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Transformers: the Movie (dir. Michael Bay, 2007) - SPOILERS

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Glenn Close But No Cigar

18:47 / 16.07.07

A *little* off-topic, I grant you, but I thought that the below might be of interest to those reading this thread. I present to you (genuine, Japanese release only) Prime and Megs figures which transform into Nike trainers.

Check 'em out!

Two thoughts occur. 1) I wonder what, exactly, James 'Mo' Wax' Lavelle would do to get his hands on these babies? 2) A movie based on robots in disguise...as shoes would be bloody magnificent, especially the bit when they kick their evil creator Phil Knight in the balls, aided and abetted by a throng of bonded child labourers.

Triplets

19:04 / 16.07.07

Anyone who wants to see what these guys actually look like in shoe form, without flicking through a few hundred photos that differ with an anally pornographic precision, can click here.

Ticker

19:29 / 16.07.07

The spouse reported rumblings from RPG that in the Starscream jet hopping fight leaves us 3 human jets left then when Megatron is strafed by jets there are 4. continuity error or Starscream's brand of treachery?

Subtle thingus I picked up watching second time is when Starscream first attacks the humans in the city and there is confusion over real jet vs. alien transformer the one combat soldier says afterwards 'real jets would never fly lower than the buildings.'
So you know the one that pegs Megatron during the last brawl with Optimus? I want to know if it is flying below the buildings...

HCE

15:02 / 17.07.07

I actually had a wee bit of trouble telling which one was Starscream -- I'm just not very good at following quick action, I think, but I can take another look and see if I can spot it.

I was surprised by actually enjoying the movie -- I had very low expectations and really wasn't too bothered by the nonstop cliches. The robots were satisfyingly big and shiny, and the way that even the human characters were filmed put me right into a frame of mind where I was happy to accept everything except for the cryptographer. I didn't have cables rated high enough to suspend that much disbelief.

Ticker

15:18 / 17.07.07

I wish they had used Tom Lenk more as I was very excited to see him, but I suppose they wanted more female screen time.

I do have to say I did enjoy the fact that the female lead did have ideas of her own with strapping the injured Bumblebee to the tow truck. didn't manage to smudge her makeup even if some grime was added over it but hey it was better then the shrinking violet DID so often seen in these cartoon/comicbook movies.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

15:35 / 17.07.07

I wish they had used Tom Lenk more as I was very excited to see him, but I suppose they wanted more female screen time.

Yes, the lack of Lenk was easily my second least favourite thing about the film after the racism. It didn't spoil the film or anything, and in a way it was a nice surprise to see him at all, since I had no idea he was in it at all until he popped up, but he was about for just long enough to get my hopes up of some decent Lenk-age and then just faded into the bakcground. Ah well - nice that he's getting work in stuff I want to watch at all I guess.

The Falcon

10:35 / 18.07.07

I'm going to regret asking this but... what was the first thing?

I've not seen teh film yet, but I totally know the answer to this. It is the most cretinous thing any hero has done ever, even though it drove (perhaps through sheer cretinosity) Megatron batshit.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:46 / 18.07.07

Falke for the win. I can't believe that anyone gives Ultra Magnus a hard time after that nonsense.

The Falcon

12:10 / 18.07.07

Magnus was a trier. He battered Galvy in the end, eh?

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

12:27 / 18.07.07

Deffo. Magnus rocked quite severely mainly because he wasn't really special, or chosen or even all the competent, and he was painfully aware of this, but he bloody well carried on fighting every time anyway.

The Falcon

17:22 / 18.07.07

Indeed. He was... just a soldier.

I'm really quite distressed at how late this is; the word, apart from 'racism' is, after having spent two years c*rping about it, fans actually have generally shat themselves with glee. Proving me right, all along.

Ticker

13:55 / 19.07.07

I've not seen teh film yet, but I totally know the answer to this. It is the most cretinous thing any hero has done ever, even though it drove (perhaps through sheer cretinosity) Megatron batshit.

Sorry to be dense but even after following the link I'm unclear on the cretinous thing?

Ticker

13:58 / 19.07.07

Oh.

The Falcon

17:25 / 19.07.07

I think you see, now. I was seven or eight years old when the UK reprint - #106: oh how I curse thee, #106 - came out and a) just totally gutted and latterly, after a week or so, b) really quite irate with - well, it should perhaps have been Bob 'the bud' Budiansky in retrospect - but with Prime's, frankly, shite logic and general idiocy, really.

Fucking clownshoes.

Ticker

17:32 / 19.07.07

Holy Hell, that must have been crippling.

Can't we you know, Highlander III it? Just pretend like that never happened?
Have it be a heresy to be stamped out by the faithful?

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:11 / 19.07.07

Hmmmm, I suspect I was a similair age myself at the time, but I recall only being slightly bothered by the silliness of it, partially because I figured Optimus has to come back to life sooner or later, so he could die again in 2006. Y'know looking back it scares me just a little that I thought the issue through so deeply as a small child.......

Triplets

20:44 / 19.07.07

Can't we you know, Highlander III it? Just pretend like that never happened?

Highlander 2, surely? The one where were Sean Connery plays the first, and last, magic-wielding Spanish accented alien immortal. Which sounds like the worst RPG character ever.

Triplets

20:46 / 19.07.07

Merits
Immortal (-50)
Alien (-20)
Can Use The Quickening (-50)

Flaws
"Spanish" Accent (-10)

akira

09:34 / 20.07.07

I think it was a 'Scotapanish' accent.

Dead Megatron

13:51 / 20.07.07

Can't we you know, Highlander III it? Just pretend like that never happened?

Highlander 2, surely? The one where were Sean Connery plays the first, and last, magic-wielding Spanish accented alien immortal.

No, XK means Highlander 3, which pretended Highlander 2 never happened*. Get your Highlanders right.

*I like to think it was a bad dream Connor McCleod had after eating too much pizza or something.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:53 / 20.07.07

Tiptoeing gently back towards the actual topic, I am very much enjoying the idea of the key criticisms of this film so far being:

1) Racism.
2) Not enough Tom Lenk.

Ticker

14:13 / 20.07.07

I'd add 3) too many useless subplots that do not further the main plot.

I think for me it's about the use of screen time to further and develop something I, the viewer, actually give a shit about rather then filler.

Did we have the crap cryptoanalyst subplot because we needed another hot ch1xx0r on screen to balance out the male dominated cast? Ok well have her do something useful not just cut down on our Lenk time. Why could she have not taken the chip to her own dwelling to figure out the signal? Why could she have not hacked together the old computer and the radio? If we need more minorities represented and more sexy eye candy why can't we have a skilled intelligent beautiful woman of color crack the signal?

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:44 / 20.07.07

Because they'd already cast Rachael Griffiths, I imagine. I am increasingly convinced that that entire subplot was organised around a very big sponsorship deal from Panasonic, just like the Nokia-centric focus on mobile phones. But the entire cryptography plot could have been lost, really. You could have just had somebody briefing Josh Duhamel, John Voigt, John Tuturro or even Shia LaBoeuf on what they had decoded. That was very flabby. It also meant that Duhamel just sort of disappeared - it was like a relay, where he dropped out of the storyline until he poppped up in time to decide apparently on a whim to draw guns on his government in support of a teenaged boy. His motivation changed jerkily - at first it was to get back to his wife, but she is almost immediately and totally forgotten, and he immediately hurls himself _away_ from his wife again with motivation 2.0 - to avenge his squadmates.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

15:16 / 20.07.07

If we need more minorities represented and more sexy eye candy why can't we have a skilled intelligent beautiful woman of color crack the signal?

They could have also made her a grandmother, then she could have yelled at herself.

I wonder though, if the movie would have gotten less or more racial criticism had they not included any people of color. I think I would have noticed the lack of minority characters less then I noticed the poorly written stereotypical ones.

COBRAnomicon!

15:46 / 20.07.07

The weirdest thing to me about the racial overtones in the movie: in the Minneapolis theater where I saw it, virtually all of the jokes that crossed my racial squirm threshhold put the majority-black audience in stitches. While I was thinking, "did Bernie Mac just say what i thought he said?" the group of middle-aged African-American women in front of me were howling with laughter about his mammy. And the same thing happened every other time.

It was really strange, and I'm still sort of processing it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:03 / 20.07.07

I think I would have noticed the lack of minority characters less then I noticed the poorly written stereotypical ones.

I'm pretty sure that halfway through the script doctoring they noticed that they had written Topekaformers. Bernie Mac was always in. The hacker I imagine was a latish addition. Epps was in early, but his role was always minimal. Fig got extra lines added to make it absolutely clear that he was Latino. That's a rough guess.

I think I didn't mean Rachael Griffiths. I have a feeling that would have been a different and better film.

Dead Megatron

20:03 / 20.07.07

Wait a minute! There were people in this movie?

>ahem<. Sorry, carry on.

To be honest, other then the lead teenager couple (and, to some extent, John Turturo), all human characters in this movie could have been totally dropped.

I did get the feeling the two army guys (the white guy and the black guy)were originally scripted as a single character, who got split in two so that he didn'tget too many lines and, yes, add more black people. The hacker guy was there to give the "hot nerd" a (totally unnecessary) subplot and for general comic relief (which Turturo did a lot better). Good? Bad? At least they are trying? Sorry, the killer robots were "very distracting" for me to come to a conclusion.

My take: they should have cut the hacker subplot alltogether and add more screen time for the Decepticons do something else other than get their shiny metal asses, as Bender would've put it, kicked by Prime. Specially Starscream.

Seth

01:32 / 21.07.07

all human characters in this movie could have been totally dropped

No, they couldn't. And not because of the human interest angle that the filmmakers seem to be touting in all interviews (at least, not primarily). It's because any film that had more giant transforming robots and less people would have bankrupted the entire planet. The focus on the humans is a money saver.

That said, however... that was fucking amazing. I totally understand everyone's reservations but really, did you see that fucker? I mean, did you see it? It was fucking awesome, right? Innit. Glad we're all on the same page.

Flyboy: did your Optimus Prime moment (besides the general amazingness of big screen Prime and Peter Cullen's performance) have anything to do with freedom is the right of all sentient beings?

De Selby

02:54 / 21.07.07

As I recall, this whole thing of Big Fight Scenes With So Many Super-Fast Jumpcuts And Shakycam so that the viewer cannot really tell what's going on for about 10 min. straight has become a distressing (well, to me, anyway) trend in big action/popcorn movies (a few fights in the Lord of the Rings movies are like this, as is the final subway fight between Ra's and Bats in BATMAN BEGINS).

I agree. Its one thing to make a popcorn-scoffing blockbuster with a huge CGI budget (the results of which, when you could comprehend them, were absolutely amazing) but to make it a struggle to follow what was going due to cutting the action to millisecond shots seems to be a bit pointless. I think Spielberg should have taken Bay aside and told him to calm the fuck down. Or helmed the thing himself.

Still the robots were shiny and impressive.

Seth

09:05 / 21.07.07

Maybe someone with more knowledge of animation techniques than me could offer better speculation, but perhaps the shakey cam/in the thick of it techniques were a money saver, too. If you can't tell what's going on it's harder to assess what looks real, and so effects don't need that same level of polish that you'd need for a static or long shot. I don't really know, I'm just thinking aloud. I'm frankly terrified of the amount of money this film must have cost...

De Selby

10:06 / 21.07.07

yeah that sounds like it is probably the case, but it is still pretty frustrating. I know this is bound to be a controversial comparison, but the action scenes in Terminator 2 were just as intense and full of CGI effects, and at no time did I stare blankly at the screen wondering what was going on.

Anyway...

from the Wikipedia page:

Bay had support from General Motors and the United States military during filming, keeping the budget under $150 million.

In the info panel thing on the side, it quotes the budget as $147 million. Therefore, it ranks 30th in the most expensive movies ever made.

Seth

12:03 / 21.07.07

It's quite a different film to T2. The robot designs are things of beauty but suffer in motion from too much detailing. The Autobots are colour coded and are generally the cue you work from to interpret the action, but the Decepticons are of a piece and as such more confusing. There's much more of a focus on large scale battles than in T2, long shots would have helped and also been cheap in terms of detailing but it's a very different kind of action sequence.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:37 / 21.07.07

I think detailing is the key: you have the models interacting, but you only have to put serious detail on the bits the audience can see, and you only have to put proper detailing on the bits the audience can see and comprehend - so, tight, shaky shots don't require as much detail.

No, they couldn't. And not because of the human interest angle that the filmmakers seem to be touting in all interviews (at least, not primarily). It's because any film that had more giant transforming robots and less people would have bankrupted the entire planet.

Agreed - what one could have done was add five or ten minutes more of giant robot action and cut out about 40-45 minutes of human action - whack out the Air Force one scene, and you also save on Frenzy, although he is probably relatively low-detail and inexpensive.

De Selby

15:49 / 21.07.07

Yeah I dunno... I guess I prefer to not be bewildered by a barrage of cuts and colours. To me it just seems a bit cheap, like he could have put anything on the screen and cut it up so fast that no-one can tell. Which is Michael Bay's signature style, but not my cup of tea.

Jack The Bodiless

10:24 / 24.07.07

Then don't watch his movies. Honestly, some people.

Also loved it. Right there with you, brother of mine. We shall have to get together over a beer and wee all over each other with excitement.

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