| We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Transformers | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Jul 28 2007, 11:21 PM (205 Views) | |
| Koenshocku | Jul 28 2007, 11:21 PM Post #1 |
Old Skooler
  ![]](http://209.85.62.24/static/1/pip_r.png)
|
Alright, kiddos, I'm here to talk a little bit about the Transformers movie. Was it good? Well, that depends on what you want out of the movie. If all you want is Transformers looking pretty much cool as hell in miscellaneous battle scenes, then I will shout out: "It FUCKING ROCKS!" If you also care if it has a cogent plot that at least half-assed knows where its going, I would have to exclaim that it was one of the worst movies of the year and may just be one of my least favorite movies of all time. Let me elaborate... (And some spoilers shall be included if you prefer to go in clean.) [ SPOILERS SHALL BEGIN HERE AND TAKE US TIL THE END. My apologies for not making a non-spoiler review. ] I realize this is a tad late as the film has already been out for a while, but I decided to comment on the film anyhow. See, the primary problem I have with the film is that they seemed like they didn't know what the hell they were doing when they made the movie. The plot is more threadbare than I thought possible. At its core, the movie was trying to tell the story of the Transformers civil war, Shia Labeouf obtaining the Transformer Bumblebee for his first car, Shia trying to get laid using Bumblebee and an unnecessary government conspiracy regarding Transformers that arrived on Earth many years prior only to be studied by the American government. But it doesn't just end there. The narrative is split between: Shia, his lady & Bumblebee / Some miscellaneous US Army troops / the US Secretary of Defense / The remaining Transformers / and some computer nerds that work for the US government in some undefinable capacity. It was so divided that the director and editors couldn't decide which story was the most important one and they managed to give me ADD just by watching it. Not very far into the movie, it became more than clear that Michael Bay was trying his hand, unsuccessfully, as a political commentator with his President Bush jokes and so forth. The US Army troops that managed to have a bit too much screen time were only there to get shot at by Transformers and to not-so-subtly send the message that America should withdraw their troops from the middle-east. The portion of the film devoted to the Secretary of Defense showed Jon Voight as an all too Donald Rumsfeld kind of character, replete with bumbling demeanor and an utter lack of ability to comprehend even the simplest tactical situation... such as not intentionally drawing the ending battle from the desert INTO a metropolitan city (which was done completely for the sake of creating carnage in the film and literally had no reason for being in the film). The film innapropriately attempted political commentary and frankly, that isn't why I was going to see a fucking Transformers movie. Whether Michael Bay or the writers actually approve of domestic or foreign policy, I don't give a shit and I don't see any need in creating a plot that had nothing to do with the Transformers. I say this because that part of the story was not only irrelevant, but detracted from the story that I thought they were attempting to tell: that of Shia and Bumblebee working together to save the world and Shia getting some tail in the process. Well, to hell with that. An unreasonable amount of time was spent on a supersecret US government organization whose only goal is to slightly impede the heroes for 15 or so minutes out of the movie, once again, only to piss away screen time. The government employed lady computer nerd character that is loosely associated with the Secretary of Defense pisses away at least 10 minutes of screen time just trying to decipher the Transformer language only to fail... so she goes to find one of her friends that she believes WILL be able to decipher it. She finds him playing DDR with his buddy... she gives him her data... he begins to analyze it, then the FBI barges in and arrests them. So now they are in a holding room waiting for the FBI to interogate them and the audience is supposed to laugh at the stupid friend nerd eating a whole plate full of donuts in an effort to show that he was not guilty. Then the FBI questions them, the dude falls apart. They eventually meet at the super secret government hideout in Hoover Dam and basically do nothing. These characters literally have nothing significant to do in the whole fucking movie and they are never seen again in the last 15 to 30 minutes of the movie. THIS IS THE KIND OF BULLSHIT I'M TALKING ABOUT! They just pissed away screen time on characters that went nowhere, didn't advance the plot in any conceivable and relevant way and are ultimately forgotten! So why the fucking hell are they in the movie?! Why did I have to watch them bicker and try in vain to be funny?! I really don't know. And I'm mad. Not to mention the fact that the main character is a pathetic, desperate, ungrateful, shithead. And I hated the way Shia stammered and stuttered around. It made me feel like I was watching a bad Ben Stiller movie. I also hated the fact that they didn't hire Frank Welker to reprise the voice of Megatron for the stated reason that his voice didn't age well... meanwhile, they hire Frank Welker to do the voice of Megatron for the video game adaptation of the movie... and hire Hugo "Agent Smith" Weaving to voice Megatron's, what, three damn lines in the movie?! What?! Speaking of which, one of my favorite things about the Transformers cartoons was the villains. The hero robots were cool and all, but Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, etc. Now those are characters that I liked and wanted to see. But Megatron was nearly a sidenote in the movie only there for the end battle and barely spoke. Starscream was in the movie, but didn't say anything except for his own name and he wasn't high-toned like in the old days. Soundwave was nowhere to be found. And the villains didn't ever converse. They didn't ever talk to one another. Why?! Because they had to give more screen time to the utterly irrelevent computer geeks, barely relevant army soldiers, secretary of defense and Section 7 (the supersecret government branch) that's why. They had to give a lot of screen time to characters that had no relevance to Transformers! What the hell were they thinking?! This was a Transformers movie, not Armageddon part 2! And by the way, during the course of the film, someone actually says something like: "This is better than Armageddon!" [Which Michael Bay also directed.] ... Blood shot out of my eyes when they said that. With a name like "Transformers" I didn't expect to see so little of the Transformers. By the way, I am still sorely offended by the way they get to their finale battle. Don't get me wrong, Transformers were in the movie and usually when they were it was a cool scene. But that's just it. That was the coolest part of the show. Optimus Prime was voiced by the original voice actor Peter Cullen (who also voiced Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, by the way) which completely rocked. Basically all of the Transformer battles were incredibly cool and very well animated, though sometimes, when they were tustling around, you couldn't very well distinguish two fighting Transformers from one another. They were just a big mass of twisted CG metal. Megatron, while he doesn't transform into a gun, transforms into a kickass alien-looking jet and basically rocked. The problem with the movie was style over substance. It was as though they blew their load on the animation and effects and didn't give a shit about telling a cogent story at the same time as it was pitifully cobbled together. I went with three friends to see it. One wasn't a Transformers fan and thought it was the coolest movie he had ever seen. Another was a Transformers fan and was luke warm to the show, primarily showing support of Transformers, another was a casual viewer during their younger years and hated the movie more than I did for many of the same reasons I did. Apparently this is one of those kind of divisive movies in that respect. If you choose to engage your brain in any capacity during the film, you just may feel some of what I did: seething rage and contempt for such carelessness that just may be tantamount to sabotage. If you just go for the visuals, I doubt you will be disappointed as the visuals were far better than I expected them to be and I expected them to be pretty darn good. Koen calls it: 0 / 10 for story 9 / 10 for effects I'd love to hear from anyone who has seen the film, intends to see the film and/or has a similar or opposing appraisal of the film. |
| "Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee." | |
 |
 
|
| Bam | Jul 30 2007, 09:24 AM Post #2 |
|
Awesome
|
Alright, I've seen the movie 2 1/2 times (long story). Honestly, in general, I'd have to say it was a good movie through my thought process. I don't look into movies as deeply as many do and just tend to accept them for what they are. I pretty much just accepted the shittiness of the story and let it slide. I'll agree on the action and effects. If you just want to see transformers busting caps in each others' asses, like me, then this movie is definitely for you. If you're looking for an intricate, well thought out story line, then you'd probably get a better one sitting in your room staring at the wall. Many of the scenes were exceptionally corny (POSSIBLE SPOILER (HIGHLIGHT): A really corny scene would have to be when the white soldier guy (was his name mentioned?) sped toward one of the decepticons on a motorcycle, dropped to the ground, slid under him, and shot at him, and managed to take him out almost single handedly.). I think I should also note that I was not a big transformers watcher when I was younger. I guess I recommend that any true die hard transformers fans NOT go see this, unless you just want to see some action. If you've never watched transformers before, give it a go. You may love it, you may hate it. |
| etc. | |
|
|
|
| Master | Jul 30 2007, 09:35 AM Post #3 |
 
|
I have seen it 5 times in theaters... being a graphics designer the movie just leaves me in ah... I loved it.. I font care about the story.. I love shiah I love the effects...it was all it needed to be |
| |
|
|
|
| Koenshocku | Jul 30 2007, 11:37 PM Post #4 |
|
Old Skooler
|
I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. Every film deserves a fan unless it totally blows. And since at least the effects were cool, this film doesn't totally blow.
 Don't get me wrong, Bam, I wasn't expecting an intricate or deep plot in any way whatsoever. Just a plot that didn't suck and could hold up to some level of scrutiny. Before the movie, I stayed about as far away as possible from any spoilers because I didn't want to know what was going to happen as I didn't want to ruin it for myself. Even at that, I wasn't expecting a lot in the narrative because Michael Bay is a fucking numbskull. But I had no idea that they were just not going to even attempt to make a story, instead they just threw some generic plotpoints and characters together in a blender, failed to proof the results and called it cinema gold. I'm not trying to be an asshole to the creators, but you'll have to pardon me if I cannot let them slide for such a lazy attempt at storytelling / moviemaking. If no one will hold them accountable, the bar will continue to lower and shitty storytelling will become accepted even moreso than it already is. |
| "Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee." | |
|
|
|
| asif | Jul 31 2007, 07:04 AM Post #5 |
|
slacker
|
I have fond memories of transformers as a child and so was planning on re-living some of those by seeing this movie. Having read all your comments I think it'll be a mercy that my mind will be suitable altered before sitting down to watch so that, with any luck, I can over-look all the fallicies. I always enjoy eye-candy (I'm a fairly simple creature) but if there's really no substance to the film itself, I fear I may be dissapointed. Still, least the '86 animated movie is still good. I'll almost certainly watch both real soon so will let you know which I preferred
|
| Yup... | |
|
|
|
| Koenshocku | Jul 31 2007, 10:36 AM Post #6 |
|
Old Skooler
|
I used to love The Transformers animated movie, but I haven't seen it in a while. I remember the last time I watched it, some of the 80's songs that were featured in it cracked me up. That part was pretty hilarious. Galvatron was incredibly badass and the Unicron concept is something that seems right up Bay's alley and would have made a little more sense in a Transformers feature film than all the Section 7 branch of the US government bullcrap. Not saying they should have remade the animated movie, but some of the concepts could have been neat to see in live action. Anyway, let us know, asif.
|
| "Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee." | |
|
|
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Entertainment · Next Topic » |
7:25 AM Nov 21