Transformers Again

[Bill]

I caved and got a ticket to the midnight showing. The reviews say that the story is almost nonexistent, the actors are as mechanical as the robots, and Michael Bay's directing won't entertain anyone other than those juvenile enough to sit through 147 minutes of explosions, Megan Fox in short shorts, and digital baddassery. I'm pretty sure I'll love it. Even those who gave it a thumbs down say that the effects are awesome.

Anyone else going tonight?

[Dusty]

Haha...anyone worried about the story is watching the wrong movie, in my opinion. It'd be like someone who'd watch Pride and Prejudice going to watch the last Rambo movie. You gotta be able to handle a certain degree of "non-story" and just wait for the beats of the movie to take place (i.e. effects, explosions, action, etc.).

My criteria is this:
1) Are their robots?
2) Do they transform?
3) Do they fight?

If that criteria is met, I will enjoy it.
I missed out on the midnight, but I will be seeing it tomorrow.

As a massive Transformers fan of all generations of fiction and toys...I can't wait.

-D

[burning_chrome]

Sorry Bill, but after I found out Bay & co. made Jetfire into a geriatric transforming SR-71 found sitting in the Smithsonian, I simply refuse to give that man any more of my moving viewing money.

Digital badassery and skull-crushing explosions start feeling more and more akin to getting hit with a giant CG mallet in the hopes of inducing non-invasive lobotomization after the 3rd car chase/explosion scene.

[Bill]

Car chases? Really? Oh this is going to be just great... "I'm as happy as a little girl..."

edit... apparently some leeked/bootleg footage making the rounds. I hope it doesn't get me banned. Now if you'll excuse me I need to put the finishing touches on my Scarpanukk costume. Yeehawww!!!

[Zweit]

Word is that there's very little action, lots of bad attempts at comedy, and just a ton of filler in general. Oh, and more racism.

Yeah, I won't be giving this my money.

[Bill]

Yeah, having seen the flick now I can say that the twins are pretty bad.

As far as the movie... amazing effects, drop dead gorgeous girls, loud music and some of the biggest explosions ever.

Storywise, not a spoiler I think, to say that there is a mystic 'thingy' that the bad guys need to blow up the world, and the good guys need in order to save it. The first half of the movie is play time which is honestly fun as hell. The second half of the movie is looking for the thingy and fighting over it. If you go to the theater and find yourself needing to go to the bathroom, wait until they get to the Smithsonian. It's a slow spot.

I was surprised at some of the language and this installment is definitely less kid-friendly than the first. The twins characterization will probably put some people off as well.

As an aside, there was a preview for Avatar- the last airbender. Looks good.

[Arshes Nei]

The only thing that's "Worth it" is paying half price and going to see how bad it is...so you can trash the hell out of it. MST3k material. Seriously.

http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/2009...fallen-review/

[SMILEFACE]

i thought it was RAD lots of entertainment ' an looked awsome!

[Dusty]

I didn't think the movie was even half as bad as critics are saying it is.
It's a dumb, action filled popcorn movie.....that's about it.

In fact, it's basically the exact same thing as the first movie, only dialed up to 11. If the first movie is a slice and a half of cake, this movie is the whole damn cake. A little (a lot, heh) too much in one sitting, but it's still a good cake.It deserves criticism for the "dumb" parts, but I really don't think it deserves the internet railing it's getting. If you went in expecting...I dunno....anything other than what it is, you set your expectations too high. But then again...I'm a giant Transformers fan. I'm probably more accepting of flaws that most.

*shrug*, I thought the twins were funny.

-D

[Arshes Nei]

I'll disagree because of the fact that a lot of the first movie was more of a discovery. In fact, the flaw reminds me the same suffering Heroes has. The first season was exciting discovering new powers and such, and following seasons, they were scrambling to keep it interesting.

Seeing the Autobots and Decepticons exist was the discovery that held well enough in the first movie. Since the "honeymoon" has passed it seems more like a spaghetti on the wall fest.

The other Autobots while in the first film had small intros, you could pick up a bit of each character. That's off the plate, and instead of seeing more of those characters and developing them, they threw in new characters that you *didn't* want to see and gave them MORE screen time than the MAIN Autobots...wtf?

Yes there is more of the same and extended, in some respects, but a lot of what I came back for was missing. I wanted to see more of the other autobots introduced in the first and they just...went MIA.

I enjoyed the first movie, but this sequel was terrible and incomprehensible...not to mention unnecessarily long.

[Dusty]

I'll definitely agree that the first movie was "new" so it had the discovery aspect...but I don't think that's a pedestal for it to stand on. Rewatch it, then rewatch the 2nd. Same meal, different portion.

But clearly lots of people didn't like it...not going to argue that.
However, it seems if you go anywhere besides the internet...lots enjoyed it too. Our theater was rolling with clapping, laughter, cheering and on the way out, the majority of folks seemed to like it.

The only thing I didn't like was what you mentioned...the new characters didn't get very good introductions. I didn't think the opening segment of the movie introduced them well at all and Sideswipe (the silver car with the sword arms) deserved a LOT more. He looked really cool. Also...I have to say Prime needed to be in the movie more.

But overall, the parts I liked outweighed the parts I didn't like.

[Arshes Nei]

Ok, I went back and did what you said, and still disagree.

The thing about the first movie is you did get to see two different director's takes on the movie melded into one.

Spielberg had the boy and his car, Bay the military aspect. In an odd way it worked.

You can see the friendship develop among Bumblebee and Sam. You got good introductions and character designs that were seen well enough to distinguish the Autobots. I knew who Ironhide, Ratchet, Jazz and Bumblebee were and could tell them apart. And while the Decepticons in both features were harder to tell apart other than "blue eyes" and "red eyes" at least in the first movie I could pick up the personalities of the other Autobots.

What's funny is Jazz said one really "Black" line stereotype but it was to set up where the Autobots were learning the language in an amusing way. If you look at the rest of the movie Jazz at least spoke the rest of his lines not as "offensively" as the first line that people bitch about.

The twins on the other hand... and damn those guys are in the movie way too long but have no idea who the hell was Skids and Mudflap and had to be reminded of their names, and I still can't tell who was who. 100% offensive all the way. There are times when an off switch was needed. I don't mind the bits and pieces of it here but yeah it was rather offensive, especially along with their appearances. That was terrible.

After all that development of their military comrades...they were a footnote in this film, you'd think at least you could see a developing relationship with them and Ironhide or at least the other autobots working directly with them. I wasn't asking for much, I mean you can see how everyone bounced off each other in the first one even with stereotypes. It was mostly them running around yelling "WHOA" as explosions came around in the second one and none of the interaction. They may has well just been bystanders ...what's the point of having them in if you can't even TRY to develop the relationships amongst the humans. They're supposed to protect the human race yet all of it seemed like they really weren't there. At least the first film does take that into account.

The plot was confusing, and the villain wasn't even something I could honestly fear, I was just wondering when and how they'd get rid of the dude, unlike Megatron.

Sams Parents were somewhat the same and different, mother was always a bit kooky but she didn't come off as the swearing type. While language doesn't exactly bother me, it bothered me when she swore....it seemed unlike her to be honest.

So for about the 2.5 hours, I could only enjoy maybe about 1 hour of it at most. There were scenes that I did like but there were so many that I hated and didn't help that they wanted to make the movie that long.

[OmenSpirits]

Haha...anyone worried about the story is watching the wrong movie, in my opinion. It'd be like someone who'd watch Pride and Prejudice going to watch the last Rambo movie. You gotta be able to handle a certain degree of "non-story" and just wait for the beats of the movie to take place (i.e. effects, explosions, action, etc.).

My criteria is this:
1) Are their robots?
2) Do they transform?
3) Do they fight?

If that criteria is met, I will enjoy it.
I missed out on the midnight, but I will be seeing it tomorrow.

As a massive Transformers fan of all generations of fiction and toys...I can't wait.

-D

BLASPHEMY!

BEAST WARS DOES NOT COUNT!

lol

[James Kei]

best review ever.

http://io9.com/5301898/michael-bay-f...yline=true&s=i

[Dusty]

BLASPHEMY!

BEAST WARS DOES NOT COUNT!

lol

Actually, most Transformers fans who have followed Transformers beyond just the original Generation 1 characters consider Beast Wars to be the best in terms of story (tv series) and toys as well (innovations in transformations and posability).

It's a personal favorite of mine as well.

[ruzkard]

I saw the midnight release of the movie and found some interesting things to go along with the racial undertones put off as comedy. The one thing that bugged me the most was the amount of violence in this film compared to the last one and focusing most of the movie on the battles between the Autobots and Decepticons. Granted one would expect the first movie in a series to be more centralized on building the story but the sequels should still carry a coherent series of events instead of just having people run away from giant explosions. Back to the violence, the most graphic parts of the first film were when Optimus decapitated Bonecrusher and when Jazz was torn in half by Megatron. Those two sequences pale in comparison the the second film. In just about every fight one of the robots ended up being decapitated, impaled, or dismembered in some way. I know a lot of people would just brush this off as being an anti- Transformers/ Michael Bay rant but the following statements were just a realization I had while watching the film. I compared the amount of animated violence in this film to those of completely live action (based in reality/ ex.- Saving Private Ryan) movies and it seemed as though the developers took advantage of the knowledge that the robots aren't real, so they beat the shit out of them in every scene. If you compared this film to Saving Private Ryan (a film about World War II) in terms of amount of gore and violence then I say Revenge of the Fallen is far gorier and violent. I feel the goriest part of Saving Private Ryan was when the U.S. was storming the beaches of Normandy and a soldier ran back to pick up his severed arm, however it is a war film so a certain degree of violence is to be expected.

[OmenSpirits]

Actually, most Transformers fans who have followed Transformers beyond just the original Generation 1 characters consider Beast Wars to be the best in terms of story (tv series) and toys as well (innovations in transformations and posability).

It's a personal favorite of mine as well.

ever see what came after the g1 (as its been dubbed)? I'm taking beyond target masters & headmasters?

GOD awful!

But BW is still crap. It wouldn't be that if they'd made that thing, prime, a different type of prime than Optimus, and the comp animation was pure garbage. Bad even for its time. Reminded me of that show off ABC, Reboot.

[Dusty]

It was the same studio that did Reboot, actually. It's probably too late now, but if you look past the CGI, the story is top notch. But since you've already made up your mind, I won't bother to change it.

Like I said, though....most consider Beast Wars the holy grail of Transformers, believe it or not, haha.

Then Beast Machines came along and while the animation got significantly better, the story was terrible.

[Max Challie]

BEAST WARS WAS THE BEST!

lol, sorry. hehe, i was in love with it when i was eight, and it was airing. Great times :3

oh, the toys!

[FightingSeraph]

I'm not going to make up my mind about Revenge of The Fallen until I've seen it. Plus, I know a lot of you will hate me for saying this, but I didn't think Beast Machines was as bad as its detractors say it is. (I've seen TV shows from both sides of the Pacific that are much worse.)

Fun Fact: Most of the Voice actors from Beast Wars, Reboot, and other Mainframe/Rainmaker stuff were also in Capcom's TV shows (Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Darkstalkers).

[Dusty]

Well, people just didn't like Beast Machines because it, along with Beast Wars are all still in the same continuity as the original series. And when they ended it by turning Cybertron into a partially organic planet and all of the remaining Transformers were changed into semi-organic hybrids...well...people didn't like that.

Understandably...it's kind of the point of Transformers. They are ROBOTS after all.

But I know what you mean....I didn't hate Beast Machines entirely. I wish the animation for it could have been done with Beast Wars. The show looked great.

[OmenSpirits]

It was the same studio that did Reboot, actually. It's probably too late now, but if you look past the CGI, the story is top notch. But since you've already made up your mind, I won't bother to change it.

Like I said, though....most consider Beast Wars the holy grail of Transformers, believe it or not, haha.

Then Beast Machines came along and while the animation got significantly better, the story was terrible.

I tried to look past the CG, really I did, but also remember, when they started BW, the whole "guns in school" thing in the US was going down, and them changing megatron to something other than a gun...for the rest of his re-incarnation, was the last straw.

Like Eco-GI joe. Remember that? Let's fight Cobra with WATER GUNS?!

very baaaaaaaddd trend.

[Kagemusha22]

My criteria is this:
1) Are their robots?
2) Do they transform?
3) Do they fight?

Oh Icarus do not fly too near the sun, or thine wings shall melt.

[George Abraham]

It was a nice way to break state, colorfull work, could have resisted some of the add'ons.



I just didn't like that Super Deluxe Supreme drawn out dramatic sequence of the movie. Oi, I mean,... get to the point already. I felt they made it to long and gave the viewer a bit too much but I suppose they might be anticipating some sort of WOW type game or something. I think there should be a rule somewhere about how long that drama music should be playing, in the Creative directing for dummies. I think if they made it a bit shorter and snappy it would have left behind a better effect but I guess they also screwed it for sequels so I guess they can kinda kill it if they want to. The big dude in the chase scene in the beginning of the movie and the vacuum cleaner was kinda cool. But c'mon, isn't trying to smear of those cars onto hiphop dudes a bit of a stretch.

It did freak me out, the art and symbology in the movie, and the fact that it's an indianna jones movie at the same time. Those couple's and the way they get along under pressure are IJ classics. But I can't help but wonder what the hey they where doing in egypt with the symbology. Not a good thing for a scizo like me to watch(Drama galore). Hehehehe!!
Like indianna Jones stuff but it didn't hit me in the first movie but the moment they went on about runes it became obvious.

And babes that hot, Cmon!!! Where did they get them? I mean, not even if mr lucky get's lucky does that stuff happen, ever..not even if a surgery on a lip job goes swell does that happen.. But it's nice eye candy... Those girls are so far fetched it makes the transformers look like non fantastical everyday stuff.

[Liam Harvey]

Someone bad mouthing beast wars? now thats blasphemy.

[Pav]

What saddens me is not that the movie is bad, but the fact that in every blog commenting section there are tons of comments like this "I actually enjoyed that", "c'mon, it's a movie about explosions", "it's an action movie, it's supposed to be dumb", "it has giant robots fighting and it's funny", "it's amazing, I'll get my friends watch it and buy on DVD".

You can't do much when people are willingly support mediocrity.

[Arshes Nei]

What saddens me is not that the movie is bad, but the fact that in every blog commenting section there are tons of comments like this "I actually enjoyed that", "c'mon, it's a movie about explosions", "it's an action movie, it's supposed to be dumb", "it has giant robots fighting and it's funny", "it's amazing, I'll get my friends watch it and buy on DVD".

You can't do much when people are willingly support mediocrity.

What gets me is that a lot of these people say they're fan of the Transformers...but they spent 10 bucks for like 2.5 hours and got maybe 5 minutes of the characters they grew up with.

I mean I don't mind them not having this high standard over an obvious cartoon made to market toys...(and I did watch Transformers as a kid).

I would think though as a fan you'd be pissed that Bay decides to give you Racial Stereotype twins for most of the movie over seeing more of the Autobots that brought back your inner 80's child.

So it's ok that stuff blew up for 10 bucks and you didn't get to see more of Ironhide, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Arcee, because Bay wants to shove those twins in your face?

...that's madness...

[Dusty]

I would think though as a fan you'd be pissed that Bay decides to give you Racial Stereotype twins for most of the movie over seeing more of the Autobots that brought back your inner 80's child.

I can guarantee I'm a larger fan than most on this board (whether that is good or bad, you can be the judge, haha). I've followed Transformers throughout my childhood, took a "growing up" break, and started following it again through my late teenage and entire adult life. I've read comics, watched cartoons, bought an obscene amount of toys, went to Transformers conventions, met other Transformers fans, anticipated each new toyline and movie, and I've even worked in a small degree with Hasbro years ago.

That all said...it just didn't bother me.
I didn't even think "racial stereotype" when I was watching it. Not once.
I would have *rather* seen some of the cooler ones such as Sideswipe play a more predominant role, but they really just didn't bother me.

but they spent 10 bucks for like 2.5 hours and got maybe 5 minutes of the characters they grew up with.

It isn't just about the "G1 characters". Fans that have followed it every year since 1984 have learned to care more about just staying pure to the characters from G1. It's got Prime in it (with Peter Cullen as Prime, which is major), it's got Soundwave in it (with Frank Welker as Soundwave), and a few others that are more loose such as Ironhide, Bumblebee, and Ratchet, but they are close enough. The rest? Who cares if they aren't old characters? In some cases, Bumblebee 2009 is actually cooler than the original, imo. I thought I would hate the "voicebox" thing before the first movie, and I actually think it makes the character better.

I think the movie could have easily cut out about 30 minutes and the movie would have been better, but whatever.

Different strokes, you know?

[Arshes Nei]

It isn't just about the "G1 characters". Fans that have followed it every year since 1984 have learned to care more about just staying pure to the characters from G1. It's got Prime in it (with Peter Cullen as Prime, which is major), it's got Soundwave in it (with Frank Welker as Soundwave), and a few others that are more loose such as Ironhide, Bumblebee, and Ratchet, but they are close enough. The rest? Who cares if they aren't old characters? In some cases, Bumblebee 2009 is actually cooler than the original, imo. I thought I would hate the "voicebox" thing before the first movie, and I actually think it makes the character better.

I think the movie could have easily cut out about 30 minutes and the movie would have been better, but whatever.

Different strokes, you know?

That's actually not what I'm talking about. It's not that you have to stay cannon to the TF line because obviously what worked in the 80's won't necessarily work today. That's why I was fine with the changes and actually enjoyed the first movie.

The problem is the twins and yeah they were racial stereotypes. They honestly look like Robotic Blackface. Gold Tooth? Big Ears..simian appearance...what the eff. It's incredibly offensive seeing things I grew up seeing other races make fun of Blacks for put in that movie. It's bad enough when other Blacks decide to go with it too.

That piece of crap got more screentime than the other robots that were new. The changes they did with Soundwave was fine, it was cool. The changes with Arcee and Sideswipe were fine too. But then being a blip on the screen compared to those robots is extremely offensive.

I walked in expecting to see updated versions of the robots or even new ones. I'm cool with that. I'll even overlook the fact the story was a mess. I didn't walk in expecting that. Maybe it's funny if it were a Black comedy poking at its own stereotypical culture...but I didn't walk in expecting that with Giant Robots.

[Liam Harvey]

I did get chills hearing soundwave- i had no idea frank welker was doing him prior to the films end-even though he doesnt sound like G1, i recognised him because he sounded EXACTLY like DR. Claw
i was all "oh Hell no...is it?...AWESOME" friends had no idea what i was on about.

Starscream and Megatron were awesome, Devastator-for how long he was there, was awesome, Ravage, Soundwave, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee were al awesome. For some parts of the film i was all "now why do that if they could easily get around it by doing that like they did before?.

such as Wheelie tailing Megan Fox under Decepticon orders, while he apparently has no offensive weapons to speak of....and being the only example of a bot without millions of guns makes him the worst thing to send on a dangerous spying mission like that.

they didnt explain where he went for the third act either.

i thought jetfire would have been cooler if he flew to egypt in jetform-his cane was irritating a bit until it turned into a friggin batle axe.

Dissapointed that the 'Cons that "landed" on the helicariiar DIDNT become Jets to follow the command of Starscream like i had presumed and hoped they would. instead they became more constructicons.