Transformers Fanboy-Free Breakdown

[Dastardly]

MovieBob: Transformers Fanboy-Free Breakdown

Another week, another breakdown of a lackluster, nonsensical movie.

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I just don't think the source material was ever as deep (and thus as worthy of "faith") as you seem to think. Nostalgia can be an anchor in that way. I grew up with Transformers, but like most people I just grew up with an awareness of them as shape-changing giant robots. Why? Because that's where they got started. As toys, not as characters.

This is why the major thing I support in this series is the focus on the human drama. I'm not saying the human drama is great, just that I support placing the focus there. The overwhelming majority of the Transformers-aware world wasn't invested in the robots as characters, just as figures. One movie wasn't going to be enough to get people to "fall in love" with Optimus Prime.

So, just like in all of the source material, the robots themselves are one-dimensional characters. Archetypes. Optimus Prime: selfless hero. Megatron: mustache-twiddling villain. Starscream: sniveling henchman. Newsflash: the characters were never interesting enough to carry a movie.

So, instead, you connect the audience to the human drama. And while I was certainly not sucked in on any intellectual level, it was the emotional experience I could relate to, particularly in this third movie, particularly in the character of Sam. Here's a kid that has twice been thrust into the "save the world" role, now tossed aside to be an errand boy... but unable to shake this borderline-addictive drive to be in the thick of battle. The "girl problems" were just a way of demonstrating that--where most people would say, "I have a hot girlfriend. Game over," Sam is instead saying, "But I really want to show them what a hero I can be..."

As far as all of this goes, I think you've just been so dead set against the focus on humans that you really couldn't have enjoyed any of the emotional investment in the human characters. It's kind of like how I hate Glee so much because of the music that I can't allow myself to enjoy any of the character interaction.

Now, intellectual plot problems? Totally on board. They're valid criticisms... to a point. Of course, you don't levy the same criticisms with the same fervor when they pop up in other movies, so one has to wonder if the aforementioned bias doesn't inflate them a bit. But assaulting a movie like this on the basis that there are inconsistencies in the plot is like assaulting Twinkies based on their vitamin content. What you really mean to argue is that there should be more snack options in the world for healthy eaters, but what you're saying is that Twinkies themselves should be turned into vegetable wraps.

 

[lastjustice]

If you recall, in the first movie one of the decepticons wipes out an entirely military base single-handidly and then later on GI Joe or whoever rides a motorbike in the city and slides between that same decepticons leg and hits him with at best a grenade launcher so, man-portable weapons I'd say are effective.

They didn't know what weapons were effective against them in the beginning of the film. Why they got smashed so badly. During the flight back to the states they study Scorponok's tail and notice they're vunerable to high heat sabot rounds. That they were weak below the chest in some cases with their armor. Why Lennox was able to kill Blackout at the end of the film.

By second film NEST has tailor made weapons to kill transformers because that's what they do. We see this taken even further in the 3rd film as they develop techiques to kill them more effectively. We see them training on bumble bee in the hangar, and they them apply said training against shockwave. By this point we're pros at killing them , why Barricade and the other Con's on the street got trashed quickly by the armed forces. They knew to take out their eyes, then placed high powered explosives directly on them. Once a weakness is known humans will exploit the holy hell out of it.

That being said, I do agree that the decepticon's abilities are widely different even within the context of the same movie. Just like how that helicopter guy wiped out the whole base and then later on can't kill ONE SQUAD of guys

The humans got the jump on him. blackout was too busy getting ready to jump Optimus while he was fighting Megatron to notice them sneaking up. By time he was aware of them there was already an air strike with his name on it. I don't see what's so hard to buy about air strikes blowing away transformers with the proper weapons.

But like I said - why does the Fallen wait so long to join the fight? As far as we know, he's just chilling with a brewsky on the moon while his men are being slaughtered... and he only lands once Prime is ressurected and he now has a chance to be defeated.

How freaking idiotic is he? Had he helped out the Decepticon from the get go, it would have been no contest, Prime would have never been raised and the sun would be destroyed. Than again, I suppose him being an idiot is well established with the whole 'Must eat Star with a planet that has life on it orbiting it and trigger a civil war instead of eating one of the multiple billion stars with no life on it.' thing.

The Fallen was waiting for Sam to recover the Matrix of Leadership. He is one of those mastermind villains who doesn't get his hands dirty unless he has to. We see this in comics all time with Darkseid as he will sit back and let his troops get wasted rather than get involved till he has to. Without the matrix his plans weren't going go anywhere. So he waited till right moment to reclaim it.His troops dying was unimportant to him. The matrix wouldn't have reformed without Sam going through trials to prove his worth. The Fallen needed to wait. he seemed to have a pretty good grasp of cybertronian artifacts, so you'd just assume he was binding his time.

As for wasting the Earth. The Star harvester was here, and he was proving a point.It seemed to be the best way to give the middle finger to his brothers and the insects he was imprisoned for.(in the comics they show fallen was contained by one of the Primes. Megatron freed him much later.) Decepticons usually get caught up in petty stuff and miss the big picture all time. It's their MO heh.

Now, intellectual plot problems? Totally on board. They're valid criticisms... to a point. Of course, you don't levy the same criticisms with the same fervor when they pop up in other movies, so one has to wonder if the aforementioned bias doesn't inflate them a bit.

Yes Bob seems to not mind all the flimsy writing in the Nolan batman films. A microwave that magically vaporizes water up to 50 feet away thru layers of pavement but has no effect on humans that are made up majority of water...completely ok. The Joker gets heck beat out of him by batman, and the cops leave a sole guard as the only thing keeping him in his cell inside said cell without the joker being restrained in anyway...brilliant. The national guard manages to somehow miss 50 some barrels of explosives on a boat during a crisis where known terrorists are placing bombs ...twice. I could go on but I think I'm making my point. But hey it's completely ok suck off Nolan and bash Bay for same level of plot contrivence.

 

[Stall]

I've always been annoyed that people hate on the Transformers movies. Not that they don't deserve it, quite the contrary, but the simple fact that people are just wasting so much energy on hating these crap summer blockbusters that no one is going to care about in 10, hell even 5, years. Everyone with tastes knows these movies are bad; everyone with tastes probably new the third one was going to be bad as soon as it was announced. You don't need to convince anyone worth convincing. Almost everyone knows why they are bad. There's no need to expend such great energy ranting and raving about these damn movies. Why bother spilling so much ink on this? Is it really worth it at the end of the day?

 

[Mid-Boss]

The second movie caused me physical pain. I'm so sad that the third movie even exists that I cannot verbalise my disdain.
Just plain sad.

I'm sad that it's going to make unGodly amounts of money while great movies are left out in the cold.

 

[CrafterMan]

I liked it...

It was a great action movie!

I go and watch thrillers if I want a plot nowadays to be quite honest.

-JB

 

[ProjectTrinity]

I think the biggest things turning me off from watching the 2nd and 3rd movies are actually the fans.

They actually want people to shut their brain off in an attempt to like the pretty explosions. Now, without using your brain, you tend to think and/or do dumber things far more frequently. Now, using that logic, do you *really* want to finish applying on why you liked Transformers 3? I know I wouldn't. Seriously, shallow plots already make me yawn, but to hear the fans defend the movie with, well, statements that don't hold water outside of the fanbase makes me think of the Twilight fanbase.

Both are rather annoying. (Not all - just the ones that go on a defender's spree.)

 

[Griffolion]

Moviebob is too intelligent for me. He notices things about films I'd never even give a thought.

 

[beniki]

You can spend all day pointing out the flaws in these movies. You can spend an entire week just listing the plot holes, inconsistencies and even basic continuity errors in the last 30 minutes of Rise of the Fallen alone, and you don't need to be a movie guy or a fan boy to see them. Seriously, just start counting pyramids in shots.

Doesn't matter how much you point them out though, someone will always defend it with "But I liked it, why isn't my opinion as valid as yours!?"

To which the answer is, sure, your opinion is that you liked it. That's valid. Still a crappy movie though, for the above reasons.

Then you'll hear, "Whatever nerd. Why don't you go wank over Clockwork Orange or something."

To which the answer is "I'm NOT a ner-! Hey that's not a bad idea."

Proper horror show

 

[Triaed]

Everyone knows you do not use a legion of hamsters to build a skyscraper.
Lemmings! What you need is lemmings! I think lemmings (the game type) are more like humans than hamsters

 

[jabrwock]

by Part 3 have done away with their own prohibition on fudging the question of mass, as Laserbeak is seen taking the form of computers and wall decorations less than half his size.

To be fair, the movies never really try to touch on this rule, and in the comics/cartoon, size only sometimes related to disguise. Megatron turning into a pistol, Soundwave into a walkman, etc.

The production team did mention at one point that the Autobots were designed so that they could fold down into their disguise vehicles. I remember an awful lot of effort going into describing how closely they were working with their product placement team to make sure that all the bits that went into a GMC vehicle were included in the transformed version. But they never stated the same for the Decepticons. Most of the Decepticons just transformed into vehicles for convenience sake. Flying and so forth.

But I'm just nitpicking.

 

[Buizel91]

I see what you did with the title...Clever...

But meh, i can easily watch both the G1 cartoon and the new movies without thinking "The new movies have ruined my childhood"

Although i admit Revenge of the Fallen was bad, i only watch it because of the 2 main fighting scenes...

By the way for all of you complaining at explosions...the G1 cartoon had ALOT of explosions to.

 

[DJ_DEnM]

The one that mentions that his ancestor was the Wheel is the same one hiding in the military museum who is dormant in the same way Sentinel Prime is.

So yeah...

 

[Karthak]

When I was little I read Transformers comics, and watched episodes from various transformers series, and I enjoyed the first and third movies (not the second, that one was baaaad). I did not turn of my brain when watching Dark of the Moon, I enjoy cerebral films like Gandhi and True Grit, and I think the third film is quite good. Sure, Rosie Huntin-whatever should never be allowed on a film set, but otherwise the characters were good, the humour was mostly good, the plot made sense, and the action was brilliant.

Ps. There was plenty of retardedness going on in the very first Transformers series:
http://io9.com/5817708/10-demented-moments-from-the-original-transformers-cartoon/gallery/

 

[Kenji_03]

Thank you for this Bob, as I was honestly thinking you were just having a fan-boy rant. But now I see your dislike of Bay's transformers has more ground than just nostalgia. It has to do with your (understandable) dislike of society's modern military fetishism.

 

[ShadowHand25]

"Transformers are a secret in the first film - 'robots in disguise' and all that"

Maybe Michael Bay heard it as "robots in de skies," that would make a whole hell of a lot more sense.

 

[Netrigan]

Brace for apologist fans whining about how you're thinking too deep, you're supposed to turn your brain off, etc and other excuses for terrible movie-making.

I'd say people make up their mind when they turn off their brain, as MovieBob has demonstrated in his positive reviews for films such as G.I. Joe, The A-Team, and Sucker Punch. Three movies which were never skillful or entertaining enough to me for me turn off my brain and enjoy them on the level MovieBob did. G.I. Joe strikes me as a particularly bad bit of film making, which even MovieBob's enthusiastically positive reviews seems to realize, as he talks about it coming across like kids on a playground just making up whatever came into their mind and screw coming up with a logical reason for it.

But Michael Bay managed to get me to turn off my brain with Transformers 2 and 3. I even made a point of catching both on IMAX because I wanted the full force of the spectacle. It's big, loud, and stupid... and, for whatever reason, those two movies just clicked with me, even if I can point out numerous plot holes big enough to float Cybertron through.

 

[Netrigan]

Michael Bay is selling explosions and "romance". And god help you if you try and get in his way. Because that's all he knows.

And that's wht sells the trailers and that's what gets the morons in eating popcorn troughs and coke lakes.

And NO...I'm not sying tht anyone who watches it is a moron, I'm just saying that morons watch it. Lots of them. Millions of the mouthbreathers.

Big, dumb action movies are designed to be enjoyed by just about everyone. It's rare that one of them fails to break even because the formula works well enough even if the action is sub-par and there's no particularly notable performances in the movie (see Green Lantern as it limps its way to a slight profit). Bay doesn't earn $200 million in a week by playing only to morons. He makes $200 million in week by hitting just about every demographic who enjoys watching shit 'splode.

Even MovieBob has highly recommended movies that had shit plots, but just 'sploded shit good. See G.I. Joe and The A-Team for movies he recommended solely for that reason.