Transformers

[Seonaid]

Wow, great post, Jeysie. Exactly what I would expect from someone named "Liz."

Now that [snip]

Spoiler

Sector 7 is no more

, that leaves plenty of space to focus on the Transformers in a sequel.

I don't remember this part. Would someone explain this to me? Was it stated explicitly in the movie? I have a horrible memory, so it's entirely possible that I just forgot.

- another Liz

 

[Jeysie]

Always good to meet another Liz!

I don't remember this part. Would someone explain this to me? Was it stated explicitly in the movie? I have a horrible memory, so it's entirely possible that I just forgot.

At the very end of the movie...

Spoiler

right before he goes into explaining dropping the Decepticons into the ocean trench, the Secretary of Defense outright says that Sector Seven has been disbanded.

So yeah, they're gone... officially, anyway.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Too old to be a Transformers fan, actually. Never seen a single episode. Prior to the movie I could identify only Optimus Prime by sight.

Maybe that explains why I enjoyed the movie (and also why it is doing so well).

I enjoyed it. My wife enjoyed it. Given our divergent histories, vis a vis the Transformers, that's impressive in its way.

BTW, what's up with all the Transformers maxing out their ranks in Tumble?

When Shaky-cam is all your director understands, you roll with the punches. You've only got one way to look impressive in that context, and it ain't my actually moving like a 30 foot robot

Dear lord, there were sequences that looked like copy-and-paste out of Pearl Harbor (and I've only seen about 5% of Pearl Harbor). I've seen a more impressive variety of camera techniques in fan films shot with camcorders.

Sadly, I feel like the movie succeeded at being a movie about a teenager and his car, but failed at delivering coherent action.

And here are a couple plot gripes:

Spoiler

So.... the marine captain who was the resident human bad-arse chose to maximize civilian risk and collateral damage for a very minor increase in the ability to defend a position? No intelligent soldier would deliberately put thousands of civilians at risk when he could have achieved an equivalent tactical advantage by holing up in a box canyon. Which would have arguably been FAR better, because you can have the place carpet-bombed if necessary without risking civilian lives. Worst case scenario... a tactical nuke ought to hit the magic temperature, so choosing a city for staging your last stand is either stupid or sociopathic. That choice was borderline offensive, and done for no other plot reason than to ratchet up the collateral damage.

Secondly, after having that battle in the middle of a city in front of thousands of people, the autobots are going to HIDE on earth? Right. Again... that box canyon would have at least made hiding plausible. A handful of military people who can be handily sworn to secrecy, and beyond Sam and company, the only civilians to know about it would be people who were out in the wilderness... a small number and easily dismissed as sufferers of heat stroke.

And finally, does it not strike anyone as silly that Jazz was the LEAST developed character among the autobots, with the fewest lines, and then the one-shot him merely to show how powerful Megatron was. It might have had some dramatic heft if they had killed someone we actually KNEW. To say nothing of introducing a robot that is OBVIOUSLY intended with some ethnic identity and making him into a Red shirt. That's not just sloppy, but actually stupid nowadays.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

To say nothing of introducing a robot that is OBVIOUSLY intended with some ethnic identity and making him into a Red shirt. That's not just sloppy, but actually stupid nowadays.[/spoiler]

To be fair

Spoiler

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

The rest of your observation I agree with however, and goes back to my dislike of the lack of character development among the Transformers.

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.

I think you don't have to exclusively do one rather than the other, though. Particularly if you are trying to develop a franchise in which the continuing characters will be the robots rather than the humans. I think they did a great job with the human angle- through Sam and his family and friends- but went overboard on it as well- with the excessive military/political/technological characters, most of whom don't even get a real coda, since there are just too many of them. The hacker guy really didn't need to be there- he served no function whatsoever. Not even for comedic value, as the comedy roles were already well covered elsewhere.

Even if some of the human character time had been covered solely to develop the Megatron character in lieu of the other Autobots/Decepticons, I think it would have been far better served.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

To be fair

Spoiler

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

Oh, aye. Not complaining about that. I have no problem with the ethnic identity. I have problems with the correlation between ethnic identity and being an ineffectual non-character.

Also...

Spoiler

Is it just me, or did Frenzy get his full body back with no explanation? Or did I miss something?

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Also...

Spoiler

Is it just me, or did Frenzy get his full body back with no explanation? Or did I miss something?

I wondered about that, too.

Spoiler

I just assumed I missed something where he used the power of the cube to create a new body for himself or something. I also thought it kind of silly that he dies when he cuts his own head off, but that having his head removed earlier in the film didn't stop him.

 

[Jeysie]

Also...

Spoiler

Is it just me, or did Frenzy get his full body back with no explanation??

Or did I miss something

I had thought...

Spoiler

that he got it back when he touched the Allspark before going to free Megatron.

Am I misremembering?

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[Arkhandus]

They mentioned at one point earlier, when studying Skorponok's severed tail that it seemed the robots' bodies regenerated over time, using some kind of nanotechnology or whatnot (I forget exactly what the explanation/hyphothesis was). The All-Spark might have had something to do with it, too, of course. Also, earlier Frenzy's head had been knocked off, but not really damaged. Later his head was actually chopped in half, which would've severed the components within.

 

[Kaodi]

Absolutely realistic visuals is why I was waiting for a live-action Transformers since I was in public school, and this movie delivered that in spades. I had a couple of nit-picks about the All-Spark, but ultimately, the movie delivered what I wanted out of it, real transforming vehicles.

I have to comment on the many series though. I'm actually too young to have remembered much of G1, and I can't afford to get it on DVD yet, but I am in the group that thinks of Beast Wars as the true sequel to G1. Beast Machines has a bit of a weirder vibe too it, and it can ignored if you don't like the technorganic stuff, because its plot is seperated well enough from its predecessor. (Edit: Scratch that. According to Wikipedia, in the G1 animated series, the Quintessons allegedely created some technorganic creatures before they created the original Transformers, and subsequently locked the unstable creatures deep within Cybertron. So, I guess Beast Machines wasn't a tangent, it really was full circle.)

 

[Halivar]

And here are a couple plot gripes:

Spoiler

So.... the marine captain who was the resident human bad-arse chose to maximize civilian risk and collateral damage for a very minor increase in the ability to defend a position?

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.

Also...

Spoiler

Is it just me, or did Frenzy get his full body back with no explanation? Or did I miss something?

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.