I was kinda hoping for a "we talk TV" line in there somewhere.

For some reason Bumblebee on the truck reminded me of Johnny #5.

He reminded me of Chip (the other human from the series). Of course, I don't know why I thought that given I don't remember Chip racing down a street with his wheelchair while blasting away at a Decepticon.

For me, that's when the movie truly began.

So would their outsides then look like Megatron from Beast Wars? Organo-synthetic or whatever the hell T800 is covered in...


-Doc

I'd be more inclined for metallic rather than a Beast Wars approach. Although, looking at Frenzy, the can create different textures when they transform so I guess the Beast Wars approach could work.

Or the aliens in Explorers

& the early scenes were very much like Herbie, the Love Bug.

& the whole movie was a little too much like Small Soldiers.

There were a few fairly cool bits, but by the time they showed up, I didn't care. I couldn't wait for the movie to end & tried to leave twice, but the friend I was with wanted to stay. Most of the audience seemed to like it.

Just saw it this morning.

Let me preface by saying that I was not a fan of Transformers. They came out around Return of the Jedi when I was still knee deep in Star Wars stuff as a kid and felt my time (and parent's money) still needed to go to SW instead of picking up the new fad (and I was about out of the toy stage anyway by then). I have maybe seen the cartoon once or twice years ago and never cared to go any further.

I saw the first teaser trailer for this movie and thought that Michael Bay had finally lost his mind completely and had decided to make what would be his true ultimate shit-fest (like Bad Boys 2 wasn't enough). I am not a Michael Bay fan either and have disliked most of the movies he has directed or been involved in.

All that being said...this movie mother-fucking rocks. I was blown away. The humor was actually funny and did not fall flat (ala Pirates of the Caribbean 2). The acting was good with the exception of John Turturro (who tried to steal the show and chew scenery but failed miserably). The main chick is smoking hot (I thought my pants caught on fire during the hood-lifting belly scene). The effects were jaw-dropping. The action...non-stop without ever getting boring.

I was truly amazed. I expected to be looking at my watch but never did and my butt didn't fall alseep. It was everything that Spider-man 3 should have been. I hadn't had that much fun or surprise since Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one...not the awful sequels). Yeah, the movie gets a little silly once the main plot reveals itself half-way thru...but again, it's a movie based on some toys of alien robots that turn into vehicles. I could overlook its minor faults.

For those of you on the fence, go see it. It is definitely worth your while.

Rating: A!

Okay, I saw this yesterday...

What I didn't like (as a regular):

All of the Autobots acted dumb too often. All the "my bad", alleyway jokes, etc. were too much. I can understand using internte language if you will in the middle of a regular sentance if you don't know any better, but to use it as your base language was too off for me.

The movie dragged on a little. The pacing in the second half certainly was not as good as the first half.

The script was whorrible. Again, the first half was good, but the second half was very weak. I really felt like they had a lot of opportunities to capitalize on and they fell flat. They could have shown character development with Sam based on M's like about not having to give up something you cared about. They could have used the Captain more and built upon that same theme but based around his family. They could have show Sam progress more in his confidence of relationships and women. It's as if he stood there and didn't know what to do when M was looking at him saying, "Kiss me you idiot." It was funny in the beginning, but was tiresome in the end.

Not enough development of the robots.

Too many characters that we were introduced who had time wasted on them. Hackers, and to a lesser extent the main Section 7 guy.

Oh yeah, that annoying little robot.

Things I liked:

The animation. Simply amazing. My one complaint was I felt all of the fight scenes were too tight. I couldn't get a good idea for what was happening to whom. Perhaps the best was the fight under the bridge.

Shia. If he wasn't in this movie I think it would have failed.

Megan Fox. She was good with what she was given, but I think the character could have been written better.

Pete Cullen! I'll take the, "Why'd they use voice synthisizers for $500 Alex!"

Starscream was bad ass!!

The humor/Bumblebee!! The parts with the love songs through the radio were so funny.

Bee-yotch. Nough said.

Okay, now time to say I was a huge Transformers fan growing up. So with that in mind what I did/didn't like from a nostalgia perspective.

Who let these guys write the script?! I saw them interviewed and they said they were fans from when it was originally popular in the 80s. Okay, then WHY did you take something from every Transformers incarnation over the past 25 years and create a "new" mythology?! They tried to cater to too many "fans", and I use that term losely.

I haven't seen enough off the other incarnations, but from what I could tell:

The Spark - Beastwars

Pod Capsules - Beastwars

Animals - Beastwars

Maybe I'm being anal, but I really feel we should have seen two very important aspects with it being a true Transformers film. The Matrix. A cyber Cybertron. Maybe I missed something on that second one, but when they showed the flashback it looked like a magma planet. :scratch:

I think the Cube/Great Spark was very neat looking and ominious. It actually had a certain epic feeling surround it.

Why'd they show Sam when Prime delivered his famous line? Should have been a face shot.

Ahhh...the lips. I'm okay, because they gave us two versions. If you look, at the end when he's in "fight mode" Prime has his original face. I suppose a face guard of sorts? I look at this the same as the mixed webshooter method Rami gave us.

Best G1 fan bites were Primes classic line, the guns/swords that popped up, and the original Bumblebee cameo.

Overall I think it was a good movie and am glad the entire theater I saw it with liked it. If you drop a few of the Bayesque scenes (slowmo girl and matrixy stuff) I think it becomes that much better. I'd be very interested to see a directors cut that is extended. I feel it would force more of the characters to come forward. I seriously doubt they finshed off robot CGI scenes and then cut them. Perhaps a few seconds here and there, but I'm willing to bet most was human centered.

If a sequel is made, which is likely given the $$ this raked in before the weekend even hit, I hope they can come up with a good idea and tighten the script while focusing on the human part of the story.

With all the posts mentioning the Autobots learning English from the internet, please tell me that at least once one of them used the phrase "Pwned" on a Decepticon at some point!

No, but when the Transformers land from space, one of them happens to wreck some guy's store. A bystander says, "I hope that guy has asteroid insurance, because if he doesn't, he's pwned!"

By the way, considering the Transformers took on the shape of actual vehicles that they have found on Earth, how is it that Megatron, who has been frozen since the early 1900's, transforms into a jet within two minutes of being thawed and having no vehicles in the immediate proximity? Is it meant to be an advanced Cybertronian jet and not a human vehicle?

Maybe this stuff has been said, maybe not....

This movie was great. It was a ton of fun and probably one of the better popcorn/summer movies I can remember in a long time. I expected a good time, but was pleasantly surprised with a ton of action, pretty good story and humor that actually was funny. This movie had a few really funny moments...seriously, ever scene that tried to be funny was actually pretty funny. That was rare.

Shia did well...the guy really nailed his part. Megan Fox is absolutely ridiculous. John Turturro, I thought, was pretty good and funny. Although he definitely could've been better since he is, overall, awesome.

The action and FX were nuts. I've never seen anything like this. WHen they had the wide shots of the robots fighting, it was surreal. Special FX can wow you every now and again and this was one of those cases.

Michael Bay, who usually sucks, did well with this. I loved The Rock and enjoyed Bad Boys 1, and I can now say I enjoyed one of his other movies. This will probably be a DVD purchase when it comes out and I haven't felt the need to buy a DVD in a long time.

Oh and finally, the product placement was a joke. I mean I understand this kind of stuff happens for the summer blockbuster movies but at times it was a God damn car commerical, or ad for Panasonic memory cards, eBay and so forth. Did not take away from me enjoying the movie, I had just never witnessed so much product placement in a movie before.

Yes, his "Protoform" is an alien jet.

Huge fan of Transformers then and now, and I loved the movie. The best thing I can say about it is that it didn't seem at all like over 2 and a half hours went by...

Why is everyone saying Devastator was in the movie? Isn't the tank's name Brawl?

The whole bringing the allspark to the city thing didn't bother me that much at the time (though it does now... ) but a few other things did:

in the cartoon didn't they get the shapes from fossils in the same mountain as their spaceship or the museum?

Wiki "protoform" page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoform

The ship with the Dinobots crashed and the probe went out to get forms and it scanned fossils.

IIRC, the G1 Transformers crashed on Earth thousands of years ago in "The Ark" and many years later the probe went out and scanned modern day vehicles.

I know it was asked but I didn't see the answer. Anyone know why the All Spark only made Decepticons?

I think Hasbro could make a killing if they made adult versions of the toys that were full metal. The first thing I did when I got home was to check their site and see what the toys looked like but they were all plastic. I was hoping to find some nice versions to keep on my desk at work.

Were they Decipticons or just freaked out Robots?

Everyone is describing the movie, not anything from the original series. We all know that Devastator was what the Constructicons merged into.

A couple of the Decepticons were switched up for this movie. Devastator was one example, the other would be Bonecrusher. Bonecrusher was a Constructicon and a tractor. In the movie they kept his name but made him an entirely new/different Transformer.

It's interesting to the reviews/talks I've read of this movie. Being a Transformers nerd, it's weird to see some Transformers fans not notice Megatron's form is the way it is for a reason. Obviously he crash landed and there was nothing around him that he could scan to change his form.

Watch certain epsiodes of the original show that take place on Cybertron. All the Autobots and Decepticons were either hover vehicles, triangle shaped space jets and so on.

Question about the Dinobots. The Autobots found the fossils buried near their base/ship right? If I remember right the forms didn't automatically switch to the specific dinosaurs they are known as. Didn't Wheeljack build the Dinobots based on Spike's description of dinosaurs, video and what the scanners picked up?

agreed.



I think you're right.

One version from Wiki that you probabaly read already but I'll post for others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinobots

Animated Series

Animated series Grimlock in robot mode.The creation of the Dinobots was almost happenstance. One particular day at Autobot Headquarters, the Autobots detected unusual seismic activity from within the walls of the cave. Ironhide investigated the disturbance and found that, while inconsequential, he detected very large forms within a hidden cavern. They turned out to be the fossilized bones of dinosaurs. After performing various studies and researches on Dinosaurs, Wheeljack made the suggestion that, because of their brute force and power, dinosaurs working for the Autobots would shake up the Decepticons. Ratchet agreed, suggesting robotic forms and Optimus Prime authorized the project.

Shortly after, the Dinobots were created and unveiled, but during the presentation, the Dinobots went awry, due to their lack of intelligence. They began to ransack Autobot Headquarters, inflicting major damage to Teletraan I. Wheeljack managed to subdue the Dinobots with his shoulder-mounted magnetic inducer. The Dinobots were deactivated and stored in the cavern where they were constructed. Shortly after, when many of the Autobots were in peril, the Dinobots were given cerebral upgrades, increasing their intelligence to where they possessed broken language. The upgrade was sufficient to give them instructions and send them into combat.

Who knows I just assumed Decipticons since they attacked lol.

No, I meant the name "Devastator" wasn't used in the movie at all. The tank's name is Brawl, unless the toys are completely wrong. Where did "Devastator" come from?

edit: hmm... never mind, I guess they do call him Devastator in the movie, though the toy is called Brawl. Some kind of copyright problem maybe? Or just some massive screwup?

And I can see why people are confused about Megatron's ship mode. When we see the autobots come to Earth, they have alt modes that look like meteors (there are even protoform toys of starscream and optimus that transform into meteors). I guess Megatron just had a better-looking space mode.