Amph The Transformers. More than meets the eye!

The problem is, I can't think of any directors who would be willing to even touch this franchise after Bay has already "left his mark" all over it. It would have to be someone who knows how to do good, visually impressive action sequences, but knows when to reign things in if need be(unlike Bay, who seems to fly off the handle and go wild, if he doesn't have a producer or someone to watch over him). It would also have to be someone who could respect the source material and the Transformers lore and not simply use it for the sake of creating tons of explosions with a weak storyline. They also need to be able to give ample screen time and character development for the robots themselves, so the movie won't be just ""HUMANS!: also featuring some transforming robots". Maybe James Cameron(with someone else writing the script)could be a possibility. If only he wasn't busy working on "Dances With Smurfy Cats" 2 and 3, lol.

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the close resemblance to the animated series episodes that comprise 'Megatron's Master Plan'.

I guess Sentinel Prime's betrayal replaces the propaganda, and the Decepticons are replacing Earth with Cybertron rather than taking the humans as slaves but once the Autobots are thought to be out of the way the Decepticons soon show their true colours.

Heck you even have the 'Jet Engines' Spike, Chip and Sparkplug heard but then soon get blown out of the sky before the Autobots come back and do the job properly.

Back to the movie, didn't Ironhide die again? I'm sure he karked it in the first movie too? Why crumble into dust, by the way, Optimus didn't in part 2, it seems like it was just done to negate the use of the matrix rather than just explain that it can't be used again due to lack of energon or something.

The 'bots who died in the movie were never touched upon again, not even mentioned.

 

Jazz was the one who died in the first movie, although Ironhide DID die in the original 1986 animated movie. The reason Ironhide crumbled up was that Sentinel Prime used some kind of special rust cannon to kill him. He only used it once, for some reason though.

 

Cheers guys, I've since googled and got more detail

 

Well just saw it. Liked it, thought it was good, give it an 8/10.

Some issues though...

Megatron... can Michael Bay do anything with his character that doesn't involve him being subservient to another bad guy? This is Megatron, Megatron does not kneel to another, Megatron doesn't serve another, Megatron doesn't take crap from another. Do you know what Megatron does? Megatron conquers, Megatron destroys, Megatron will create desolation and call it peace. But Megatron most certainly does not sit and sulk in the middle of a battle about not being in charge and only get out of it because a human has to yell at him for being pathetic.

Optimus and the Autobots, it's been established they don't take prisoners and it's pretty reasonable. The Decepticons are to dangerous to be left alive. But when you have the Decepticons policy be to take prisoners and make a human have to tell them to execute them... it just... it just doesn't feel right.

The US military metaphorically ripping out the Decepticons skulls and then beating them to death with them. Now I love watching the US military do that to bad guys, but still... And I know realistically that would be what would happen to giant Robots that have no tactics whatsoever and stand around in the open all the time. But it just makes any Decepticon invasion seem pathetic. Once the military moved in the Decepticons got their metal butts kicked to kingdom come.

The Autobots nearly all taken prisoner offscreen. How? Wouldn't they... I don't know fight to the death or something?

Shockwave, or lack of any characterization of Shockwave.

Soundwave sounding like Dr. Claw, I mean they couldn't make him sound more like the 80s version? I mean it shouldn't have been that hard.

Things I really liked

Optimus has a trailer.

Optimus does not take prisoners or show mercy. You betray him? He double taps a fusion shotgun to your head. You his enemy and want a truce? He rips your head and spine out Predator style. This Optimus will do anything to defend freedom and rights of all sentient beings, and if you stand against that, He. Will. Kill. You.

Sam doing something useful. Would've liked it better had Sam actually beat that Dylan guys skull out with that concrete club rather than letting him just get electrocuted and die.

Everything else in the movie was pretty good too. Though this really sets up Unicron creating Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps. Optimus seems tired and disillusioned, have him retire into exile and have some new Autobot named Hot Rod have to take over only to have Optimus come back and save the day from Unicron. It'll need to be over 2 movies at least.

 

I'd love to see Hotrod ascend to Rodimus in live-action, none of the movies indicate what being a prime is, is it something your 'born' as, something you're turned into, etc.

I'm looking forward to Josh Duhamel cruising around in an Exo-Suit!

 

Yeah I know Welker did Soundwave and Shockwave. But his name is Soundwave, if he's not a tape cassette, boombox then the only thing that makes his name make sense for him is if his voice has that awesome voice. I mean he has no real Soundwaveness in the movie. And did anyone hear any of Shockwave's dialogue? Cause I could not understand anything he said.

Also, since they explicitly said in this movie that the Matrix of Leadership is the only thing that can restore a Transformer to life are we to assume that Optimus resurrects the dead Autobots like Q, Ironhide seems to be to far gone being just dust. I mean what's his excuse if he doesn't? Ratchet can just weld the bodies back together and Prime taps em with the Matrix and BOOM their back right? Heck Jazz's body is probably still chilling at the bottom of the ocean too.

Also Sentinel turning down the Matrix seems odd. Wouldn't he like to have that extra power? Or maybe he was worried that the Matrix would sense his motives and reject him prompting Optimus to realize he was evil.

Also, the Autobots don't care that Cybertron just got obliterated? I mean you'd think they would be a little sad that their home just got the 2009 Star Trek Vulcan treatment.

 

this movie started out very, very good for me, then it really fell apart. it's like there's two movies here. the one with the transformers, and the one with the humans. jar jar is annonying??? are you serious. the people in this movie are so incredibly annyoying. by the second half of the movie i had lost interest.
it seems there's more and more movies where annoying is substituted for funny. i cheered when one guy got thrown out a window. shia? what a weird person. i'd hit the guy in real life.

 

Well finally got around to seeing the movie and... yeah, it was just as bad as I had heard/feared. I happened to read the novelization before the movie came out, and I'm really disappointed at how much they changed for the final movie. Of course it also helped that the novelization was written by a better author than the movie likely had.

Sadly I think this is the worst of the three movies. RotF was bad, but at least there were a few good moments (like Optimus vs. three Decepticons). Here the sorta good moments were spoiled by pointlessly cutting to the humans watching the fight scenes and at times seemed like an abridged version (like when were the Autobots captured?). Not to mention not only do we not get to see Optimus equip his flight gear (or even get back his trailer instead wasting time on random explosions), then he spends like half the final battle tangled up in some wires before someone helps him out. It doesn't help that the novelization had a much more epic sounding final fight (Optimus losing, then Megatron jumps in and the both of them take on Sentinel and still not able to beat him, but then Optimus manages to get hold of his rust gun and takes out Sentinel).

Not to mention being the worst portrayal of a Megatron ever. I had thought the second movie was bad, but this is far worse, he's just lying there pathetically after Sentinel knocks him down. And ugh, there's always these awkward actions between humans that are the movies' attempt at humor, but this one really wasted a lot of time on it (ugh, the parents are back). And in the novelization Megatron basically gave up after Sentinel was dead, he was tired of war and was simply going to go back to Cybertron and rebuild. In the movie he doesn't have that much development, since he still obviously wants to be in charge after Sentinel is down, but still, he offers a truce and Optimus rips his head off? Oh well, at least that's the last of the live action movies and this direction (hopefully).

I still Animated (especially since there were apparently plans for a Powermaster Optimus if there had been a fourth season), but the Prime cartoon hasn't been so bad.

 

There was a forth season of the original show.

Granted, it was only 3 episodes...

 

Um... not sure if we're joking or being sarcastic or there's some misunderstanding, but I meant the Cartoon Network Transformers Animated series that ended back in 2009. Not the original 1980s G1 cartoon. The Allspark Almanac II had some designs from what could've been a season 4 if the show hadn't been cancelled. The current Prime cartoon hasn't been that bad (not my favorite, but still definitely better than the movies), but its only in its first season so it usually takes a Transformers cartoon a while to really get moving.

And nah, don't care about Headmasters, a bit too old-school Japanese for me. Although still debating about buying that DVD set since they finally released one, but probably not.

 

I watched the first dozen or so of the 80s Japanese headmaster cartoon.
It was...
um...
OK, I guess, but not very good. Or interesting. Just didn't have the right feel to it. And definitely didn't have the voices.
And the need to have a narrator explain everything instead of the characters or dialog doing it...

Eh.
Better than the energon anime crap, but not worth watching.

 

I've finally watched the entirety of the Transformers Prime episodes that have aired. Up to "One Shall Rise Part 1". I've usually enjoyed that this is one of the more serious show in history of Transformers, but the recent revelations in this episode have suddenly sort of (in a sense) turned this show into arguably the darkest entry in the transformers franchise ever.

Although given the tone of the episode itself hasn't seemed to shift too much more than usual, I'm not sure if the show itself appears to realize that. In the latest episode it was revealed that Unicron was actually the Earth. The story goes that after Primus finally defeated Unicron he cast him out never to be heard form again. Apparently Unicron's dormant body became the Earth's core and when the solar system was forming, debris coalesced around him and formed the Earth. It is revealed that the Earth's mantle is composed of dark energon, which is Unicorn's corrosive blood that corrupts the living and raises the cybertronian dead. Ratchet says that the Earth's very minerals are extensions of Unicron himself and serve as his limbs. He appears to be able to manifest himself in the Earth's structure, so I would assume the implication is planet is mostly an extension of him. His awakening was causing massive world-wide earthquakes, storms and volcanoes.

Optimus Prime even refers to humanity as Unicron's children while attempting to appeal to him to not to fully awaken and destroy them. Unicron doesn't see it that way and describes us as parasites. And to be honest, I'm not so sure one can say he's incorrect. That's honestly a surprisingly disturbing notion to put forward in such a show, I was certainly shocked. It also seems to present a view of our world that I honestly don't remember seeing before in sci-fi. Normally I'd expect that people think of the Earth as a positive life giving haven for humans, not the dormant shell of the embodiment of all chaos and destruction.

 

Red Dwarf:
"Why does everything have to be such a big mystery. Maybe the we're just like some kind of disease, you know. That's why all the other planets give us such a wide berth. 'Oh, don't go near Earth--It's got human beings.' Like we're space measles or something. "
"You've just said you're the equivalent of an inter-galactic pus-sore. I couldn't agree more."

"What's so great about being human, anyway."
"Don't knock it until you've tried it."

"That's the irony, isn't it? Lister, the ultimate atheist, turns out to be God."

 

I think it's more than just that. I kinda just figured it was rather unusual that the very same planet that gave us life in the first place is actually evil and actively trying to kill us and everyone else too for that matter. It's like the reverse of the "save the world" storyline. Sort of.

 

Well, Doctor Who had the Arachnos vessel form the core of the Earth...

And the Jaggorath space ship exploding to spark the beginning of life on Earth...

Yeah, not quite the same, I guess.