I just do not understand the shaky camera thing at all... I mean, if I was standing there and there were explosions all around, the ground would shake, the very air would shake with sonic vibrations, nothing would be standing still... so by this whole 'shaky' camera thing, I say bring more of it becuase without it I'd be seeing all these things happening but the world would be standing still... I don't think so.
I don't see where people say Bay makes a bad movie. I just don't get it. But, people have very different expectations and standards on what makes a good movie, to them. It's hard to please everybody, all the time, but the fact is that I went into this movie with the hopes of seeing some transformers transform, and they pulled it off perfectly. I went in hoping that I'd see some action, and I did.
Seeing Prime uppercut Barricade and then decapitating him was just fricken AWESOME! And the camera was shaking the entire time, and I saw those little details. Quite awesome. If you didn't see the details I'm sorry you missed them.
I did not expect the humor to be over the top, and I can see why people could say that they put too much into it, but I think that if the entire movie would have been super serious and darker than it was, I'd still love it... I loved the humor, I liked how they did the action, I liked the characterizations and the teenage love story and his parents.
Yes, their real fault is that there wasn't enough Starscream. That's it. For that Bay shoulld be punished.
I should clarify. Nothing in what I said was intended to single out "real fans" or "true fans" or anything of the sort. I was just saying that in my opinion the movie was terrible and I was surprised so many people who loved Transformers so much still liked a movie that I thought demeaned and devalued the franchise. I wasn't making a judgement against those people (though I was against the movie)...just expressing my surprise.
It's okay Shayuri, we forgive you and still accept you as part of the EnWorld community even though you don't like the movie.
Like you said, Namaste or however its spelled, but I get the meaning.
I might not understand exactly why you don't like the movie, but I'm going to go see it for a third time next week instead of Harry Potter that's how much I liked the movie.
Can someone tell me what Starscream actually did during the movie to fail Megatron? I identified some other failures on the part of other Decepticons, but not that one..
I had the same question, but it all kind of came back to a lack of focus on the Autobots and Decepticons themselves in lieu of the humans. Frankly, given the time frame involved, I don't know why Starscream was even bothering with Megatron anyway. The Starscream from the cartoon would have been happy to have him out of the way for so long.
Anyway, just saw the movie myself. I enjoyed it, but I agree with the suggestions that the movie was less Transformers and more People Reacting to Giant Robot Invasion. Not bad in and of itself, but not quite the movie I was hoping for. I think- while generally well done, there were enough extraneous "people bits" and characters that could have easily been chopped in order to give the "robot bits" more emphasis. In particular, the fact that I couldn't identify so many of the robots visually when they weren't in vehicle form (especially in the final battle sequences) grated. As a fan of the cartoon, I knew enough about the Transformer characters to enjoy them and know their relationships, but a newcomer with no knowledge wouldn't be able to do so, I'd think. Even still, there were a few (Decepticons, notably) that I couldn't place.
Optimus and Bumblebee were both well done and fleshed out somewhat, but the others were just one-dimensional. Even Megatron didn't really get enough time or space to generate any sort of real feeling of who and what he was. We hear people talking about him a bit, and then he finally shows up and we're supposed to somehow get a sense of his majesty but it fell flat on that end.
Anyway, it was good. Not great, but good.
BTW, what's up with all the Transformers maxing out their ranks in Tumble?
I should clarify. Nothing in what I said was intended to single out "real fans" or "true fans" or anything of the sort. I was just saying that in my opinion the movie was terrible and I was surprised so many people who loved Transformers so much still liked a movie that I thought demeaned and devalued the franchise. I wasn't making a judgement against those people (though I was against the movie)...just expressing my surprise.
Well, I did mention I didnt think you meant it that, but I had to explain why it made my reaction to it so harsh. That said, again, fans come in wide spectrums. I loved G1, but it's cheesy as hell and filled with the sort of the stuff 'true fans' were blasting the movie about. It also ignores the fact that there's been something like 10+ different shows about the transformers, various comic book incarnations, never mind the Japanese only stuff when they start going off about the 'true spirit' of the show. Which one should they be following? The cheesy G1? The intelligently written Beast Wars? The childish Japanese takes from Headmasters or RiD? Everyone first saw the Transformers at different times, not all of them started with G1. I'm just glad they didnt take cue from Kiss Players. Anyways, that's my 2 cents on it.
Well, I did mention I didnt think you meant it that, but I had to explain why it made my reaction to it so harsh. That said, again, fans come in wide spectrums. I loved G1, but it's cheesy as hell and filled with the sort of the stuff 'true fans' were blasting the movie about. It also ignores the fact that there's been something like 10+ different shows about the transformers, various comic book incarnations, never mind the Japanese only stuff when they start going off about the 'true spirit' of the show. Which one should they be following? The cheesy G1? The intelligently written Beast Wars? The childish Japanese takes from Headmasters or RiD? Everyone first saw the Transformers at different times, not all of them started with G1. I'm just glad they didnt take cue from Kiss Players. Anyways, that's my 2 cents on it.
I enjoyed it, but I agree with the suggestions that the movie was less Transformers and more People Reacting to Giant Robot Invasion. Not bad in and of itself, but not quite the movie I was hoping for.
See, IMHO, that's exactly what the first movie needed to be. Not because I wouldn't love more Transformers-only time myself, but because that's what makes it an actual story instead of 2.5 hours of high-budget fanservice. This *is* a 21st century reboot, where you need exposition and setup instead of just jumping straight into things, and I feel it's handled well. (Remember complaints of X-Men 1 being too talky, and similar comments with other recent franchise reboots?)
***
Some specific thoughts:
The military:
[sblock]If I was an alien being trying to research a crash-landed leader and artifact, didn't find much public information, and stumbled onto the world wide web (where conspiracy theories tend to breed like rabbits), I'd probably finally resort to hacking a military network, too. They're not versed enough in Earth culture to realize the conspirists are nutjobs (or are they nutjobs? ).
So, it's not a surprise that the military gets involved. One could argue more subtlety on the Decepticons' part... but the fact that Blackout disguised as an Army aircraft suggests they were trying to be. Sneak in, drop Frenzy off and let him do his thing, pull out. Too bad the humans are too blasted suspicious. [/sblock]
Sector 7:
[sblock]Isn't a secret government agency de rigueur where aliens are involved? And here, instead of being all-knowing and all-powerful, they (IMHO more realistically) get burned because they don't realize exactly what they're playing with.[/sblock]
Sam & Family:
Sam is a teenager. One who's histrionic and self-absorbed at that (traits which appear to be genetic...) So his main concern, at least at first, is getting (and keeping) his car and girl, and not getting killed by his parents. Following from that...
The backyard scene:
[sblock]You have the giant robots. Who - instead of placidly waiting around for The Great Bedroom Search - are impatient, running recon like soldiers, trying to remain inconspicious in the middle of suburbia, and grumbling about how it'd be much easier if they just shot the parents. In other words, behaving fairly realistically (for giant robots).
On the other hand, you have Sam, whose personality I already summarized above. "How do I deal with giant robots in my yard and find my granddad's glasses in my bedroom without my potential girlfriend finding out about my pervy hobbies or my parents grounding me for life?"
On the left foot, you have Sam's parents, who are worried about their son's closed door and voices, mysterious lights, ground shakes, and a trashed yard.
And on the right foot, the neighbors. Truth be told, if I hear loud noises in the middle of the night, I usually roll over, pull my pillow over my head, and hope it goes away so I can get some sleep for work tomorrow.
Anyone who did get up and saw the giant robots would probably figure that one, they had too much "sauce" that night, two, they're dreaming, or three, the neighbors got some blasted new toy that Junior's probably going to want for Christmas.
And even if you didn't conclude one of those things, the cops probably would. Douglas Adams didn't invent the "Somebody Else's Problem field" out of thin air.[/sblock]
While it did go on a little too long in places, and had its dialogue a bit over-the-top for comedic purposes (both of which could be grumbled at), I don't think the actual existence of the scene is out-of-place.
***
As I commented to my friend after we saw the movie, it was nice to see the whole idea of robots walking around treated somewhat realistically for a change, as opposed to more like a robotic Godzilla vs. Mothra (you know, the aliens duke it out while the humans just run around, scream, and get crushed the entire movie).
Now that
the military thinks the Decepticons are all dead
and
Sector 7 is no more
, that leaves plenty of space to focus on the Transformers in a sequel. And by getting all the setup out of the way first, that makes this a fresh (and hopefully successful) movie franchise as opposed to a big-screen TV episode.
I *would* have liked more character development and robot-on-robot-smashing, but I feel that having Earth be more than an alien playground is better story-telling, and we still got a good amount of those things. I have some grumbles with some of the details thereof, but not with the basic elements that were included.
