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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 6, 2014 22:13:52 GMT
{Spoiler}Ralph and I were there for Andu. |
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 6, 2014 23:22:19 GMT
I...enjoyed it. A first for me with these films.
-Ralph
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Post by Marc Graham on Jul 7, 2014 8:42:24 GMT
Went to see it with the wife - enjoyed it. Quite long and definitely laid groundwork for sequels.  |
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Jul 7, 2014 11:27:40 GMT
Does it work when characters heads are supposed to be a set theme. ie Hound being beard wearing guy with army hat on & then Drift. Going back to ROTF - The Fallen being egypt god like look. [going by stargate series]
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 7, 2014 17:23:44 GMT
I found nothing particularly annoying on this occasion, unlike in the previous three films.
It touched on but didn't really do anything with one of my favourite TF plot points, namely that if the TFs don't kill the human race off quickly, the humans will quickly assimilate and surpass them technologically, because despite their head start we are much faster technological developers (Circuit-Breaker, Centurion, P.A.R.D., Multi-World, Headmasters, Targetmasters, Powermasters, Road-Jammers, Internet, mobile phones...). I would have preferred that to be the sole threat in the film, with nothing from outer space.
I really like watching Stanley Tucci act. Have done ever since Murder One.
Martin
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 7, 2014 19:10:57 GMT
One of our number is now watching this for the second time.... but has had problems obtaining the seat he wanted
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Stomski
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
YOU INTERRUPTED MY SPEECH!! But don't worry. It won't happen again.
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Post by Stomski on Jul 7, 2014 20:22:09 GMT
This... I was not expecting. |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 7, 2014 21:20:37 GMT
It's the end - THE END OF THE WORLD!!
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 7, 2014 22:21:48 GMT
I have now seen it...twice.
-Ralph
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 7, 2014 22:26:34 GMT
Just home after seeing it. Bloody hated it. Same old massive plots holes gibbering rubbish. In the previous ones at least I liked the fighting. In this even the fighting seemed, just off. I'm utterly deflated. {Spoiler} Hated the way Galvatron and friends 'transformed'! It was awful! Prime's out of nowhere rocket backpack has been already mentioned, but please, for heaven's sake, it's ridiculous! Prime can just suddenly fly... IN SPACE?! I thought the characterisation of the robots was terrible EXCEPT Lockdown, who was interesting at least. All this stuff about their 'Creators', where did that all come from? I was mildly pleased by the how they managed to make Galvatron from Megatron, but to what end? He and Prime didn't have a big showdown, we found out this bombshell in narrative, not a 'big reveal'. Galvatron had basically nothing to do. The Dinobots were hardly in it and had no characterisation. I don't mind some unanswered questions, but there were just too many. Oh dear me. I'm so disappointed. At least I wont spend any money on any of the toys. |
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 7, 2014 22:27:10 GMT
I have now seen it...twice. -Ralph maddness |
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Nigel
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
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Post by Nigel on Jul 8, 2014 17:19:55 GMT
Just back from the cinema, some immediate thoughts. {Spoiler}Considering the hype about them, I was disappointed that the Dinobots turned up properly quite late in the film. Though they looked impressive, more could have been made of them as characters rather than just fighters.
Lockdown looked too much of a generic bot, though I suppose this was a deliberate choice to make him look like neither Decepticon nor Autobot.
A lot of criticism of previous films has been addressed, to varying degrees - puerile humour, thin plot, characterisation, violence.
The plot, while not the particularly substantial, is quite solid.
Optimus has really lost it - destroying a lab, shouting "I'll kill you", shooting a human in the chest. He's almost the antithesis of IDW's Optimus/Orion, who went into a quiet retirement at the end of the war. (Well, tried to.)
The vocal music during the Lockdown showdown killed the scene for me.
The writer seems to be a disciple of Furman - I was quite upset at Ratchet's death.
Stereotyped/charicatured Autobots are still there, but the film doesn't suffer for it as much as the others, especially, ROTF.
I really like the Kelly's Heroes/Dirty Dozen version of Hound, even far removed from the original character as it is.
Crosshairs suffers the same indistinguishability in his speech as Jazz did.
The film works well in IMAX 3D.
While the films so far had got bigger in various ways up to now, I found this one was reined in and all the better for it.
Hong Kong has some very impressive architecture.
I want a Drift helicopter toy.
The music when Lockdown incarcerated Optimus seemed reminiscent of DiCola's Death of Optimus Prime.
Um, that's all for now. Overall, I really enjoyed the film. While certainly not the perfect Transformers film, it's certainly not as far removed from that as the others. I will likely go to see it again in 2D if I can. |
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 8, 2014 17:54:53 GMT
It's hard to believe it's the same writer as 3 and co-writer as 2. The puerile humour is mostly gone other than a deeply misjudged 'Romeo & Juliet' scene which is thankfully skipped over very quickly.
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jul 8, 2014 18:29:38 GMT
I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. More so than any of the 3 previous films. {Spoiler}While I have to say I was sad to see Ratchet die, the little snippet in the trailer I saw had me prepared for his end. Was it me, or was there a touch of the meta commentary about aspects of the film. Cade's surfer dude employee felt ripped out of the previous three films, and was soon and rather happily killed off. A wee note to say look we know we did wrong, see it's all gone now.
The Autobots had personalities, and not all likeable, but they were defined far more than in previous films. Optimus while a touch murdery at least had a reason this time, his friends were being hunted down and eradicated, and Ratchet's death seemed to throw him off the deep end.
I did smile when I heard the word Cyberforming mentioned.
I loved how in this film when TF lore was touched on it wasn't just an arbitrary use, the seed and cyberforming (aka The Key To Vector Sigma), creators and we saw the wee pink hand - Primacron or Quintessons who can say but a nice touch nevertheless.
If only Prime hadn't blown up Lockdown's ship he could have saved Ratchet's spark. Who knows maybe he still can, well he could if he was still on Earth.
I am disappointed there is no tie in fare this time round save the Titan comic.
Andy |
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 8, 2014 18:57:59 GMT
The lack of comic makes sense as the writer and others have all said they dont know exactly where the next film is going. Spoiler
Apparently the Dinobots were originally being saved for the next film, so hopefully they'll have more to do next time.
Prime I think isn't that far removed from IDW or Marvel versions. The only difference is that in those versions Prime can afford to step away when it gets to much for him. In movie land the handful of Autobots left are all looking to him to save the day. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2014 16:38:01 GMT
Sat on a beach in Grenada, not giving two tosses about spoilers. Read the thread. Tentative anticipation. Thanks to the film and a four figure Pile of Loot on it's way, never before have I been so ready for a holiday to end...
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Post by Llama God on Jul 13, 2014 0:27:44 GMT
Well. Thanks to my fiancee's decision to send her daughter to a Gaelic immersion school last year, we all ended up spending the last week in Skye, so that the fiancee and I could spend the week learning Gaelic in order to support her daughter. That's a week of my holiday spent so that I could sit in a classroom, wishing I was actually exploring the fantastic scenery. And timed perfectly to prevent me from going to see Age of Extinction on opening weekend. But we got back this afternoon, and I immediately dashed out to see the film. At the IMAX, no less. And, Primus wept, I wish I was still sat in that classroom on Skye. I spent a long time on the cycle home trying to dredge up the best and most colourful adjectives, but all I really need to say is... gods, that was terrible.
I know that this has been gone into already by other people, but I seriously need to rant...
That said, I don't know where to start.
Okay, so we know that the origin of the Allspark, and thus Cybertron itself, was a mystery to even the Transformers themselves, and so was a welcome bit of story background. Or would have been, had it made any actual sense.
My first groan came during the opening sequence, when it's shown that Earth was visited by ancient races related to Transformers in the distant past. Again. At this point, when has Earth *not* been visited by any Cybertronians? Pyramid building, the seekers, the Allspark, Megatron in the ice, the Ark on the Moon, Shockwave in Russia, the list just goes on. And it wouldn't matter if this was a detailed, layered story, where every new revelation deepens the mystery. It's not. The fact that all of this stuff goes down is barely even touched upon in the films themselves. IDW were doing a valiant job of trying to iron it all out, but this time they weren't even given the licence (or maybe they wisely decided to step away), so this time around we're left to figure it out from ourselves. Which is tricky, given the complete dearth of actual information.
Let's move on to the fact that Optimus Prime's the last of the Nine Knights. That's great. But what exactly are they? Isn't he also the last of the line of the Primes? How does being a Knight tie into all of that? Especially since he had no direct connection to the original thirteen Primes? And why, more to the point, does Optimus seem not the slightest bit interested in this new piece of information? I have no problem with there being deeper layers to a new mythology, but after it was addressed it was immediately forgotten. That's not just dealing with Transformers badly, that's writing films badly.
As for the mystery of the Dinobots... What a fucking farce. The Dinobots aren't even in the film! "Legendary warriors", my pert and well-defined arse. In the opening sequence we're shown dinosaurs being turned into metal, which suggested some link. Nope, the "Legendary Warriors" are just mute, zero-dimensional bad-asses who happened to be hanging around until the plot could find them useful. That is simply terrible writing. Have the production team not heard of Chekhov's gun? (Probably not, since it doesn't actually involve slow motion explosions.) There was an opportunity here to do something really clever (I remember reading a theory somewhere that the Dinobots had been dormant in China for millenia, but had inspired all the dragon-based legends there - that was a fun, if futile theory), but they just couldn't be bothered. It's not just disappointing, it'd bad storytelling.
I could comment on the human characters too, but I'm getting bored by now. Suffice to say that no lessons have been learned since the previous films, and it's massively depressing that the main female character (I can't even remember her name, that's how much I cared. I was actually about to refer to her as "Murphy", but then I realised that that's a character from Christopher Nolan's upcoming "Interstellar", the trailer for which was clearly more memorable than the film I actually went to see) was nothing but wank-bait. This was to be expected, really, given Bay's terrible track record with leching over women's bodies, but this took the piss. The whole discussion about it being okay with her being an underage shag because her boyfriend had a card in his wallet was just so demeaning that... well it makes me as angry as a movieverse Prime just thinking about it. Atrocious.
Actually, whilst I'm at it, what was Sophia Myles' character doing in the film, anyway? She just kept showing up at various points for no particular reason. Or with no particular logic. Just what the hell was going on with her, anyway?
More to the point, though, the film was dull. Really, impossibly, dull. I didn't much like DotM either, but at least it had a few, fun action sequences. This was just terrible. Despite having at least two major setpieces, I couldn't find it in me to care. Two freeway chases (from Michael "I'm done with freeway chases" Bay), and two major battles set in human cities. The action was so badly staged that I can't at this point tell in my memory which bit of action happened in Chicago and which happened in China, it was so samey. And deathly repetitive. We've already had two films climax in the thrilling environs of a typical, 21st century city; this film is so lazy that it does so *twice*! And one of the battles is set in Chicago! Which was done in DotM! Maybe this was supposed to be a clever commentary, but since nothing actually clever or commentary-like happened it just comes across as being exceptionally lazy. Is it too much to ask to set the climax on Cybertron, or somewhere? Or even just somewhere else on Earth - it's not like this planet is lacking in interesting scenery.
Even the soundtrack sounded like it couldn't be bothered. Whereas the score for DotM goes all out, and probably saves the film in the process (just listen to all those emotion-wringing chords!) the score for this one does nothing, and just meanders a bit.
Finally (I'm sure I could go on, but I won't), this film even fails in its main objective. Which is, of course, to sell toys. To children. If a film is meant to sell toys to children (which, let's be honest, is the only reason this movie franchise exists), then why put in multiple uses of the word "fuck"? Either children won't be allowed to see it, or outraged parents will not allow their kids to see it again. And they won't be inspired to pick up any of the toys. I'm no prude, and as you can tell from this post, I have no problem with swearing. In the right company. And at the right time. The use of strong language in this film is... just baffling.
I wasn't even amused by Prime becoming even more psychopathic in this film. Maybe because the story actually gave him some justification for feeling that way. But, whatever the case... I can't even laugh at that.
In all, this film is a disaster and a waste of time, from all perspectives. It really feels like Michael Bay gives not a fuck for anything other than his paycheck any more, and that he's just content on recycling his previous hits. It's depressing that this film was allowed to be made.
Okay, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece here. And okay, I didn't particularly like RotF or DotM either, but DotM did at least have some cool robot fighty bits, and after both films I wanted to pick up some of the toys. I'm just glad that I got Evasion Mode Optimus before seeing this film, because this film has killed my enthusiasm right now. Still. At least we have MTMTE... |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 13, 2014 9:54:32 GMT
Yes. I think that was the rant I couldn't summon the will to write last week. I was so confused about whether AoE was any good or not that I have been rewatching the first three to compare and did Revenge of the Fallen yesterday afternoon. I like Revenge of the Fallen more. Okay, so the comedy is overblown totally, but some of it is funny, and it made me realise that the complete absence of humour in the first 90 minutes of AoE while the human plot rolls through makes it terminally dull. I'm not looking at these films as 'my' Transformers, I'm looking at them as entertainment that costs me £12 a ticket in the local cinema. AoE was just boring.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 13, 2014 10:06:02 GMT
Llama God, I thought the typical Bayformers creepiness towards leering at young women was remarkably toned down in AoE - especially compared to DotM!!
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 13, 2014 10:21:04 GMT
I actually felt quite uncomfortable about it. I was thinking while watching it that this was a first for me; I felt the film was encouraging me to leer at the hot teen lead, and my head was saying - hold up, she is dangerously young for you to be doing that. It really jarred with me. I'm getting old. Nicola Peltz is 19, so 18 when making this? but still, it really threw me. At least Megan Fox was in her 20s when the first one came out (not that I find her appealing in any way!).
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 13, 2014 15:53:19 GMT
But we got back this afternoon, and I immediately dashed out to see the film. At the IMAX, no less. And, Primus wept, I wish I was still sat in that classroom on Skye. I spent a long time on the cycle home trying to dredge up the best and most colourful adjectives, but all I really need to say is... gods, that was terrible. {Spoiler}
I know that this has been gone into already by other people, but I seriously need to rant...
That said, I don't know where to start.
Okay, so we know that the origin of the Allspark, and thus Cybertron itself, was a mystery to even the Transformers themselves, and so was a welcome bit of story background. Or would have been, had it made any actual sense.
My first groan came during the opening sequence, when it's shown that Earth was visited by ancient races related to Transformers in the distant past. Again. At this point, when has Earth *not* been visited by any Cybertronians? Pyramid building, the seekers, the Allspark, Megatron in the ice, the Ark on the Moon, Shockwave in Russia, the list just goes on. And it wouldn't matter if this was a detailed, layered story, where every new revelation deepens the mystery. It's not. The fact that all of this stuff goes down is barely even touched upon in the films themselves. IDW were doing a valiant job of trying to iron it all out, but this time they weren't even given the licence (or maybe they wisely decided to step away), so this time around we're left to figure it out from ourselves. Which is tricky, given the complete dearth of actual information.
Let's move on to the fact that Optimus Prime's the last of the Nine Knights. That's great. But what exactly are they? Isn't he also the last of the line of the Primes? How does being a Knight tie into all of that? Especially since he had no direct connection to the original thirteen Primes? And why, more to the point, does Optimus seem not the slightest bit interested in this new piece of information? I have no problem with there being deeper layers to a new mythology, but after it was addressed it was immediately forgotten. That's not just dealing with Transformers badly, that's writing films badly.
As for the mystery of the Dinobots... What a fucking farce. The Dinobots aren't even in the film! "Legendary warriors", my pert and well-defined arse. In the opening sequence we're shown dinosaurs being turned into metal, which suggested some link. Nope, the "Legendary Warriors" are just mute, zero-dimensional bad-asses who happened to be hanging around until the plot could find them useful. That is simply terrible writing. Have the production team not heard of Chekhov's gun? (Probably not, since it doesn't actually involve slow motion explosions.) There was an opportunity here to do something really clever (I remember reading a theory somewhere that the Dinobots had been dormant in China for millenia, but had inspired all the dragon-based legends there - that was a fun, if futile theory), but they just couldn't be bothered. It's not just disappointing, it'd bad storytelling.
I could comment on the human characters too, but I'm getting bored by now. Suffice to say that no lessons have been learned since the previous films, and it's massively depressing that the main female character (I can't even remember her name, that's how much I cared. I was actually about to refer to her as "Murphy", but then I realised that that's a character from Christopher Nolan's upcoming "Interstellar", the trailer for which was clearly more memorable than the film I actually went to see) was nothing but wank-bait. This was to be expected, really, given Bay's terrible track record with leching over women's bodies, but this took the piss. The whole discussion about it being okay with her being an underage shag because her boyfriend had a card in his wallet was just so demeaning that... well it makes me as angry as a movieverse Prime just thinking about it. Atrocious.
Actually, whilst I'm at it, what was Sophia Myles' character doing in the film, anyway? She just kept showing up at various points for no particular reason. Or with no particular logic. Just what the hell was going on with her, anyway?
More to the point, though, the film was dull. Really, impossibly, dull. I didn't much like DotM either, but at least it had a few, fun action sequences. This was just terrible. Despite having at least two major setpieces, I couldn't find it in me to care. Two freeway chases (from Michael "I'm done with freeway chases" Bay), and two major battles set in human cities. The action was so badly staged that I can't at this point tell in my memory which bit of action happened in Chicago and which happened in China, it was so samey. And deathly repetitive. We've already had two films climax in the thrilling environs of a typical, 21st century city; this film is so lazy that it does so *twice*! And one of the battles is set in Chicago! Which was done in DotM! Maybe this was supposed to be a clever commentary, but since nothing actually clever or commentary-like happened it just comes across as being exceptionally lazy. Is it too much to ask to set the climax on Cybertron, or somewhere? Or even just somewhere else on Earth - it's not like this planet is lacking in interesting scenery.
Even the soundtrack sounded like it couldn't be bothered. Whereas the score for DotM goes all out, and probably saves the film in the process (just listen to all those emotion-wringing chords!) the score for this one does nothing, and just meanders a bit.
Finally (I'm sure I could go on, but I won't), this film even fails in its main objective. Which is, of course, to sell toys. To children. If a film is meant to sell toys to children (which, let's be honest, is the only reason this movie franchise exists), then why put in multiple uses of the word "fuck"? Either children won't be allowed to see it, or outraged parents will not allow their kids to see it again. And they won't be inspired to pick up any of the toys. I'm no prude, and as you can tell from this post, I have no problem with swearing. In the right company. And at the right time. The use of strong language in this film is... just baffling.
I wasn't even amused by Prime becoming even more psychopathic in this film. Maybe because the story actually gave him some justification for feeling that way. But, whatever the case... I can't even laugh at that.
In all, this film is a disaster and a waste of time, from all perspectives. It really feels like Michael Bay gives not a fuck for anything other than his paycheck any more, and that he's just content on recycling his previous hits. It's depressing that this film was allowed to be made.
Okay, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece here. And okay, I didn't particularly like RotF or DotM either, but DotM did at least have some cool robot fighty bits, and after both films I wanted to pick up some of the toys. I'm just glad that I got Evasion Mode Optimus before seeing this film, because this film has killed my enthusiasm right now. Still. At least we have MTMTE... I'll address your first few points as they seem more plot points than whether you liked it or not. I still think with more than a splash of desperate hope that most of the points are meant to be address in the next two films. {Spoiler}The new information or lack of didn't concern me as this is meant to be a trilogy. I assume once whoever sent Lockdown is revealed the opening sequence will fit into the plot better. Well it might not after all this is a Bay Transformers film, but unlike the previous films when information was missing and I knew it wasn't coming this time I expect at least some of it to be revealed in time.
The Dinobots were confusing, having shown Dinosaurs fleeing for there lives its easy to assume the Dinobots are in some way releated to that event, but as far as I understood the film they were prisoners on board Lockdowns ship. He could have picked them up while on Earth, but it seems more like they were on one of the other planets Lockdown had visited. Again I hope/expect them to be developed as characters and as plot points in the future.
Ditto the Knights thing, it could be that 9 worlds where seeded and the robots on those planets programmed with a Knight/leader figure. For the Autobots its one of the Primes, for the Dinobots where ever they are from its Grimlock I'd guess. Or they are all knights from different worlds which makes Prime the odd one out.
As for toy sales I have to completely disagree with you. While it does seem a bit of a dumb move I doubt it will hurt. 18 rated films in the 80s and 90s weren't prevented from having successful toylines. And for anyone who does see it most of the Autobots at least get a clear personality stereotype which should increase desire for them, I know I'm desperate for a good version of Hound after watching the film. And at 12a I doubt most 8 year olds and over will have trouble getting parents to take them. I personally didn't notice the usual Bay perving in AOE. There was no bent over Bumblebees engine, slow motion bouncing breasts in the desert or 3d shot of underwear clad buttocks ascending the stairs. At least that I noticed and I couldn't not notice in the previous films, maybe I've just learnt to ignore them. Honestly aside from them pointing out how short her shorts where I can't remember anything. Maybe the fact the actress was younger than the previous two made what there was of it worse in some way, but to me, nothing of the previous creepiness and at 18 shes probably the right age for the main target audience which I'd guess is 12-30. |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 13, 2014 17:56:57 GMT
Okay, Dark of the Moon this afternoon. I realised, taking the shrink wrap off the blu-ray, that it was the first time I was watching it since seeing it at the cinema and there were whole sections in the middle I'd forgotten about. As a cinema spectacle much better than RotF, much better than AoE. I feel comfortable now being able to say that AoE is a wasted opportunity and a dull, soulless film. There are points in all three of the first films where I well up as a life long TF fan - there are moments in all of them that really get to me emotionally - fleetingly - but it's there. The Dinobots should have been that moment in AoE at least, but it had no feeling in it.
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 13, 2014 17:58:59 GMT
I personally didn't notice the usual Bay perving in AOE. There was no bent over Bumblebees engine, slow motion bouncing breasts in the desert or 3d shot of underwear clad buttocks ascending the stairs. You're right, visually it was massively toned down from the lingering shots of before, but the fuss made about her age and the whole needless Romeo & Juliet bit seemed to make it worse for me. It made a thing out of something that didn't need to be a thing. |
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Post by Llama God on Jul 13, 2014 19:32:07 GMT
Yeah, that was what made it worse for me, too. Bogatan, I'm not going to disagree with you overly much on what you said. Suffice to say I didn't like it. (The film, that is, not what you said.) There's only one thing I will disagree with, though...
...and that's the lack of explanation of new pieces of information. Fair enough that this is a new trilogy, and that other things will be explained later. That I can live with. But my real problem is that none of the characters reacted to the new information. Prime at no point went "Huh, what? Creators? Knights?" Despite the fact that the bit of Lockdown's ship that they stole was full of ancient treasures, they had no curiosity about it at all. And this to me is bad storytelling. Whenever new information is added, there should be some sort of reaction. It doesn't all have to be explained, it can be layered in, but some sort of reaction is needed. And there wasn't any here. That's what I didn't like.
But fair enough, some people won't find these things as annoying as I did. Which is clearly apparent due to the amount of positive response in this thread. Which is no bad thing. It just didn't do anything for me... |
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Post by Toph on Jul 14, 2014 2:02:19 GMT
Just tagging everything I say as a spoiler. It's been quite a bit of time since it's been out here, and at this point for me it's a bit tricker figuring out what's a spoiler or not.
The Knight thing:
I got the impression that Optimus knew he's a knight, and that's part of a story we haven't been told yet. It seemed to me that he left the knights, which was why he had to convince/dominate Grimlock to get them to follow him.
Maybe I'm just filling in the blanks, because there was a lot to absorb going on.
As for the usage of "fuck," I confess I'm no parent, but I'd have a hell of a lot easier a time letting my kid hear that, than letting him/her see Bumblebee pull Ravage's guts out by his tail, Optimus pull Sentinel's spine out Mortal Kombat style, or coldly execute Demolishor in the back of the head.
But then I'm also one of those weirdos who doesn't think they'll be corrupted forever if they see unsexualized boobs, either.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 14, 2014 6:29:59 GMT
Weirdo! The R+J thing was woefully badly done and indeed a throw back to the earlier movies level of 'humour' but a one off misstep in AoE I thought. The short short concern I figured was an amusing bit of tongue in cheek self referencing. |
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Post by Llama God on Jul 14, 2014 12:45:08 GMT
Likewise, I shall be paranoid about spoilers. Let's hope I get the nesting of quotes and spoilers right...
The Knight thing:
I got the impression that Optimus knew he's a knight, and that's part of a story we haven't been told yet. It seemed to me that he left the knights, which was why he had to convince/dominate Grimlock to get them to follow him.
Maybe I'm just filling in the blanks, because there was a lot to absorb going on.
Well...
Yeah, I get that. But as I say, there was too much filling in of blanks for me. At least an "I turned my back on them!" or something from Optimus would have been nice. As it was, there was just a blank non-registering from him. For me this didn't create a mystery, it just became a line that may or may not have been relevant, which is a very different thing to a mystery. And like I say, I consider this to be bad writing.
As for the usage of "fuck," I confess I'm no parent, but I'd have a hell of a lot easier a time letting my kid hear that, than letting him/her see Bumblebee pull Ravage's guts out by his tail, Optimus pull Sentinel's spine out Mortal Kombat style, or coldly execute Demolishor in the back of the head.
But then I'm also one of those weirdos who doesn't think they'll be corrupted forever if they see unsexualized boobs, either.
Well, yeah, that's a fair point - it's also quite gorey. And I would have picked them up on that, too. I don't have that problem with unsexualised boobs (I know the argument you're talking about, but that's for another thread :-) ), and I don't believe in suffocating children in cotton wool (either metaphorically or literally), but either way, with swearing or violence, the message just seems to be completely off. To me, anyway. I guess box office receipts and Hasro's sales for the next couple of quarters will bear this out or not...
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 16, 2014 14:38:53 GMT
Llama you've pretty much spoken for me as well in your rants about AoE. I couldn't even find the energy to rant though! I'm just deflated and disapointed about the whole thing. I wanted something different, but got the same 'stuff' all over again.
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 16, 2014 14:44:18 GMT
Llama God, I thought the typical Bayformers creepiness towards leering at young women was remarkably toned down in AoE - especially compared to DotM!! I think you're right, chumb, in that it was toned down, but as others have said I found it worse because instead of a twenty-odd year old woman, it was a 17/18 year old girl! The childish jokes were improved as well, but not enough. I did like these human characters slightly more, but still too much of them instead of robots. |
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 16, 2014 18:47:39 GMT
Yeah, that was what made it worse for me, too. Bogatan, I'm not going to disagree with you overly much on what you said. Suffice to say I didn't like it. (The film, that is, not what you said.) There's only one thing I will disagree with, though... Spoiler
...and that's the lack of explanation of new pieces of information. Fair enough that this is a new trilogy, and that other things will be explained later. That I can live with. But my real problem is that none of the characters reacted to the new information. Prime at no point went "Huh, what? Creators? Knights?" Despite the fact that the bit of Lockdown's ship that they stole was full of ancient treasures, they had no curiosity about it at all. And this to me is bad storytelling. Whenever new information is added, there should be some sort of reaction. It doesn't all have to be explained, it can be layered in, but some sort of reaction is needed. And there wasn't any here. That's what I didn't like.
But fair enough, some people won't find these things as annoying as I did. Which is clearly apparent due to the amount of positive response in this thread. Which is no bad thing. It just didn't do anything for me... I went to see the film again yesterday, on repeat viewing my general view hasn't changed, but Spoiler
Lockdown- Both Ratchet and Prime know Lockdown. Pretty sure hes a Cybertronian but never chose a side.
Prime knows hes a Knight, that much I'm pretty sure about. Exactly what a knight is still isn't clear.
Assuming the chaps at the start are the Creators, Transformers know about them in some capacity, because Hound knows about the cyberforming.
But its also possible, they aren't the creators because Lockdown doesn't expect Prime to know that Transformers were created and at the end Prime makes it clear he doesn't know who they are, but at the same time he seems pretty confident about being able to find them. So maybe he at least knew/suspected transformers were created, which isn't a huge leap actually. It was established the allspark gave live, so whoever created the allspark created Tranformers.
At this point I think its safe to work on the assumption the creators may end up being Quintessons for all intent with a similar back story to the cartoon.
But then it could be a Primus/Unicron type back story with the cyberformings being servants of God type chap.
On second viewing I take Primes lack of reaction to Lockdowns reveal to be that the guy was just had the c++p kicked out of him.
Possibly another factor is the sense I got that Prime (possibly as a knight) already knew enough that Lockdowns reveal wasn't that big a deal. But mostly I think barely concious.
I'm changing my idea that the Dinobots or at least Grimlock was a Knight, Lockdown refers to them as trophies and part of his collection, unlike Prime who hes being paid to hunt.
To the Autobots lack of interest of Lockdowns ship that seems the right attitude. First of all they have under 10 minutes to get off the ship, but more pressingly I just don't think they are in the mood to appreciate ancient treasures, actually the term is trophies which is if anything even less interesting. At least two friends (probably many more) have been killed in the last few days and they are now trying to save their leader. Cybertron is gone and their adopted homeworld is now so hostile they are desperate to leave, a ship they can escape in is far more interesting than the contents of that ship.
What I really did appreciate second time around is that the Autobots really are the heroes this time around. The first 3 times they were just the best weapons the US military had to hand. As they had already worked out how to kill Transformers early in the first film theres little reason to think they couldn't have eventually defeated the decepticons on their own, at least the first two times. Yes Cade helps a bit, but basically all the saving the day action is from the Autobots. |
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