Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Spoiler ahoy!)

[neoolong]

Because the Autobots are the good guys and respect the choices of the natives?

I do kinda wonder though, if the Canadian and the British guys in NEST mean that the UK and Canada are aware of the Transformers, or China for that matter. If so, yeah, I could see them extending an invitation to stay in Canada or something if they got kicked out of the US.

It seems a bit odd that they didn't keep the weapons from the defeated decepticons, unless the Autobots made them dump them in the trench as well.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

But as jetfire mentioned that he had a mother and a father and we saw baby transformers and that Optimus is a descendant I'm wondering how the life cycle of the bots works.

Stuff like a Transformer's life cycle and reproduction (and family) are some of a number of physiology-related issues that have never really been explicitly resolved.

Also wasn't the bots in the comics millions of years old verse the few thousands in the movie?

Throughout Generation 1's various continuities (Marvel, TV, Dreamwave, IDW) they're often millions of years in age. Megatron, for example, has been depicted several times as being at least ten million years old by the present.

[Solauren]

Wow, that was an awesome movie (saw it last night).

I was surprised they had a female Dec. Pretender in the movie. I was almost expecting her to turn into a mechanical spider when chasing Sam.

[Themightytom]

"I'm standing directly under the alien's scrotum"?? Seriously?
I would have enjoyed this movie more if there weren't ten yr olds in front of me hearing language that was unneccesary and appaling :-p
Spoiler

Also iff the ending wasn't a COMPLETE visual rip off of the first, they really copped out on the last twenty minutes, I suspect the ran out of movie, hence the during- the- credits scenes.

Bonus points for jefire's comment "You know what my grandaddy was? A wheel. The wheel. the FIRST wheel. What did he transform into? NOTHING and that was good enough for him."

I've put a lot of time into concceptualizing stupid transformers, and a wheel was one of the best, followed closely by a broom.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

The films seems to be continuously sending a subliminal message that humans are just creatively bankrupt in the technological innovation department since virtually every major invention from the wheel to modern day electronics came directly from the Transformers.

[SAMAS]

"I'm standing directly under the alien's scrotum"?? Seriously?
I would have enjoyed this movie more if there weren't ten yr olds in front of me hearing language that was unneccesary and appaling :-p

Hey! "Scrotum" is a perfectly acceptable word!

But, IIRC, isn't the movie PG-13?

Can't say much about that myself, though, seeing as I accompanied my sister and four-year-old nephew...

The films seems to be continuously sending a subliminal message that humans are just creatively bankrupt in the technological innovation department since virtually every major invention from the wheel to modern day electronics came directly from the Transformers.

Mayhaps you're taking that a little too literally...

[Pint0 Xtreme]

The films seems to be continuously sending a subliminal message that humans are just creatively bankrupt in the technological innovation department since virtually every major invention from the wheel to modern day electronics came directly from the Transformers.

Mayhaps you're taking that a little too literally...

That was supposed to be taken as seriously as this movie.

[Stark]

Look, the best part is that xyz% of our tech is based on theirs, and yet they have no armies of tanks, no starships, no non-infantry equipment (except themselves) and they get raped by our stuff. That makes them pretty goddamn stupid, really, and us WAY smarter. They have ludicrous tech (at-will reformating, liquid metal, eight million triangles with no actuation magically rearranging and elementally transmutating) but seriously try to shiv each other with helicopter tailblades.

It's almost like their power levels are poorly thought out and contrived to fit the plot, really.

[neoolong]

They have starships. It's in the movie, and is the Fallen's base.

[Stark]

Good thing they prefer falling from the sky to dominating the planet I guess? Doesn't alter the disparity between their ludicrous scientific capablities and their pretty poor combat performance - or the hilarity of them apparently being tech-static whilst we've used their shit to build things that beat them.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

The films seems to be continuously sending a subliminal message that humans are just creatively bankrupt in the technological innovation department since virtually every major invention from the wheel to modern day electronics came directly from the Transformers.

Mayhaps you're taking that a little too literally...

Maybe, but I noticed a pattern in a lot of the films and television written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman:

1. The Island: "Cloning is bad; clones need life experience or they die!"
2. Transformers: "All modern technology comes from reverse engineering alien technology!"(Originally, they were going to keep Megatron in Area 52)
3. Fringe- "Pseudoscience is real!"
4. Aliens built the pyramids and Graham Hancock was right about the pyramids being over 12,000 years old and being patterned after Orion's belt!

They've also been attached to a 2012 movie before the one we know about entered production, and they're producing an Atlantis one as well, not to mention the horrible science in Star Trek.

So I asked him about it:
http://www.donmurphy.net/board/showpost ... ount=22401

Whatever happened to the days when people would be embarrassed to admit what he says unless on a forum that talks about all that shit? But I find it endlessly fascinating that I've never seen a clearer pattern from a writer and his CV, and that his answer showed I only scratched the surface.

[neoolong]

Good thing they prefer falling from the sky to dominating the planet I guess? Doesn't alter the disparity between their ludicrous scientific capablities and their pretty poor combat performance - or the hilarity of them apparently being tech-static whilst we've used their shit to build things that beat them.

True, although I wonder what types of weapons are on board the various ships they have. But that would be trying to defend the movie.

As for the reference to Fringe, in the novelization the Mission City event was covered up as a screw-up involving autonomous defense vehicles made by Massive Dynamics.

[Stark]

It seems possible that they don't actually understand their biology. They can reformat (which may be a software function) and Prime can glue bits on, but perhaps they can't simply apply the principles of their biology to other vehicles.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I had the impression that the Cybertonian aliens were on the verge of extinction so they naturally wouldn't have armies of Transformers.

[Stark]

I had the impression that the Cybertonian aliens were on the verge of extinction so they naturally wouldn't have armies of Transformers.

All the more reason to build ubertech tanks and spaceships, to reduce casualities.

Perhaps they have a religious opposition to non-sentient machines, which means humans are better by virtue of justing building hundred of tanks.

[neoolong]

It seems possible that they don't actually understand their biology. They can reformat (which may be a software function) and Prime can glue bits on, but perhaps they can't simply apply the principles of their biology to other vehicles.

The thing is that we see some transformers with projectile weapons. Where does Starscream get reloads for his missiles? Did he get them from the humans or are they Cybertronian. Unless his body just poops out Raptor missiles.

[SylasGaunt]

The question is what kind of industrial base do they have left. They've been blowing the hell out of each other so long that their world is wrecked beyond the point they consider it livable.

[Stark]

And they can elementally transmute, reformat on the fly, and move millions of triangles without actuators. If they're too stupid to build things, that just proves the 'humans aren't so dumb' argument for me.

Neo, I was considering that, and it's wierd. Some of them seem to have 'external' guns (like Starscreams' missiles) but many have 'internal' transforming hands etc. Maybe this is a function of their ability to reformat? You'd think they'd all have changed their design to 'giant guns' by this point, then, while this isn't the case.

[Molyneux]

The question is what kind of industrial base do they have left. They've been blowing the hell out of each other so long that their world is wrecked beyond the point they consider it livable.

And given that they don't require atmosphere to survive, that's really fucking bad. Maybe the Transformers we've seen are all radioactive for a similar reason...

[Stark]

I guess that's why none of them have weapons anywhere near powerful enough to do that, then?

It's more likely that it's like the other continuities; they broke everything and ran out of power. Don't they even expressly state throwing away the Matrix caused an energy crisis?

[Ford Prefect]

Yeah. The Primes got rid of the Matrix, resulting in PEAK ENERGON for 12,000 years, eventually resulting in the quest across space to find the All Spark. No energon, no spaceships, only the weapons which their 'biology' can support, no real industry, no new Autobots or Decepticons etc.

[Stark]

But how does that make sense? Their biology clearly accepts local sources of power, so why couldn't they have spent 12,000 years BUILDING A POWER PLANT?

I was also under the impression the it was Optimus that jacked out the Matrix and Megs immediately chased it (but fell in a hole in the ice because he's cataclysmically retarded). Tie-in comics are awful.

[Ford Prefect]

But how does that make sense?

Well, it doesn't. Its fairly clear that they're just kung fu robots, as opposed to a functioning society with a sensible technological base. I mean the Transformers don't need energon (an energy like no other!) to function, but God knows what they were using when barreling through space for centuries at a time.

[Stark]

I think they're more pro-wrestling robots, really. What they AREN'T is smarter than people (or society as a whole at least).

[Ford Prefect]

Pound for pound they are ludicrously superior in terms of capability (IE. Optimus Prime >> Abrams tank), but its not like they built themselves - they were born that way. The Fallen's ability to teleport isn't something they invented, for example. Pretty much all their technology is probably cribbed from the All Spark, much like how Sam knew shitloads about relativity and energon during his spaz attacks, so they've probably never had to actually develop technology, and just built shit like the sun blammer from 'memory'. I mean, the fact that humans could look at MEGATRON and them somehow invent a TOASTER based on him is actually really impressive.