Escape to the Movies: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Better Than The First Three
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No, I really don't... Not by Michael Bay. Over 10 hours of Transformers movie footage, and he has not YET captured the spirit of the originals. After four tries, why give him credit he'll get it eventually?KazeAizen said:
If I want to see robo Jesus with a sword and shield on the back of a robot T-rex... I'll save my money and watch the trailer. Because I'm not about to sit through a nearly 3 hour-long disaster just for 1 minute of amusement (which is IN THE TRAILER already for free viewing).
Michael Bay killed my spirit and smothered my inner child. I've reached the point of sad apathy where there is no more joy at seeing some of my favorite 80s heroes stumble there way through Michael Bay's terrible film.
Granted, I have not seen the new film, but I can wager it's got stupid jokes, the samurai robot speaks in stereotypical broken english or mystical Asian fortune-cookie sayings, the big robot has fat jokes, none of the humans are remotely interesting but they'll get way too much screen time, the dinobots are one giant tease that has as much weight as the Rhino fight from Amazing Spider-man 2, there will be the token hot chick with a camera that ogles her like a piece of meat, Mark Wahlberg will represent hoo-rah gung-ho jingoistic American valor and patriotism, the robot fights will devolve into cluttered metal flying around the screen with no discernible staging or coherence, and it'll end with some modern rock song playing in the background, either by Linkin Park, OneRepublic, or Imagine Dragons while Optimus Prime promises to protect the earth and good people from threats... again...
Every movie doesn't have to have a "message", but if you slip them into your movie, then people are going to comment on them.Baresark said:
Bob said they look "wholly competent", not "good". And they are. Even Fareed Zakaria implied on John Oliver's show recently that China is the rare oppressive regime that isn't run by vainglorious, preening buffoons, but by competent technocrats (while noting that's exactly why China's successes aren't transferable to other countries).SadakoMoose said:
You mean like how Churchill's Operation: Unthinkable [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable#Offensive_operations] plan would have involved recruiting German soldiers to fight the "giant monster" of Soviet Communism alongside British and American troops?SadakoMoose said:
I mean, Americans and Germans fighting alongside each other in 1945, that would be unthinkable [http://www.amazon.com/Last-Battle-German-Soldiers-Joined-ebook/dp/B00C8X1CO0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403891059&sr=8-1&keywords=the+last+battle+harding], right?
Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.SadakoMoose said:
![jFr[e]ak93](https://eg-forums-escapist-data.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/91/91030.jpg?1620781506){kind=avatar}
Not really surprised he liked it. After the praise he gave Pain and Gain and the post credits "I'm getting excited" a few weeks back, I figured he'd give it a green light.
OT - It's tempting, but I'm done with Blockbusters until Guardian's of the Galaxies. Let my bank recover from the last two months.
OT - It's tempting, but I'm done with Blockbusters until Guardian's of the Galaxies. Let my bank recover from the last two months.
I basically agree with MovieBob. It's probably the "best" of the live-action Transformers movies, but it's hard to say how much of a compliment that is given how low the first three films set that bar. It's still possible to better than all three of them and still be a bad movie, so it's hard to say how much of "It's an okay movie" comes from the relative stance compared to the other movies, and how much of it comes from the movie's own merits.
I will certainly say this though, the Dinobots (theoretically the reason to go see the movie) were a complete disappointment. Not that I was shocked, mind. Given that Bay clearly isn't a fan of previous Transformers works and thus has no idea what makes them good, it's no shock that he saw the Dinobots and basically just said "Okay, so make some robot dinosaurs and people will eat it up." Except that no, we won't. The Dinobots weren't awesome because they were dinosaurs. Well, okay, so the Dinobots weren't awesome just because they were dinosaurs. They were awesome because they also had personality. They were characters in their own right. Meanwhile in this movie, they never say anything. They could have been interchanged with anything else and it wouldn't have changed the movie in the slightest. Compare that to the original Dinobots where a lot of what made their scenes awesome was their stubborn and self-assured personalities. Switch them out for any other character and the scenes just wouldn't be as memorable.
Then there's the matter of the autobots. Okay, so they changed Hound from a soft-spoken scout-type character into the Transformers equivalent to the Team Fortress Heavy, but at least he had a personality, so I'm inclined to forgive, even if there were probably better (if not obscure) characters they could have used for the same characters. Though that's just it, the fact that I, as a long-time fan of Transformers, had to look-up Drift and Crosshairs to learn who they were shows that the first barrel has run dry, and now they're scrapping from the barrel of obscurity. As much as I (mostly) liked the Autobots in this movie, they're basically proof positive that it's time to scrap this entire story line so that we can restart with a story that doesn't kill-off the entire cast in every movie save for Optimus and Bee.
I will certainly say this though, the Dinobots (theoretically the reason to go see the movie) were a complete disappointment. Not that I was shocked, mind. Given that Bay clearly isn't a fan of previous Transformers works and thus has no idea what makes them good, it's no shock that he saw the Dinobots and basically just said "Okay, so make some robot dinosaurs and people will eat it up." Except that no, we won't. The Dinobots weren't awesome because they were dinosaurs. Well, okay, so the Dinobots weren't awesome just because they were dinosaurs. They were awesome because they also had personality. They were characters in their own right. Meanwhile in this movie, they never say anything. They could have been interchanged with anything else and it wouldn't have changed the movie in the slightest. Compare that to the original Dinobots where a lot of what made their scenes awesome was their stubborn and self-assured personalities. Switch them out for any other character and the scenes just wouldn't be as memorable.
Then there's the matter of the autobots. Okay, so they changed Hound from a soft-spoken scout-type character into the Transformers equivalent to the Team Fortress Heavy, but at least he had a personality, so I'm inclined to forgive, even if there were probably better (if not obscure) characters they could have used for the same characters. Though that's just it, the fact that I, as a long-time fan of Transformers, had to look-up Drift and Crosshairs to learn who they were shows that the first barrel has run dry, and now they're scrapping from the barrel of obscurity. As much as I (mostly) liked the Autobots in this movie, they're basically proof positive that it's time to scrap this entire story line so that we can restart with a story that doesn't kill-off the entire cast in every movie save for Optimus and Bee.
Okay, this is bugging me. Do these people know they're actually remaking The Road Warrior? Mad Max was not about a former cop wandering the wasteland, that was The Road Warrior. Unless they're going to slip all that in as flashbacks or whatever.
Fair enough. I'll see it myself but I do see where you are coming from. However, as bad as you think this series is there is absolutely no possible way it'll be worse than The Last Airbender 2 that is finally going into production. At least these could qualify as entertainingly bad. That movie wasn't even entertaining.Trishbot said:
Skip Transformers 4. It's too long, it's boring, and while there's much less to make fun of than previous installments there's very little actual fun to take its place.
So Bob gave a daily positive review of a Transformers movie by Michael Bay? Somebody should check on the temperature in Hell and look for flying livestock. The way Bob describes the human characters' motivations sound both heavy handed and schizophrenic. and the Chinese government sounds like they're being pandered to, if they weren't paying for it. Well, at least large amounts of their infrastructure are being wrecked in this movie.
Wait, what? Not sure if click baiting. "A film that aims low should not be praised for hitting that target." This flick makes the first one look like a masterpiece.
I knew it was going to be bad, weren't for my Transformers fan buddy, I wouldn't have bothered to watch this, but this even shocked me beyond my expectations. It doesn't even stand on its own goddamn feet, the sequel bait is so blatantly obvious at the anticlimatic end. New toy advertisements mowing down copy paste bad guys. Atleast the first one only had a handful of robots with distinctive looks, and not everything was blowing up 24/7, only at the end. This one only has the named two bad guys on the opposing sides with unique design, and so much explosions, your brain fails to comprehend it by the end.
I knew it was going to be bad, weren't for my Transformers fan buddy, I wouldn't have bothered to watch this, but this even shocked me beyond my expectations. It doesn't even stand on its own goddamn feet, the sequel bait is so blatantly obvious at the anticlimatic end. New toy advertisements mowing down copy paste bad guys. Atleast the first one only had a handful of robots with distinctive looks, and not everything was blowing up 24/7, only at the end. This one only has the named two bad guys on the opposing sides with unique design, and so much explosions, your brain fails to comprehend it by the end.
So big dumb, but actually kind of decent.
Guess it's this year's Pacific Rim. I probably won't see it, but it's good to hear that they've actually managed to improve the series.
Guess it's this year's Pacific Rim. I probably won't see it, but it's good to hear that they've actually managed to improve the series.
At the end of the day, Operation Unthinkable was just that. Then again, so was Paperclip. The point is, both of those ideas were morally reprehensible. not implausible. I didn't argue that it was implausible that the PRC could assist in an ultimately good action, but that it's still on morally questionable ground to portray that kind of government in a positive light IN FICTION because of the reality of their existence.Falseprophet said:
*walks in with morbidly scared look on face*
Guys...um...can anyone confirm something for me? I may have just seen something which just made me groan about the movie even more than the movie itself.
Namely an obviously blatant cameo by...well, just look [http://www.equestriadaily.com/2014/06/rainbow-dash-cameo-confirmed-in.html].
There are just no words. None at all.
Guys...um...can anyone confirm something for me? I may have just seen something which just made me groan about the movie even more than the movie itself.
Namely an obviously blatant cameo by...well, just look [http://www.equestriadaily.com/2014/06/rainbow-dash-cameo-confirmed-in.html].
There are just no words. None at all.
It's in the film, another Hasbro product and whatnot. Atleast it was funnier than the hip boyfriend upsetting the overprotective dad with double entendres about his daughter routine. >.>GamemasterAnthony said:
It kinda makes sense considering Rainbow Dash kicked Starscream's ass that one time.GamemasterAnthony said:
What? Where's my rant?
Where's my RANT, damn you MovieBob? What do you even think I come here for if not for that?!!
Ok then... I thought Andrew Garfield was a far better Spiderman than Tobey Maguire, the new Spidey films had much better action and acting all-round, and Gwen Stacey beats MJ in every possible respect as a character. REVENGE!!!!!
Where's my RANT, damn you MovieBob? What do you even think I come here for if not for that?!!
Ok then... I thought Andrew Garfield was a far better Spiderman than Tobey Maguire, the new Spidey films had much better action and acting all-round, and Gwen Stacey beats MJ in every possible respect as a character. REVENGE!!!!!