cube. He snapped at his troops too.
Sam buying Bumble Bee was just the way he could infiltrate and scope out the situation. I don't really see the problem with that. It led to a lot of great scenes.
Oh, by the way, stepping on something because you're large doesn't make you a dumb ass. Especially if you've only had your new body for a couple hours. A dumb ass would continue to step on things and never learn from his mistakes. Do you think you're a dumb ass when you stub your toe by accident? Did you think you were a dumb ass the first time you tried something and failed? If you did, you're being very unfair to yourself.
Either way, here we have, a couple adults, arguing over a cartoon that's 20+ years old and an action movie. I think we've pretty much made most of the points that are to be made. If you want someone much better to argue against, please, go to the Allspark forum and post your thoughts in the movie forum. There are guys there that love this kind of stuff. I don't.
(TRANSFORMS TO A ROFLBOT)
The 60's Batman show was campy, but the first film didn't try to reflect that.
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I must have watched a different Batman than you did. It was campy, but in a Tim Burton way. The second one, which he also directed, HAS PENGUINS WITH MISSILES STRAPPED TO THEIR BACK. Tim Burton said in numerous interviews that he didn't read the comics, and was mostly familiar with Batman through the 60s show and movie.
If you go back and watch these movies and shows that you loved during your childhood, you'll realize they're not the masterpieces you thought they were. What works on small children doesn't work for adults, and we're adults now.
For me this movie brought back a lot of fond memories of big robots fighting other big robots. Seeing the transformations on screen was amazing to my eyes, even as convoluted and busy and whatever else they are, as busy as the action sequences are, how hard it was to see things.
Screw all that, Transformers for a lot of people has always been about one thing: TOYS!!
After watching this movie I went downstairs and dug through so many totes of toys and pulled out all the Transformers I could find. Now a few of my faves are sitting on top of shelf here in my room along with the movie toys I went out to get, a few of the little Robot Heros plastic figures and the newer Devastator figure I bought yesterday.
I'm sorry Bay didn't treat this movie as a piece of ART. This wasn't made for the fanboys who have kept up with lore and history and all that for 20+ years. The majority of people HAVEN'T done that. They remember cool robots that transformed into vehicles and that's what they went to see.
Now take this movie, accept it happened, put it to the side and play with some toys.