Transformers Reactions Thread - No spoilers until July 4th

[Zac Naloen]

Probably so they can properly edit out headbutts and re-render nunchucks.

That's gone over my head, did they do that once?

[Lord Revan]

Yeah, Plevna at Tampere is having preview screenings of it every day. Probably the same at Helsinki I think. 4.7 is still the actual opening date for it though.

yeah I checked 4.7.2007 is the actual opening date, so I'll see if I can get a ticket to one of those screenings.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Probably so they can properly edit out headbutts and re-render nunchucks.

That's gone over my head, did they do that once?

Just a slight crack at past and present censorship practices of the British Board of Film Classification.

Honestly, I have no idea for the delay (and was surprised when I found out about it), since it's not like it has to be dubbed or subtitled, so it should really be released at about the same time as in Australia or the US...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

[url=http://www.variety.com/article/VR111796 ... id=13&cs=1]Variety[/url[ says that Transformers grossed $34.7 million internationally over its opening weekend, hitting number one in all ten territories that it opened.

That's pretty damned impressive.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Grrr, screwed up URL coding...

[Anguirus]

Saw it. I am officially impressed. Funny, true to the characters, and above all a fucking THRILL RIDE.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Uts, DPDP, and I just got back from it.

So awesome

[Stark]

I can follow the action scenes better now. But that still doesn't excuse some shots of the final battle being shot too close and with a shaky cam which made it difficult to make sense of first time around. Give use some locked wide shots once in a while.

You know this is a Michael Bay movie, right? That's just how he rolls.

[DarkSilver]

Jazz and Simmon's annoyed the utter fuck out of me..

I actually cheered internally when he got ripped apart by Megatron...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I had no problem whatsoever following any of the action for the final battle.

And I felt the implementation of shakeycam and close-ups contributed to the energy of the action and gave a greater sense of what was taking place in front of the camera was real. There's nothing that screams "visual effects" more than a locked down camera.

[DPDarkPrimus]

The final battle could have benefited from more coherent camera angles.

[Kamakazie Sith]

It would have been less confusing and probably more gravitas. As it was, we couldn't really recognise which transformer was fighting whom.

Hmm I thought it was pretty obvious. I felt they did a good job adding little bits of detail that made telling each transformer apart from each other.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I agree with Ebert on most of his review.

The final battle, while awesome, was at the same time very confusing to follow and it didn't carry enough emotional impact.

[Old Plympto]

I can follow the action scenes better now. But that still doesn't excuse some shots of the final battle being shot too close and with a shaky cam which made it difficult to make sense of first time around. Give use some locked wide shots once in a while.

You know this is a Michael Bay movie, right? That's just how he rolls.

I'm now in the opinion that perhaps he even rolls around physically like his camera work in asleep in bed.

[Rommie2006]

I take it we can discuss about the movie (it's past 2 Jul 07 already)?

SPOILERS BELOW:



1) Has anyone noticed how "weak" the Transformers are? They are quite vulnerable to human weaponry! Check out the last scene where Megatron gets blasted by the F-22. I bet if Blackout didn't hit that the Qatar military base off guard, he would be no match against the human forces.

2) Having gotten the Allspark, going to the city to "hide" is really a stupid idea. Didn't anyone think of the lives lost, collateral damage and difficulty in covering up an attack of that magnitude? Not to mention going to the rooftop of that building was a stupid idea, especially when your enemy can transform into planes. I would have headed for the subway.

3) Why didn't Optimus Prime just *leave* Earth when he had the allspark with him? Decepticons are after the allspark, they would have followed.

4) The final scene... WTF?!?! Sam just shoved the cube into Megatron's chest. Ok.... so if it killed him why didn't Optimus try doing that from the start?

[Rommie2006]

Damn, is there an edit button? I think there used to be...

5) What happened to Barricade (the police car)? We didn't see him die... Same questions goes for Scorpornok, the buried underneath the sand and was never heard from again.

6) Just how tall is Megatron? When he was holding Jazz by the head, Jazz was really puny compared to Megatron. But we know that Megatron and Optimus are around the same height. However, when you have a shot with Optimus with Jazz together, Jazz doesn't look that small. CGI error in their sizes?

[Ford Prefect]

1) Has anyone noticed how "weak" the Transformers are? They are quite vulnerable to human weaponry! Check out the last scene where Megatron gets blasted by the F-22. I bet if Blackout didn't hit that the Qatar military base off guard, he would be no match against the human forces.

Are you kidding? Look at how much firepower they had to pump into Scorponok just to perform some more or less superficial damage. Also, I'm pretty sure we had Blackout tossing tanks around like toys. Starscream was dismantling that squadron of F-22s with ease, shrugged off the only hit they got on him, and can make something like 11km/s at least (based on how he was leaving earth - I think 11km/s is escape velocity, anyway).

[Rommie2006]

1) Has anyone noticed how "weak" the Transformers are? They are quite vulnerable to human weaponry! Check out the last scene where Megatron gets blasted by the F-22. I bet if Blackout didn't hit that the Qatar military base off guard, he would be no match against the human forces.

Are you kidding? Look at how much firepower they had to pump into Scorponok just to perform some more or less superficial damage. Also, I'm pretty sure we had Blackout tossing tanks around like toys. Starscream was dismantling that squadron of F-22s with ease, shrugged off the only hit they got on him, and can make something like 11km/s at least (based on how he was leaving earth - I think 11km/s is escape velocity, anyway).

I would disagree on that.

Scorponok - Ok, I admit he took quite a beating before burrowing into the sand.

Starscream - F-22 don't have much armor. It's easy to knock them out if you are a highly maneuverable transformer.

Blackout - Yet he got blasted by a *hand weapon*, admittedly under his vulnerable area in between the legs. Blackout only managed to destroy the base due to the element of surprise. If all the tanks in the base were properly manned, coupled with a few attack helicopters, I reckon that concentrated firepower would damage him.

Megatron, ironically went down went the F-22 swarmed him.

If you take a look at Devastator (the tank), we see that he is not immune to human hand weapons. Sure, he doesn't take much damage (not until Bubblebee starts shooting), but he does not shrug it off as if nothing happened. I bet if under concentrated firepower of a couple of tanks, he would go down quickly.

My point is that concentrated firepower seems to be capable of downing any Transformer. The problem is that all of them are quite agile and maneuverable, getting them to stand still will be an issue.

[Ford Prefect]

Scorponok - Ok, I admit he took quite a beating before burrowing into the sand.

Quite a beating? He shrugged off fire from the 30mm GAU-8 (a highly effective anti-tank weapon), then whatever missiles the A-10s were carrying (Hellfire?) and finally took noticeable damage from a Spooky gunship's 105mm howitzer firing discarding sabot penetrators. That's one hell of a beating.

Starscream - F-22 don't have much armor. It's easy to knock them out if you are a highly maneuverable transformer.

While they're not exactly flying tanks, you have to give Starscream some kudos for taking apart a squadron of the USAF's most advanced and capable air superiority fighters. They might have been in a bad position (ie. close combat), but there's no denying that Starscream outflew them, and the F-22 is a very agile plane. Plus you can't ignore how Starscream basically ignored the missile hit he took - though admittedly that was probably a Sidewinder, which only has ~10 kilogram warhead.

Blackout - Yet he got blasted by a *hand weapon*, admittedly under his vulnerable area in between the legs. Blackout only managed to destroy the base due to the element of surprise. If all the tanks in the base were properly manned, coupled with a few attack helicopters, I reckon that concentrated firepower would damage him.

It's not exactly like the ballbusting he took was what took him down; more like the AMRAAM spam, intended to hit the weakest parts of his armour. And of course concentrated firepower would damage him - they're tough, and they appear to regenerate given time, but they're not invincible. The problem here is that Blackout's firepower is impressive as well. The tanks could have been crewed and moving, but that wouldn't save them from being thrown about like I would my MAtchbox cars.

Megatron, ironically went down went the F-22 swarmed him.

He was somewhat staggered by the barrage of missiles into his back, and by this time had been duking it out with Prime for some time. Prime, he took a hit from a cannon with enough power to throw him bodily into the side of a building. Beyond being mildly inconvenienced, the Raptors managed diddly squat.

If you take a look at Devastator (the tank), we see that he is not immune to human hand weapons. Sure, he doesn't take much damage (not until Bubblebee starts shooting), but he does not shrug it off as if nothing happened. I bet if under concentrated firepower of a couple of tanks, he would go down quickly.

Yes, he does shrug it off as if nothing happened. Yes, the bizarrely super-hot rounds (usually fired from 40mm weapons) were damaging him, yet again, it was the Autobots that were doing the damage worth noting. A few little craters in his armour isn't exactly going to worry the 60+ ton Decepticon.

My point is that concentrated firepower seems to be capable of downing any Transformer.

Apart from Blackout, the best the humans managed against a Decepticon was when they managed to scare off Scorponok, who wasn't exactly very large.

The problem is that all of them are quite agile and maneuverable, getting them to stand still will be an issue.

Several were ridiculously agile ("Hi, I'm Ironhide and I'm going to flip out like a ninja"), but the biggest problem was their complete electronic superiority.

[Kojiro]

Since the spoilers seem allowed...






I want to know why Blackout didn't use any of those oh so nifty abilities we saw at the start. Those energy waves were ripping up entire runways, planes and all. The streets should have been cleared in moments. And if only he'd remembered he could jam communications (or was smart/competent enough to detect the hand held radio transmissions, perhaps he was just too arrogant to check/notice).

Anyone know how it was Bumblebee came to have the same knowledge of Sam's importance as the military hacking Decepticons?

[Ford Prefect]

Anyone know how it was Bumblebee came to have the same knowledge of Sam's importance as the military hacking Decepticons?

eBay?

[Old Plympto]

Anyone know how it was Bumblebee came to have the same knowledge of Sam's importance as the military hacking Decepticons?

eBay?

The prequel comic shows this... Bumblebee hacks into the internet and brings up a search engine named Shwiggle. Which looks exactly like Google.

Oh, and Bumblebee uses the Firefox browser.

[Kojiro]

So Bumblebee did the same job as Frenzy, just with Firefox and from outside the US infrastructure.

[tim31]

3) Why didn't Optimus Prime just *leave* Earth when he had the allspark with him? Decepticons are after the allspark, they would have followed.

We don't know how the non-air/spacecraft Cybertronians achieve flight, so it could be that there wasn't time to set up a space launch... They literally left the dam with the Decepticons in pursuit.

4) The final scene... WTF?!?! Sam just shoved the cube into Megatron's chest. Ok.... so if it killed him why didn't Optimus try doing that from the start?

Megatron might expect Prime to try something like that, but not a 'puny, disgusting human'. As per your argument re Blackout and the Qatar base, element of surprise.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Another reason why Optimus didn't just shove the Allspark into Megatron's spark chamber was because the plan of him sacrificing himself in the same way was a last resort measure, since they could have used the Allspark to renew Cybertron and create more Autobots.