Transformers Reactions Thread - No spoilers until July 4th

[DPDarkPrimus]

That aside, for a Transformer movie, there was wayyy too little action and pyrotechnics. The robots were rendered well enough, but seriously, there wasn't enough kick ass action, and laser bolts flying.

No, there was enough. But it was mostly smashed together in a huge 20-minute end battle.

Hopefully the sequel will spread out the action more evenly throughout the length of the film.

[TheMuffinKing]

Apologies if this has been brought up before, but who made the transformers?

To tie into that, it seemed that the allspark transformed only items of a minimal technology level, that said objects had electrical energy essential to their operation.

How was the Allspark able to breath life into cybertron, spawning untold varieties of transformers from seemingly nothing?

A bigger question is why the allspark did not replicate this feat upon contact with Earth.

Maybe the transformers are the product of some intelligent design by a previous elder race?

Maybe I just missed the part where they explain that stuff.

[wautd]

Last night I saw the Blackout intro again (low quality).

Is it me or was that scorpion like Decepticon attached to Blackout at start? (when the spec ops fire at Blackout, something appears to being hurled in the air)

[Vympel]

Yes, Scorponok is Laserbeak to Blackout's Soundwave.

[phred]

I always find reviews like Stargliders funny. I mean its a popcorn movie. Yet they rant on as if they were expecting high art, or some deep philosophical meaning or something. You knew it was going to suck, why did you go waste 9 bucks on it in the first place?

[Darth Wong]

Boohoo people didn't like our shitty movie clearly they must be wrong. I've heard the Core is no cinematic masterpiece, but I've heard it had some fun parts. Transformers seemed to be devoid of any fun parts. And I don't think it was just me who found it to be lacking in good humor, for the most part the theater I was saw it in was silent with the occasional chuckle. Totally anecdotal, so take it for what's it worth.

Which would be nothing.

As my partner in podcasting said, "Seriously, this movie lacks the charm and finesse of Independence Day," and I totally agree. Independence Day is a better dumb action movie because at least it's fun and has better plotting. When you can't even jump the bar set up by Independence Day, you're hurting.

I'd say the film is definitely better than Independence Day, which was all kinds of stupid, and nauseating flag-waving American jingoistic stupid at that. But it does say something about you that you didn't have a problem with that.

[dragon]

Apologies if this has been brought up before, but who made the transformers?

To tie into that, it seemed that the allspark transformed only items of a minimal technology level, that said objects had electrical energy essential to their operation.

How was the Allspark able to breath life into cybertron, spawning untold varieties of transformers from seemingly nothing?

A bigger question is why the allspark did not replicate this feat upon contact with Earth.

Maybe the transformers are the product of some intelligent design by a previous elder race?

Maybe I just missed the part where they explain that stuff.

I believe it was vector sigma that gave sentience to the robot that eventually rose into the autobots and deceptacons. Vector Sigma was a computer that was controlled by the Quintessons. At this point in their history cybertron was used as a factory. The robot rebelled into the transformers we know to. Sure there more to it, but that all I can remember assuming I didn't get something wrong.

[VF5SS]

I'd say the film is definitely better than Independence Day, which was all kinds of stupid, and nauseating flag-waving American jingoistic stupid at that. But it does say something about you that you didn't have a problem with that.

Yeah Independence Day is pretty stupid with all the flag waving and magic Mac laptop and stuff. Mostly my partner was referring to the directing style and how there wasn't as much shaking camera movements and chaotic fighting. Myself I liked the parts with Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch as I felt they had good on screen chemistry. Will Smith and his super awesome cool F/A-18 was pretty bad. The rest of the movie was pretty blah, but not give me a headache at end of it sorta blah that Transformers was.

You gotta admit Transformers has some bad flag-waving crap with the Captain Lennox and his crew. Also way too much of Bay's hard on for the military. Especially when Captain Lennox is like, "You're a soldier now!" and tells Sam to outrun the giant killer robot. I was thinking maybe Mr. Chunk Beefsteak could maybe do that himself or have someone else other than Sam take the Allspark.

[McC]

You gotta admit Transformers has some bad flag-waving crap with the Captain Lennox and his crew.

I'm sorry, missing your home is flag-waving crap now? Or are you referring to something else? I don't recall any "yay america ftw" moments in the movie, and certainly not like there were in ID4.

Also way too much of Bay's hard on for the military. Especially when Captain Lennox is like, "You're a soldier now!" and tells Sam to outrun the giant killer robot. I was thinking maybe Mr. Chunk Beefsteak could maybe do that himself or have someone else other than Sam take the Allspark.

Er, Lennox was kind of busy leading his troops in attacking the giant robots.

Further, what about Lennox's statement to Sam was inaccurate? For better or worse, he had become a soldier at that point, and was fighting for his life and the life of his fellow man.

[TheMuffinKing]

I believe it was vector sigma that gave sentience to the robot that eventually rose into the autobots and deceptacons. Vector Sigma was a computer that was controlled by the Quintessons. At this point in their history cybertron was used as a factory. The robot rebelled into the transformers we know to. Sure there more to it, but that all I can remember assuming I didn't get something wrong.

Thanks! That really clears up half my question. I had no knowledge of Vector Sigma. Well heck, I guess that answers all of the question!

[VF5SS]

I feel that soldiers aren't supposed to put civilians in danger like that. Making Sam giant robot bait is pretty bad. I just feel with all the soldiers running around that there might have been someone more qualified to get the Allspark to the helicopter.

[SAMAS]

Yes, but who is trusted by the 30-foot robots with the big energy cannons?

[VF5SS]

The Autobots trusted the humans enough to help the military guys during the battle and seemed ok with letting Sam take the Allspark to a helicopter where it would be out of his hands.

[SylasGaunt]

The Autobots trusted the humans enough to help the military guys during the battle and seemed ok with letting Sam take the Allspark to a helicopter where it would be out of his hands.

Again the soldiers were all busy trying to hold off the Decepticons. Sam getting the Allspark to the roof would also serve the purpose of getting him AWAY from the battle.

[phred]

Sam was a combatant at that point, whether he wanted to be or not.

He knew how to run real fast. Im not sure he could handle a large caliber weapon if he stuck around.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

On the "Starscream shot Megatron!!!1111eleven" issue, judging from the writers' answer it seems that there was no intent to do something like that when they were filming, but now it has probably been hyped up by the fans.
Writers answering fans on the official forum:
link

[VF5SS]

Again the soldiers were all busy trying to hold off the Decepticons. Sam getting the Allspark to the roof would also serve the purpose of getting him AWAY from the battle.

The part of the battle (AKA Megatron) was following him because he had the AllSpark. Nevermind the fact that putting him on the roof a building was retarded considering Starscream was hanging around totally dominating the skies. If they wanted him to run somewhere why didn't he go into a deep basement of the subway? At least on the subway he could be moving a lot faster.

[Ted C]

If they wanted him to run somewhere why didn't he go into a deep basement of the subway? At least on the subway he could be moving a lot faster.

I don't remember the name of the city they went to, but knowing that it was a fairly short drive from Hoover Dam, I can't think of any city in the area with a subway system.

[2000AD]

Stupid UK cinemas having to wait 3 after everywhere else till it comes out. Lucky I found out about the advance screenings.

It's so awesome that if you were to compare in graph form how much awesome is in Transformers compared to the average film then you'd need one of the biggest log scales ever.

I thought it was cool - Optimus rams his sword through Bonecrusher's head in a matter of moments, Megatron rips Jazz in two in a similar time-frame. They're the leaders, and hence, the baddest mofo's of either side. Any other Transformer shouldn't last two seconds against them normally (except Starscream in this instance, since he was pretty big).

Seconded, I loved how it avoided the standard 'hero narrowly beats one bad guy, moves on, narrowly beats the next bad guy, moves on, etc etc.' Instead the hero kicks the shit out of the bad guy so that when he gets to the boss (who per movie specifications has already killed one of the good guys easily) and actually has a problem you know that the bad guy is hella-tough.

The only slightly annoying thing was that it kept flicking between serious action flick and kids film. You have soldier guy getting impaled by Scorpanok and then you have "get off my dad's lawn". The humour was funny and made me laugh, it just felt a little out of place.

Apart from that I think the film is pure awesome. In fact it's like they made what will become the textbook example of how a summer blockbuster should be, didn't think it was awesome enough, so they crammed the entire annual net awesomeness production of the US, Russia and China all into one film.

[Braedley]

I think my expectations for a plot were a little too high. The CGI was beyond excellent, but that was the only high point for me.

There's also the fact that there are numerous inconsistencies throughout the movie.

Although Megan Fox was looking pretty hot throughout.

[ArmorPierce]

On the "Starscream shot Megatron!!!1111eleven" issue, judging from the writers' answer it seems that there was no intent to do something like that when they were filming, but now it has probably been hyped up by the fans.
Writers answering fans on the official forum:
link

Judging from the answer, it seems more likely to me that he didn't want to give a straight answer since he refused to be more clear than that when asked to clarify.

[ArmorPierce]

The one thing that I don't get by that theory is if that was starscream's intent, why did he fire on the f-22s in the first place?

[VF5SS]

The way the F-22 attack on Megatron breaks down is there are 7 F-22s plus Starscream (making two groups of four) and when Starscream pops up on them he kills 4 F-22s and sorta falls in formation with them as they chase after him. When it came time for the F-22s to attack Megatron we see two from the right of the screen and two from the left so one of those four F-22s had to have been Starscream. Granted, this movie had a lot of problems keeping shot to shot continuity (even with Sam's pants) so I don't expect the number of F-22s to be consistent.

[Bounty]

Is it just me, or are blockbusters all getting way to fucking long these days? I remember back when a movie was over in und'er two hours and not dragged out for eons.

I've seen Transformers. It's an hour-and-a-half of good movie wrapped in a two-and-a-quarter hour bad one. There's so much baggage they could've cut to make this a better film: most of the Mikaela introduction (why not just put a placard that says "imagine 20 minutes of stock teenage romance drama"?), the entire hacker subplot along with the Australian bimbo and the annoying fat guy, the nonsense in the bunker with the Frenzy attack and all of the S7 dude's lines.

What's left when you cut out that rind is a very good-looking robot flick that suffers from setupitis. If you're doing a Transformers movie, you make sure it has plenty of hot robot action, not an hour of chihuahua jokes and deleted scenes from American Pie. Think about it: Sam's mother, glorified prop that she is, has more lines than Megatron and Starscream combined. If that doesn't scream "poor script balance" I don't know what does.

This needed a few more script rewrites and a recut. Other than that, it was fun and the final battle worked.

[SylasGaunt]

The one thing that I don't get by that theory is if that was starscream's intent, why did he fire on the f-22s in the first place?

Two possible reasons..

1.) Deniability ('Look see I was blowing them out of the air so why would I shoot at our beloved leader')

2.) He fucking hates humans per the Ghosts of Yesterday prequel novel. A human ship had the nerve to shoot him and actually ruin his best shot ever at killing Optimus Prime himself and cementing his leadership of the decepticons... oh that and we're the ones who spilled the beans as to where Megatron was not long after he'd had to fight blackout in a duel for leadership which further shakes up his ability to remain in charge.