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well, it was very nice for me, though there’s much violence for kids. But will still be waiting for transformers 2 on 2009!

she got that right…Bay should have given a more “mature script” and made it more serious. Making sam the pivot point that carries the movie and having cheezy slogans like “no sacrifice no victory” does sort of kill the believability of it being serious.(that slogans work best in martial art flick…NOT IN WAR FLICKS sicne no one is that much of an optimist)
should have tuck with the autobot’s viewpoint which even in the cartoons is a greta base for mature minded content..

Where do i begin… Michael Bay had $147 million dollar budget at his disposal to make the transformers, so where did the money go..?? I’m pretty sure that it didn’t go to the CGI effects, otherwise the transformers would have in fact been a half descent movie with characters that we the “TRUE” TF fans know and love.. I know that it has been well argued and debated that Michael Bay and his movie sucks in a big way… If certain people in our society, otherwise known as the “paper” fans, don’t know what all the fuss and bitching is about, watch the movie..!!

Having said that and having seen the movie for a second time as part of a work function… Seriously, where did the $147 million dollars go..?? Sector 7..?? Hmm.?? That looks, smells, sounds and feels strangely familiar to that of M.I.B (with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones), I wonder if Barry Sonnenfeld (the director of MIB) has seen the movie and wonder what he has to say about it..?? You would think that $147 million dollars would bring a more “original” concept to the theaters / cinemas, rather the nyet another hollywood rip-off.. Another issue i have with this movie, is the Gotham City batman “beaming signal into the sky” rip-off, where bubmlebee beams the autobot symbol into the night sky.. If i wanted to watch batman again, I’d go to blockbuster video and hire it for $2 for a week, rather then spending $15 to watch it again disguised as a different movie.. I wonder what Tim Burton (batman’s director) has to say about it..??

You’d think that $147 million dollars would disguise all these ripp-offs better..?? But “my bad”….. what was i thinking, you can’t disguise something that has already been done before, can you..?? Michael Bay (alas the “mark Walhberg” of the movie making industry) you have alot to learn about movie making.. Big explosions doesn’t quit cut it, they don’t make a movie, good acting, good directing, original ideas and a good script makes a movie successful, however, those traits don’t exist in any of your movies other then having good actors that try in vein to make your movies a success.. Your nothing more then Jerry Bruckheimers bitch who’s trying to escape from his shadow, yet the best thing you can come up with is ripping off ideas previously utilized successfully in other movies and passing it off as your own..

Shame on you Michael Bay for deceiving us, the “TRUE” transformers fans / paying public..

As a avid and life long fan of Transformers, the new movie left me conflicted. It was entertaining to watch. The effects were phenomenal, the action sequences well staged, the voice acting for Megatron (Hugo Weaving of Matrix, Lord of the Rings and V for Vendetta fame) and Optimus Prime (none other than the original series voice Peter Cullin) very well portrayed, and Megan Fox lived up to her last name.

However, the movie was also disappointing. As with all Michael Bay movies, it was too long and too superfluous. I don’t mind a long movie as long as it’s long for a reason. Lord of the Rings had a lot of ground to cover, so they had to run 3 hours. Transformers did not. For instance, the hackers were unnecessary. You could argue that they had to crack the Decepticon code, but by the time they brought all the different groups of characters together, Spike… I mean Sam already told everyone about the Autobots, Decepticons, and the All-Spark. Section 7 was also overdone. In fact, everything with the humans could have been scaled back. Yes, humans are important, but they shouldn’t take away from the Transformers and the millennia long battle between Autobots and Decepticons.

The story was the biggest let down. Megatron and Optimus as the leaders of the rival factions; the most powerful of the Transformers. So why was the battle between them so one-sided. Optimus was getting his butt kicked the whole time. Optimus Prime has to be saved by a group of F-16s and an 11th grader? And the death of Jazz was met with apathy. He gets to fight Devastator for a few seconds and then Megatron rips him in two like a rag doll. There’s no dramatic reaction from anyone… human or robot (but they were quite concerned with Bumblebee’s wounded legs.) Optimus should have gone to town on Megatron when he saw his second in command thrown to the ground in pieces. Iron Hide and Ratchet were wasted in the battle too. None of the Autobots got to have their heroic moment except for Bumblebee and Optimus (though his was earlier against Bonecrusher,) and Jazz’s death would have been justified if the writers gave him a heroic moment or let him go down fighting rather than squirming.

I think that after watching it again, and especially in the intimacy of their own living rooms, true Transformer fans will come to realize that Transformers the movie just wasn’t what it could have been. It was only pretty good when it could have been great.

Nice post there William Byron.. I agree with what you have written.. With hugo weaving as the voice over for megatron, well, they tried way too hard to make hugo weaving sound like frank welker.. It sounded alright, but it wasn’t Frank..!!

Yeah, the movie could have been alot better, if a more “credible” director had directed it, rather then some graduate fresh from some posh movie making collage.. Having Michael Bay directing it, did not do the transformers brand any justice..

[quote= Lady Lavinia]
I had left the theater with this uneasy feeling that “TRANSFORMERS“ seemed a little beneath for someone of Bay’s talent or reputation. When one really comes down to it, the movie seemed nothing more than an over-the-top kiddie flick.

LADY LAVINIA’S DOMAIN - “TRANSFORMERS” Review
[/quote]

NO S###.

Treat the subject matter like a “realistic” Kiddie flick and what do you get for $147 million??

I think this time, Mr. Bay got it wrong no matter how good the effects were and the main actors.
Respect the subject matter you get a greater film. It is apparent that he cared not a jot, what kind of director should be doing that if he dont give a hoot about the subject matter?

This movie is nothing more then a 2hr and 20min advertisement campaign for moutain dew (when the mountain dew vending machine transformed towards the very end of the movie), nokia (when frenzy morphed or mass shifted into a shitty little nokia phone) and GMC.. Michael Bay had a deal with GMC, where i believe that GMC will give Bay GMC cars he can use in his movie in exchange for “promoting” and “marketing” GMC to the world.. So if he got the cars for near on nothing, where did the rest of the $147million dollars go..?? I wonder..??

And what about the slap on the face scenario at the start of the movie where Sam was looking for his first car and the “new” bumblebee slammed his door on his old self (the VW that just so happened to be next to his new self), I don’t even want to point out the irony here.. Michael Bay said in various media releases etc…. that he couldn’t get the rights from VW to make bumblebee a yellow heribe, yet in the movie, heavens behold there he is herbie in all its glory.. So Michael Bay is not only an inferior director he’s also an inferior lier, because he just shot himself in the foot by making comments like that.. You need not be einstein to figure out that if you can’t get rights for certain products or brand names, you are not meant to put them in movies etc… without prior written or verbel consent from their respective companies… so why is herbie in the movie..??

The other thing i’d like to know is this, why does Optimus Prime have two different transformations in the movie..?? Look closely and you’ll understand what i mean..??

“I had left the theater with this uneasy feeling that “TRANSFORMERS“ seemed a little beneath for someone of Bay’s talent or reputation.”

I don’t want to repeat myself as a result of previous posts, because if i do go into detail of what i think of Michael Bay (on top of what has already been said about him) I will be simply pointing out the obvious.. Now, Michael Bay has been saying in publications such as EMPIRE MAGAZINE and various Australian newspapers that he couldn’t get the rights for VW, yet, ironically what was next to the new Bumblebee..?? Yup, the old Bumblebee in all its glory.. What a “direct” slap in the face for fans and indeed Bumblebee himself.. So really, when you look at it that way Michael Bay wanted to fuck up transformers from the outset, and that the whole “I couldn’t get the rights from VW” bullshit, was just that bullshit.. It was nothing more then a smokescreen for what was to come.. Same goes for Jazz… I don’t believe Michael Bay had any disagreements with Porsche, so why did Jazz become a Pontiac, and on top of that, he was much smaller then Bumblebee.. But in the G1 cartoon, it was the opposite where Jazz was taller then Bumblebee.. Anyway (got of the topic for a moment there), in the movie however, what dealership did Sam and his Dad drive through on the way to buying his first car..?? Yup, a porsche dealership.. I don’t want to point out the irony here, but somehow i am compelled to do so..

Same thing goes for Starscream (an F-22..??), he was always an F-15 from memory.. That goes double for Megatron, he was always a gun, admittedly he had to “mass shift” into something that small, but everyone remembers him as the menacing gun that could tear autobots apart.. The only time that i know off that Megatron was anything other then a gun was in machine wars where he was a plane.. But if Michael Bay went down the whole Beast Wars / Armada / Energon / Cybertron universes..?? My question is simple… where do the Witwicky’s (Sam Witwicky and mikaihla were just made up names with an original G1 characters surname to make the transformers feel somewhat “unchanged”) fit into the Spin-offs, other then G1..?? Because i don’t recall Spike, Sparkplug, Daniel, Karly being in Beast Wars / Armada / Energon / Cybertron universe etc… If that is the case and Michael Bay was “trying” to merge all the universes together, then what was he thinking..?? So why wasn’t Jazz a cheeter..??

I am so looking forward with displeasure to the pre-equels and the countless sequels that Bay wants to do in order to cash in on the brand name.. I wonder how much Nokia paid him in royalties to have their products used in the movie..?? I wonder how much Mountain Dew paid him in royalties to have their fizzy drink vending machines used in the movie..?? We all know the deal Bay had with GMC, so i don’t want to go there..

Since the movie was messed up form the outset, why not just take a page from ID4 and just plant a virus in megatron to take the decepticons down..?? I mean fair enough, in the final battle racthet and ironhide weakened blackout (from memory) but for soldiers to just shoot three rockets up his ass, and he went down (or was that bumblebee that weakened him…) either way conventional military weapons would not have taken something like that down, not with such ease anyway.. When the soldiers were in the desert, one of the soldiers (tyrese gibson from memory) said it himself that it (blackout) had some sort of invisible shield, then how is it possible for conventional military weapons to penetrate a forcefield.. If sidewinder missiles couldn’t penetrate the forcefield in “Independence day”, then how in gods name can rockets and machine guns do what sidewinders couldn’t in the movie mentioned..??

If it is so easy to take down a decepticon and indeed any transformers why couldn’t they just plug Megatron into a USB 2.0 port and upload a cookie virus or something..?? I know that it does sound stupid, and rightly so, but if a rocket can hurt a robot of that size, why not use other methods..?? Yes, i am aware that it’s a movie afterall, but at least make it believable..

More than a few parts of the world do not need computers to run their switchboard and still use old equipment.Mostly “analog” not “digital” and it is not centralised.

That is something to ponder on when cutting off communication to the world.

I am a fan since I was 8 years old and I must admit I enjoyed the film!! I wasn’t expecting much after being dissapointed by many remakes or comics turned to movies in the recent past. Actually on many occasions I find myself upset over the drastic changes and cursing the directors , etc. I came in to this movie thinking that the director would completely change the story line or even the characters therefore I was pleased that many remained similar to the gen 1 characters.

Without going into details I did dislike many of the things mentioned above but in the end the good elements of the movie allowed me to enjoy the film rather than be disgusted by it like comic to big screen converts. I simply saw the big picture and was happy that my childhood heroes made it into the 2007 amd their story can still be shared my many now that they have made a huge impact on the big screen. I don’t understand why some are looking for this film to be more serious when it began as a cartoon. It was too violent for a young audience and some of the subject matter also perhaps more teen appropriate so it found itself in the middle, not too cartoony not too serious…..everyone should just relax and enjoy it for what it is…a movie. Everyone CANNOT be please in one film ever. It is what it is…..

Great Post! I agree with what you are saying.

“It is this that some fans have complained about firstly and to “re- interpret” and “reinvent”
without first delving into it seems to leave out respect from what came before.”

While I disliked that they re-interpreted many things, I found that many things remained the same. Perhaps I was expecting this to be butchered like the Incredible Hulk movie, it changed completely his origins, he was able to sprint between countries and hell he never changed back to bruce banner! That is the whole idea that he only metamorphises when he gets upset. Geez… so many who liked it probably felt it was still “acceptable”.

“Think beyond the cartoony exterior and you will find something with much more depth or has the potential to be in real life.”

I couldn’t agree more with this statement. The movies was too long and not enough depth but I guess because it will supossedly be a trilogy it will expand and perhaps reach that depth that we would like to see.

“I expected us humans as nothing more than vermin to decepticons that can fight rather than have us easily put down a decepticon.”

Yes, I also hated that aspect of it, humans almost single handedly dealt with some of the decepticons. That is not true to the cartoons. The movie should have been about the TF not about the humans!

“As with the film itself, as a film on its own it is okay,but as a tribute to gen1 it in my opinion and that of a few here that it falls short of what it COULD have been. we are happy the transformers made it into realism..”

That was my point also, as a film it was just okay, you must remember they don’t make these movies for the hardcore TF fans but more for the mainstream because that is where the money is. It is especially geared towards a crowd that is not that familiar with the TF so I don’t think it was ever meant to be a true tribute to the TF gen 1 but fans like myself are glad they made it to current popular culture and has people trading, buying figures, looking back to get more into TF…and in the process perhaps discovering what we loved about the gen 1 TF

“I said before, we as fans are split between those who just like it and those who expected it to be an unabashed trubute to G1.”

Yes, we are split. That means it wasn’t the worse of films. If it was such a bad conversion then we would have all hated it such was the case with movies like superman returns and the incredible hulk, where die hard fans were simply disgusted with the reinventions, completely ignoring the history behind the characters we love. Honestly it is a film that I don’t regret having spent money on and in this day and age that is rare with me. . . . .

Alot of my friends liked this movie and when I expressed my dissatifaction for it I got some heat. So I’ll tell you what I told them. If you veiw this as a three part trilogy like most big blockbusters have become it was alright. It set down the ground rules and backstory for the next two to three movies. The question is will the next chapter be more of the same or will bay broaden his veiw and go more into the mind set of the autobots and the power struggles of the decepticons.

All in all my major grips are these. First off they built up the autobots really well. They were mostly the same characters from the show but what happened with the decepticons? Then just ending up being cannon fodder for prime then just getting swept away in the last 10 minutes of the movie. Is this really the same force that is feared across the galaxy. It would have been nice to see some character development which shouldn’t be hard. All it would have taken is one scene with starscream barking out orders and the others saying megatron was their leader. Then starscream get’s up in a huff and reminds them that megatron has been missing more thousand of years. See easy, it could have taken 5 minutes. Really.

Also it annoyed me how they would cut away from the transformers when they were talking or doing something importent. Like when Megatron and Prime and getting ready to face off and prime does “one will stand and one will fall” what do you see? You see sam hiding in a hole with the all spark. No one cares about the humans.

Speaking of those human germs, how is it that an AI robot that has a thousands of years of evolution over a hairless ape can be taken down by a single bazooka shot? Why is it that just firing a high heat round can bring any transformer to his knees? I mean if we can do that why even have prime and the autobots in the movie. They seem to just get in the way of us. The first 15 minutes were blackout was ripping apart the desert base was great. If the rest of the movie was like that it would have been fine but to make the humans on par powerwise with the decepticon big mistake. I can only hope that in the next movie they deceptions have adapted themself to make all earth based weapons usless.

those are my major grips. Plot wise it wasn’t bad and builds well for the next one. Really in Transformers 2 all I want is Dinobots and Construticon the merge to form devistator. Put that in and I’ll be happy.

I remember bay giving an interveiw were they asked him why he put flames on prime instead of him just being a sold red. His answer was because he wanted to. So that right there sums up why transformers turned out like it did.

on the subject of what “changes” Micheal Bay may be intending (sorry Shawn if this may get off the beaten track)look at the NEW transformer movie toys?? notic esome characters that you haven’t seen in the movie such as cliffjumper (red version of bumblebee) or longarm (supposedly the pickuptruck that Megan Fox’s character comes to life??? )

I wonder if they will be in the next movie?? I mean since they already made the toys????

Better yet, for all the 1980’s trasnformers fans take note..
read the bios of each “new” transformer toy with “dreamworks” written on the cardboard.In particular.. read ARCEE’s bio??? (the pink motocyle that arcee has become)Now to be frank in writing this bio they have effectively “MURDERED” mirage as a potentical character (whihc would have been an a good one since he turns invisible) since her bio reads very close to his. (especially her hunting “turbo foxes”… ) I thought “turbo foxes” according to several TF fan faqs,comics and the cartoon were hunted by the elite class of transformers. (as mirage in his bio mentions comes from a high brow neighborhood)

If that is the case, I wonder what other characters we may have placed on the choppingblock.

yep got it. need a really bad pic for my prof.