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Post by blueshift on Jul 10, 2011 16:16:19 GMT
Movie Prime's ruthlessness reminds me of the way he took out a lot of Decepticons in the G2 comic series (particularly when in issue #1 escaping from the ship of Jhiaxus, who as I recall had no wish to harm his prisoners - and also when he offed Tantrum in a later issue). I'm not sure you can really compare the two. In G2 it was pretty much a constant warzone. In the movies he's either ripping people apart with hooks or axes (rather than nice clean shots) or killing defenseless prisoners. There's a reason the US army gives soldiers guns instead of hooks to go fight wars with.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 10, 2011 18:14:09 GMT
I'm not sure you can really compare the two. In G2 it was pretty much a constant warzone. Er, unlike the last hour of DotM, you mean? Yes, but these are robots, not humans. The Autobots' guns aren't effective against anyone from Starscream and up, and they don't suffer pain (e.g. from losing limbs) like humans do. You called Prime a sadistic monster in an earlier post. Again, without defending his summary executions, I would disagree. Movie Prime inflicts swift death (as swift as he can manage), he doesn't revel in drawing out suffering and prolonging pain. Yes, it was ironic that by the end of the film both Carly and Sam were both unemployed and (more importantly by Michael Bay values) without cars. Other random thoughts: In the first film, Megatron died. In the second film, Megatron returned, Prime died and Prime returned. In the third film, Megatron died. No doubt if there's a fourth film, Megatron will return and Prime will die. And here's us complaining that they haven't captured the spirit of Transformers! Is Megatron missing half his face a homage to the Marvel comics where Megatron (Gone But Not Forgotten, Ancient Relics, Salvage, Back from the Dead) and Galvatron (Time Wars) are missing half their faces, or is it sheer coincidence? Martin
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Post by jameso on Jul 10, 2011 18:21:03 GMT
I thought the themes surrounding Sam trying to get a really good job straight out of college to be some of the worst elements of the film. Watching some whiny, hyperactive kid with no discernable employment qualities on evidence moan about wanting a job that mattered weren't that relatable, and certainly less so than watching a bit of loser trying to get the girl, and then someone with a complicated situation trying to settle in at college and maintain his relationship with his girlfriend. His inexplicably hot girlfriend with an amazing job didn't help either. And his temper tantrum when trying to contact Nest was embarassing.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 10, 2011 18:23:20 GMT
Coincidence I'd say.
I had the thought about movie Prime being like G2 Prime as well, but dismissed it in the end. G2 Prime is always forced into combat by circuimstance and nobler principle. Movie Prime just wants to win and being ruthless helps him achieve this.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 10, 2011 18:30:13 GMT
Movie Prime just wants to win In order to save the human race from the Decepticons! As a human I may be biased, but that _could_ be called a fairly noble principle. We'd be dead three times over if Movie Prime hadn't stepped in to oppose the Decepticons' three big schemes for Earth. He doesn't want personal power. If he did, he wouldn't have (a) revived Sentinel, and (b) offered him the Matrix. But like previous Optimus Primes, he has a perhaps inexplicable compulsion to protect us. Martin
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Post by jameso on Jul 10, 2011 18:33:42 GMT
Another general thought that I meant to mention, I was struck during the Chicago assault bits how alien dominating the Decepticon fleet looked, made it quite effective on a general alien invasion principle, just not very much like previous Transformers stories.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 10, 2011 18:42:17 GMT
Yeah. In general, I prefer Transformers to _be_ the vehicles rather than sit inside them like human pilots, but (except in the first live-action film) the Transformers have always had spaceships of some description.
The ships in this film felt more alien than previous TF ships because they just hang in the air with some sort of advanced antigravity system. Most TF ships we've seen in the past have been rocket-propelled.
Has it ever been explained how TFs in the live-action universe manage to launch themselves like meteorites? As I recall, the only one we've seen launched on film was Ravage, launched from Soundwave. But then he must have launched himself when he took the Allspark fragment to where Megatron's body lay.
Martin
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Post by blueshift on Jul 10, 2011 19:03:49 GMT
Er, unlike the last hour of DotM, you mean? Yes but the battle was over by the time Prime killed Megatron and Sentinal, at least that's how I read it. At the end of the day, this was all deliberate choices by filmmakers. Having Autobots use rather brutal hooks and axes as weapons rather than lasers (and even in-continuity, the human sabot weapons are pretty good about taking down Decepticons). There's no reason that any of that brutality HAD to be portrayed that way. There were hundreds of other ways in which it could be done. Taking the movies as 'real' I'm sure perhaps you could defend ripping robots apart with hooks, but they're not real and every action is the conscious decision of the filmmakers. If Sentinal and Megatron needed to be dead at the end of the film there were plenty of other ways the story could have gone that didn't need Optimus Prime resorting to murder, or at the very least cold blooded killing with no moral introspection or condemnation of his actions.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 10, 2011 19:11:14 GMT
At the end of the day, this was all deliberate choices by filmmakers. Having Autobots use rather brutal hooks and axes as weapons rather than lasers (and even in-continuity, the human sabot weapons are pretty good about taking down Decepticons). There's no reason that any of that brutality HAD to be portrayed that way. There were hundreds of other ways in which it could be done. Taking the movies as 'real' I'm sure perhaps you could defend ripping robots apart with hooks, but they're not real and every action is the conscious decision of the filmmakers. If Sentinal and Megatron needed to be dead at the end of the film there were plenty of other ways the story could have gone that didn't need Optimus Prime resorting to murder, or at the very least cold blooded killing with no moral introspection or condemnation of his actions. Fair point. I'll go along with all that. Hmmm, latest thought: Funny how Megatron hates being number two all of a sudden. He was quite happy being the Fallen's loyal disciple in the last film. Martin
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Post by blueshift on Jul 10, 2011 19:25:59 GMT
Hmmm, latest thought: Funny how Megatron hates being number two all of a sudden. He was quite happy being the Fallen's loyal disciple in the last film. Well, I can understand that. The Fallen is to Megatron as Sentinel Prime is to Optimus. I love how in the first film they came to Earth because of the Allspark, then in the second film it turned out that the sun harvester and matrix was on Earth, and in the third film it turns out that the original plan was for Sentinel to rendevous with Megatron on Earth and what Someone on another forum mentioned that perhaps Megatron's original plan was to recover the allspark and for Sentinel to kill the Fallen, which I guess works, but there's only so much you can infer from literally no on screen evidence.
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Post by jameso on Jul 10, 2011 19:35:11 GMT
I don't think it's really possible to reconcile the Megatron who defered to The Fallen with the same Megatron who now claims he came to Earth to rendezous with Sentinel Prime. The plot building on top of the other plots in this series isn't quite working for me.
I didn't like how the villain's plot in DOTM unravelled because of Megatron having a hissy fit about being top gun, but I suppose it's somewhat in character for the bad guys.
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Post by blueshift on Jul 10, 2011 19:47:08 GMT
At that point the villains had lost because the main pillar had been turned off.
You'd have thought that they would have a backup or like, used their city full of Decepticons to post at least one guard, but hey.
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 10, 2011 20:15:14 GMT
Er, unlike the last hour of DotM, you mean? Yes but the battle was over by the time Prime killed Megatron and Sentinal, at least that's how I read it. I think this is the main cause of disagreement. As the audience we know the battles over. I don't think any of the Transformers do, the fighting is to widespread for them to be sure. Or maybe it's just that when I sit down to watch these I switch to Hollywood action movie logic and that means accepting the the hero is going to end up killing the villain, often in a needlessly gratuitous way and sometimes completely unnecessarily because the films flow and structure doesn't allow for a court room scenes and execution at the end, but does need closure. Truth be told I'm glad of that because I honestly find executions on film, like a firing squad, more disturbing. Seeing 9 Autobots lined up, guns raised to shoot Sentinel to pieces would have been far more troubling than Optimus finishing him off in the heat of battle or immediately after when things were still up in the air. Which is why Wheeljacks death was more troubling than Sentinels. That fight was clearly over WJ and the rest had surrendered and the cons had time to think about what to do then cold bloodedly kill him. Sentinels death came directly at the end of fighting and also as I heard it he wasn't pleading for mercy, but still trying to convince Optimus his plan was right, as you consider the fight to be over I can understand your feeling on it though as its very much like mine on WJ.
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Post by jameso on Jul 10, 2011 20:54:17 GMT
At that point the villains had lost because the main pillar had been turned off. You'd have thought that they would have a backup or like, used their city full of Decepticons to post at least one guard, but hey. I'm not sure the bad guys had lost at that point, the pillar was still working and Sentinel was holding the Autobots off. Basically, as I saw it, the bad guys were on the verge of winning and then Megatron ran in and said 'waah, I want to be in charge!' and ruined everything. Of course, even if Megatron had done nothing, could Sentinel really have killed all the Autobots and humans single handedly without anyone getting lucky and shooting the control pillar? Also, what happened to the dozens of Decepticons still in Chicago? Do they just stop functioning because Sentinel and Megatron were dead.
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Post by blueshift on Jul 10, 2011 21:39:52 GMT
Also, what happened to the dozens of Decepticons still in Chicago? Do they just stop functioning because Sentinel and Megatron were dead. I have a feeling the (undefended (!)) pillar had been destroyed by that point, though I must admit I'm not 100% on that. Also for some reason all the other Decepticons got uh sucked into the collapsing spacebridge when it stopped functioning. At least that's what it looked like.
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Post by jameso on Jul 10, 2011 23:50:47 GMT
As far as I can remember, the control pillar was knocked down, Sentinel Prime jumped down and started fighting everyone, evil human guy reactivated the pillar, Sentinel Prime did a very good job of fending everyone else off, Megatron interfered, Optimus killed Sentinel and Megatron and then Bumblebee and Ratchet destroyed the pillar causing Cybertron to collapse in on itself. I can't really tell if Sentinel hadn't been attacked by Megatron whether or not the plan would have come off anyway.
Missed the Decepticon fleet being destroyed when the pillar went down, but I guess that would explain what happened there.
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 11, 2011 13:22:57 GMT
I've just realised a fairly crutial point- Cybertron was destroyed!
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Post by blueshift on Jul 11, 2011 14:42:33 GMT
I've just realised a fairly crutial point- Cybertron was destroyed! I thought it had been, but then again I thought that part had been sheared off when the teleporter was turned off the first time, but no, it kept going.
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 11, 2011 17:44:11 GMT
Oh yeah, I thought that as well!
Quite a enormic event if indeed Cybertron was destroyed. Seemed to implode to me. But maybe it was just the effect of the Space Bridge collapsing.
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Rich
Protoform
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Post by Rich on Jul 11, 2011 22:37:00 GMT
For the record, the first two pages of this thread are almost unreadable for anybody (like me) catching up on the review thread, having avoided it until they'd seen the film. My view is that it's hardly difficult to read the forum in such a way as to avoid the spoilers, so a spoiler thread should be allowed spoilers. But there you go, maybe I'm just in a bad mood.
As for the film, well the memory of that isn't going to put me in a better frame of mind, although it doesn't really anger me either. It was just so deadly dull. I arrived late to the cinema because of work, and so missed a good chunk, but as the endless battle dragged on and on, all I really wanted to do was leave. The only things in it that aroused any real emotion in me were the scenes involving Miss HW. And it wasn't the kind of arousal she was supposed to provoke. What is wrong with that girl's lips?? And the bit where she goaded Megatron? Oh, and indeed (to quote the aforementioned Dr Kermode, whose review was once again infinitely more enjoyable than the film itself) dear.
So despite missing some of it, I feel no desire to see it again.
For me, the whole movieverse from toys to films to comics has been pretty meh and quite often yeuk, and apart from a couple of cool moments in the first film, I haven't really enjoyed very much of it all, which is a shame.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 12, 2011 7:10:21 GMT
The first couple of pages have spoiler tags because of the staggered release of the film, ie 3D previews on a Tuesday, some cinemas showing 2D previews Wednesday-Thursdays and the main release not happening until a Friday so not everyone would be seeing it at the same time.
Some users have said that they read the forum in the 'show new posts' mode. Alas, this means that spoiler tags don't work and that posts from this thread would show up when reading the forum that way. Also, on a slow connection, the spoiler tags take a while to come up to 'cover' the text.
As such, it was felt best to keep spoiler tags for the film's first week of release to give everyone time to watch it without inadvertanty seeing spoilers but who wanted to see it ASAP.
-Ralph
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Rich
Protoform
Posts: 808
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Post by Rich on Jul 12, 2011 17:17:19 GMT
I read and understood why it was being done, I was just presenting the alternate view for future spoiler tag reference:)
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 12, 2011 17:18:33 GMT
It is, as they say, just one of those things. There's just no way to keep everyone happy spoiler-wise.
-Ralph
EDIT: for commas going out of control.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 12, 2011 17:59:58 GMT
It is, as they say, just one of those things. There's just no way to keep everyone happy spoiler-wise. There may be a way - namely to go back and edit all the posts to remove the spoiler tags after the film's been out for a week. But I'm not going to be the one to do it! Martin
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Nigel
Thunderjet
Posts: 4,942
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Post by Nigel on Jul 15, 2011 9:41:36 GMT
I saw it a second time yesterday. I thought that I wouldn't enjoy it quite as much, as the surprise would be removed, but I actually enjoyed it more. The 3D is more effective in IMAX and I was able to take in more of the background action and to appreciate the work that has gone into the film.
Remember how an ILM computer burned out because of the complexity of Devastator? The CGI has leaped far ahead again in this one; it's more complex and there's more on screen.
This time around, I was very impressed by the set dressing in the Chicago scenes.
I hope there's a DVD feature on the skyscraper sequence. I was thinking a lot about how that must have been filmed. It's a huge sequence for both producton and post-production.
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Post by Jaymz on Jul 22, 2011 0:15:58 GMT
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Post by jameso on Jul 24, 2011 0:37:26 GMT
Really good point about all the secret government groups keeping all this information to themselves even when the Decepticon presence on Earth was obvious and widespread. Basically, someone somewhere clearly during ROTF should have said 'hey, what about all that moon stuff from the 60s'. Unless the Decepticons keeping tabs on the humans that knew stuff was _that_ effective.
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Post by grahamt77 on Aug 22, 2011 7:46:17 GMT
This movie ranks up there with the best of 3D spectacles. And I'm glad not to have seen Devastator's testicles.
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