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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
 Posted - 10/17/2007 : 11:12:32 PM
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So I'm a chump. "It's a fun Summer popcorn movie!" they said. "It's not as bad as a typical Micheal Bay flick!" they said. I keep forgetting that these are the same people that think if they send $10 to the first 8 people listed in an email they'll make $100,000 in a month. These are the people that made it necessary to have labels on irons that say "do not attempt to iron clothes while wearing them."
I am ashamed to be a member of any species that could suffer this film to exist.
I'm too worked up over nearly 2 1/2 hours of my life that are gone forever to give specifics. I'll just say that:
The writing is asinine. The acting is a joke. The music is truly the worst major score of the last, oh, let's say 15 years. Even a world class hack like Hans Zimmer could fart a better score than this. And of course, Mr. Shaky-Cam-Quick-Cut-Inappropriate-Slow-mo-"Where's my crane"-Sea-Sickness-Inducing-Oversaturation-Is-Cool-Big-Boom-Retard-Jackhole Bay brings it all together in a giant black hole of suck at the center of the suck universe. Yes, again he has had his way with me, violently, without even buying me dinner. I feel cheap, and sore.
I really didn't care for it.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
Edited by - Sardu on 10/17/2007 11:14:19 PM
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2007 : 11:26:19 AM
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For me, the only interesting parts of the movie were ones that didn't involve big robots fighting each other. There were some funny parts, etc.
Watching CGI robots fight each other is a lot like watching somebody else play a video game. Kind of dull.
Worse, Transformers was a lot like watching a recording of somebody else playing a video game. Only slightly less entertaining than watching a replay of a 20 year old college basketball game on ESPN Classic.
Then again, maybe I just have too much fun lambasting Michael Bay movies... |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2007 : 11:29:05 AM
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Oh, and I hate the explosions that always take place in a Bay movie.
Having witnessed quite a few explostions in the last 15 years as an artilleryman, I can tell you they are NOT big, billowing fireballs. Mostly just a lot of smoke and dust and earth being tossed skyward. |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2007 : 3:14:38 PM
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I agree with most of this also. I honestly can't say it was the worst movie I've seen, but it was stupid and confusing. It was a movie that tried so hard to be cool that it threw away almost every opportunity it had to be great.
The beginning was too slow. It took forever to really get to the actual story and introduce the big cool robots. And the love interest thing was more annoying than anything else.
The transformers themselves were cool, except for a couple of things. One, they were too complex. They really needed more smooth, straight lines instead of all those little jaggly bits everywhere, mostly because they made the action sequences even more blurry and confusing. I often couldn't tell who was who and what was what because the screen was nothing but a constantly moving mass of struts and tubing. Even worse, they were too fast. Giant robots like that just shouldn't be jumping around like gymnasts. They should be standing strong and duking each other out with eardrum-shattering blows. Not slow, surely, but not doing backflips either.
And just whose bright idea was it to lead all those incredibly dangerous alien machines into the heart of a highly populated urban area? Especially when there are hundreds of square miles of uninhabited desert all around where these things could be fought without so much collateral damage, and where their ability to disguise themselves would be less effective. Note that I ask this question because it became almost impossible to understand what was going on at this point. I still have no idea why they did what they did, or what any of their actual plans were after Megatron got free.
But do you know what the biggest weakness of the film was? It was the one thing that the original series had that the film almost completely ignored, and if it had it would've been better even if everything else stayed the same: Characters. The original transformers all had interesting and unique personalities, and fairly nuanced interplays between them. But the movie did very little to show that the transformers had any personalities at all. They were just generic good guys and bad guys, with nothing to make them interesting. Well, there was a half-assed bit of "character development" on behalf of the Autobots, enough to give each one a bit of uniqueness, at least, but for the Decepticons there was nothing. Nada. If you don't have interesting villains, it's hard to have an interesting story. The main baddie, Megatron, had a total of what, a dozen lines or so in the movie? And most of those were simple battle catcalls. And Starscream, possibly the most interesting character in the series, had even less.
If I had been in charge, I would've started by introducing the Decepticons, perhaps in kind of a shadowed setting where you couldn't see them clearly, debating and making their plans. Give them some personality right up front. Then I would've cut out a lot of the useless crap that Bay's version had with the car-buying and romance angle and stuff, and fairly quickly get down to brass tacks, with Optimus and company finding/rescuing Sam and explaining what the deal was. Sam also needs to spend a lot more time with the Autobots, to both provide some character building opportunities and to give him some reason to actually bond with them. Then we could finally get into the meat of things and have some good old Robot Jox style clobbering time. I would've especially loved to have seen a fight where the Autobots and Decepticons start out on opposite ends of a desert battleground littered with boulders (the Autobots defending some location against the Decepticons, for example), see them start lobbing some long range weaponry at each other, then close in for some really satisfying hand-to-hand pummeling (with lots of scene-clarifying overhead and wide-angle pan shots, and such, of course). Finally, the McGuffin would've been saved and the Decepticons would've been defeated and driven into hiding, but not destroyed (which reminds me, what retards decided it would be a good idea to drop Megatron into the ocean instead of melting him down into slag?), and everything would've been set up for the possible/inevitable sequel.
Now THAT would've been a good movie. |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2007 : 6:36:31 PM
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All I know is that when the most interesting aspect of a film starts you thinking that it was done much better in Christine, you're in HUGE trouble at the outset. I got the feeling the Shia LeBeauf (or however the hell you spell his name) was trying to channel Woody Allen most of the film. I kept waiting for Diane Keaton to show up. The design of the Autobots looked pretty good but we never got to see the damn things because of the manic pace they moved, as already pointed out. And the transformations themselves were absurdly fast.
BTW, did anyone notice the scene where Shia wrecked his bike in front of the chick?? (Yes, she was THAT memorable.) It's lasted 2.5 seconds and had 4 cuts. A freaking bicycle wreck. I mean, geeze. *g*
Altair, you definitely have a better movie.;
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
Edited by - Sardu on 10/18/2007 6:37:56 PM |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2007 : 8:18:27 PM
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Honestly, I cannot understand why I go watch any movie from a man who brought us Pearl Harbor.
An off-topic aside here, but can you imagine how absolutely KICKASS Pearl Harbor would've been if they'd given the budget and carte blanche on script re-writes to John Milius, the guy who directed The Wind and the Lion? Or if they'd just brought in the screenwriters, producer and director from 1993's Gettysburg and said, "Do what you did with Gettysburg, only this time make it about Pearl Harbor."
Now THAT would've been a movie.
Seriously. Why on earth do I do it when I know by now exactly what level of character development, plot, jerky, phrenetic, crack/meth-addled edits and camera movement I'm going to get?
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Freschel
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
150 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2007 : 04:03:29 AM
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I saw it as a Transformers in name only.
It's Coacoa Puffs, Bob. I have no idea why, but it fits the equation. |
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Flangepart
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
2329 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2007 : 11:29:03 AM
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[quote]Originally posted by Freschel
I saw it as a Transformers in name only.
T.I.N.O.
Hummm....
Marvin the Paranoid Android to Buzz Lightyear "Too infinity and beyond-i've been there, its rubbish!"
"Hoody Hoo, i waste 'em with my cross bow!" Bob Herzog- KODT
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2007 : 5:33:03 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
An off-topic aside here, but can you imagine how absolutely KICKASS Pearl Harbor would've been if they'd given the budget and carte blanche on script re-writes to John Milius, the guy who directed The Wind and the Lion? Or if they'd just brought in the screenwriters, producer and director from 1993's Gettysburg and said, "Do what you did with Gettysburg, only this time make it about Pearl Harbor."
Now THAT would've been a movie.
You might have gotten the sleep inducing Gods and Generals.
- While science has societal benefits, science is not a social virtue. - |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2007 : 8:40:25 PM
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Perhaps. That is a risk.
But we wouldn't have got an homage to the "X-wing takes out the Death Star" scene from Star Wars, only with P-40 Warhawks and Japanese Zero-sens. |
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Mark Hawley
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
Canada
48 Posts |
Posted - 10/30/2007 : 6:17:20 PM
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| Hahaha, homage of an homage! I just watched The Dam Busters for the first time earlier this year and it's amazing how much of Star Wars' trench run echoes that film, including some dialogue. |
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Flangepart
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
2329 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2007 : 07:29:08 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Hawley
Hahaha, homage of an homage! I just watched The Dam Busters for the first time earlier this year and it's amazing how much of Star Wars' trench run echoes that film, including some dialogue.
Same with 633 Squadron. When the Mosquitos run up the Feiord...fieord....however its spelled....Slartibartfast!...you know what I mean.
Marvin the Paranoid Android to Buzz Lightyear "Too infinity and beyond-i've been there, its rubbish!"
"Hoody Hoo, i waste 'em with my cross bow!" Bob Herzog- KODT
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2007 : 11:01:50 PM
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Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I didn't see a lot of the same problems with the TF movie as so many others.
But then, this is at least the fifth verson of the Transformers I've seen: the original, then an anime one where Optimus was a fire truck and Megatron's sidekick was some sort of land shark who supplied horrible comic relief, then another anime one with a tight two-series story arc (even if the first seemed Pokemon-inspired), then yet another anime one that the American distibutors pretended was just a third-series sequel to the previous one... and now the big-budget Hollywood verson with all the trappings of big-budget Hollywood, including extraneous plot threads, shallow characters, awful writing, and an utterly superfluous girlfriend angle.
So... I guess I was prepared to go in and see just another spin on the origin story of the same characters.
Here's hoping that the sequel will spend much less time with setup and much more with the giant robot action. |
Edited by - GalahadPC on 11/02/2007 11:03:30 PM |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2007 : 01:45:38 AM
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| Transformers will be getting the Rifftrax treatment November 20th, with Mike, Bill, and Kevin presiding. |
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