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Post by The Doctor on Jun 30, 2011 7:09:53 GMT
When trying to pronounce DOTM out-loud round this way it can sound like someone saying DOTAMAN.
DOTAMAN was a mind-blowing Gaelic kids show from the mind-boggling era when BBC Scotland tried to convince Scottish folk that we spoke Gaelic rather than English*.
So Thursdays on BBC2 from 6pm was Gaelic Night whereas on other weekdays that was the SF slot: Star Trek, b-movies, etc.
-Ralph
*There are indeed areas where folk do speak Gaelic and no-one wants to see it disappear but the national language of Scotland is actually English.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jun 30, 2011 7:15:45 GMT
Thanks, Ralph. Regarding the violence against robots, they obviously got away with a lot of stuff that you couldn't do with humans on the same film classification, and they did it in such a way that I didn't find it as disturbing as violence against robots in comics such as Generation 2 and LSotW. I think this is partly due to the way they came across as machines rather than people. Now I'm all for portraying Transformers as machines rather than as humans, but preferably machines with fleshed-out machine personalities (as Budiansky) rather than no personalities at all (as Bay). I like seeing robots smashing each other like machines, but Budiansky has ingrained into me the sense that when Transformers smash each other like machines they can be put back together again. This is the other part of why I don't find most of the robot violence in the Bay films too disturbing - I know that Bay intends the robots to stay dead, but I can't shake my basic TF lore which says they could be put back together again easily enough. (On the other hand, in G2 and LSotW the violence - like the characterisation - is more of a sort that humans can identify with, which gives it a disturbing edge.) The exceptions: Firstly, in RotF, Bumblebee pulled out Ravage's spine and it was fluid all over the place - yuck. (Much prefer, for example, the way the Pretender smashed when hit by the car.) Secondly, in DotM, Wheeljack/Q's pleas when he was executed, and the way in which he was executed, made him very human - the whole scene could have been played by humans - so that was disturbing, but not ideal in my opinion, because I want alien machine characterisation for Transformers, rather than human characterisation. And admittedly it's tough to do! But it's the challenge (and potential) that comes with choosing to write about alien machines in the first place. I think TF life should not be cheap, they should be very hard to kill* (though not necessarily hard to smash into bits), and true deaths should be extremely rare in the stories and a big deal for all the TFs round about. In DotM TF life didn't feel cheap and I didn't feel they were dying left, right and centre, because for the most part I just saw machines being smashed up. *like Scrounge in 'The Smelting Pool', Optimus Prime (if he hadn't been backed up) in 'Afterdeath', Shockwave in 'The Legacy of Unicron' and Impactor in 'Meltdown' Martin
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Post by blueshift on Jun 30, 2011 8:13:37 GMT
Aaa seriously guys keep things in spoiler tags or I won't be able to read the forums
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Nigel
Thunderjet
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Post by Nigel on Jun 30, 2011 8:26:04 GMT
I only caught one of the Chuck cameo and no joke, what did I miss? During Sam's interview with Bruce, the portly Buy More employee with curly ginger hair walks across behind the window behind Sam, looking in on them. The executive that takes away the red mug is played by Scott Krinsky, who plays Jeff. Later, he's in the meeting with Bruce when Wang falls past the window; another executive in the room says to him something like, "I don't care what Chuck said."
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jun 30, 2011 8:27:25 GMT
Aaa seriously guys keep things in spoiler tags or I won't be able to read the forums Sorry, I missed one spoiler in my last post - but if that's what you were referring to, you must have read a long way down a long post with the word "SPOILER" in the subject heading to get to it! If you're choosing to read the un-spoiler-tagged bits of posts in this thread and trusting us to keep them totally spoiler-free, you do so at your own risk. Martin
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Jun 30, 2011 8:42:24 GMT
Matt's reading the "Recent Posts" section rather than this thread. I just remembered something else. A couple of people have said they didn't expect the Sentinel twist. Just before the film, I'd seen a black Sentinel toy which had made me think, oh, is he a villain then?
Because of that, I think I realised what was about to happen a little earlier than I otherwise would have.
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Post by Bogatan on Jun 30, 2011 8:45:20 GMT
The autobots attacking the middle east nuclear plant was a bit odd and did makes me uncomfortable, what was more odd though was that they apparently were doing so independently of the US or any international agency.
But then especially on the second viewing it made more sense, unlike any other version of G1, or more so than any other version of G1 the Autobots have settled on Earth permanently so anything or anyone that threatens to damage their new home would be dealt with the same as the Decepticons.
Combine that with the more aggressive Autobots and it worked.
The executions Prime carries out at the end were maybe going to far. Megatron was in battle, but Sentinel was a pure cold blooded murder.
But again given they have already lost one planet I can understand a zero tolerance position. It does make Soundwaves plan to take prisoners rather noticeable.
In fact I prefer the zero tolerance, I know the autobots should be the hero, but everytime they let the decepticons get away rather than kill them I just think, you are now responsible for every person that decepticon kills in the future.
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Jun 30, 2011 9:40:44 GMT
I didn't like Wheeljack's head. It looked far too human.
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Stomski
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Post by Stomski on Jun 30, 2011 11:08:46 GMT
What if that decepticon/person/whoever in the future realises the error of their ways and becomes a contributing person of society? (eg Jetfire). What if you're mistaken in your guilty verdict? Death sentence argument agogo!
And you can't place responsibility of one person's actions on another, except in the case of dependants, e.g. minors.
OMG epic derail. Have your say is thataway--->
Stomskette has now admitted that she enjoyed both Transformers 1 and 3. I didn't subject her to ROTF. Although looking at the toy of Shockwave she was disappointed he wasn't more purple in the film.
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Post by duffism1981 on Jun 30, 2011 12:51:10 GMT
Matt's reading the "Recent Posts" section rather than this thread. I just remembered something else. A couple of people have said they didn't expect the Sentinel twist. Just before the film, I'd seen a black Sentinel toy which had made me think, oh, is he a villain then?
Because of that, I think I realised what was about to happen a little earlier than I otherwise would have. I avoided anything in the build up to the film so not to ruin any potential plot or anything. Apart from the one trailer a couple of months ago I have manage to avoid nearly everything to do with the film.
So thanks to this I was genuinely shocked by the big twist.
After ROTF I went in with low expectations other than wanting 1. Explosions 2. Decepticons killing humans 3. No humans killing robots.
I got two out of three. The no human killing robots was probably wishful thinking.
I did think Soundwave was killed far too quickly and easily for my liking, and I completely forgot John Malkovic was in the film. In hindsight he seemed to be wasted as apart from being mental, his character was more of a cameo than anything else.
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Cullen
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Post by Cullen on Jun 30, 2011 15:13:09 GMT
Saw it last night and came out feeling generally upbeat: Liked it better than TF2 but then again I thought that was possibly the worst film I've ever seen. The first 90 mins were very tedious and I didn't like most of the humour. It had some well done gags but mostly it was just crazy humour not to my taste (like the Wang guy and Simmons). I don't know if this was just my perception but it felt like Transformers were only on screen for about 20 mins out of the first 90.
Once again the TFs themselves got very little or no characterisation. Even Prime seemed to be reduced to just a handful of one-liners and quips.
The last hour was good enjoyable tosh though. I loved the imagery of Chicago taken over by the Decepticons with the gangs of humans and Autobots trying to infiltrate it. I'd had preferred it this was the premise for the entire film - i.e. the Decepticons have taken over the planet and the story follows the Autobot/human resistance.
Also, I know the plots of these films are paper thin but were the Decepticons hiding on the moon there since the 1960's? If so then why couldn't they have helped capture the Allspark during the first film and thus making this entire plot pointless? Even if they still needed Optimus to revive Sentinel I'm sure that could have been arranged whilst having control of the whole planet and all its machines.
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Post by Bogatan on Jun 30, 2011 15:23:05 GMT
Saw it last night and came out feeling generally upbeat: Liked it better than TF2 but then again I thought that was possibly the worst film I've ever seen. The first 90 mins were very tedious and I didn't like most of the humour. It had some well done gags but mostly it was just crazy humour not to my taste (like the Wang guy and Simmons). I don't know if this was just my perception but it felt like Transformers were only on screen for about 20 mins out of the first 90.
Once again the TFs themselves got very little or no characterisation. Even Prime seemed to be reduced to just a handful of one-liners and quips.
The last hour was good enjoyable tosh though. I loved the imagery of Chicago taken over by the Decepticons with the gangs of humans and Autobots trying to infiltrate it. I'd had preferred it this was the premise for the entire film - i.e. the Decepticons have taken over the planet and the story follows the Autobot/human resistance.
Also, I know the plots of these films are paper thin but were the Decepticons hiding on the moon there since the 1960's? If so then why couldn't they have helped capture the Allspark during the first film and thus making this entire plot pointless? Even if they still needed Optimus to revive Sentinel I'm sure that could have been arranged whilst having control of the whole planet and all its machines.
I couldn't decide if they where on the moon or if the bulk of the spacebridge pillars were there buried and the decepticons arrived there from elsewhere and then used the final 5 pillars to arrive on earth. Thats seems rather convoluted and there isn't much on screen to suggest it but as the alternative is that they've been sitting underground on the moon during the events of the last two movies. Then again Soundwave and Laserbeak (who is awesome and makes me wish more of the Transformers could have been fleshed out better) have been playing the long game and didn't want to risk not being able to revive Sentinel. If Megatron or the Fallen won great if not there plan was in place.
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Jun 30, 2011 15:38:24 GMT
The (cannon fodder) Decepticons are seen to appear thanks to the pillars, while question marks appear mainly over the appearance of Shockwave. A line of Megatron's that he and Sentinel were supposed to rendezvous on Earth before fate intervened for them both doesn't sit well with events of the first film. There's no reason that Soundwave and a small number of others couldn't have retrieved the majority of devices on the moon. Interestingly, the comic adapatation shows Decepticons watching the astronauts on the moon's surface.
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 30, 2011 19:01:59 GMT
I really hope someone with video editing skills can dub DOTM Optimus over Sunbow clips. Spike and Bumblebee up to high jinks? "KILL THEM ALL!" orders Prime. -Ralph
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Post by Bogatan on Jun 30, 2011 20:22:32 GMT
Oh my, there is so much potential in that idea.
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Post by legios on Jun 30, 2011 21:20:11 GMT
Saw it last night and came out feeling generally upbeat: Also, I know the plots of these films are paper thin but were the Decepticons hiding on the moon there since the 1960's? If so then why couldn't they have helped capture the Allspark during the first film and thus making this entire plot pointless?
The 'cons on the moon had certainly been there long enough to develop a significant covering of dust, which suggests to me that they were there a fairly long time. It had also occurred to me that they would have been very handy for Megatron in the previous films. I can't speak for where they were during the first film, although once the cube was found things did tend to happen pretty fast, so you could patch it by saying that there wasn't time to mobilise them until Megatron and the cube were already destroyed. As to ROFD, loath as I am to think too much about that film... we don't actually know where the Decepticons who rained down on Egypt actually came from. There were lots of assumptions made at the time (hatchlings from the Decepticon spacecraft, random Decepticons whistled up from outer space). One could speculate that they were a first wave force from those on the moon, and once Prime went on his mad-slasher rampage and Megatron ran away he told the rest of them not to bother powering up while he tried to think of a new plan. Alternatively, it can be easily explained by the fact that the three films don't really match up as a single narrative whole, and are more like three disconnected stories that happen to feature the same characters.....
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 30, 2011 21:40:36 GMT
Wow! Karl's own name is a spoiler!
-Ralph
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Post by Bogatan on Jun 30, 2011 21:52:42 GMT
Saw it last night and came out feeling generally upbeat: Alternatively, it can be easily explained by the fact that the three films don't really match up as a single narrative whole, and are more like three disconnected stories that happen to feature the same characters.....
Karl
I was personally surprised how well they do link up when viewed back to back. I'm sure there are discrepancies in the timeline and the ROTF is botched thanks to not enough time in developement, but it works.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2011 3:08:51 GMT
Been a long time since I stopped by this place but after seeing the movie today via more or less spur-of-the-moment decision following a loooooooooooong break from keeping up with Transfandom... I couldn't help but come here just to see what others thought out of curiosity. Here's my initial thoughts, copy-pasted from my blog to save time because I do kinda want to ramble about the film a little:
Well.
Uhm.
...
Yeah here's the thing. I'm not sure if it's Michael Bay's trademark directing style or whether it's something else, but the past 3 hours kind of felt like a bit of a blur to me. I can remember there being a lot of fight scenes and action sequences and things going boom in visually spectacular fashion, but the rest of the details I'm finding a bit hard to recall. Those of you who play AO with me might know DJ Sprklygrrl from the GridStream radio show. Y'know that trademark of hers where there's kind of a pause and then she goes "...what just happened?" Yeah. That's kinda how it is right now. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but neither am I saying it's a good one. I'm just kind of still waiting for it to sink in a bit better. I think I might have to go see it at least a second time just to let the details fill themselves in a bit more.
It probably doesn't help my overall feeling of disorientation that in the back of my mind I spent the entire rest of the movie being stunned that Oh My God Sentinel shot Ironhide. Sentinel shot Ironhide. I mean I know I've never been known to root for the good guys as much as other people, but dammit I'll admit I had a soft spot for that big black pick-up truck. And I honestly did not see that coming. Soundwave, Shockwave, Barricade (well at least I think that was Barricade I caught glimpses of near the end. See the thing about the Autobots is they're easier to identify because they at least seem to wear colors. It's a lot harder with the Decepticons because in bipedal mode they're all mostly silver with very similar features right down to the sharp teeth and animalesque body structure. And most of you'll probably know already that I haven't been keeping up with the fandom for literally years. I have no idea what the background stories are in the comics or whatever, all I have to go on are my fading memories of the previous two movies combined with this one. So I couldn't recognize what felt like way too many of the mechanical characters. But there were police car doors on that particular one so I can only guess Barricade didn't die in the first movie and has reappeared in this one as a result. And whoa was that a long detour. But I did mention I left the theater feeling a bit disorientated by what just happened, so there you go) and the other Decepticons? Sure, I could see them being killed off. After all you don't spend the entirety of your fandom life having a soft spot for the side that everyone else loves to hate without learning something about what tends to happen to them in the end. I didn't like seeing Decepticons I liked being killed off, but part of me knew it was coming because that's just the fate that tends to await villain characters. Instinct also said Bumblebee wasn't going to get executed, because he has a tendency to get saved in the nick of time (instinct proved to be right). And because Optimus had already died once during the course of this trilogy I could see them avoiding killing him off again because audiences might just critique the movie's makers for overdoing the whole noble sacrifice thing with him. Everyone else I guess was fair game. But the manner in which Ironhide bought it? I honestly could not have called that one.
They promised us better writing for this movie, but even the non-cynical types would have probably been cautious about falling for that line yet another time. So I didn't go in expecting any miracles. And yeah there were several cliched moments, or scenes that made me want to roll my eyes a bit. And the ending felt very abrupt in its conclusion to the extent that I wasn't sure it was very conclusive at all. Perhaps they deliberately left it that way because they're going to make a TF4 or something. Who knows. I just kinda felt like it was a bit "...wait, that's it? Story's over?"
But what did surprise me is that part in the middle where Optimus' team are essentially being kicked off Earth. That I think is one thing they did at least get to work. The score was well-done and went well with what was happening on the screen. Perhaps this part just felt poignant to me because remember I still haven't gotten over the fact that Sentinel shot Ironhide and that hadn't happened terribly long ago by this part of the movie. I did get a sense that the movie-makers genuinely tried to give us the feeling of "this can't be how it's supposed to happen, this isn't how things are supposed to end" that Sam must've been experiencing. Though I suppose their return near the end kind of undoes a bit of that poignancy. That one I kinda saw coming too. Ah well.
I would have liked to see a little more focus on the Cybertronians' side of the story just because the series has already fleshed out (pun not intended) its humans characters (or tried to) relative to them. We get plenty (some would say too much) background on some of them. The others I guess suffer from the same flaw that other secondary characters in this trilogy have suffered from: too many characters, not enough time. And unfortunately the brunt of that problem tends to be borne by the Cybertronians. Particularly the Decepticons. I'm hoping I'll catch and remember more names on the second viewing. I'm sure some were given, but I can't remember a lot of the names that were.
Erm. I'm sure there were more thoughts but halfway through typing this I got distracted by friends talking on Ventrilo and now I've forgotten what I was going to say. I'll probably be reminded of more stuff when I actually see other people's opinions and read their points (I'd been avoiding reading anybody else's opinions until I'd actually seen the movie because I didn't want spoilers).
So yeah I guess that's about it for now.
Additional musings: I didn't go in expecting anything awesome after being burned the first two times Bay made a TF movie. Maybe this is just the post-Green Lantern atmosphere making me go easy on DOTM, but... I dunno, despite the bad expections I think it coulda gone worse. It had some bad and some good, as could be expected. But it coulda been a lot worse I suppose.
Definitely agree with everyone who thinks a second viewing would help, though. It's a busy, busy movie.
-- R.
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Hero
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Post by Hero on Jul 2, 2011 8:35:18 GMT
My head is spinning. Too much to take in. Without heading into spoiler territory, I think the next wave of Transformers movies need be visually easier to digest. I know they're "More than Meets the Eye" and all, but... ===KEN
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Jul 2, 2011 13:58:30 GMT
But what did surprise me is that part in the middle where Optimus' team are essentially being kicked off Earth. That I think is one thing they did at least get to work. The score was well-done and went well with what was happening on the screen. Perhaps this part just felt poignant to me because remember I still haven't gotten over the fact that Sentinel shot Ironhide and that hadn't happened terribly long ago by this part of the movie. I did get a sense that the movie-makers genuinely tried to give us the feeling of "this can't be how it's supposed to happen, this isn't how things are supposed to end" that Sam must've been experiencing. Though I suppose their return near the end kind of undoes a bit of that poignancy. That one I kinda saw coming too. Ah well. First of all, welcome back. The problem I had with that segment - and I imagine it was the same for many other viewers - was that it was straight out of one of the cartoon episodes. I was distracted by the extreme similarity of the two and found myself trying to figure out how they'd escape, even wondering if the cartoon resolution would appear I remembered something that struck me as odd whilst watching. There were various scenes in Chicago that showed civilians in the office buildings. I assume the idea was that they were hiding out in these buildings, but it came across that whilst the city had been taken over by marauding aliens that had killed countless people, people were still going to work.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2011 16:20:20 GMT
First of all, welcome back. Thanks! The problem I had with that segment - and I imagine it was the same for many other viewers - was that it was straight out of one of the cartoon episodes. I was distracted by the extreme similarity of the two and found myself trying to figure out how they'd escape, even wondering if the cartoon resolution would appear Yeah that is a good point, and one I didn't actually notice until coming to places like this and reading other people's reactions. It's been a long, long time since I watched the cartoon and my memories of it are vaguer than my memories of the first live action film. And that was one of the episodes that apparently had not stuck with me. Also I partially blame the fact that my brain was still stuck on the whole Sentinel shot Ironhide thing, haha. Stunned stupification indeed. One day later and I still can't believe they put that in the movie.
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Post by legios on Jul 3, 2011 17:18:29 GMT
Wow! Karl's own name is a spoiler! -Ralph Between consulting work for N.E.S.T, U.N.C.L.E and another, international, organisation I can't really name (we get tossed for telling) I can't keep the various security protocols straight. Sometimes it is just easier to classify it all and let the spooks sort it out... :-) Karl
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Post by skillex on Jul 3, 2011 23:37:29 GMT
Hmmm. Just saw this tonight. Not a particularly good film. But after the faculty-wrenching horror that was ROTF I was expecting something cataclysmically bad so with those expectations I quite enjoyed DOTM for what it was - a daft popcorn blockbuster. Some bits were beyond ridiculous, though. In no great order...
- The way it "fits" with other films in the trilogy. So, off the top of my head, the Fallen and the Thirteen came to Earth centuries ago with the Matrix and the star harvester or whatever it was. Then a bunch of "seekers" came to Earth. Then the Allspark crashed here. Then Megatron crashed here and was somehow retconned into searching for the Fallen AND the Allspark. Then Megatron was discovered and kept secret for decades by a shady US government conspiracy. Then the Ark crashed on the Moon and was detected by NASA and kept secret for decades by an ENTIRELY SEPARATE shady US government conspiracy. Then it turned out the Decepticons planned Sentinel Prime and the Space Bridge being there all the time, as it was part of the plan along with the AllSpark, the Fallen or whatever.
- Pages could be written about what didn't make sense! Why didn't Optimus use the Matrix to revive all those dead Autobots on the Moon? Why were there 100s of Decepticons under the Moon's surface? If Sentinel had made a deal with Megatron and the Ark was en route to meet him, why was it shot down? How does "shooting down" over Cybertron mean it crashes on the Moon? How "in disguise" were the Decepticons in the middle of the African savannah? You don't get skyscrapers in Washington DC. WTF was going on with the cosmonauts taking their photos to the sleazy bar? Xantium attached to space shuttle for "military control"?
- Massive battle, huge fights, main Decepticons all dead and Cybertron destroyed! Time to comment on this at the end? No, just "let's get married, we will defend this planet, END". - A shame essentially no characterisation was given to Shockwave. Rather like Arcee in the last film, he got about 2 lines before being despatched.
- A pity at the lack of the shades of grey with Sentinel Prime's defection. If child-oriented TF: Animated can manage to make their Sentinel Prime a misguided military dictator sacrificing freedoms for security in a thinly-veiled parody of the Patriot Act it's a pity a major film can't. Then again...
- Atrocious US jingoism and constant US flag-waving. Deeply uneasy about the Autobot assault on a "Middle East" facility near the start as agents of US foreign policy. I can only hope they edited out an explanation for their departure from Diego Garcia when Prime discovered the US and UK Governments' enforced resettlement of the island inhabitants to station that real-life (though obv not NEST) base there.
- Chernobyl meltdown being due to the Ark's engines was also deeply distateful.
- Appalling levels of sexism. The close-up of Rosie's barely covered behind at the start was exceeded by the long, lingering and salivating pan slowly up her body as the curves of a classic car was described. Really quite insulting.
- We could've been doing with a Russell T Davies on Doctor Who era set of newscasts to put the situation into context when the Decepticons took Chicago. We also could've done without Bill O'Reilly. Urgh.
- Silly accents on robots. (OK, so standard American is no more and no less silly for an alien but... still).
- Too long.
OK, stuff I liked.
- 3D was good. I'm not really a fan of action films but the action sequences were good, especially the freeway scenes.
- Optimus Prime still psychotic, but less so than in ROTF.
- Ironhide's death scene well handled.
- Special effects superb.
- Parents not overused, but used well, as they were in first film.
- Laserbeak and Soundwave used well. Laserbeak's pink robot diguise was well creepy.
- No Racist Twins.
- Nice wee continuity shoutout as the Wrecker ship is called the Xantium.
- Buzz Aldrin! Crazy WTF moment!
In short, despite all the bad stuff, for what it was I quite enjoyed it.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 4, 2011 5:36:48 GMT
If the Decepticons knew about Sentinel and the Space Bridges, then they should have used the Allspark fragment Ravage stole in ROTF to revive Sentinel rather than waste it reviving Megatron. Martin
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Post by jameso on Jul 5, 2011 1:51:07 GMT
Absolute bobbins. Way too long, very boring. No characterisation of the Transformer characters, who are barely in it at some points. Sam's characterisation was dreadful.
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dyrl
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Post by dyrl on Jul 6, 2011 9:59:07 GMT
DOTM = "Megatron's Master Plan" + "City of Steel" + "Countdown to Extinction"
But even in the cartoon made for 4 year olds they understood that if you put Cybertron in Earth's orbit, it will cause vast climate change - immediately!
I was also underwhelmed by the Autobot's lack of moral reflection, but I interpret this as being testimony to the times and the American political psyche of the moment.
After all - Americans are now openly by and large a nation in favor of torture and just about any other methodology which once was the domain of fascism or stalinism.
It's hilarious - and kind of sad - that the Decepticons actually come out as the good guys in this movie - classically defined.
Here's why:
1) Megatron is open to negotiation, unlike Prime who wants to "kill them all." Megatron actually makes a truce with Sentinel Prime. Maybe if Prime engaged with Megatron in negotiations he could hage explained how to PEACEFULLY rebuild Cybertron without imperiling the Earth, and how to PEACEFULLY exchange Cybertronian Technology in return for Earth resources to enhance BOTH civilizations?
Now - normally, if Megatron were "evil" - this wouldn't be an option. But since Megatron is CLEARLY WILLING AND ABLE to negotiate with the Autobots and comes to peace terms with Sentinel Prime... why doesn't Prime ATTEMPT any negotiations himself?
2) Soundwave takes prisoners - Prime wants to kill 'em all. Admittably - Soundwave later reflects that he wants to kill his prisoners - I can't remember why - but still...just the fact that the Decepticons even had this sort of idea rather than "kill 'em!" ...shouldn't it be the other way around?
Somebody clearly over-did the "cool = cold blooded murderer" thing... like, it makes Prime cool to murder people... what gives?
And I also agree that the Autobots openly apparently attacking Iran's nuclear power plant in the middle east was pretty ridiculous - the Autobots are basically portrayed as being equally as unreflective as the Americans...
You'd think that alien robots who have been witness to the destruction of their planet by war would be kind of inclined to at least try and defuse human conflicts in order to save their world.
See - the notion that the Autobots would attack Iran to protect their new home is just wrong; because the Autobobts would understand where war and conflict lead to: MAD - that's what happened to Cybertron after all.
The human characters in the movie were, however, the worse.
I can't put my finger on it, but they were basically arrogant materialistic shallow and completely devoid of empathy. I mean - when Wang apparently comitted suicide - I didn't really appreciate that as a "comedy moment" - but...whatever...
Certainly none of these characters are sympathetic - seriously. They're all maniacal murderers and psychopaths.
This movie just demonstrates to me how screwed up Americans are becoming. It reminds me of my last time back in the USA. Me and my friends went to a diner by the side of the high way on the way back from the airport.
The waitress comes up, gives us coffee, sees my suitcase and asks if I'd just been on a trip. My friends tell the waitress I was in Europe and she says...
"Gosh, well I bet you feel safe now."
It's shocking - but Americans have been brainwashed and conditioned into thinking that every single place beyond the borders of the USA is poor and/or full of terrorists.
This movie kind of reinforces this notion. I dunno...
I mean - Optimus Prime from both the comics and the cartoons was way less gung-ho, and the Autobots were always careful not to "stoop to the level of their enemies".
But then again - what can you expect of Americans these days? I mean - the country has gotten to the point where lots of folks actively support torture and illegal detention...
So... whatever...
The movie generally sucked - although not as much as ROTF - I'll grant that...
Pete
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dyrl
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Transforming robots are no match for combat waitresses from the future!
Posts: 1,652
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Post by dyrl on Jul 6, 2011 10:04:38 GMT
Oh - P.S. :
DOTM did have this bright redeeming quality:
Michael Bay took the amazing character of Shockwave, adherent of Logic, and used him to the maximum of potential....
After all - remember that great time when Shockwave said "GUHGDOHGISUHGH!!!" or when Shockwave said "IGHSOIHGFISHERIG"
Then, there was that great plan Shockwave had, and the great tension that built up between Shockwave's cold logic and Megatron's brute emotions...oh wait... that was in the comic book for 4 year olds...
Sigh...
Shockwave was a TOTALLY WASTED CHARACTER in this movie. He didn't even SAY anything...geez.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 6, 2011 19:39:32 GMT
I think the movie is more of a popcorn non-thinker rather than an accurate representation of the American people.
And as the film has been out for a week* now, do we still need spoiler tags?
-Ralph *8 days if you include the 3D previews
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 6, 2011 19:49:09 GMT
Still, you've got to admit the Decepticons were a _bit_ on the evil side when they blew up the departing Autobot ship and then with Earth at their mercy needlessly razed Chicago to the ground. Dunno about you, but they kind of lost any sympathy I might have had for their cause at that point. Furthermore, Ironhide at least did offer the Dreads a chance to leave with their lives at the Mexican stand-off, but they didn't take it. And all the thanks he got was Sentinel shooting him in the back.
And while the Autobots did execute prisoners in cold blood which was not good, as far as I can remember the Decepticons did all the torturing, blackmailing and double-crossing in this movie. But Pete - best save the more serious real-world political views for the Have Your Say section of the forum, eh? On other matters, I don't know what rubbish I was talking in my earlier posts when I was asking who the blue car was. Wheeljack/Q was the blue car. Duh. As with RotF, the number and identity of the Autobots in DotM are pretty clearly defined. Shame the same can't be said of the Deceps. But a least I twigged to Barricade this time round. Anyone know who that little green head-like Decepticon crawling around Megatron's feet in various scenes was supposed to be or what purpose he served? Martin
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