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Post by Gunman_sr5 on Jul 2, 2007 23:45:55 GMT -5
I won't be able to see it until the 4th. So this will be my only time in this thread until then. Dicuss everything here!
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Post by Destro on Jul 2, 2007 23:55:58 GMT -5
Oops, didn't see this first...
First off, this movie rocked. HARD. I was blown away. It will hopefully give this franchise a good kick in the keester and we'll see a new generation of transfans bc of it.
Here's the good and the not-so-good (minor spoilers)
Pros:
The action was superb: plenty of "holy crap did that just happen?!?!" moments. I can't see how it could've been much better; the fight scenes, the transformations, the robots (fighting and basic movement even)..just awesome. A few minor pacing issues, but overall, awesome.
Great comedic moments; numerous times most of the theater was laughing heartily. A few duds, but mostly great stuff.
Bumblebee is awesome (his speech impairment/"song speech" is pulled off quite well, w/ great comedic results at times). Frenzy is awesome: great character pulled off even though he says very little. Jazz is cool, just as he should be. Prime is what you'd expect; obviously the hero who cares about all life. Megatron could've used more screen time, but was still obviously pure evil.
Cons:
Meghan Fox can't act, but fortunately she doesn't have too many lines. That did, unfortunately, hurt the romantic scenes (the romance element, minus the comedic moments, which were often gold, wasn't very good either..).
The decepticons needed more lines; some didn't need to say much to be awesome (frenzy), but some (megatron, ss) needed to be around more.
I liked ss except for his headsculpt..more characatization for him would've been great, but we might see some of that in the 2nd film..
Other:
The story overall is simplistic: both sides want the allspark, w/ humans getting in the way and not understanding who or what is attacking them (expanded of course in the major spoilers section).
"Brawl" is only referred to by name once (by himself) and he calls himself "Devastator"..
I can see some not liking the amount of screen time for humans; I did think it helped develop the story and the next movies should focus much more on the tf's.
*************MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD*******************
Some conspiracy theory elements not unlike independence day going on (ie, megs is frozen and kept by the gov't, the allspark is held and studied by the gov't).
A lot of tf death: the decepticons to survive are ss, scorponok, blackout, and maybe frenzy, maybe megatron (metafeather and I theorized that the allspark, which killed him, may reformat him into galvatron).
One great scene w/ megs is during his fight w/ prime he falls in the street; a human is standing near him and megs says "Disgusting" and flicks him into a car! Shows his hatred for humanity quite well.
Jazz is brutally killed by megatron: Jazz says to megs, "wanna piece of me?!?!", Megs replies, "I want two pieces!! and rips him in two!!
Jazz didn't live long enough, nor does bonecrusher. BC did have a cool death scene though: prime decapitates him w/ his energon sword.
Prime has some nice g1 lines: "One shall stand, one shall fall" (beginning his fight w/ megs), and "freedom is the right of all sentient beings."
Another con is that megs is defeated by Sam when he pushed the allspark cube into megs' chest..not sure if I like that. Megs' "last words" were interesting too: (to Prime); "You gave me no choice, brother"..
The last scene after the credits role is of ss flying off into space..
********END SPOILERS**************************
I may add more later, I'm still giddy!
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Post by Admin on Jul 3, 2007 0:20:29 GMT -5
OMG that sound so awesome. Unlike Jeremy I LOVE this stuff lol.. I always wanna read whats going on. I cant wait for Wednesday.
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Post by s.marlinfan on Jul 3, 2007 0:26:00 GMT -5
I just got back from seeing it. Since it's late I will have to wait to post a more in depth review in the comming days. Over all it was a good movie. For it's own intity it's OK. But it is still not my cannon. I still have many of the same feelings about the film I had going into it. Lot's of great action, CG work, Cullen's voice, and G1 tid bits. This by far is not a kids movie. There is lot of adult humor in it. That I don't think is suitable for kids. Eventhough they are marketing to kids with the toys and stuff. But Bay did not want to make a toy movie. I believe he achieved it. For adults it's OK. Over and out until l can follow up more later.
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Post by Raggletag on Jul 3, 2007 12:57:05 GMT -5
Not a super long review here, but I thought the movie was decent. Not awesome and certainly not the Star Wars of this generation, but I enjoyed it. It was surprisingly funny, and the effects were mostly fantastic. And the human characters were better than expected. Not so much the military characters, but I really liked the hacker guy and especially Sam. I think Sam was the highlight of the movie. I'm not a fan of the actor in general, but I gotta admit, he really does have good comedy delivery and timing.
My biggest gripes were as follows (POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!)...
The camera kept shaking and moving around so much that I couldn't tell what was going on half the time during action scenes! I can understand not wanting use a static camera shot every time, but they could've found a middleground, imo. The Bonecrusher/Optimus scene was about the only one I could follow easily and truly enjoy (even if it was brief).
The Decepticons had virtually ZERO characterization, and a couple of them didn't even show up till the very end of the movie. Even Megatron was a late-comer, and was a complete disappointment. I felt like I was watching a re-run of Power Rangers in the scene where he was chasing down Sam and calling him "boy". Oh and putting his arms together to form the fusion cannon? Weeeeaaaakkkk.....
Misplaced humor! Did we really need to see Bumblebee flick the cap off his groin and "pee" on Simmons?? It was like a parody scene out of Robot Chicken! I admit I laughed when it happened due to its absurdity, but afterwards I was thinking "WTF am I watching here?!?!". I could've also done without the transforming Mountain Dew machine and X-Box. And Frenzy was starting to get on my nerves after awhile too.
While I liked the vehicle modes a lot, I thought the robot modes were as bad as I expected them to look. Way too complicated, and despite this being the "realistic" way of doing the robot modes, they still had to cheat when they animated their movements and transformations. And prettymuch every single head design was a disaster, imo. A couple, like Prime and Jazz, looked good with their battle masks in place, but that's really about it. I think they should go back to the drawing board for Transformers 2.
And my biggest complaint was that the movie was highly anti-climactic. It wasn't dramatic or epic, it just reached its resolution before you knew it, and from there it quickly jumped to the ending epilogue. I think they should've built the suspense up a bit more before Sam saved the day.
I give it 2.5 stars out of 4. Was better than I expected, but the more it sinks in and the newness wears off, the more flaws I'm seeing. But I'll still cherish the "BEE-OTCH" air freshener I got while at BotCon. =)
-Tony
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Post by chromia on Jul 3, 2007 17:20:40 GMT -5
This movie was awesome. It had great action. The fight senes were so cool. It was interesting to see the government act that way. If it was real, they would not be like that. That's the only problem I had with it. Peter Cullen played Optimus great. It was really good.
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Post by Devastator_2000 on Jul 4, 2007 12:24:39 GMT -5
OMHG!!! That was just freakin AWESOME!!! I will talk about it more later, I just have to come off of this high first.
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Post by StrykerX2K on Jul 4, 2007 15:26:17 GMT -5
Same here! I loved it loved it! I don't have much time right now...on the way to dialysis, but WOWEEE WOWEEE!!!!
The only thing I thought was weak on their part, is that they called Brawl Devastator, but other than that....I can't wait for the sequel!
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Post by Gunman_sr5 on Jul 4, 2007 16:33:39 GMT -5
Been speachless for the most part since I watched it. Probably going to be that way for a while.
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Post by Bear on Jul 4, 2007 17:09:53 GMT -5
It was good. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but it didn't scream Transformers to me either. I have pretty much the same gripes as Raggletag. I don't think the "pee" scene was nessessary or the "happy time" joke was ideal since it was pretty much a given all ages would be at the show.
My major gripes would be they tried to make the battle scenes way to busy and it made them just look like blurs on the screen.
I wish there would have been a little more homage paid to what made the Transformers lore last for 20+ years. Just give me the heads Bay. You can do what you want with the rest.
On a side note I did geek out in the begining when I heard the Transformation noise when Blackout first changed.
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Post by Jo'Roq on Jul 4, 2007 17:34:56 GMT -5
Overall, a pretty good movie. Not really a major blockbuster in my opinion, but still one of the better movies for the year. This very much a combo effort for a stand-alone story plus a lead-in to a series - too many elements were left open or unresolved to have full closure at the end.
Also, we can blame the Borg for the whole thing. Darn those mechanical cubes traveling through space .....
The good: - Putting the focus primarily on the humans. It gave the story the feel it needed, with having to discover who these strange alien robots were and what they wanted. - The designs literally came to life while in motion. Some of the facial work was a little iffy (Prime was the biggest one), but overall they worked for me when not viewed as just still images. - A great mix of drama, action, and humor. - The "easter egg" lines (only thing missing was a reference to Stan Bush): === "One shall stand, one shall fall" === "More than meets the eye" (twice!) === "Autobots, roll out!" (only half the line, but still good) === "Starscream, you have failed me again." === "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" (if only this hadn't won the poll to be included - it's a great line on its own, even if it did come from the tech specs) - Good dialogue, well paced and suited to the characters. - Bumblebee's change to the new Camaro body was well done, with just the right touch of humor and immediacy to maintain the suspension-of-disbelief. - No Unicron! Hasbro has been WAY overplaying that card.
The bad: - Too much crude humor. While I did enjoy some of it (like Bumblebee lubricating the fed), did we really need to put that into the franchise? In particular, Mammy's "salute" and the lubrication bit. Hasbro and Bay really should have coordinated better on marketing vs. presentation - this was NOT a kid's movie. - Half the Decepticons only show up just for the final battle, so there's no chance of characterization. - Hollywood "military" procedures. One of my usual gripes (and being an Air Force brat, I have better knowledge than a screen writer even if I am not in any sense an expert), but the worst one was LAUNCHING the F-22's to investigate the unidentified aircraft at the beginning - a fighter base would have had at least one Combat Air Patrol already up for just such an occurence - the planes on the ground would have been prepped for immediate launch in case of an emergency, not be the interceptors themselves. - Jazz dying had no emotional impact. He just wasn't developed enough - Bumblebee being hurt had a much heavier impact. - Did anything happen to the jock that Mikaela had been with? I would have loved to see Barricade of Bumblebee ram his H2 .... - Barricade was hard to understand. I love Keith David's deep bass voice, but when he spoke there was already a lot of bass sound effects going on that he had to be heard over.
Thoughts on the future: - Galvatron? Please, no, do something different, that storyline has been done to death. - (From Chris, so I can't take credit) Dumping the 'cons in the ocean -> underwater 'con base? - The leftover fragment of the cube looked to be key-shaped .... Vector Sigma, perhaps? - I would love to see the current state of Cybertron. - Please, no Unicron!
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Post by StrykerX2K on Jul 4, 2007 20:40:16 GMT -5
It was certainly geared toward adults, but marketed to children...that is the problem when a toy company is involved, but doesn't ahve creative control.
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Post by Destro on Jul 4, 2007 20:59:38 GMT -5
The one toy I really want now is a fully-articulated frenzy that tf's into a cd player and that spider-lookin thing.
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Post by Bear on Jul 5, 2007 18:34:17 GMT -5
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_the_movie/this has one of the funniest reviews ever "Considering that the whole movie is being sold as nothing more than a CGI version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, one kind of expects there to be more rockin' and sockin' and less funny business with Optimus Prime destroying Mom's flower bed." That's classic
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Post by Destro on Jul 7, 2007 0:45:37 GMT -5
What do you guys think of the theory that starscream was in the formation of jets that fired on megatron, helping to bring about megs' "death"? Would be interesting if it turned out to be true in the second movie, and it'd really add a lot to ss' character, making him the sinister back-stabber once again..
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Post by Gunman_sr5 on Jul 7, 2007 0:49:11 GMT -5
I don't know. Its not in SS's nature to not make it known that he is doing the backstabing. That is unless the new SS is more gutless then the last.
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Post by Destro on Jul 7, 2007 0:57:34 GMT -5
I don't know. Its not in SS's nature to not make it known that he is doing the backstabing. That is unless the new SS is more gutless then the last. But in this case if he did, the other raptor pilots would know and he was in range of their fire..after that attack we didn't see the jets again so it's hard to say what ss did between then and the end of the film. I know it's a bit of a long shot, but I think it'd work well in the second movie, esp. if ss is the decepticon leader, and it'd also give the movie an interesting subplot (discension in the ranks and all).
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Post by Darthfather2005 on Jul 15, 2007 22:56:56 GMT -5
I've been off the boards to avoid spoilers, and i just saw this today. ( I have a kid and a new job, and my wife would not let me see it with out her).
Wow, this is the best movie of the year so far. I was really suprised, my only grip is that I felt Bay was thumbing his nose at G1 Fans, when the camara was on Sam, instead of Optimus when he said "one shall stand, one shall fall. " The is a pefect optimus moment, why show the humans? Wasn't this one of the five lines fans voted to be in the new movie? Not a big deal, if this is all I have to complain about I'd say 4 out of 5 stars.
Over all it was awesome, but poor jazz...
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Post by Destro on Dec 27, 2007 22:38:45 GMT -5
Transformers #3 in movie sales in 2007, and the biggest non-sequel money-maker of the year: movies.yahoo.com/feature/top10moviesof2007.htmlNot too surprising now, but if a year ago someone would've told me that transformers would make more than pirates 3 and harry potter, I wouldn't have taken them seriously. Nice to see our robot friends pulling in some serious scratch.
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Post by Devastator_2000 on Dec 28, 2007 20:45:13 GMT -5
Not too surprising now, but if a year ago someone would've told me that transformers would make more than pirates 3 and harry potter, I wouldn't have taken them seriously. Nice to see our robot friends pulling in some serious scratch. I agree, a year ago I would never have though that the new TF movie would do this well.
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