Ash Ketchum

At last, a movie for all red-blooded American males (are there any left?). I am soooooooooo there!!!!

RocShemp

Orci/Kurtzman are out: http://movies.ign.com/articles/103/1032287p1.html

So Ehren Kruger gets to write the script alone? I have a bad feeling about this.

Dr. DVD

Kruger is pretty much the epitome of a studio hack writer, this won't be pretty.

al_bundy

it's a movie that's based on a 1980's children's cartoon that was based on a toy line by Hasbro

Solid Snake

Doesn't mean it can't be good.

RocShemp

I can see it now.

GOVERNMENT DOUCHEBAG: Hey, I though we told you guys to leave during the second movie?

OPTIMUS PRIME: We were just about to get to that but we've just received some terrible news!

GOVERNMENT DOUCHEBAG: Yeah? What news?

OPTIMUS PRIME: Unicron has returned!

GOVERNMENT DOUCHEBAG: Uh, huh... And who the hell is this "Unicorn".

OPTIMUS PRIME: I have no fucking clue.

And It's A Wonderful Life was based on a postcard (or a greeting card). So what? The source material shouldn't dictate the quality of the finished product.

Like Solid Snake PAC said, it doesn't mean it can't be good.

al_bundy

it's your average summer blockbuster with lots of explosions and a ton of plot holes. the high drama is usually around Christmas

i liked 2 better than 1, but the whole All-Spark deal was crap and a dumb idea. i didn't like it in the theater transformers cartoon either

Dr. DVD

You know, given Bay's insistence of using inappropriate humor in a movie that's predominantly aimed at kids, I wouldn't be surprised if he utilized the "one F-bomb allowed in a PG-13" film and let the above happen.

al_bundy

my wife has a 16 year old cousin and almost every night i glance over at my wife's laptop to see what her cousin wrote on her Facebook page. MB doesn't have anything on today's teens

Travis McClain

Here's my only request:

Can we please have Transformers in our Transformers movie this time? I know Michael Bay has an obsession with the military, but I got very tired of following soldiers and watching F-16s scrambling when I knew damn good and well there were supposed to be Transformers doing things I could have been watching instead.



And I'm tired of three seconds of screen time being counted as "including" or "featuring" a given character. You can tell me that the pink motorcycle was Arcee, but unless she actually does something that isn't in the background, then it's not Arcee. It's a pink motorcycle. I'm not asking for Oscar-caliber character arcs here; but damn, why is it so hard to actually involve Transformers in the Transformers movie?!

RocShemp

The rule got changed to just one? I always remembered it being that you were allowed no more than two F-bombs in a PG-13 movie.

RocShemp

I'm not looking for high drama. Just a solid action flick. The first film fit your description much better than the second. The second movie had a few decent action sequences but it was mainly one clusterfuck after another.

Dr. DVD

I agree, especially the big bloated ending. If it weren't for the few scenes of Optimus Prime mopping the floor with everyone, I would have found nothing redeeming about this movie, not even and IMAX Megan Fox.

At least the first one gave the Autobots some screen time on their own to be the focus of the movie, as opposed to background characters.

fumanstan

Weird, since I think the first movie didn't give any Transformers enough screen time, and the second movie was far better in that regard.

RocShemp

All the second movie did was toss in a bunch of random cameos during the opening action sequence and then again during the ending. The Transformers that were used as actual characters in the sequel were mostly relegated to comic relief or hints of exposition. Hell, most of the narrative drive came from Simmons. Jetfire was good for exposition but they put too many senile old man jokes in there as well so it diluted his effectiveness.

Dr. DVD

I always loved Jetfire the toy, and I didn't mind that they made him an old man, but doing the senile old man bit complete with unintentional farting (shooting flames out no less) was a bit much.

RocShemp

I didn't mind Jetfire being old either. I always liked old cranky Kup in the animated movie and old and wise Alpha Trion in the animated series. I was hoping they'd make Jetfire a combination of the two not some senile old man. And, yes, the flame-fart was a bit much to say the least.

fumanstan

I think the first movie was far more bogged down by the soliders, Sector 7, the hackers, and Sam with only Bumblebee doing anything. The second at least did more with Optimus, The Fallen, and Megatron and my preference is to see more of that in a 3rd movie. It isn't exactly like Jazz and Ironhide did much in the first film.

But rehashing discussions about the second movie can easily be left to the other thread, as it seems like you guys are mostly complaining about the same things as 5 months ago.

RocShemp

And the second had NEST, government douchebag, pain in the ass roommate, Sam's mom getting high, Simmons the butcher and his blindness-inducing thong, and hot Pretender chick that seems to think killing Sam is the same thing as capturing him.

And Jazz and Ironhide did plenty when they, alongside Ratchet, took on Devastator (I forgot was his real toy name was). They just didn't score any kills. And Ironhide and Ratchet did less in the sequel since they were relegated to the background.

I just want a better movie next time around. The first one was far from perfect but could have easily been improved upon. The sequel instead made things worse. And now I'm worried because the two writers with any talent are out and it seems Megahack gets sole scripting duties this time around. That doesn't bode well for the quality of the third film.

fumanstan

And despite all those things, I still felt there was more interaction with the Transfomers themselves. A few got pushed to the background, but I'm hoping the third movie continues to focus on them rather then the humans.

al_bundy

most good films focus on a single character or very few characters. it's very hard to make a movie where a lot of characters are fighting for screentime.

RocShemp

I'm just hoping for a good plot and lack of crap to go with the action sequences.

Take the first movie, remove the hackers/analysts altogether (all they did was repeat information we already knew), cut down the sequence in the house to the barest essentials (Sam gets glasses, Simmons shows up and captures Bumblebee, abd the Autobots get the glasses), excluding the excess of comedy during that sequence, have the Decepticons invade the dam and allow the film to progress like normal. Well, the only other thing I'd change is having Sam defeat Megatron. Prime should have delivered the finishing blow.

That's all you needed to do in order to fix the first movie. The second bloated everything that was wrong in the first. Sure, we got two scenes of the Decepticons chatting it up on Saturn (or wherever). Big deal. We also got two scenes of the Autobots chatting it up during the first movie (plus a brief scene of Megatron bitching at Starscream). Where was the major improvement?

I agree. They had a nice core group on both sides in the first movie as far as Autobots and Decepticons. Now that the setup was over, all the sequel needed to be was basically a bunch of sequences like the Shanghai battle. Autobots and Decepticons kicking ass front and center while the human soldiers do their thing in the background.

Instead we got a bloated series of contrivances to get most of the humans back together again and have the Transformers serve as set dressing.

fumanstan

Yeah, but those are pretty big changes to the current movie. Personally, If you go that route on how to "fix" the first movie, I would say the 2nd could be done the same way. I imagine there would have been far less complaints if they removed Sam's roommate, Mudflaps and Skids, and tightened up the exposition from some of the characters.

Honestly for the 3rd film I think it would be cool if they moved on from Sam and introduced Spike or Chip, and then ignored any other humans

Solid Snake

Uhm...I thought Sam was Spike?

RocShemp

Which is my point. The second repeated (and in many ways increased) the mistakes of the first. All they had to do was look at what was wrong with the first and exclude those things while increasing what was good. Instead they said "more of everything!"

Sam is supposed to be Spike. And Ronald is supposed to be Sparkplug. Hence the last name Witwicky.

Chip would be hilarious if they have him download Prime's entire mind onto a 5" floppy disk like in the cartoon.