Escape to the Movies: Transformers Revenge

[GuerrillaClock]

And yet even Armada or Beast Wars kicks the crap out of this movie. This isn't Gundam, this isn't just giant mecha battles. This is epic intergalactic WAR brought to the surface of Earth. This is humans getting caught up in something far beyond their comprehension or ability to deal with (every time the US Military succeeds in actually taking down a Transformer, I weep a little on the inside.) This is a few brave souls working together with the "good" side in the war to desperately try and save the planet and the human race from annihilation by a group of alien machines (Decepticons) that could care less what gets smashed while they fight.
In short, this is Transformers. Nobody who really knows the Transformers would ever say that a movie based on them can't aspire to be more than an action flick.
That's what I think is really the problem with Bay. This movie could have been so much more than just a cheap summer action flick, but he didn't even try to make that happen.

I don't see your point at all here. How would you produce a family action flick based on a child's toy line? Remember it is a child's thing, and certain restrictions and requirements are placed upon would be placed upon the crew with respect to that. If you were given $200m to spend on a film about robots fighting (sorry, but that's all Transformers ever was about), what would you include? Transformers never, ever, in any of its' iterations, had any depth beyond good robots vs. bad robots, and no one can possibly argue otherwise.

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

I don't see your point at all here. How would you produce a family action flick based on a child's toy line? Remember it is a child's thing, and certain restrictions and requirements are placed upon would be placed upon the crew with respect to that. If you were given $200m to spend on a film about robots fighting (sorry, but that's all Transformers ever was about), what would you include? Transformers never, ever, in any of its' iterations, had any depth beyond good robots vs. bad robots, and no one can possibly argue otherwise.

Have you ever watched Transformers? Yes, the robots fought a lot. But the entire point of the shows were about the heroic battle of the Autobots vs. Decepticons, and the humans who were caught up in it. There were some great examples of that in the first movie, like when the humans capture Bumblebee and Prime makes everyone stand down rather than attack and risk killing humans. It was never just about the fighting, it was about the heroism. Saying that Transformers is nothing but robots fighting is like saying that Superman is nothing but a guy in pajamas beating up villains. At least there was more depth to Superman Returns than "go here and pound Lex Luthor good", even if the movie was mediocre at best.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

I don't see your point at all here. How would you produce a family action flick based on a child's toy line? Remember it is a child's thing, and certain restrictions and requirements are placed upon would be placed upon the crew with respect to that. If you were given $200m to spend on a film about robots fighting (sorry, but that's all Transformers ever was about), what would you include? Transformers never, ever, in any of its' iterations, had any depth beyond good robots vs. bad robots, and no one can possibly argue otherwise.

Have you ever watched Transformers? Yes, the robots fought a lot. But the entire point of the shows were about the heroic battle of the Autobots vs. Decepticons, and the humans who were caught up in it. There were some great examples of that in the first movie, like when the humans capture Bumblebee and Prime makes everyone stand down rather than attack and risk killing humans. It was never just about the fighting, it was about the heroism. Saying that Transformers is nothing but robots fighting is like saying that Superman is nothing but a guy in pajamas beating up villains. At least there was more depth to Superman Returns than "go here and pound Lex Luthor good", even if the movie was mediocre at best.

My point was more along the lines of 'Transformers has always been crap designed specifically for childlike minds' but yes, the general gist of it always was robots fighting. What child honestly cared that Optimus had faith in humanity? I know I didn't. All I cared about was that Autobots were good and Decepticons were bad. When you sat playing with your Transformers, did you have them monologuing about the necessity of saving humanity and other existential bullshit, or did you have them beat the shit out of each other? Or, if you only had one (like me) just transform him into a tank and smash him through a lego house? The entire franchise was based around a child's need for visual and imaginative stimulus, and don't try to tell me it's not. The movie example you give was just an example of showing that Prime was good, so you know who to root for in a fight.

Why do you think this film recieves so much hate? Because it has too much padding, irrelevant characters and not enough focus on badass robots! That's what people expect from Transformers!

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

I don't see your point at all here. How would you produce a family action flick based on a child's toy line? Remember it is a child's thing, and certain restrictions and requirements are placed upon would be placed upon the crew with respect to that. If you were given $200m to spend on a film about robots fighting (sorry, but that's all Transformers ever was about), what would you include? Transformers never, ever, in any of its' iterations, had any depth beyond good robots vs. bad robots, and no one can possibly argue otherwise.

Have you ever watched Transformers? Yes, the robots fought a lot. But the entire point of the shows were about the heroic battle of the Autobots vs. Decepticons, and the humans who were caught up in it. There were some great examples of that in the first movie, like when the humans capture Bumblebee and Prime makes everyone stand down rather than attack and risk killing humans. It was never just about the fighting, it was about the heroism. Saying that Transformers is nothing but robots fighting is like saying that Superman is nothing but a guy in pajamas beating up villains. At least there was more depth to Superman Returns than "go here and pound Lex Luthor good", even if the movie was mediocre at best.

My point was more along the lines of 'Transformers has always been crap designed specifically for childlike minds' but yes, the general gist of it always was robots fighting. What child honestly cared that Optimus had faith in humanity? I know I didn't. All I cared about was that Autobots were good and Decepticons were bad. When you sat playing with your Transformers, did you have them monologuing about the necessity of saving humanity and other existential bullshit, or did you have them beat the shit out of each other? Or, if you only had one (like me) just transform him into a tank and smash him through a lego house? The entire franchise was based around a child's need for visual and imaginative stimulus, and don't try to tell me it's not. The movie example you give was just an example of showing that Prime was good, so you know who to root for in a fight.

Why do you think this film recieves so much hate? Because it has too much padding, irrelevant characters and not enough focus on badass robots! That's what people expect from Transformers!

Again, that's like saying that G.I. Joe was nothing but a bunch of army guys duking it out. I agree that the humans are really irrelevant in this movie, but that's because they're straying from their normal role. The shows always only had a few humans, ones who were always either running in terror from the giant robots fighting or else doing what little they can to help their friends win in their own small way.
I didn't watch Armada just to see robots smashing the hell out of each other. I can get that from any Gundam you care to name. I watched because I always wanted to see the Autobots (the good guys) go up against impossible odds but still (sometimes with a little help from the humans) manage to triumph over the evil Decepticons. THAT is Transformers.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

I watched because I always wanted to see the Autobots (the good guys) go up against impossible odds but still (sometimes with a little help from the humans) manage to triumph over the evil Decepticons. THAT is Transformers.

But they did that by fighting, just like in the films, right? At least, they did in every episode in any given iteration of the show that I saw.

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

I watched because I always wanted to see the Autobots (the good guys) go up against impossible odds but still (sometimes with a little help from the humans) manage to triumph over the evil Decepticons. THAT is Transformers.

But they did that by fighting, just like in the films, right? At least, they did in every episode in any given iteration of the show that I saw.

-_-" Yes... so? So did Superman. So did Batman. So did every single superhero ever. Does that mean that every single superhero show was about the hero smacking the crap out of the bad guy? They may have triumphed over evil by fighting, and it's perfectly fine to make the fights epic (hell, 60-70% of G Gundam was uber-epic giant mecha fighting and that was an amazing show), but you can't claim that that's ALL there is to Transformers, any more than you can say the amazing battles at Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith were ALL that there was to Lord of the Rings, or that summoning a man with blue skin in red pajamas via five magical rings was ALL that there was to Captain Planet. You can't just make a mindless action flick and call it the Transformers, when Transformers is so much MORE than that.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Well I had a very large rant at the ready to slam movie bob for his complete and utter shambles attempt at reviewing transformers 2.

Instead of coming across as a valid critic who can do his job, he instead came across as, to use his own words, a "Douchebag" fanboy, pissed off that a director changed his favourite childhood storyline too much for his liking.

Personally I'd have fired him on the spot for the piece of crap he put out this week because it only serves to lower respect for the escapist that they would let such blatant vile incompetence upon their glorious site.

To make sure I wasn't mistaken and that he actually was still a good critic I forced myself to go watch his other videos again (which to be honest weren't that great because upto 3 minutes of the time is usually taken up with a quite frankly boring and needless review of the directors past exploits which are completely unecessary unless it's a remake of the film. Movie goers honestly don't need an indepth explaination of where the directors/creators came from and what their past exploits were unless said past exploits were particularly epic. Thus, a monkey could probably do a better job than he has so far. If he's getting paid for it you could put the money to good use and get yahtzee to do it since well, he's straight to the point and keeps his history to a minimum and yet continus to instill the most important points while keeping it interesting. Moviebob however, has yet to purchase this skillset.

But back to the point I was making about him coming across as a complete douche due to his pointless annoying worthless fanboy rant crying and weeping about his poor cartoon dream was raped in the ass by a director. Three words. Get-Over-It.

Why do i say this? No it's not because I don't know what I'm talking about since I know thats what most of you are thinking right now. It is instead because he has let his petty fanboy hard-on get in the way of his job and produce and communicating an effective and accurate review of the film. The only thing he has managed to do is communicate the message that he is Epic-Fail incarnated in human form.

He has completely missed the fact that the writers had only three months to work with due to the strike. The fact that they were able to come up with even a solid framework is incredible in itself given that kind of timeframe. Sure the college storyline was a bit rickety and barely stood up but it was a decent enough covering for the base storyline which, as moviebob somehow managed to miss was pretty damn good.

What moviebob has also *somehow* managed to miss is that directors etc have a grand total of, at best THREE hours to work with. Not three months, not three years. Three, very, very short hours at BEST. So his constant whining about various decepticons etc not having a very big part in it is simply portraying himself as a whiny little *****. To put it nicely. If he was a regular user on the escapist he'd have been flamed until there was not but smoulder ash left of his former corpse.

Sure they missed out a lot of the civil war but guess what, that particular grand story arc just happened to span a few YEARS not a few EPISODES.So no, its NOT going to be a particularly large part of the film because true fans of it are EXPECTED TO KNOW THAT ALREADY. But alas fanboys over look that particular little hurdle.

Not once did he speak of it in a positive manner as any non-hack critic worth his salt knows is a base 101 review skillset. But as we've already determined, this 'review' clearly wasn't about reviewing it fairly and accurately but instead about whining and crying about his shatter childhood heros.

Theres no point in me listing what else he missed because a'll be here all night and i'm not getting paid to point out how much of a "douchebag" he's made himself and his bosses look like.

Instead a'll simply say this. We came for a review not a fanboy crying session. If you are getting paid for this I'd do it for half the salary. If you arn't getting paid then they really need to find someone who can actually do a proper review.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

I watched because I always wanted to see the Autobots (the good guys) go up against impossible odds but still (sometimes with a little help from the humans) manage to triumph over the evil Decepticons. THAT is Transformers.

But they did that by fighting, just like in the films, right? At least, they did in every episode in any given iteration of the show that I saw.

-_-" Yes... so? So did Superman. So did Batman. So did every single superhero ever. Does that mean that every single superhero show was about the hero smacking the crap out of the bad guy? They may have triumphed over evil by fighting, and it's perfectly fine to make the fights epic (hell, 60-70% of G Gundam was uber-epic giant mecha fighting and that was an amazing show), but you can't claim that that's ALL there is to Transformers, any more than you can say the amazing battles at Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith were ALL that there was to Lord of the Rings, or that summoning a man with blue skin in red pajamas via five magical rings was ALL that there was to Captain Planet. You can't just make a mindless action flick and call it the Transformers, when Transformers is so much MORE than that.

But those were different. The superheroes you mentioned (except Captain Planet, which was insufferable shit) were all original ideas. They were invented to tell stories, unlike Transformers which was invented to sell stuff. The whole appeal of superheroes was the duality of them, the human elements that affected their adventures and their character flaws that helped people identify with them. Transformers never had any of that. It was always, simply, good robot vs. bad robot. EVERY single disequilibrium presented in the show was solved by fights, no character, no identification, nothing except bright colours and expressive voice acting. If you're suggesting that Transformers was ever as cerebral as Batman, as deep as Lord of the Rings or as powerful as Superman, I think you need to have a word with yourself.

Indeed, ask yourself, who is arguably the most popular Transformer? Starscream.

Why?

Because he was the only one who had anything like an interesting character. He was the one who had that human quality to him, rather than the more stock good-evil archetypes used in all the rest. You might argue all Tranformers had their own personalities, but they were all pretty stock, bland and uninteresting, and very much gave way to the mindless fighting.

The fact is, the Transformers films were about as Transformers-y as they could have been, given the circumstances. If they had made it to mirror the shows, it would have been laughed out of town and flopped. They needed to modernise it, and given the budget, how better to do that than add shitloads of explosions and build upon what the core of the show was always about? That childlike side. The side that smashes up their toys. The side that loves puerile jokes, and just wants their robots to stomp around fighting and levelling cities.

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

And yet the "fanboy crying session" raises a number of very valid points that serve as a perfectly coherent argument. (I'm not going to bother to list them here because I've already done so, in detail, a few pages back.) Is he angered, not only as a person who's seen a bad movie but as a fan who's seen someone put his beloved show through the wringer? Hell yes. I fail to see why you don't think he has a right to be angry about that.
As for not putting it in a positive light? Why does he have to? He didn't like the film at all, stated so right off the bat, and proceeded to spend four entire minutes detailing all the reasons why he didn't like the film. I've actually taken a course on art criticism... some of the best critics of their respective ages never said one damn thing good about stuff when they were in full-on "pan" mode. Edmund Wilson? Not one good thing to ever say about detective novels (except when Sherlock Holmes got involved). He panned the living heck out of every single representative book he hated, and only let up when he mentioned one he actually found relatively tolerable. And this is Edmund Wilson we're talking about! So no, he really doesn't have to mention, "Oh, well, X was an interesting twist, and Y really did his lines well," ... no. He's a video reviewer who has 5 minutes to work with, and he really doesn't have to go scraping the barrel for some "nice" thing to say about it when clearly he's of the opinion (yeah, you remember what that is, right?) that there aren't nice things worth enough to be redeeming qualities.

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

-_-" Yes... so? So did Superman. So did Batman. So did every single superhero ever. Does that mean that every single superhero show was about the hero smacking the crap out of the bad guy? They may have triumphed over evil by fighting, and it's perfectly fine to make the fights epic (hell, 60-70% of G Gundam was uber-epic giant mecha fighting and that was an amazing show), but you can't claim that that's ALL there is to Transformers, any more than you can say the amazing battles at Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith were ALL that there was to Lord of the Rings, or that summoning a man with blue skin in red pajamas via five magical rings was ALL that there was to Captain Planet. You can't just make a mindless action flick and call it the Transformers, when Transformers is so much MORE than that.

But those were different. The superheroes you mentioned (except Captain Planet, which was insufferable shit) were all original ideas. They were invented to tell stories, unlike Transformers which was invented to sell stuff. The whole appeal of superheroes was the duality of them, the human elements that affected their adventures and their character flaws that helped people identify with them. Transformers never had any of that. It was always, simply, good robot vs. bad robot. EVERY single disequilibrium presented in the show was solved by fights, no character, no identification, nothing except bright colours and expressive voice acting. If you're suggesting that Transformers was ever as cerebral as Batman, as deep as Lord of the Rings or as powerful as Superman, I think you need to have a word with yourself.

It may have started out that way, but it became a lot more than that. I'm not saying it's some literary work of art like Lord of the Rings, but it still was a tale of epic good vs. evil, and it was FUN.

Indeed, ask yourself, who is arguably the most popular Transformer? Starscream.

Why?

Because he was the only one who had anything like an interesting character. He was the one who had that human quality to him, rather than the more stock good-evil archetypes used in all the rest. You might argue all Tranformers had their own personalities, but they were all pretty stock, bland and uninteresting, and very much gave way to the mindless fighting.

Leaving aside the fact that Optimus was pretty cool despite being archetypical (and Superman was pretty darn archetypical too), that's not true. You could actually differentiate between the many Transformers, and if they were all variants on the good-evil dichotomy, they were at least each their own unique variant, with their own unique style that made kids love this, that, or the other. Starscream was so popular because he was cool, and beyond that, he was constantly working to overthrow Megatron. He was the single most evil character in the show, and they loved him for it. Optimus was the proud, heroic leader, willing to do anything to protect his comrades and the earth- even sacrificing himself (seriously, he does it in Armada to stop the MacGuffin and it's one of the coolest scenes in the whole show) if need be. He's taken a hit on more than one occasion to keep the humans from getting caught in the crossfire. Then there were "cool" characters like Hotshot (bear with me if I get a name wrong, it's been a long while since Saturday morning cartoons actually had Transformers on), reckless ones, then of course there were some of the awesome Decepticons who loved mindless destruction. Idiotic, wild, stoic, intellectual (Red Alert particularly fit that build...)

And what do we have in the movie? Uh... yeah, anyone wanna tell me? Most characteristic I've seen is Jazz and the Twins, who are just stereotypical gangsters who talk more about asses and caps therein than frickin Fifty Cent. And then the medical officer Ratchet, whose only actual work has been to fix up Bumblebee and ruminate on pheromones (YOU know the scene I'm thinking of...) *shakes head* Moviebob's right, with a cast of characters like the cartoon Transformers had you could really tell a story.
(Also, Bay... **** you for having Optimus leave Bumblebee behind to get the All Spark in the first movie. Optimus won't hurt humans, but he's the leader of the Autobots and he would NEVER leave a man behind.)

The fact is, the Transformers films were about as Transformers-y as they could have been, given the circumstances. If they had made it to mirror the shows, it would have been laughed out of town and flopped. They needed to modernise it, and given the budget, how better to do that than add shitloads of explosions and build upon what the core of the show was always about? That childlike side. The side that smashes up their toys. The side that loves puerile jokes, and just wants their robots to stomp around fighting and levelling cities.

Because, like I said, the Transformers actually had some depth to it. More than that, Michael Bay could have added some to it if he'd actually tried. And those puerile jokes can go all die in a fire. Dogs humping robots (seriously, WTF?), dick jokes, Devastator's "enemy scrotum", the Twins, and of course that god-awful scene in the first movie where Sam's parents come in on him in his room (we ALL know what one I'm talking about...) and his mom just... won't... shut... up... No. This is not the Transformers. This is South Park with giant robots killing each other.

Also... if you think Captain Planet sucked then maybe you're the one who needs to have a word with yourself...

 

[GuerrillaClock]

super snip

Notice, I never once said that Transformers wasn't FUN. What I said was that it was dumb. Silly. A bunch of cliches riding on the back of one hook designed to draw children in - they're more than meets the eye, folks! It's deliriously hammy and stupidly one-dimensional, and that was the key to its' success. Look at Pokemon. Look at Power Rangers. Colourful, hyperactive and simplistic, they're perfect for kids, because they provide visual stimulus and a child doesn't care about a deep, involving story. These programmes are further examples of the Transformers formula reaping great reward. Compare that to somewhat cleverer kids' shows, like my beloved Captain Simian, which attempted to provide a cerebral and genuinely witty satire of sci-fi, with some bona-fide nerd celebrities roped in to do the voice acting and aimed to pastiche the genre in a way that adults as well as children could appreciate. This show failed and was canned after just 26 episodes, despite being much better written and critically well recieved than any of these pill-popping ADHD shows that, while fun, can't be said to be the epitome of storytelling.

The lesson? For kids' shows, keep it short, easy, colourful and simple. Stick to one premise rather than flit about doing parodies of Alien and the like, because, as good as they are, kids just won't get them. Transformers was one of the shows that did the former, just like the films, and it simply cannot be classed as anything else.

 

[Natsu_Blaze]

Okay, fine. Like I said I'm not holding up Transformers as on the same level as Interview with the Vampire. It was goofy, kiddie, not exceedingly deep, but the fact remains that they had a good cast of characters and an established premise that worked, and Bay hasn't really done much with either of them. Again, where is the wide, varied cast of characters in the movie that shows like G1 or Armada had, running the gamut from overconfident buffoons to reckless fight-lovers to heroic leaders to scheming, awesome villains?
Childlike awe doesn't stem from, and can't be captured by, epic battle scenes alone. (Even G Gundam wasn't entirely about the fighting.) The whole point was to watch the Autobots be heroes and save the Earth, for them to overcome impossible odds to save the day. That's not what we have in this movie. It's all about the humans, the US Military driving off hostile invaders with the extra assistance of our "good buddies" the Autobots. And even the finale, which should have been a desperate struggle between good and evil, a glorious final showdown, is handled by having Optimus put on the MacGuffin du jour and blow up robot Satan in less than a minute. There's no way you can compare scenes like that to the Transformers cartoon.

Again, Moviebob's right... to make a good Transformers movie, you have to recapture that childlike awe, that desire to see a movie where the good guys manage to triumph against all odds and look really cool doing it.

 

[DrScoobs]

what are you talking about movie bob? who wouldnt want to watch a movie about poorly designed, gun metal grey robots duke it out in such extreme close up that you cant even see whats going on while 2 racist stereotype robots start saying yo dawg im gonna pop a cap in his ass and boring self indulgent humans including another black racist stereotype!

yeah, who wouldnt want to see that?

 

[Lancer723]

Alright wow, where to start.

I really liked this movie, sorry, there it is, I did. I found it thoroughly entertaining and well worth the ten dollars I spent seeing it (seriously who spends 20 bucks on themselves at the movies unless they have brain damage and buy the overpriced crap they have for snacks). I grew up watching the old transformers tv show, so while I may not be huge fan of the series, I at least have enough general knowledge of it to enjoy some of the characters with current generation CGI effects.

Which brings me to my first point. The CGI in this movie is absolutely top notch, and I honestly don't know why people hate the character models so much (other than Starscream, there I agree he is ugly as hell). Every time they transformed I was like, "that was fuckin awesome and they're not even fighting yet.

Another point I want to make that calling the Twins characters racist is bullshit. Look these are giant alien robots, if they were all given the same personalities it would be boring. And the nagging question in my mind is that you actually took the time to take these characters, apply them to your preconceived notion of what is stereotypical African-American behavior, then take those thoughts to the internet and spew your opinion on what is and is not racist. Seriously, if someone hadn't said that they're portrayals were racist I wouldn't have even thought of that, honestly, it never crossed my mind.

Soundwave. Okay people think about this one for a second. The original sound wave shot cassette tapes out of his chest during battle. Would you have rather they made him a giant iPod? His character served to fulfill his place in the story as well as provide a plot device for the Deceptacons source of intelligence.

Devastator. Well I'll agree that they could have and should have done more with him, I will say that in that particular plot it would have been a bit difficult to slot him in otherwise, because there's only so much they can have him do in the damn desert. Oh and it's incredibly idiotic to make a huge deal out of something that got all of 3 seconds of screen time, and was obviously meant as a joke. I laughed, so did my friends and most of the people in my theater.

In Bob's review the main problem I had was the inconsistency on what it was that you hated. You complain that there's too much of the human characters, but criticize the attempts to make the transformers in any way relatable. The reason the story centers around the humans is that it's hard to identify with 40 foot tall ALIEN ROBOTS, which is why they are given strong personality types. Think about it. Ironhide's character is huge hothead, Bumblebees character is sort of immature and bubbly, the twins are....well the twins. The story centers around the human character because they're far more easily relatable than the transformers. And don't give me this "romantic commedy" bullshit. There is MAYBE ten minutes TOTAL of Megan Fox/ Shia Lebeuof(sp?)romantics, and part of that is to advance the plot.

I don't get it. There seems to be this deep hatred of all things mainstream sometimes. Is that really a good reason to hate something, because it's popular? I find it ironic that some people hate the mainstream because they view the people who make things popular as unable to formulate their own opinions and yet are just as guilty of the same thing because their hate of the mainstream keeps themselves from making up their own minds.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

My main problem with opinions like this is that it's Transformers, what else did you expect?

I was a huge fan as a kid I have all the dvds and still watch them on a semi regular basis, had quite a large collection of the toys (Sadly all gone now)

I can quite honestly say that in my opinion this is exactly how a transformers film would be.

This is not G1 transformers it's not even that animated travesty currently on kids channels at the moment http://www.transformersanimated.com/ you think the film sullies the memory of transformers? check that out.

People need to stop looking at modern interpretations of franchises from their past with shit coloured lenses.

And your point breaks down to not liking it because you think its a cheap knock off...I think its a comparable knock off worthy of viewing like some of the big lots beast wars/Robotech/Macross figures are worth collecting..... so don't like it....don't consume it so you don't have to whine about it...least that is what everyone tells me what to do with modern gaming .

rant rant ***** rant
stop copying Yahtzee

Sorry but the great stallion did not event ranting or humor or game bashing,he might be good at it all sometimes....but.....get over it it plz. =^^=

...ummm no

Ummm yes plz. =^^=

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Alright wow, where to start.

I really liked this movie, sorry, there it is, I did. I found it thoroughly entertaining and well worth the ten dollars I spent seeing it (seriously who spends 20 bucks on themselves at the movies unless they have brain damage and buy the overpriced crap they have for snacks). I grew up watching the old transformers tv show, so while I may not be huge fan of the series, I at least have enough general knowledge of it to enjoy some of the characters with current generation CGI effects.

Which brings me to my first point. The CGI in this movie is absolutely top notch, and I honestly don't know why people hate the character models so much (other than Starscream, there I agree he is ugly as hell). Every time they transformed I was like, "that was fuckin awesome and they're not even fighting yet.

Another point I want to make that calling the Twins characters racist is bullshit. Look these are giant alien robots, if they were all given the same personalities it would be boring. And the nagging question in my mind is that you actually took the time to take these characters, apply them to your preconceived notion of what is stereotypical African-American behavior, then take those thoughts to the internet and spew your opinion on what is and is not racist. Seriously, if someone hadn't said that they're portrayals were racist I wouldn't have even thought of that, honestly, it never crossed my mind.

Soundwave. Okay people think about this one for a second. The original sound wave shot cassette tapes out of his chest during battle. Would you have rather they made him a giant iPod? His character served to fulfill his place in the story as well as provide a plot device for the Deceptacons source of intelligence.

Devastator. Well I'll agree that they could have and should have done more with him, I will say that in that particular plot it would have been a bit difficult to slot him in otherwise, because there's only so much they can have him do in the damn desert. Oh and it's incredibly idiotic to make a huge deal out of something that got all of 3 seconds of screen time, and was obviously meant as a joke. I laughed, so did my friends and most of the people in my theater.

In Bob's review the main problem I had was the inconsistency on what it was that you hated. You complain that there's too much of the human characters, but criticize the attempts to make the transformers in any way relatable. The reason the story centers around the humans is that it's hard to identify with 40 foot tall ALIEN ROBOTS, which is why they are given strong personality types. Think about it. Ironhide's character is huge hothead, Bumblebees character is sort of immature and bubbly, the twins are....well the twins. The story centers around the human character because they're far more easily relatable than the transformers. And don't give me this "romantic commedy" bullshit. There is MAYBE ten minutes TOTAL of Megan Fox/ Shia Lebeuof(sp?)romantics, and part of that is to advance the plot.

I don't get it. There seems to be this deep hatred of all things mainstream sometimes. Is that really a good reason to hate something, because it's popular? I find it ironic that some people hate the mainstream because they view the people who make things popular as unable to formulate their own opinions and yet are just as guilty of the same thing because their hate of the mainstream keeps themselves from making up their own minds.

Lets see raped fiction,misplaced shallow plot/story, lulzy dialog, robot designs that verge on junk art.....yes there's nothing much to like about this train wreck, even the rockem sockem parts are kinda a lulz fest......

Also you have to remember mainstreaming means something is watered down the lower standards of the combined herd, soemtiems its not so bad but most of the time its more inane and lulzy than I am.....

 

[Syllvenwood]

wow i almost am beginning to hate it myself just from all the silly sheep following hatred on this site. They should call this "The Hateist". Saw it loved it. Funny great action, cool robots. Robot designs actually made sense for the era, frankly i think soundwave was 10xs more awesome in this one, hes supplying decepticons with intel and the autobots don't even know hes here and his probes were way kickass. Wish they did something dif with some things but i can say that about EVERY movie ever made and i cannot wait for the last movie

 

[vid20]

I was never going to pay to see this film. But now I'm gald I still haven't.

Love your work MovieBob

 

[shotfun9]

Bit of a critique of a critique here...

Suddenly he's a fixture on the Escapist and he's TALKING MUCH FASTER. Now I like MovieBob a LOT, and I was just waiting for him to get a proper regular position, but still. He flashes up text while he's talking like Yahtzee does, except (very similar to Yahtzee's quicktime event rant here) when Yahtzee does it it's at least reasonable to read them as you're going. With the ones in this, I had to go back and pause it to actually read all of it. Yes it's funny stuff, but all that it served to do because it was on screen for such a painfully short time was serve to break up his review and make it more disjointed.

This whole thing has given me an idea... to the microphone!

But still. I quite enjoyed both the new Transformers movies, and I am a HUGE fan of the original source material. Considering who Michael Bay IS, I think we have got off exceptionally lightly.

It's not really a Yahtzee ripoff thing I think Moviebob is doing here. I think it's the anger. The pure, unadulterated rage and disgust MB feels about this movie that makes him talk that fast. When I'm on a rant of righteous hatred I pick up the verbal pace as well.

 

[Tdc2182]

You obviously havent seen the new one. Everything he said there is true, maybe a little more angry than most but true. the twins were so annoying. The army had no place in the movie. All the action was a close up to the robots faces. My friend liked the movie too and i only think it was the explosions. half the movie was a love story.

Y'know, Movie bobs opinions are becoming less and less valued by me. EVERYONE I know liked the Transformers movie and I've been told that the second is even better.