Transformers

[satori01]

I don't think you and I watched the same cartoon growing up. The relationship between the Autobots and Decepticons is summarized neatly in the intro: "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons." Nothing I saw in the cartoon added any extra dimension to that.

Optimus calls Megatron "brother" in a wistful tone at the end, which is more intimate than any words they ever exchanged in the cartoon.

I think your nostalgia has added depth and characterization to the cartoon characters that simply didn't exist in the cartoon as shown. I bought Season 1 and watched it a few months back, and I have to say that I was disappointed that it didn't really live up to my memories.

Throwing in a "Brother" at the end of the movie is not really great characterization or adding depth to the plot.....most people left the theatre going " I guess they were brothers" /shrug/.
Now I have not seen the cartoon since I was a kid but there were forays to cybertron, flashbacks to cybertron, *especially if memory serves correctly in the Autobot jet episode* and the fact that time was taken by the cartoon to explore the fact that Autobots, and their symbols were a slave brand.

I would argue that even as a child it was not hard to infer from the facts: The Transformers had crash landed in the age of the dinosaurs, flashback scenes to Cybertron showed quite a few robots, and the fact that the Autobots & Decepticons new each others names showed an intimacy that is not found in opposing sides of most human conflicts...except for civil wars. I always like that aspect, have from childhood, so no I would say chalking my opinion up to "nostalgia" is incorrect.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

To be fair Jazz always had a sort of ethnic identity- at least on the English cartoon, when he was voiced by Scatman Crothers.

Are you shitting me? Man, I really did miss out!

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I had a huge gripe with this until one of my friends gave me a very cogent explanation. If they'd stayed on Hoover dam, had their battle there, and the dam had cracked, what would happen then? Thousands, possibly tens of thousands of deaths. What if they'd gone out into the open desert? The All-Spark would get picked off no sweat (at the time they made the decision, the soldiers only had two buggies and Bumblebee). The city was the only reasonably safe option

I'm not buying that. They were calling in air support, and the area certainly appeared to have LOTS of places to go to ground. If nothing else, taking it into a city removed tactical options, unless they were willing to destroy the city to prevent the Decepticons from getting the MacGuffin. Good soldiers choose self-destruction over the potential death of tens of thousands of civilians.

The only way I can conceive of the city really being a good idea is if the large amount of concrete and "EM pollution" as it were would help them hide from Decepticon sensors (I was trying to make up excuses for them too ). This did not prove to be the case (eventhough it would have made the final battle more interesting, IMO, and certainly more appropriate to Bay's visual style).

Actually, you saw it happen on-screen (though it was a short scene), when he came in contact with the All-Spark, he regenerated almost instantly.

That must have been quick. Not one of the 6 people I was with saw that.

And if that worked for Frenzy.... why didn't Bumblebee grow himself some new legs in the last battle?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

If nothing else, taking it into a city removed tactical options, unless they were willing to destroy the city to prevent the Decepticons from getting the MacGuffin. Good soldiers choose self-destruction over the potential death of tens of thousands of civilians.

Good commanders choose the death of tens of thousands of civilians over the death of tens of millions of civilians.

 

[Halivar]

Good soldiers choose self-destruction over the potential death of tens of thousands of civilians.

Except in this case self-destruction equals losing the cube which equals genocide of humanity (potentially). Staying out in the open is a bad, bad idea (IMHO). Being in the city did help. They had tons of cover they were able to shoot out of, and they could move through buildings, while the Decepticons were forced to fight out in the open. Being in the city gave the humans a clear tactical advantage.

That must have been quick. Not one of the 6 people I was with saw that.

I promise you it happened, every one of the four times I watched it. Pinky-swear. Big arcs of energy went all over, Frenzy convulsed, and he sprouted new parts. Then he scrambled off and sent his Decepti-buds the message "All-Spark located." Then we went off to the Decepti-creep roll-call ("Bonecrusher rolling." *shudder* That was a silly line).

And if that worked for Frenzy.... why didn't Bumblebee grow himself some new legs in the last battle?

Because it was in the middle of a battle? I don't claim the whole plot is hole-proof; not by a long-shot. Just I don't think there's anything that is glaringly, idiotically illogical.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Just I don't think there's anything that is glaringly, idiotically illogical.

The geek gets the girl, not the jock.

 

[Jubilee]

That must have been quick. Not one of the 6 people I was with saw that.

And if that worked for Frenzy.... why didn't Bumblebee grow himself some new legs in the last battle?

Spoiler

Actually, I think that Bumblebee's voicebox was restored by contact with the Allspark (although why he waited until the end of the movie to reveal that he could speak is a mystery to me), but presumably once it had been shrunk, it didn't have the same potentcy from merely being touched (evidently it had to be jostled roughly to activate at that size).

 

[Halivar]

The geek gets the girl, not the jock.

Touché.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Good commanders choose the death of tens of thousands of civilians over the death of tens of millions of civilians.

They had already decided to call in air support, and knew they didn't have a prayer without that support anyway. They could just as easily dropped a tactical nuke right on top of that cube.... provided they took it somewhere besides the middle of Detroit.

Actually, I'm still trying to figure out where that dam was. The geography was certainly suggestive of plenty of bolt holes, as plot-inconvenient as that might have been.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Spoiler

Actually, I think that Bumblebee's voicebox was restored by contact with the Allspark (although why he waited until the end of the movie to reveal that he could speak is a mystery to me), but presumably once it had been shrunk, it didn't have the same potentcy from merely being touched (evidently it had to be jostled roughly to activate at that size).

Movie promotional materials revealed

Spoiler

that Bumblebee's vocal system wasn't non-operational, but simply painful to use. That would fit with Bumblebee's behavior, including the ragged voice at the end, but not with what other characters said. But it confuses the issue of why Frenzy gets repairs and Bumblebee does not.

But this one's a minor issue. Not really something that jumped out at me. Being unable to find a single defensible position without an enormous civilian population inbetween what appeared to be the Hoover Dam and Detroit was a larger issue, IMO, though clearly I'm not a good cultural barometer on that one