Amph The Transformers. More than meets the eye!

That's actually a very good concept that could have worked in the movies, seeing as it would lessen the need for so many human characters and make more time for the robots themselves. It also makes sense that the autobots would have their main ally be a human who is in or has ties to the military and would be a great asset to help battle the decepticons. Too bad Bay didn't take a page from this and made Sam a soldier or something, seeing as Bay loves the military so much(not that there's anything wrong with that).

 

It's a growing trend. The Dalek invasion here saw them speaking a non-eng language t the native country.

 

That concept could have worked as well. Don't get me wrong, I liked the first movie, but the only big issue I had with it was that there were too many human characters. I understand why it was done(there needed to be a kind of human POV, plus they didn't know whether or not the CGI for the robots would be successful), but the Transformers themselves were almost like supporting characters in their own movie. Really, the only human characters that were necessary to the story were Sam/"Spike", the two army guys,(if you want to get technical, these two could have been condensed down into one character), the Jon Voight character(Secretary of Defense), possibly the Sector Seven agent(tone down the goofball attitude and have him be a little more professional), and Megan Fox(she's Sam's girlfriend, and let's be honest, we gotta have some eye candy!). That boils it down to six main human characters. The two hackers(the austrailian chick and Anthony Anderson) were irrelevant in the movie after a certain point and became dead weight/and or merely comic relief. That subplot chould have been Jon Voight and his team trying to figure things out and he could have been the one to discover Sector Seven. Hopefully, with what I hear about the second film, there's more robots and less humans this time around, so it looks like Bay heeded the advice of the fans.

 

I preferred the blonde as well, but while watching recent promotional material of Shia and Megan, the two seem to have pretty good chemistry with each other, like in these interviews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSyIIYC9l2Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DULe-0fQI0

 

um, if people seriously expected good acting in this movie, need I remind you, it's Transformers, it's a Bay film and it's based on a toy franchise and it's about giant robots. I'm just going to enjoy it for it is, a mindless summer action movie, but with Megan Fox, she might not be able to act, but that's not why she's in the movie.

 

My expectations for a TF movie are pretty much what we got on screen. It bolis down to two groups of giant shape-shifting robots who don't like each other and try to solve their differences with heavy ordinance.

And to be honest, it was actually rather nice to see the military be relevant in the grand scheme of things. I liked most of the human characters, too. yeah, drop the hackers, but keep Megan, Shia, the two army guys... hell, I'd have more soldiers be relevant. And the SecDef was slaggin' awesome.

Okay... going off the movie. There was the greatest moments thread. So... what do you consider the greatest moments in Transformers? I'll see some responses before I comment myself.

 

The best moments in Transformers:

1. The opening: When the MH-53J Pave Low III touched down, transformed, and then wreaked havoc on the U.S. base, I was captivated. Blackout was so aggressive and intimidating, and it looked so REAL. I knew right there I was in for a special action film.

2. Arrival of the Autobots: Steve Jablonsky's Hans Zimmer-esque score made this scene a dreamlike quality. It also went a long way in "humanizing" (for lack of a better term) these beings.

3.The Battle of Mission City: The amount of depth and attention to detail to this scene is off the charts. It's the payoff to a two-plus hour ride.

4. Captain Lennox: This was the name of the Joe in the G.I. Joe/Transformers Marvel comic, so I got excited.

5. The American Military being portrayed as liberators, and not functional idiots, half-wits, rapists, or murderers. The film also gave a face to the people fighting alongside the military in the Middle East (the boy and his village were great touches).

I love this film.

 

Actually... I was talking about the franchise as a whole. But those are some great moments!

 

In other words, Giant You-Know-What-Word'ing Robots Kicking The You-Know-What-Word out of one another.

Not really a fan of that. I mean, when it comes to Transformers, you know that no matter what else it is, it's mostly a vehicle to sell the toys at your local store. Most of the time, though, it's a lot more subtle than this. I mean, they might as well have had him say, "Hey, kids! There's a repaint of my toy! Go buy it!" It more or less gets the same point across.

Not really a fan of this, either. (Then again, anything about AHM isn't likely to be on my list of likeable things.) I mean, Shane's writing is all over the place, and nowhere is it more obvious than it is here. I mean, we're supposed to believe that Omega managed to survive being destroyed on account of this? Seriously?

 

Yeah, I get the awesomeness of it, but to me, the awesomeness is kinda dulled by the fact that it's meant to sell a repaint. (Which, BTW, only kinda sorta works anyway, because the thing was exclusive to Target...or Zellers, if you live in Canada.)

 

I faked illness to leave work early last night, and snuck over to the midnight showing -- one of SIX screens that were completely sold out!

I'm not as familiar with the Transformer mythos as many of you are, so the differences between Michael Bay's universe and what's established doesn't really effect me. That being said, I am a HUGE fan of the first film, and now I can officially say, the Revenge of the Fallen as well.

As a previous poster wrote, the plot can be a bit overbearing at times, but I'll take that. Not many films -- especially action pics -- sacrifice the streamlined three-act screenplay structure and loosen up a bit. Of course in doing this, there is a greater danger of losing the narrative, but thankfully Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script never lost sight of its intentions -- even if it tended to wander a bit at times.

But that's cool because in this series, that means more stuff blowing up -- and NO BODY does that better than Bay and Co. He is the Maestro of Mahem ... period. You will definitely get your money's worth when you sit down for this picture.

I'm going back with friends tonight -- can't wait.

 

2ndQuest, you just defended a Michael Bay Transformers movie. By the laws of nature (I think Hobbes might have mentioned something about it), you are not allowed to ever say anything bad about the prequels or TCW. Ever.

 

You can have those problems in a conventional three-act structured script as well. I don't know what contradictory bits and plot turns you're referring to in this film, but the reason I applauded the screenwriters was for the fact that they loosened matters up a bit to get a more free-wheeling feel to the pic.

I'm seeing it again tonight, so maybe I'll see what points you illustrate.

 

Which essentially... Transformers is. It all boils down to Autobot/Maximal/Cybertron against Decepticon/Predacon/Destron with big explosions and improbable size-changing, with the Matrix, Unicron, Primus and some mythos thrown in.

Anyway... my picks for some of the best TF moments.

MTMTE: The original three-part series premiere of G1. Good lord how this has held up well. Some awesome character moments, not just with the Autobots but the Decepticons too. Smart enemies who basically won until they succumbed to their pack mentality/survival of the fittest at the end. And Cybertron is gorgeous. Completely alien and mysterious. That full shot of it rocks.

Fire in the Sky: You gotta feel for Skyfire. He wakes up, first thing he sees is his old scientist friend Starscream-WHAT??? Yes, it's Rip Van Winkle taken to the extreme. It's so sad, too. "And now I must make the transition from science to warfare." Probably what a lot of Autobots were thinking when the Great War started. And anyone notice when Starscream first found Skyfire, his voice wasn't screechy? Some very nice voicework there.

The Ultimate Doom: The ultimate three-parter, more like it. Mgeatron moves Cybertron into orbit. Mass destruction ensues. You know, the Decepticons were a lot more destructive than given credit for... and how many times did Prime's innards get blown up, again?

Spike, Sparkplug, Carlie and Chip Chase: Not a moment, but good lord these were some of the best human characters until the 2007 movie. Yeah, Spike mixed it up a bit, but he and the rest had actual knowledge useful to the Autobots. And skills, too! Watch them fix, watch them repair. Watch... Chip tear a floppy disk in half with his bare hands.

The 1986 movie: "One shall stand, one shall fall." "Prime!" "Wait, I still function..." "Wanna bet?" Epic. A bit disjointed with the slaughter of the old guard-which the creators admit to being a mistake! Introduced major components into the mythos like the Matrix and Unicron.

Beast Wars: Pretty much the entire series. Revived the franchise in the US and set new standards. Not afraid for the bad guys to win one and for them to cause major damage.

Code of Hero: The episode which crowns Transformers as Dinobot accepts his fate, brining his two-season arc to a close as Megatron attempts slaggin' genocide on humanity. Dinobot's solo charge against the Predacon army will forever be one of the most badass moments in TF. And his final sacrifice and eath, one of the saddest.

The Agenda "Decepticons forever!" Yes, Ravage. Decepticons forever. Holy cow, the Ark! "Die-cast contruction-it's a lost art." Ties BW into G1 and made it good. And one of the biggest cliffhangers ever. "And you... YOU. No. Longer. Exist!"

Which left fans like me going, "Did Megatron just shoot Prime in the face and kill him?" *Flashes back to 1986 and theaters across the country*

Rathcet in the Marvel comics: I know this is the TV/Movie forum, but I gotta say this. Especially since there's no TF comics thread there. Anyway... ratchet just kicked butt. In a lot of ways, he was more Autobot than Prime. He stood up to Megatron, retrieved the Dinobots, helped them defeat Shockwave, knocked Megs out of commission, rebuilt the team almost single-handedly, faced off again against Megs in the Pretender arc, knocked him and Megs into a portal, attempting to trap the two in limbo forever. When revived and separaetd-don't ask-and eventually woken up, Starscream taunts him and ratchet goes berzerk, knocking Starscream away and sedning the Ark int

 

saw it, thought it was pretty good and the only to see this movie is in IMAX, it's great in Imax.

 

"bad ideas and bad writing"? Sounds like the Star Wars Prequels to me.

 

I saw it this morning and I have to say that I liked it. It was a fun action adventure movie and, really, what more could I ask for?

I guess I'll get the gripes over with first:

Too many humping scenes.

I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see more of Arcee and Ratchet.

Megatron answering to a master didn't make a whole lot of sense and, I agree, was completely out of character.

And I totally could have gone my whole life without seeing John Turturro's ass and I would have been perfectly happy

What else I liked:

The action was great even if the plot was kind of hard to follow. Who needs a story when you have giant explosions?

I don't normally like slapstick humor but the twins kind of grew on me.

Megatron slapping Starscream around was damn awesome

Prime executing that Decepticon at the begining was also quite awesome.

Aliens built the pyramids

My question is:

I don't recall this being mentioned in the movie, or maybe I'm just dense, but.... So does this mean that the Allspark didn't make it to Earth by chance? Does anyone else think it was somehow drawn to Earth because of the other Primes and the Matrix?