DthRdrX

I brought that up in the movie thread when this was in theaters. Long Haul is shown as being in two different places at the same time. Of course, Michael Bay loved that character design so he probably did it despite the fact that it made no sense.

Blu Man

I've heard that thye are different robot's, but it's most likely just another fuck up. The movie full of them. In fact yahoo made a list of most major ones.

cpgator

Well I watched it this weekend and enjoyed it very much - thought it was a fun movie. Amazing sound too - especially the bass.

Dr. DVD

Watched the BD this weekend, actually second time watching the movie as I saw it in IMAX. I have to say in terms of something that you would want to demonstrate a Blu-Ray disc and sound system, this movie is what you would want. I was blown away by that aspect. Of course there's still the problems that exist within the movie itself, which I have to say I don't find too annoying until the last twenty minutes or so. I have to say the final act of this movie is so overloaded with Michael Bay's trademark assault on all senses that it gets nauseating.

Jamers

Are the forrest scenes on the Wal-Mart (IMAX) version also show on the BestBuy version, just not in IMAX? Or are these scenes in addition to the non-IMAX version and thereby add extra time to the fight sequence?

I picked up the BB version before reading this thread and am wondering what I am missing?

AnonomusBob15

the fight scenes are extended in the IMAX version, by about 30 seconds. This 30 seconds is exclusive to the IMAX version of the film. For the standard Blu, the Forest scene, minus the additional IMAX seconds will be shown in standard scope. The extra IMAX tidbits were not converted to scope, but removed entirely.

Only portions for the action scenes were filmed in IMAX.

Right?

Giles

correct, there are some insert non-SFX shots that were not filmed in IMAX, which is quite visually disruptive and sloppy IMO.

Josh Z

Almost the entire forest scene, except for a couple cutaways to other Autobots racing to the rescue, was shot in IMAX. However, in the end battle, it is primarily only shots with Devatator in the frame that were shot IMAX. Cutaways to other characters in the scene are standard 35mm. Many of these shots are only 1-2 seconds long. This makes the aspect ratio jump around frantically.

There's just under 9 minutes of IMAX footage in the movie total. 6 of that is the forest battle. I have a review of the "Big Screen" Blu-ray on High-Def Digest today that lists out the time codes of every IMAX shot.

The IMAX version also runs 32 seconds longer (22 seconds of forest battle, 10 seconds of Devastator), but I'll be damned if I could tell you what was added. I think it's mostly small extensions of existing shots rather than whole new footage.

Jamers

In that case I won't miss it.

fumanstan

The forest fight is easily the coolest scene in the series, and even more awesome in IMAX

Rewatching the movie, I still enjoyed it more than the first one.

Solid Snake

I think the 1st 15 mins of the film before we actually get an actual plot, with the Autobots in Shanghai was the best scene in whole film. The forest scene was cool but...too choppy.

candyrocket786

I just rewatch that sequence, the Shanghai battle quite a bit. It's a shame that it wasn't shot on IMAX.

Giles

If I met Bay in person, I'd slap him for that bad decision.

Josh Z

It's pretty obvious that the decision to shoot any of the movie in IMAX was a last-minute change brought on only by all the publicity for The Dark Knight. The use of IMAX in the film is not well thought-out.

Jumpman

Why rail on a flick if we all know the problems the production had?

Seriously, you think Bay wanted to shoot a film of this scope on this schedule? Not excusing the film, even though it's my guilty pleasure of this year, but if anyone's to blame, it's Paramount for insisting it come out this year instead of next summer.

When your two head writers don't want to return because of other projects (Fringe and Star Trek-and don't have a story idea in mind) and you send out feelers to other writers about their ideas, hate those ideas, and then in a desperate panic come back to the head writers who geek out a 13 page outline and hand it in a day before the strike, you should stop the production...period.

I don't forgive Bay for going the toilet humor route(even if I think some of them work) but, just imagine the pressure of trying to figure out this film with no script. I mean, the dude starts shooting with this outline. Who does that on a 200 plus million dollar flick?

Personally, I think the film's a minor miracle for even remotely working 50% of the time.

Josh Z

Do you believe that what happens behind the scenes excuses the film for being bad? At the end of the day, no matter what the reasons, it's still a bad movie. A 150 minute long bad movie.

If you watch the bonus features on the disc, you'll see that Bay actually gets off on cranking through production at a rapid fire pace. He prides himself on being able to throw together a massive scale film faster than most other directors in Hollywood, and actually exalts in glee at pushing his cast and crew to their breaking points.

From Bay's perspective, the only thing that was "rushed" about this film was the script, which he wasn't overly concerned about in the first place. So long as he had something on the page ready to shoot by the time he showed up on set in the morning, it didn't matter to him what was written.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

The one thing I never understood was all the love for the first one. Then the second one comes out in the same style and now everyone's complaining about not being able to tell which robot is which, etc., which were the same problems as the first one.

The only thing really missing from the sequel was the autobots doing their jokes, which I thought was stupid.

Save Ferris

I get the sense that Bay has little respect for the viewer, or expects his audience to be all 13 year olds. The flash and excitement of the images onscreen should distract you from paying too close attention.

DthRdrX

The first one was fairly easy to learn the characters. They introduced the autobots and gave the decepticons names via the subtitles. The complaint people had was that certain characters, such as Starscream and Megatron, looked stupid and were given no character development.

Now the majority of characters in ROTF are never given names on-screen, and two of the main Transformers were pretty much made up out of thin air.

Jumpman

JoshZ,

Now, do you really think that documentary showed everything what was really going on? Seriously? While pretty great in giving us a perspective of the overall production, it still doesn't show everything.

I mean, they didn't even cover Shia's injury which was a major production problem.

I'm not saying that the behind the scenes drama dismisses it from being a bad film, but with this film, it is relevant that the strike caused serious script problems.

And sure, Michael Bay does seem to get off on this challenging production timeline but at the end of the documentary, you can pretty much tell the guy is spent at the end of this thing. Bay's directing style hasn't changed since he shot the first Bad Boys. He always works fast. This was no different. The only difference was the scale of the thing and the lack of time.

You don't think another month on the script and another six months in post would've helped this film?

My point being is that there are far worse films to spew hatred towards. I just don't see the reason why this one.

And no matter what you think of Bay, he's dead on right at the end of the documentary when he says that if this film was as bad as everyone said it was, word of mouth would've killed it after the first weeknd. It made more than fifty percent of its box office in those first five days but it should've died if everyone said it was that damn bad. It didn't.

It's not a masterpiece. It's not great. It's not even good. It's barely passable, if that. But, the worst of the year? Not even remotely close.

Not trying to change anyone's mind. But, look at it from the other side.

Film criticism use to be more than "I saw it. It sucks."

matrixrok9

While the extras are extensive, you can't take it seriously. It's a Bay lovefest, produced by him. Everybody praises Bay how awesome and talented he is for a whole 2 and a half hours. Even when they cover the military aspect, the military is all over his nuts. Made it seem like he told everybody in the interview to talk good about him.

LOTR had extensive extras too but I never saw it as hyping up Peter Jackson, it was more about the movie than one man. While in Transformers 2 extra, everything was about Bay.

Solid Snake

Well to be honest..the military just likes to look cool in a film like this. I mean..I would too. So that's fine. Ditto about the Jackson thing on LoTR. I really wish they'd put those features on the Blu. An Extended LOTR Blu edition....

Jumpman

LOTR had extensive extras too but I never saw it as hyping up Peter Jackson, it was more about the movie than one man.

not really...

naitram

No shit, it's incredible PR for the military.

What a horribly written film, yet still manages to be fun for the most part....the beautiful PQ probably helps some. Can't believe he'd put a poster of one of his own movies in his own movie - Bay must be a complete egomaniac.

ds6161

Good PR for the military?? Did you watch the same film?
Pretty much destroyed a major town. 1st scene.
(Why did they use the Transformer viewer before being right on top of him...)
Lost a sub with out doing anything..
Lost an Aircraft carrier with out doing anything..

Now yes the core group that came back from the 1st movie knew what they were doing, but every where else the military sucked.

Oh wait I forgot the one guy dropped the smoke thats the target of the bombs right at there feet...