Transformers

[rondeco]

nitrobolt

[madstock]

jizzbolt

 

Sorted that out for you mate.

[JangoSolo]

Just seen it, thought it was actually pretty good, Shia is going to be a star.

 

I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't of been for the 20 year old with his girlfriend next to me, pumping his fist in her face every time Prime showed up. Should he even remember the original stuff? Not enough to get that excited anyway!

 

Worraknob.

 

EDIT - Cool, I'm MetalShadow (Autobot)

[Agent Smith]

Battlecrusher - Decepticon. I like it.

 

Oh and I thought the film was good, some quality action scenes although it did pander to the kids in some parts (which is to be expected). That little decepticon (frenzy) got too much screen time. And I can't believe they didn't have Soundwave in it, I used to love doing impressions of him when I was a wee lad.

 

P.S. the girl, who wouldn't?

[Agent Smith]

[Section_31]

Watched it last night, absolutely fucking unreal from start to finish, and funny as well. Quality turn from Antwon Micthell from the Shield as well who was hilarious.

 

How a live action film can be 100% faithfull to the cartoon I don't know, but it was, even down to the characterisation. 'Once again Starscream you dissapoint me'

 

The way they take the piss out of George Bush is class as well, 'Hey honey can you get me some ding-dongs?'

 

Rumours are rife on the net that James Earl Jones has been approached to voice Unicron (the transforming planet) in the sequal, fuck me that would be ace!

 

Unreal: **Spoiler below**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The death of Jazz was gutting though, 'You wanna piece of me Megatron?'

 

'No, I want two!'

 

twat.

[Monkeywool]

Best film of the year. Ace.

[Stu Monty]

I went to see it last night. I thought it was really entertaining but there were a fair few things that I thought could have been a lot better, even with me handing my brain over to the popcorn dude to look after it till the film was finished.

 

Chris is right about the the fact that they never developed the characters of the transformers properly, to the point that the best you got for some was a subtitle at the bottom of the screen saying "Blackout, on the way!" I thought that the special effects were superb and I was pleased that they made them destructable; one of my fears would be that the film would include overly-long battles where two robots knock the shit out of each other. Scenes such as the one with Prime where he kills the decepticon in under thirty seconds added quality to the film in my opinion, I also thought the scene with Starscream landing, shooting the shit out of Rawhide and someone else then flying off was in the same mould. Bumblebee losing his legs in stopping that Starscream attack was done well.

 

I thought it was a little too quirky and trying too hard to be funny too. Turturo is always ace but his character was a bit of a joke, which didn't sit with a guy working for a secret government agency.

 

I enjoyed it though, the effects are that good that you forget about them and just accept them as the norm.

[Section_31]

Are you out of your fucking mind?

 

You call that characterisation? There was NO CHARACTERISATION! That line between Megatron and Starscream was just the absolute tip of the iceberg compared to what it could have been. At the end of that movie, what did you know about Megatron, or Starscream, or Jazz or Ironhide? of any of them. They were just robots. All of the characterisation went into the human characters - and that was shit too. More effort went into the establishing the characters of the Transformers in one 20 minute episode than that entire movie did.

 

100% faithful to the cartoon? Dude, come on, that's a ridiculous statement. Starscream and Megatron were totally different! As was bumblebee. In fact, other than prime, what was faithful?

 

I'm glad you got a kick out of that Bush gag. At least someone did. What a hokey, unfunny piece of crap that script was.

 

I wish I was as easy to please as you.

 

 

 

As far as characterisation is concerned, what more could they have done with two-hours of film? which needs a hefty chunk of that time devoted to establishing background etc?

 

You're into screanwriting aren't you? If You're trying to introduce an audience to a universe they may not be familiar with, its probably the first in a line of films, you can't just open that shit with Prime standing in a real-life autobot city demanding some energon cubes!

 

It needed a hefty set-up and then a killer third act which is what it was.

 

Besides, what deep character insights were missed from the original cartoon transformers that weren't transfered to film?

 

Megatron was 'evil' and was stronger than any autobot other than prime, Starscream was his leautenant who would always fuck things up, Ironhide was a soldier: 'Lets get bustin decepterchops' while Jazz used to hurl out wise-cracks. Both were doing that kind of thing as soon as they were introduced in the film.

 

Bumblebee in the cartoon? A yellow VW Beatle who wasn't particularly tough who was devoted to a kid called Spike.

 

It wasn't shakespeare by any means, but it was a top, top adaptation of a cartoon.

[Cardie]

Was their a hefty set up?

 

3 or 4 minute monologue at the start, 2 minute holographic backstory when they first meet optimus, no real backstory on the part of the decepticons.

 

The rest was taken up with clips from Herbie rides again, Autobots being shown as bumbling clowns and EBay references.

 

Great action scenes and the effects were very good but could have done more with the story, didn't really need the story to come to a conclusion and could have left it more open, certainly needed more on Starscream and Megatron.

[Section_31]

Was their a hefty set up?

 

3 or 4 minute monologue at the start, 2 minute holographic backstory when they first meet optimus, no real backstory on the part of the decepticons.

 

The rest was taken up with clips from Herbie rides again, Autobots being shown as bumbling clowns and EBay references.

 

Great action scenes and the effects were very good but could have done more with the story, didn't really need the story to come to a conclusion and could have left it more open, certainly needed more on Starscream and Megatron.

 

 

 

I agree but that's me speaking as a fan, I could have quite easily watched the opening credits finish and see a red lorry run some robots over and then do a transforming flying summersault before capping motherfuckers, and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

 

95% of the viewing public however (most of whom probably weren't born when we first watched it) would have been baffled.

 

As I said, I don't see how you could build character between walking robots in the space of, what? an hour?

 

The sequal will be where it all goes off....long live Galvatron.

[RJ Fan club]

I agree but that's me speaking as a fan, I could have quite easily watched the opening credits finish and see a red lorry run some robots over and then do a transforming flying summersault before capping motherfuckers, and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

 

95% of the viewing public however (most of whom probably weren't born when we first watched it) would have been baffled.

 

As I said, I don't see how you could build character between walking robots in the space of, what? an hour?

 

The sequal will be where it all goes off....long live Galvatron.

 

The second generation of transformers were proper shite. That fucking no mark Hot Rod, Galavatron and fucking dinobots.

 

Having read Chris' summation, I'm now dreading seeing this one. A sequel with the that lot above would be proper shite.

[Cardie]

Problem being you have to cover (assuming rumours are true) the backstory of Unicron, Jazz's return the inevitable return of Megatron and maybe transformation into Galvatron.

 

There are bound to be new Autobots appearing (Hot Rod/Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, any numb er of others they can dream up).

 

Bit like any film/series with a huge number of potential characters (take X-Men for example) you have to fill in the details for them all so while other films can set the scene and move on this is one that may have to repeat over and over.

[Section_31]

You spoke originally like the characterisation was of Tolkien-esque proportions. They weren't given a personality. Every other film manages to establish everything they need in two hours, and most of those don't have the advantage of tons and tons of backstory provided to do so.

 

You referenced the Ironhide and Jazz characters. That introduction you spoke of was five seconds long, for each of them and that's where it ended. Megatron and Starscream had an awesome dynamic that could have formed a big part of the movie if they both hadn't been reduced to virtual cameos.

 

Sure, it establised the very basics. The Autobots were noble and the decepticons were evil, but other than that...nothing.

 

There wasn't a single point in that film where I got excited for the action set pieces. The whole thing was so boring. If they had laid off some of the action for just a few seconds, some time could have been spent on giving the thing a heart, and giving the audience something to care about. It was basically a video montage of shit getting smashed up.

 

 

Not at all, I said the characterisation was faithfull, and I'd dissagree that most other films manage it, with the exception of Spider Man and Batman begins, virtually every other film adapted from a 'kids' cartoon/comic have been ridiculously bad.

 

Hulk, Ghost Rider, the first and third X-men films to name a few.

 

Besides, you talk like there was a great deal of characterisation to begin with, much as I loved the original that's not true.

Prime was just an all american hero, the only thing missing in the film was that he didn't carry a sense of guilt for bringing the decepticons to earth.

 

Jazz was 'cool' and Ironhide was 'tough' Bumblebee was effectively Gay. Megatron was 'bad' and starscream wanted his job.

 

Looking at it purely as a fan i'd agree with some of your points and wish I'd seen more of 'this' or 'that', looking at it as a film that only had 2-and-half-hours to play with and a whole new audience to introduce to transformers lore, I'd say it was fucking quality.

[Sut]

I agree but that's me speaking as a fan, I could have quite easily watched the opening credits finish and see a red lorry run some robots over and then do a transforming flying summersault before capping motherfuckers, and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

 

You've got the touch...

You've got the POWWWWERRRR...!

[Thants]

I agree but that's me speaking as a fan, I could have quite easily watched the opening credits finish and see a red lorry run some robots over and then do a transforming flying summersault before capping motherfuckers, and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

 

95% of the viewing public however (most of whom probably weren't born when we first watched it) would have been baffled.

 

As I said, I don't see how you could build character between walking robots in the space of, what? an hour?

The sequal will be where it all goes off....long live Galvatron.

 

Even the directionless Lucas managed that in 77 - and one wasnt walking.

[Remmie]

I don't really understand all the hysteria and desire to see the film. I know it's fun to be nostalgic and relive things you liked as a child but I don't really empathise with getting so excited about a kids film...?

[JangoSolo]

Though I enjoyed it - cos it was certainly waaaay better than I was expecting (esp for a Bay Film), Chris is dead right, and this is what I said when I came out.

 

Apart from Prime and BumbleBee noone got any character development - in particular Megatron - which is shocking really, StarScream may as well not turned up and they were all done away very easily.

 

Dropping them (whole) into a deep trench doesn't seem very clever either!

 

I watched the Original Movie again last night - it can't be beat!

[Section_31]

You're venturing into the ridiculous by claming that virtually all attempts to tranfer comic/cartoon onto the big screen have been "ridiculously bad". You're talking about some of the biggest grossing, most cherished movies of all time there with the Spider-Man series, X-Men (1 & 2 for a start, I'd say three too), Burton and Nolan's Batman efforts, Superman (both Singer and Donner). Sure you can name more failures than successes in this field, but rewriting history to try and excuse the mess that was Transformers isn't going to wash with me I'm afraid.

 

That's purely your opinion though, I would say X-men 1&3 were shite, Superman Returns was shite, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin were shite.

 

I did actually say Spiderman and Begins were ace.

 

I can count on one hand the number of films I've seen in the past 18 months which were worth going to see again, and Transformers was one, just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's shite, and that all who defend it have bad taste.

 

You're into Harry Potter, some would say you have bad taste, I'd merely say each to their own.

 

Carry on.

[Section_31]

I'm not particularly into Harry Potter at all. I think if Optimus Prime had just come onto the screen after the credits and took a dump in the middle of the screen followed by a fade to black you'd have been happy with this film.

It may be a matter of opinion, but there are tangibles that can be argued for the purposes of good or bad, which is what I've done on this thread.

 

 

[Sut]

 

They a new sub-set of Autobots? I prefer the Dinobots, myself.

[mattyq]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Robots or something?

[Guest TK-421]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Robots or something?

 

Bunch of robot-loving geeks.

[Karl_b]

Bunch of robot-loving geeks.

 

Clones are much more interesting.

[dirty_sanchez]

You've got the touch...

You've got the POWWWWERRRR...!

 

That's the good shit right there.

 

"Why throw away your life so easily? It's over Prime."