Movie Defense Force: Transformers

[Tono Makt]

I enjoyed Bayformers 1. My wife and I got into a pre-screening three days before the official release on a whim of mine - I was out for a walk (not something I did often), decided to walk into the local movie theatre and saw that "Transformers" was playing at 3:30 that afternoon. Somehow I was entirely unaware that a new Transformers movie was being made (even though I was spending 3+ hours a day online, mostly in role playing chatrooms but also spending a great deal of time on several news aggregator sites, so I still can't figure out how I entirely missed every lead up to this movie) and thought that perhaps this was Transformers: The Movie being shown in theatres again. Which my wife and I both loved.

So I bought two tickets, went home and checked out the theatre website and saw that it was a Micheal Bay Live Action Transformers, which was due to come out on the Thursday... not the day I bought tickets for, which was the Monday. For a few minutes I thought that maybe there had been a mistake in the machine, that the machine was selling tickets for a showing that wasn't going to happen. But Mrs. Makt and I went to the movie and were blown away by it. We loved it, though we did admit that there were many crippling flaws in the movie. To this day we still enjoy the first movie.

Regarding the idea that Jazz was somehow racist, saying that reminds me of the poor Turian in ME2 who is stuck at security, trying to deal with a human C-Sec agent. Every different interaction between the two ends with the Turian saying "Humans are all racists!". I just don't see it, at all, unless people are trying to argue that Jazz has ALWAYS been a racist character, going all the way back to when Scatman Crouthers first did his voice in Generation 1.

 

[TheUnbeholden]

The movie is junk food film making. Which is fine if that's all your after. I think the backlash at this movie is that Transformers is ripe for some big idea sci-fi stuff.

Also Jim, I'm usually on your side. I prefer to remember the good than harp on about the bad. But Shia Lebooooooof is awful. Always. And there's just no defending that. Unless your his mum.

Actually I think Shia is just very average. Even with that said, this movie is still mediocre. Yes I get it that pop corn action flicks are supposed to be mindless, but there are good popcorn movies and bad ones.. this is a bad one.

 

[ninjaRiv]

I was also neutral when it came to Transformers so I went into this movie wanting a silly action film. I got something painfully boring and messy. Michael Bay should not be allowed to make movies.

 

[Vicioussama]

I never really cared for Transformers that much. I did enjoy the first animated movie, that was good, but the rest? Meh... and I don't really like Michael Bays movies. The only good one so far has been The Rock and that's only because of Sean Connery really and Hans Zimmer.

What I really hate are all the mouth breathers who like these shit movies of his -_- they are just herpderps of life.

 

[DTWolfwood]

If they cut out the part with Shia in it, the movie would have benefited from it.

It needs to be about the Transformers...not the children they seem to always gather. In the cartoons the kids always play second fiddle. But for whatever reason, they chose to make these movies about "sam witwicky"

I've watched all the transformers movies and what made me enjoy them is the same reasons i'm excited for Pacific Rim

 

[sageoftruth]

Oh, Bob isn't going to like this one bit.

Prepare to do battle, Jim.

I was just thinking that. Please guys. Give us a good old throwdown in the columns.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Nope. It was not nostalgia. It was having the Transformers be guest stars in their own film. It was watching the battle scenes and not having any idea of what was going on.

In short, it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzJuDo5ots0

 

[el_kabong]

Have always thought the first one wasn't bad...but if you try to defend "Revenge", I'm not sure we can be friends anymore.

 

[Atmos Duality]

PREFACE: I grew up in the 80s. I didn't give much of a fuck about Transformers because I could not regularly watch the show due to growing up in the sticks (I had like, 3 TV channels. 5 on a cloudy night)

In short, I gave ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKS about any sort of "nostalgia" element because it just didn't exist for me.

I remember seeing Bay's Transformers 1 about a year or so before Transformers 2, and I saw it incidentally, not intentionally.
The film agitated and annoyed me a bit at parts, but never to the point of outright hatred.

Shia LeBouf and Megan Fox were both terrible, and their characters COMPLETELY WORTHLESS to the movie as a whole.
I did not give one fuck about either of them, and was mercifully able to ignore them for most of the film so they were largely a non-issue.

The action, while a schlocky CGI boom fiesta, was fine and I even chuckled at some of the really stupid jokes.

Hell, I even found Bay's fetishism for the US military refreshing in a bizarre way: most films with aliens/giant robots/monsters tend to have the human military element (if any) playing the part of useless cannon fodder to be helplessly crushed by whatever force is at hand so we, the HUMAN audience, can feel their supposed powerlessness and incompetence projected onto us in a cheap attempt at provoking a response or some sort of tension.

Personally, I find that trope annoying and a waste of time.

Bay letting the military "win" a few exchanges with the Decepticons (even if for the wrong reasons) kept me interested because it showed that they had some sort of agency, and that they actually mattered a bit (even if they were ultimately losing without the Autobots).

So in that, I'll agree that Transformers 1 wasn't a great film on its own, but it also wasn't terrible.
Unfortunately, it is still the gateway film to one of the worst pieces of cinema I've seen.

Transformers 2 that pissed me off. A lot. Everything that was annoying in the first film was amped up and made central in the sequel. I didn't even bother seeing Transformers 3, because I could not bear the thought of giving more money to the same gumshit assholes who made Transformers 2.

 

[YoungZer0]

I was never a fan of the old transformers. I do like the new design, I think they look fantastic, especially starscream has grown on me. I do like the look and the action, but the movie really is dumb as fuck. A shitload of people do insanely stupid things that make no sense in whatever context they are currently in.

A bunch of american soldiers beating CIA folks and telling them to let the boy talk to his car. Shaia running away from Bumblebee, meeting the police car Decepticon and then running straight back to Bumblebee with his new love interest, tellin her to get in the car, to trust him.

Why exactly? How does he know the bee isn't just going to crush him once he's inside. It's just a few examples, but the movie is full of logic holes.

 

[Gatx]

Another unnecessary one - I thought it was actually generally accepted that the first Transformers was DECENT if not GOOD.

 

[DiMono]

The problem with Transformers is that it's not a Transformers movie. Here's the plot of Transformers:

A race of alien robots is engaged in civil war. Their battle inevitably spills over to other worlds, including Earth.

And here's the plot of the movie we got:

Shia Labeouf tries to stick it in Megan Fox, and giant robots are involved somehow.

Seriously, they're in less than 50% of the movie that's named after them. If I go to a movie called Transformers, I want it to be about giant robots beating the everloving piss out of each other, and I really don't give a shit about humans in that movie. If you name a movie after an established property, it's going to be compared to its pedigree. If you want to make the movie that got named Transformers, that's fine, but call it something else; don't name it Transformers purely for brand recognition.

 

[otakon17]

Okay Jim. Let's see you defend Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen then? Seriously man, you just defended a movie that no one that likes the Transformers really thinks is a good movie or even a proper re-imagining of it. Honestly, I thought it was meh but it did have enjoyable spots. The original animated movie is still more enjoyable however and actually features the damn Transformers in is compared to Bay's rendition. Seriously the man focused more on the human characters and the American military than the giant robots the movie was named after. Hell he's doing the same to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If he's gonna make them aliens, why bother taking the TMNT license? Why not do an original screenplay featuring aliens getting taught ninjustsu?

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

I think most of the backlash was against Revenge of the Fallen. Genuinely the worst film ever made.

 

[TheSchaef]

This film was all right but we all know that without Peter Cullen anchoring the cast, it would have been half the movie it was.

People like to bag on Orci and Kurtzman a lot, forgetting that what Jim says here about a serviceable story - if somewhat undermined by necessary origin story and human characters "to relate to" - are their doing. They hadn't nearly as much to do with the second movie and nothing to do with the third, and we saw the writing plunge ever downward, having robots from da hood, and every adult human in the film becoming caricatures of the handful of lines from the first one that made them mildly amusing. They also wrote what was the best of the Mission Impossible films until Ghost Protocol came along. And I know Star Trek gets a lot of hate, but in fairness, it was written as space fantasy rather than science fiction. In short, the new Star Trek movies are the Star Wars movies you wanted George to make.

But yes, I think the angular look and overblown complexity of the robots makes them not translate well on screen, and that's off-putting whether you're an old-school Transformer fan or not. Especially when there's a lot of fast cuts and big action, and people look for faces to track and humanize a character. Plus, the cartoon robots had bold, bright colors to distinguish them, and only the landmark characters Optimus and Bumblebee really got a good color treatment.

Oh, and Da Robot Bruthas, I guess.

 

[Clankenbeard]

I liked the original Transformers, it was big, stupid, loud, and dumb but that is all I ever expected from the movie. The sequels on the otherhand...

Damn your red button and my curiosity! I had no idea what I was getting into. 24hrs is a long time to endure.