I loved the first movie, the second movie murdered my love for the first one, and now I am optimistic for the third. Do I have a right to this feeling, or am I kind of a dimbulb?
Interesting; the Egypt parts are when it got mildly tolerable for me, just because there was enough action going on that they couldn’t make *quite* as many stupid offensive terrible jokes.
And the trailer… it would be a good idea for a new Transformers series. Knowing the movies, they’ll ignore all the interesting implications of the idea and give us twenty minutes of Alpha Trion being incontinent on the lunar rover.
It helps if one hasn’t been to the middle east… And / or doesn’t realize that the various landmarks in one view in one scene are about as close as the Washington Monument and downtown Chicago.
I mean the giant robots are supposed to be fictional, but get the rest half assed right…
There’s nothing wrong with a LITTLE optimism in the absence of certainty… if you liked the first film there’s a decent CHANCE you’ll like the third. And it’s an interesting, non-obvious concept. I was sure they were gonna go with Unicron.
I ran away from the various and sundry discussions once people started arguing whether it was frickin’ Unicron. (New! Different! Compact! Not Alpha Trion or some kinda Sentinel Prime or another dude! STILL NOT A GIRL!)
That might’ve been part of it, too. I saw the first movie in theatres and was half-expecting it to actually be good (sure, it was a Michael Bay movie, but it’d gotten decent reviews.) I waited for the DVD for RotF and knew from the start what I was in for, so it wasn’t as much of a disappointment.
Remember back in 2006 when we thought it would be a G1-style film? When we were told the Cybertronians would be appropriately scaled to their vehicle forms like the toys? When people were making fanfilms and leaking animation tests? Yeah. That’s my happy place.
The first film was tolerable. It wasn’t great, and there was a lot of stuff I didn’t see the point of, but I’ve watched it and had a bit of fun.
The second film I hated in every aspect. To many glaring plot holes, unimportant characters, confusing CGI (particularly on the big screen) and really intellectually insulting characters/humor.
This one is like the previous films. The trailer is going to make me wanna see it, and then if/when I do, I’m going to be disappointed and feeling angry.
I may be one of the very few people who laughed their ass off at all the ball jokes.
I blame this on making the mistake of not arriving early to the Imax showing. The only seats we could find were in THE FRONT ROW. >< It was like sitting with your face touching the TV screen. On a BIG TV. Honestly? For at least the first 20 minutes, until my brain started to adjust, I couldn't see a damned thing but coloured whirls. All I could understand or make out were the balls jokes and I was desperate for entertainment.
Other than that, I pretty much hated it. I was REALLY disappointed that the bike Mikayla was painting at the beginning wasn't Arcee (heard a rumour the girls were in there but you could have fooled me); HATED the twins and Bumblebee's blubbering (gods, grow some dignity!); thought most of the plot was retarded.
I could go on and on, but I won't. I'll see the next one; but I don't really hold out any hope for it.
It'd be cool if someone else took a completely different and unrelated stab at Transformers a la The Hulk.
I went to see the first one because “Hey live action Optimus Prime on the big screen!”. I skipped the second one because the first one gave me what I wanted. I didn’t need to go back, they COULDN’T offer me anything more than I’d already experienced. Then they dropped the bombshell for the third movie. 3D. Bastards.
I enjoyed the first two, and will probably enjoy the third. I just concentrated on enjoying myself. It’s not like Transformers was some sort of masterwork of storytelling to begin with…
(how many scientific inaccuracies does Ethan count when he watches old G1 episodes?)
And while I like the idea of finding Transformers on the moon, by 1969 they already had MBE 1 in cold storage, so they already knew there were Transformers… so how is this a revelation?
There is a POSSIBILITY that it won’t suck. Remember, the second one was made in the middle of the Writer’s Strike, so we were working ONLY on Bay’s creative vision, such as it is. Maybe we won’t have to kill ourselves.
You do know the Ghetto Twins were intended to be a parody of wiggaz, right? On account of they were trying way too hard to bite somebody else‘s pop culture memes?
I found them far less annoying than fucking Rooty-Toot Keyop Bumblebee in Transformers: Prime. Whoever was responsible for that crap needs to go drink bleach.
The Wiggaz thing got lost in translation though– probably partly when they cast a black actor for one of their voices.
KNOWING they were supposed to be that, I can see that in the finished movie (they remind me of the kind of people who made backyard wrestling videos involving bats with nails in them and posted them on youtube) but it REALLY doesn’t come across in the film.
In that second panel where Ethan is looking down and saying he’s excited about Transformers 3? Well the way he’s looking down makes it look like he’s staring at just how excited the trailer got him. Just saying is all.
eh, its not as bad as “we found a giant frozen robot and somehow managed to ship him over 2000 miles through a desert and built a dam to cover him up.”
i like i so far. but i take all films at face value.
Eh…I’m not happy hearing they’re making the female lead a love interest…AGAIN…nor am I happy hearing she’ll be played by some Victoria’s Secret model…which aren’t known for acting. But if she manages to emote and isn’t JUST fanservice, I’ll be very surprised.
Honestly, optimism in the wake of Revenge of the Fallen makes sense. It’s kinda what we do. No matter how much we dislike something that the franchise has given us, we look forward to the next installment to improve upon it. Sometimes, we’re let down. And sometimes we’re not.
Just look at Revenge of the Fallen being the ‘Energon’ of the Movie Trilogy, and hopefully Dark of the Moon is its ‘Cybertron’.
Meh, I´m not gonna watch the teaser, the last movie was dissapointing enough. And the third one is going to be 3d? Just one more reason to skip it. I´m not going to pay any extra money for an overused and overrated gimmick.
And I´m damn sick of Optimus Prime, Megatron and the rest of the stock characters. I like them, but I´ve had my share. I would enjoy TF Prime much more without Prime.
Michael Bay is the world’s biggest abusive movie spouse. He draws us in with promises that “this time will be better, this time he’ll make us happy”, and when we finally say “Okay, I’ll give you another chance” he beats us all within an inch of our lives, with terrible story, plot holes you can drive Optimus Prime through, confusing CGI, and dog and/or robot dry-humping.
God damn you Bay… I feel like there should be a form of therapy for those of us who hate Michael Bay films, but keep seeing them because the trailers are so damn inviting…
The trailer, eh, trailers remind me of shitty white people…
That said, what bothered me most was that they don’t even list any of the actors, and even the ExecProds are listed after the Special Effects house. Yes, we know, SFX are important to “summer blockbusters”, (read, tits and explostion wrapped generously around a so-called plot), but Jesus-Frakking-Christ…
The first one was pretty terrible, to the point where I refused to watch the second. If I want to watch a goofy Transformers movie I’ll watch the original one, because no one’s ramming it in my face anymore so I can just sit down and enjoy it on my own terms, not because some assholes are trying to brainwash me into paying them for this crap.
The second movie made it plainly obvious (as if it wasn’t before) that I’m nowhere near Hasbro’s target demographic and it seems there’s no desire from them to reach out to a broader demographic, then TFA got canceled and somewhere during all that All Hail Megatron showed up in my comic book pull box. I considered it a sign and since then I haven’t purchased a single Transformers related item. I know some folks have enjoyed all that – and that’s great. To each his or her own. I have more money for Batman now. I’ll wait for the reviews on this one before I see it in theaters.
I was disapointed with the trailer. But mostly cuz I wanna see those Nascar transformers that are in the movie….and see a bunch of rednecks be in shock as Dale Jr wins when his car starts shooting people…. Seriously. There’s 3 Nascar transformers in the movie so we have 3 Transformers that are COVERED in advertising. *lol* Helloo product placement!
And apperantly the space shuttle transforms too… Gee thanks Bay.
I don’t know. Optimism about another bay-helmed transformers movie just strikes me as self-delusion. Don’t keep pumping money into that garbage. Let it die. Just acknowledge that TF2 was terrible, start calling Bay ‘history’s greatest monster’, don’t go to the sequel, and let the blasted thing die.
Then maybe 10 years later someone will dig the property out and give it Christopher Nolan or something, and you’ll get some actually decent movies.
As long as you keep paying Michael Bay to rub his balls in your face, he’s going to keep rubbing his balls in your face.
Forgive me since Im not a transformers fanboy (im just here for the comic and whitty banter). Isn’t transformers suppose to be multiple continuities with the same characters? so why not view the movies as a different continuity? And if I am wrong and transformers is only one continuity treat this as the 2nd continuity. I liked the first movie and the action in the second was pretty good…although the plotline had more holes than a strainer. Remember movies are about making money, and sadly people who remember transformers as ‘that show/toy I watched/played with as a kid’, is the demographic to shoot for. Not to mention it is perspective, If you show a little kid the new movies then the cartoon, I bet he’d love bumblebee the camero over the VW. Just imagine the complaining if he started as a Camero and switched to a VW in the movies…
The movies are definitely a different continuity, and all stories related to the movies are in a specific continuity family. I’m not sure why that’s relevant to anyone’s feelings about them, though, because I’m not sure anyone here thinks they’re the same story as the original cartoon or comic book.
The Transformers movies are definitely NOT for little kids. Nor are they for anyone who wants their movies to “make sense.” For that matter, they’re also not for people who go to a Transformers movie and want to see a movie about Transformers… A boy and his car, indeed.
Domestic Total Gross: $319,246,193 http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers06.htm
Domestic Total Gross: $402,111,870 http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers2.htm
you are totally right, nobody liked it.
and Willis, many comments seemed centered towards not liking the movie due to addition/changes to characters. Before the movie came out, I would bet it could have Optimus Prime and Megatron and never before seen characters and most people would have had enough nastalgia to like the movie. ofc please remember, other than the movies and saturday mornings 15 years ago, I have had little to do with transformers. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing but can ruin other things if taken to be “the only way” as I feel your comment many times points out.
I was never talking about Willis’ nostalgia. From what I gather other commenters hate the movie because it didn’t fit the previous transformers to what they remember and so it must be a bad movie.
The slow build-up/reveal of the Transformers is really the best thing the first movie accomplished. I like my Transformers stories to remember that Transformers are aliens stranded on another world, and having nothing but Transformers talking with Transformers while fighting Transformers will cause that to be overlooked. Having a large human factor makes the Transformers look majestic and awesome in comparison, since we get to see them through our eyes, rather than from their eyes. It’s about viewpoint.
the temptation to watch any film as pure spectacle – the inability to look away, much like the thousands who went to watch Waterworld even knowing of the heartbreak that awaited them – will be with us always, Ethan.
You cannot deny the lure of hoping that this time they will get the Transformers right…
I feel optimistic. You hit the nail right on the head of the second movie. Just hope the Autobots get some quiet action movie screen time this time around.
I just want a movie called Transformers where the Transformers were actually the characters of the film, and not moving scenery that provided exposition or conflict.
But Transformers are ALIEN ROBOTS, and there is no way that an audience can relate to ALIEN ROBOTS as main characters, so we need to tell stories about humans who interact with ALIEN ROBOTS so that the audience can relate. Or something. [/sarcasm]
This argument never made any sense to me. If the movie is called Transformers, it should be about Transformers, not about peripheral characters filling screen time with potty humor. Kinda like Superman is about Superman (gasp! A Strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond mortal men!), not Jimmy Olsen. That’s my biggest beef with the TF movies; that, and complete lack of characterization for the Transformers.
Given the cost of producing big-screen-grade CGI Transformers, especially at the level of detail they’ve chosen as the live action movies’ style, I theoretically wouldn’t mind a human focus. Heck, I don’t even mind a human focus in non-movie Transformers fiction on the rare, rare occasion it’s done right. The problem is that the movies only have about an ounce of characterization to go around, and they couldn’t make it spread any further than the human cast and, arguably, Optimus and Bumblebee, and it’s spread thin even there. Two movies without a properly scheming Starscream? That’s grounds for dismissal right there.
The first movie sucked hard. The second movie sucked worse. The third movie will not redeem them.
Sad facts of life. Rewatch Beast Wars and call it good. (Though for myself I *will* see it – not because I expect it to be good, because it won’t be, but because I prefer not to be ignorant of what I criticize.)
I enjoyed aspects of both movies and hated other aspects. All of the gratuitous ogling shots pissed me off, for example. The Fallen not getting to prove himself as threatening before getting killed was another. “Only a Prime can kill him” was silly and we never got to see him defeat anyone. Sigh. I loved the idea of miniature Insecticons, even if they never got personalities.
This third one looks like an interesting/fun concept. The movies are at least fun. Leave your brain at the door and you’re OK.
I think its more the idea that the ‘radio interruption’ was a hoax. Actually, I can’t remember if there even WAS an interruption while they were on the moon.
Nah, there’s such a thing as internal consistency. Its okay to insert fantastic elements into a story, but once you state something is true for the movie, stick with it.
Ok, short time reader, long time fan of giant robots. I do understand that the first 2 movies were designed to bring new people into the fandom while giving a nod to older fans, but I see patterns forming between what I’ve seen in all the newer movies. Human teenager with sexual frustration, female (which the animated movie did fine without), really old transformer that has been on/near earth for a long time. I got the message the first time, transformers have been here a long time. ok. Next story please. I’m expecting the 4th movie now to have the Easter Island heads transform and attack a robot formed by the great wall of China.
Lastly, I understand CGI work is hard, but that’s why you have a multi-million dollar budget. CGI models were developed, and didn’t use them very much (sideswipe, Jolt(no, car mode doesn’t count)), and then re-used older models. I think at the end of the second movie I saw at least 4 different robots that looked almost exactly like the first movie’s Megatron. Blackout was dismembered in the first movie, but the exact same bot appears in the second movie, same model, and apparently without telling us in the movie or the books this is “Grindor.” No, this is “we needed cannon fodder but didn’t want to spend time on it.” To me it’s the equivalent of the stock footage transformations in Power Rangers and Energon.
I hear that Shockwave is in this movie, this makes me afraid but I do have to watch it, and I hope he kicks ass.
You do know that even though the “models” are developed one time, the bots do have to be rendered in the new scenes frame by frame for each new scene since the conditions (lighting, shadows, etc.) are different for different scenes, right? Not to mention that even though Grindor and Blackout share the same model, their “skins” are different.
The Transformers movies do have a high budget, but it’s not an unlimited budget.
It is a rather large budget, and for a movie about giant robots, I’d rather they focused more of their budget around giant robots. The actor/actress choices were decent and probably not overpriced, the special effects were decent and not all CGI. But it was intended to be and turned out to be a big blockbuster, which I would have liked a little more detail in.
Hopefully the 3rd movie has a big enough budget not to repaint dead characters into new characters. With 2 movies under their belts I hope they can render a little easier/cheaper now.
You don’t really know a lot about CGI, do you? Rendering is always going to be the most time-consuming part. Doing one or two movies first isn’t going to change that. Especially since you want more detail AND shorter rendering times!
But rendering always gets cheaper as time goes on, as the server farms grow & machines are replaced with faster units. Getting the software and other infrastructure more mature will also reduce costs.
Of course, how many Transformers movies were done before may not make much difference, if there were other customers as well.
It looks neat.
That was my reaction–”Oh, they did NOT go th… shit.”
If Ethan could point them out to me, it would be great. I’m terrible at history.
I guess I should watch the trailer now.
Okay, watched it. Uh… Looks interesting, I guess?
I watched the other two, thought they were okay, though the second had a pretty rushed ending.
Will probably go see this one.
I distinctly remember you raving about the second. Has time removed your rose-tinted glasses?
I don’t think I ever raved about the second one. I liked the first half of it a lot. Once they get to Egypt I want to kill myself.
What he said was: “Giant Robots. Anything else is irrelevant.”
Which I guess means he likes it about as much as he likes Power Rangers?
Interesting; the Egypt parts are when it got mildly tolerable for me, just because there was enough action going on that they couldn’t make *quite* as many stupid offensive terrible jokes.
And the trailer… it would be a good idea for a new Transformers series. Knowing the movies, they’ll ignore all the interesting implications of the idea and give us twenty minutes of Alpha Trion being incontinent on the lunar rover.
It helps if one hasn’t been to the middle east… And / or doesn’t realize that the various landmarks in one view in one scene are about as close as the Washington Monument and downtown Chicago.
I mean the giant robots are supposed to be fictional, but get the rest half assed right…
Yup….
You are now a dumbass.
It’s just optimism, that’s all. I mean, the second movie set the bar pretty low, the next one *has* to be better…right?…right?
There’s nothing wrong with a LITTLE optimism in the absence of certainty… if you liked the first film there’s a decent CHANCE you’ll like the third. And it’s an interesting, non-obvious concept. I was sure they were gonna go with Unicron.
I ran away from the various and sundry discussions once people started arguing whether it was frickin’ Unicron. (New! Different! Compact! Not Alpha Trion or some kinda Sentinel Prime or another dude! STILL NOT A GIRL!)
Dimbulb!
I hated the first movie but actually somewhat enjoyed the second for the glorious trainwreck that it was.
Plus the Shanghai fight at the beginning was decent, giving it a grand total of one good action sequence compared to the original’s zero.
I hated the fight scenes in the theatre, but I like them better on the small screen.
For some reason the smaller screen was easier to tell what was going on, and that made it better for me.
The forest fight scene was a LOT better, in my opinion.
That might’ve been part of it, too. I saw the first movie in theatres and was half-expecting it to actually be good (sure, it was a Michael Bay movie, but it’d gotten decent reviews.) I waited for the DVD for RotF and knew from the start what I was in for, so it wasn’t as much of a disappointment.
I also hated the first and enjoyed the second.
Remember back in 2006 when we thought it would be a G1-style film? When we were told the Cybertronians would be appropriately scaled to their vehicle forms like the toys? When people were making fanfilms and leaking animation tests? Yeah. That’s my happy place.
The first film was tolerable. It wasn’t great, and there was a lot of stuff I didn’t see the point of, but I’ve watched it and had a bit of fun.
The second film I hated in every aspect. To many glaring plot holes, unimportant characters, confusing CGI (particularly on the big screen) and really intellectually insulting characters/humor.
This one is like the previous films. The trailer is going to make me wanna see it, and then if/when I do, I’m going to be disappointed and feeling angry.
I may be one of the very few people who laughed their ass off at all the ball jokes.
I blame this on making the mistake of not arriving early to the Imax showing. The only seats we could find were in THE FRONT ROW. >< It was like sitting with your face touching the TV screen. On a BIG TV. Honestly? For at least the first 20 minutes, until my brain started to adjust, I couldn't see a damned thing but coloured whirls. All I could understand or make out were the balls jokes and I was desperate for entertainment.
Other than that, I pretty much hated it. I was REALLY disappointed that the bike Mikayla was painting at the beginning wasn't Arcee (heard a rumour the girls were in there but you could have fooled me); HATED the twins and Bumblebee's blubbering (gods, grow some dignity!); thought most of the plot was retarded.
I could go on and on, but I won't. I'll see the next one; but I don't really hold out any hope for it.
It'd be cool if someone else took a completely different and unrelated stab at Transformers a la The Hulk.
You are a dimbulb, but for entirely different reasons.
I went to see the first one because “Hey live action Optimus Prime on the big screen!”. I skipped the second one because the first one gave me what I wanted. I didn’t need to go back, they COULDN’T offer me anything more than I’d already experienced. Then they dropped the bombshell for the third movie. 3D. Bastards.
For once Willis, we’re on the exact same page.
Now I must go shower for six hours.
I enjoyed the first two, and will probably enjoy the third. I just concentrated on enjoying myself. It’s not like Transformers was some sort of masterwork of storytelling to begin with…
(how many scientific inaccuracies does Ethan count when he watches old G1 episodes?)
But, if you’re just going to concentrate on enjoying yourself, why bother going to the theatre and buying a ticket?
Buzz Aldrin discovers a transformer on the moon as part of a top secret space mission?
Willis, hate to say it, but yes, my friend, you’re a dimbulb.
The idea is crack, but it’s entertaining crack.
The movie will probably blow, though.
And while I like the idea of finding Transformers on the moon, by 1969 they already had MBE 1 in cold storage, so they already knew there were Transformers… so how is this a revelation?
S7 knew. NASA didn’t. Seemed obvious to me.
-airfox
There is a POSSIBILITY that it won’t suck. Remember, the second one was made in the middle of the Writer’s Strike, so we were working ONLY on Bay’s creative vision, such as it is. Maybe we won’t have to kill ourselves.
Bay did say he was moving away from the “goofy humor” in this one.
So maybe no racist twins or Devastator testicles? Maybe?
You do know the Ghetto Twins were intended to be a parody of wiggaz, right? On account of they were trying way too hard to bite somebody else‘s pop culture memes?
I found them far less annoying than fucking Rooty-Toot Keyop Bumblebee in Transformers: Prime. Whoever was responsible for that crap needs to go drink bleach.
Yeah, but the thing is, it doesn’t really matter what they intended. What went up on the screen is what went up on the screen.
For me, the Twins were just as annoying as real life wangstas.
The Wiggaz thing got lost in translation though– probably partly when they cast a black actor for one of their voices.
KNOWING they were supposed to be that, I can see that in the finished movie (they remind me of the kind of people who made backyard wrestling videos involving bats with nails in them and posted them on youtube) but it REALLY doesn’t come across in the film.
My what Naive optimism I had last year.
Fuck you, Bay.
In that second panel where Ethan is looking down and saying he’s excited about Transformers 3? Well the way he’s looking down makes it look like he’s staring at just how excited the trailer got him. Just saying is all.
Oh God, now I can’t unsee it.
I was expecting a joke along the lines of ‘Ethan: Now I need a cigarette and a change of pants.’
So, uh, kudos for being classier than me, I guess.
eh, its not as bad as “we found a giant frozen robot and somehow managed to ship him over 2000 miles through a desert and built a dam to cover him up.”
i like i so far. but i take all films at face value.
You do realize considering its Michael Bay, do the exact same thing, only this time doing it in space, right?
Eh…I’m not happy hearing they’re making the female lead a love interest…AGAIN…nor am I happy hearing she’ll be played by some Victoria’s Secret model…which aren’t known for acting. But if she manages to emote and isn’t JUST fanservice, I’ll be very surprised.
Honestly, optimism in the wake of Revenge of the Fallen makes sense. It’s kinda what we do. No matter how much we dislike something that the franchise has given us, we look forward to the next installment to improve upon it. Sometimes, we’re let down. And sometimes we’re not.
Just look at Revenge of the Fallen being the ‘Energon’ of the Movie Trilogy, and hopefully Dark of the Moon is its ‘Cybertron’.
I don’t know. It doesn’t look bad enough. It would have been more exciting if dude got to the moon and then WHAM DINOBOTS.
Personally, I think it would have been good with the ’60s drug culture if they had found “My Little Ponies” in leather.
Like “Magic Christian” + SF + CGI = yea man! cooool
Meh, I´m not gonna watch the teaser, the last movie was dissapointing enough. And the third one is going to be 3d? Just one more reason to skip it. I´m not going to pay any extra money for an overused and overrated gimmick.
And I´m damn sick of Optimus Prime, Megatron and the rest of the stock characters. I like them, but I´ve had my share. I would enjoy TF Prime much more without Prime.
Michael Bay is the world’s biggest abusive movie spouse. He draws us in with promises that “this time will be better, this time he’ll make us happy”, and when we finally say “Okay, I’ll give you another chance” he beats us all within an inch of our lives, with terrible story, plot holes you can drive Optimus Prime through, confusing CGI, and dog and/or robot dry-humping.
God damn you Bay… I feel like there should be a form of therapy for those of us who hate Michael Bay films, but keep seeing them because the trailers are so damn inviting…
(Visualizes the Victims of Michael Bay Support Group sitting in a circle on green folding chairs that keep blowing up)
The trailer, eh, trailers remind me of shitty white people…
That said, what bothered me most was that they don’t even list any of the actors, and even the ExecProds are listed after the Special Effects house. Yes, we know, SFX are important to “summer blockbusters”, (read, tits and explostion wrapped generously around a so-called plot), but Jesus-Frakking-Christ…
Next button. . . Next button. . . Why isn’t it advancing? Oh no. . . nononononono I’VE CAUGHT UP!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Is it me or is Ethan looking at his dick when he says “I’m excited”?
It’s never just you.
The first one was pretty terrible, to the point where I refused to watch the second. If I want to watch a goofy Transformers movie I’ll watch the original one, because no one’s ramming it in my face anymore so I can just sit down and enjoy it on my own terms, not because some assholes are trying to brainwash me into paying them for this crap.
The second movie made it plainly obvious (as if it wasn’t before) that I’m nowhere near Hasbro’s target demographic and it seems there’s no desire from them to reach out to a broader demographic, then TFA got canceled and somewhere during all that All Hail Megatron showed up in my comic book pull box. I considered it a sign and since then I haven’t purchased a single Transformers related item. I know some folks have enjoyed all that – and that’s great. To each his or her own. I have more money for Batman now. I’ll wait for the reviews on this one before I see it in theaters.
I was disapointed with the trailer. But mostly cuz I wanna see those Nascar transformers that are in the movie….and see a bunch of rednecks be in shock as Dale Jr wins when his car starts shooting people…. Seriously. There’s 3 Nascar transformers in the movie so we have 3 Transformers that are COVERED in advertising. *lol* Helloo product placement!
And apperantly the space shuttle transforms too… Gee thanks Bay.
So Omega Supreme’s in this film? How come nobody told me?
there’s supposed to be a space shuttle Transformer… Astrotrain.
Not Skylynx?
I don’t know. Optimism about another bay-helmed transformers movie just strikes me as self-delusion. Don’t keep pumping money into that garbage. Let it die. Just acknowledge that TF2 was terrible, start calling Bay ‘history’s greatest monster’, don’t go to the sequel, and let the blasted thing die.
Then maybe 10 years later someone will dig the property out and give it Christopher Nolan or something, and you’ll get some actually decent movies.
As long as you keep paying Michael Bay to rub his balls in your face, he’s going to keep rubbing his balls in your face.
Cristopher Nolan? I doubt that would happen. J.J. Abrams, on the other hand, seems like he’d be up for it!
“As long as you keep paying Michael Bay to rub his balls in your face, he’s going to keep rubbing his balls in your face.”
this sums it up perfectly.
…well, I think it’s all right to be optimistic.
Forgive me since Im not a transformers fanboy (im just here for the comic and whitty banter). Isn’t transformers suppose to be multiple continuities with the same characters? so why not view the movies as a different continuity? And if I am wrong and transformers is only one continuity treat this as the 2nd continuity. I liked the first movie and the action in the second was pretty good…although the plotline had more holes than a strainer. Remember movies are about making money, and sadly people who remember transformers as ‘that show/toy I watched/played with as a kid’, is the demographic to shoot for. Not to mention it is perspective, If you show a little kid the new movies then the cartoon, I bet he’d love bumblebee the camero over the VW. Just imagine the complaining if he started as a Camero and switched to a VW in the movies…
The movies are definitely a different continuity, and all stories related to the movies are in a specific continuity family. I’m not sure why that’s relevant to anyone’s feelings about them, though, because I’m not sure anyone here thinks they’re the same story as the original cartoon or comic book.
The Transformers movies are definitely NOT for little kids. Nor are they for anyone who wants their movies to “make sense.” For that matter, they’re also not for people who go to a Transformers movie and want to see a movie about Transformers… A boy and his car, indeed.
Domestic Total Gross: $319,246,193
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers06.htm
Domestic Total Gross: $402,111,870
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers2.htm
you are totally right, nobody liked it.
and Willis, many comments seemed centered towards not liking the movie due to addition/changes to characters. Before the movie came out, I would bet it could have Optimus Prime and Megatron and never before seen characters and most people would have had enough nastalgia to like the movie. ofc please remember, other than the movies and saturday mornings 15 years ago, I have had little to do with transformers. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing but can ruin other things if taken to be “the only way” as I feel your comment many times points out.
Willis’s nostalgia is mainly for TF:Beast Wars anyway.
I was never talking about Willis’ nostalgia. From what I gather other commenters hate the movie because it didn’t fit the previous transformers to what they remember and so it must be a bad movie.
did you happen to look at the ratings while you were looking at the money? revenge was rated drastically lower than the first one.
The slow build-up/reveal of the Transformers is really the best thing the first movie accomplished. I like my Transformers stories to remember that Transformers are aliens stranded on another world, and having nothing but Transformers talking with Transformers while fighting Transformers will cause that to be overlooked. Having a large human factor makes the Transformers look majestic and awesome in comparison, since we get to see them through our eyes, rather than from their eyes. It’s about viewpoint.
the temptation to watch any film as pure spectacle – the inability to look away, much like the thousands who went to watch Waterworld even knowing of the heartbreak that awaited them – will be with us always, Ethan.
You cannot deny the lure of hoping that this time they will get the Transformers right…
I feel optimistic. You hit the nail right on the head of the second movie. Just hope the Autobots get some quiet action movie screen time this time around.
I just want a movie called Transformers where the Transformers were actually the characters of the film, and not moving scenery that provided exposition or conflict.
I know it is a lot to ask…
JESUS I KNOW RIGHT?!!?
But Transformers are ALIEN ROBOTS, and there is no way that an audience can relate to ALIEN ROBOTS as main characters, so we need to tell stories about humans who interact with ALIEN ROBOTS so that the audience can relate. Or something. [/sarcasm]
This argument never made any sense to me. If the movie is called Transformers, it should be about Transformers, not about peripheral characters filling screen time with potty humor. Kinda like Superman is about Superman (gasp! A Strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond mortal men!), not Jimmy Olsen. That’s my biggest beef with the TF movies; that, and complete lack of characterization for the Transformers.
Given the cost of producing big-screen-grade CGI Transformers, especially at the level of detail they’ve chosen as the live action movies’ style, I theoretically wouldn’t mind a human focus. Heck, I don’t even mind a human focus in non-movie Transformers fiction on the rare, rare occasion it’s done right. The problem is that the movies only have about an ounce of characterization to go around, and they couldn’t make it spread any further than the human cast and, arguably, Optimus and Bumblebee, and it’s spread thin even there. Two movies without a properly scheming Starscream? That’s grounds for dismissal right there.
The first movie sucked hard. The second movie sucked worse. The third movie will not redeem them.
Sad facts of life. Rewatch Beast Wars and call it good. (Though for myself I *will* see it – not because I expect it to be good, because it won’t be, but because I prefer not to be ignorant of what I criticize.)
Fuck Beast Wars.
“not g1 so it sucks”
No, it’s more like it’s really horribly overrated, and a lot of fans consider it untouchable.
You know how the G1 fans were when BW showed up? That BW was ruining their precious Transformers forever?
That’s the way BW fans act if anyone wants to reinterpret the series.
It’s crap like that that means I’ll never get my toyline-style BW comic set in 1996.
I love Beast Wars, and that would be awesome.
You are wrong for hating the second movie. Both movies were amazing works of art.
TROLL!!!!!!
I enjoyed aspects of both movies and hated other aspects. All of the gratuitous ogling shots pissed me off, for example. The Fallen not getting to prove himself as threatening before getting killed was another. “Only a Prime can kill him” was silly and we never got to see him defeat anyone. Sigh. I loved the idea of miniature Insecticons, even if they never got personalities.
This third one looks like an interesting/fun concept. The movies are at least fun. Leave your brain at the door and you’re OK.
I’m not up on Transformers lore. Hasn’t the history been retconned and revised almost as many times as the DCU since Crisis on Infinite Earths?
Ethan is not saying he found inaccuracies in “Transformers history” (continunity), he saying he found inaccuracies in real-world history…
I think they’re talking about real-world historical inaccuracies. Like Neil Armstrong having seen Transformers on the Moon.
I think its more the idea that the ‘radio interruption’ was a hoax. Actually, I can’t remember if there even WAS an interruption while they were on the moon.
Giant Fighting Robots.
All arguments are invalid.
Says the man who has obviously never seen Robot Jox…..
Ethan? Honey? Sit down, there’s something your father an I need to tell you about the very PREMISE of Transformers….
Nah, there’s such a thing as internal consistency. Its okay to insert fantastic elements into a story, but once you state something is true for the movie, stick with it.
This is why I ultimately stopped watching Heroes. You know, aside from it being canceled.
This new movie has Shockwave in it so your desire for seeing it is understandable.
There’s also a trailer for the new Pirates movie. It actually looks tolerable.
Ok, short time reader, long time fan of giant robots. I do understand that the first 2 movies were designed to bring new people into the fandom while giving a nod to older fans, but I see patterns forming between what I’ve seen in all the newer movies. Human teenager with sexual frustration, female (which the animated movie did fine without), really old transformer that has been on/near earth for a long time. I got the message the first time, transformers have been here a long time. ok. Next story please. I’m expecting the 4th movie now to have the Easter Island heads transform and attack a robot formed by the great wall of China.
Lastly, I understand CGI work is hard, but that’s why you have a multi-million dollar budget. CGI models were developed, and didn’t use them very much (sideswipe, Jolt(no, car mode doesn’t count)), and then re-used older models. I think at the end of the second movie I saw at least 4 different robots that looked almost exactly like the first movie’s Megatron. Blackout was dismembered in the first movie, but the exact same bot appears in the second movie, same model, and apparently without telling us in the movie or the books this is “Grindor.” No, this is “we needed cannon fodder but didn’t want to spend time on it.” To me it’s the equivalent of the stock footage transformations in Power Rangers and Energon.
I hear that Shockwave is in this movie, this makes me afraid but I do have to watch it, and I hope he kicks ass.
You do know that even though the “models” are developed one time, the bots do have to be rendered in the new scenes frame by frame for each new scene since the conditions (lighting, shadows, etc.) are different for different scenes, right? Not to mention that even though Grindor and Blackout share the same model, their “skins” are different.
The Transformers movies do have a high budget, but it’s not an unlimited budget.
-airfox
It is a rather large budget, and for a movie about giant robots, I’d rather they focused more of their budget around giant robots. The actor/actress choices were decent and probably not overpriced, the special effects were decent and not all CGI. But it was intended to be and turned out to be a big blockbuster, which I would have liked a little more detail in.
Hopefully the 3rd movie has a big enough budget not to repaint dead characters into new characters. With 2 movies under their belts I hope they can render a little easier/cheaper now.
You don’t really know a lot about CGI, do you? Rendering is always going to be the most time-consuming part. Doing one or two movies first isn’t going to change that. Especially since you want more detail AND shorter rendering times!
But rendering always gets cheaper as time goes on, as the server farms grow & machines are replaced with faster units. Getting the software and other infrastructure more mature will also reduce costs.
Of course, how many Transformers movies were done before may not make much difference, if there were other customers as well.
I agree with Willis I liked the first movie but the second one just raped me haven’t seen the third yet but I’m hoping it’s better.