Transformers Reactions Thread - No spoilers until July 4th

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2007-07-07 10:42pm

The action scene at the end was also crap. You didn't miss anything.

Fortunately, this movie did prompt me to buy the 20th Anniversary version of the original 1986 movie. I'd forgotten how little sense this movie makes, and how awesome it is as a direct consequence. Why are there robot sharks? Why wouldn't there be robot sharks? Why, indeed, do we see a distinct lack of robot sharks in modern cinema? This is something that must be remedied.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-07-07 10:44pm

I totally agree with Discombobulated. Honestly, two hours of thirty five year-old high school students and psychotic government agents (I swear no one in this movie acts like a real human being, especially that one cop). Not to mention the worthless subplot with the hackers. Even the giant robot action was pretty lame. All the time the big robots seemed to be in the background of each shot. Also the mechanical designs do not work. Robots who split up into fifty billion little pieces to transform does not help me suspend my disbelief. Here is a good review that summarizes my NERD RAGE!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-07 10:51pm

I'm glad others found the hackers plot totally irrelevant. It did nothing, went nowhere - as Flash says, it started with 'zomg how did they hax us' and ended with 'meh, they r aliens they do what they want'. Thanks for wasting half an hour of screentime on zero giant robots!

Post by **Gandalf** » 2007-07-07 10:59pm

Stark wrote:I'm glad others found the hackers plot totally irrelevant. It did nothing, went nowhere - as Flash says, it started with 'zomg how did they hax us' and ended with 'meh, they r aliens they do what they want'. Thanks for wasting half an hour of screentime on zero giant robots!

Amusingly, that subplot gave us Anthony Anderson playing the same sort of guy he always plays.

He turned out to be the least annoying guy in the film.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2007-07-07 11:35pm

I found the film worth watching twice, e.g., renting the DVD, but not worth buying the DVD for. The focus on a character as fucking annoying as Sam Witwicky killed things, and it was only the action sequences that redeemed it-- it would've been better if they focused on the spec ops team instead. I was also sad that they killed off Jazz, my favorite character as a child, but at least his death wasn't as lame as that of his murderer.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-07 11:39pm

I thought it was ironic how little screen time the soldiers got - they actually seemed interesting, and their early battles were good. But no, we need to hit the 'teenage male virgin' demographic a few more times...

And I thought whatshername was far more irritating than Sam. Sam was just a bit clueless. If the actor isn't really a drip, it was a good performance.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-07-07 11:46pm

Jazz got fucking ownzed by Megatron in one of the stupidest attempts of "bravery" I've ever seen. Prime eulogy was unintentionally hilarious as he held up the two halves of a Jazz like a kid holds up a broken toy.

But remember kids, this entire botched movie is redeemed because they dubbed in the old transforming for that one scene.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-07-07 11:47pm

*Old transforming sound, not that I gave a flying f*ck

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-07 11:48pm

The whole 'Jazz is my second' thing was bizarre. Why? As far as we know, he's the smallest mainline transformer, he's a retarded loudmouthed wanker, and he has no guns IIRC.

Jazz/Prime slash on 3... 2... 1...

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-07-07 11:51pm

Jazz had a machine gun sorta thing he fired at Megatron just before Megatron decided to break him like an old GEEEWUUUN Mirage toy.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-07 11:52pm

Oh, like Ratchet's completely useless machinegun thing? Clearly ROF is inversely proportional to effectiveness.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-07-07 11:57pm

Ratchet's best weapon is clearly his razor sharp wit. Remember when he said Sam wanted to fuck the chica? That's pure hilarity.

Man, this movie made me as bitter as Stark. lol

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-07-08 12:27am

Someone wants to see 140 minutes of mindless violence with no story at all.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2007-07-08 12:35am

It's be better than 140 minutes with no story and no violence worth watching, which is what we got. I don't think anyone was expecting a good story from a Michael Bay film, but even the action scenes in Transformers were tedious.

Post by **Steve** » 2007-07-08 01:09am

Did we watch the same movie?

I mean, I don't know how you people can be saying this stuff about the movie I watched. Twice (took my dad to see it).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-08 01:26am

DPDarkPrimus wrote:Someone wants to see 140 minutes of mindless violence with no story at all.

Who? Where? I'm just looking for something a bit more focussed than 'all these plots simultaneously, lets cut from awesome action vs giant scorpion to highschool hijinks'.

I found the hilarious gen-y political commentary the best. The US and Arabs can work together against aliens! The Prez is an idiot! Secret Govt Organisation = bad! Parents are annoying!

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2007-07-08 02:11am

Good action scenes, Sam ( or whatever the guy's name was) was hilariously lame, and great special effects. I enjoyed it, and I wasn't a fan of the cartoons either (except Beast Wars).

On to the bad, which despite my enjoyment of the movie, is still numerous. It's obvious that the writers had no idea as to the true extent of an F-22's capabilities, and just tossed them in because they're new and shiny. Human weaponry was vastly underpowered as well, in both destructive force, speed, and range, along with every single fucking plane in the movie only doing low altitude flight.

You know what an actual air strike would most likely resemble? You wouldn't even see the plane, it'd be at a much higher altitude than doing retarded strafing runs down city streets, and you wouldn't even see the attack coming. Megatron wouldn't know what fucking hit him.

Along with that, the hacker subplot was pointless and could have been written out, the writers tossed in the line that global communications were entirely disabled and then fail to portray the massive chaos that would result from that. Finally, I never want to see a goddamn telegraph in a movie set in this era again. It was retarded in independence day, and it was even more retarded in this movie.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2007-07-08 04:35am

Stark wrote:It's interesting that this thread started very positive, with the first viewers, and appears to have become more negative. The terrible fate of a Michael Bay summer blockbuster?

To very roughly quote The Muppet Show:

"It was wonderful!"
"It was great!"
"It was good."
"Eh, it was alright."
"It sucked!"
"Terrible!"
"BOOO!"

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-07-08 06:33am

I don't see any positive to negative trend - I came in at page 9 and thought the movie kicked ass, others came in after with the same thoughts.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2007-07-08 10:02am

One question. While Prime and Megatron were pummeling eachother (first with their guns, then in fisticuffs), why didn't Prime break out his sword like he did against Bonecrusher?

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2007-07-08 10:25am

For the same reason he put his gun away, the same reason Bumblebee didn't pull his on Barricade right away, the same reason Blackout forgot his awesome pulse wave ability...

If they'd been fighting smart, they'd have stayed out of the city and Prime would have been holding the Allspark, ready to either ram it down Megatron's throat or at the least make good on his threat. Given it's regenerative powers (at least as far as Frenzy went) it couldn't hurt to have it on you in a fight.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-07-08 10:40am

I haven't seen the movie yet, but this city thing confuses me. Military people have already said the city thing was stupid because it increases civilian casualties, but can someone explain to me why fighting in a city is stupid besides that point? From all the trailers and opinions I've seen of the Decepticons, they are far more technologically advanced than the US military portrayed in the movie (although not invincible, but neither are Abrams tanks to Saddam's forces and Saddam could've made it far more difficult if he hid his forces in Baghdad) Fighting in a city is smart when your opponent outclasses you technologically and gives you cover and many places to hide this allspark. If your armored vehicles are inferior to theirs, isn't a military mind's first thought to take away that advantage and fight in favorable terrain, and what is better than a city in negating technology advances?

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2007-07-08 10:57am

Civilians and smashed buildings = collateral damage.

This is for the fate of mankind and the world, a few people getting stepped on by Giant Alien Robots would be acceptable losses.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-07-08 11:06am

Multiple vendetta rule violations split to new thread.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-07-08 11:11am

As for the criticisms, the film does indeed have many flaws, most of them in the area of storywriting logic. I went in expecting to watch what is basically an overgrown childrens' movie, and that's what I got. The film does not have any particular pretensions of being a grown-up movie (unlike, say, the pompous steaming pile of shit that is The Matrix), so I tend to judge the story's leaps in logic much less harshly.