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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jun 26, 2017 18:34:10 GMT
The story is Cybertron is going to be recharged/rebuilt by draining Earth of its energy (sounds familiar). A secret order of Knights (Arthur and Cybertronian knights) established to watch over and protect the Earth against this by hiding the Quintesson's magic stick on Earth. Which is err... where she needs to use it anyway. She guilts Prime into helping her until he remembers his friends. Things fall out of the sky. Megatron turns out to be more helpful to her than Prime. We win. Nobody chases her or Megatron up. Oh yeah, Unicron is Earth. But nobody seems concerned they live on the enemy of Cybertron who is emerging out of the ground.
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 26, 2017 20:43:51 GMT
Valiant efforts, chaps, but I remain clueless.
*aspect ratio constantly flips about*
-Ralph
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Nigel
Thunderjet
Posts: 4,967
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Post by Nigel on Jun 27, 2017 18:52:35 GMT
I saw this last night. Pathetic. I nearly walked out two or three times in the first hour. I did have a slew of things to write that I didn't like, but my disappointment and frustration have abated over the course of the day and I don't want to work myself up into a rant. I feel bad that I have contributed to the box office takings of this mess, which will make the film people think they're still on the right track. I even feel bad for having spent on some merchandise (and I was really happy with my new razor blades a couple of days ago - half price with free postage on the Wilkinson Sword website, and a free gift if you spend over £15). I will not even buy this on DVD; maybe from a car boot sale just to have it on the shelf, but it would go unwatched. At best, I would watch it and skip large chunks. I shall put spoiler tags up out of courtesy, but frankly the film spoils itself by being so bad, so mentioning some plot points shouldn't really harm. The film would actually have been better without any Transformers in it. They were largely inconsequential to the story and they were barely in the middle third anyway. It could have made a half-decent, novel film if it was just an adventure about Merlin's staff being of alien origin.
I think they missed a trick in not using the children more. They could have had the children find the talisman and centre the story around them. Something along the lines of Super 8 or Stranger Things. That could have made the film more family-friendly than usual, too. I did manage to find some pros. The Arthurian scenes, while unexpected and possibly out of place in a Transformers film, were actually impressive. To be fair to Bay, he can do a good, spectacular battle.
I liked Hopkins's opening narration of what has happened on Earth the last few years, and seeing what humans have done with alien technology. Though we have seen similar ideas before, such as in Batman v Superman and Independence Day: Resurgence.
I enjoyed the return of old human characters, and finding out what has become of them.
Great effects, as always. I particularly liked a few shots of the ship rising out of the sea.
I always enjoys Joblonsky's scores for these films, though it was occasionally obtrusive in this one. Hmm. Okay. In the interest of full discussion, let's see if I can give the cons without working up into a frenzy. (Puns fully intentional ) Balls! I just spent a good 30 or 40 minutes typing what I didn't like, when something went wobbly and I lost it all. It's a good thing I had the rest, above, on the clipboard. Oh well, I'm not going to do it again. A bit like watching this film, I suppose.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jun 27, 2017 19:03:43 GMT
I will not even buy this on DVD; maybe from a car boot sale just to have it on the shelf, but it would go unwatched. At best, I would watch it and skip large chunks. This rather undermines your status as a true hater of the film, I feel. Martin
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 27, 2017 21:03:43 GMT
I now feel the urge to rank the films in order with 1 = best.
1: Transformers: The Movie. 2: Beast Wars II The Movie.* 3: Transformers: Age of Extinction. 4: Transformers: Dark of the Moon. 5: Transformers. 6: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. 7: Transformers: The Last Knight.
-Ralph
*It had a theatrical release in Japan so it counts.
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Nigel
Thunderjet
Posts: 4,967
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Post by Nigel on Jun 27, 2017 21:33:50 GMT
This rather undermines your status as a true hater of the film, I feel. "Hater" would suggest strong feelings about the film. Whereas in fact it was not deserving of such a response and can be left languishing in the squalor of indifference.
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Post by Toph on Jun 27, 2017 21:39:08 GMT
Leaving out animated movies:
1. AoE 2. Transformers 3. TLK 4. DotM 5. Bumblebee 6. TBA 7. TBA 8. TBA 9. TBA 10. RotF
I expect Bumblebee to rise a few spaces.
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 28, 2017 7:05:42 GMT
I'm not sure we can rate a film that hasn't been made yet!
-Ralph
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Post by Toph on Jun 28, 2017 7:14:52 GMT
It's not hard. Films that have yet to be imagined rate higher than RotF, because RotF was that bad.
Of course Bumblebee will be better. Because the bar is so low that it's actually under the ground. Yesterday I sneezed a better movie.
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primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
Posts: 6,001
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Post by primenova on Jul 1, 2017 14:02:04 GMT
The camper van with the con logo - is it in the film?
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 1, 2017 19:45:51 GMT
I've kept out of here for the last week for fear of spoilers, but saw the film today. I knew I wouldn't be coming here to find waves of adulation, but I'm quite surprised by how strong some of the negative reactions are.
I'm with Andy and Bogatan. I really enjoyed it. I felt it did away with the endless scenes of nothing happening in AoE with a really fast paced plot that constantly kept me trying to second guess where they were going with adapting the traditional continuity. It's the first one of these where I've actually cared about the backstory and the world building going on. There were some jarring continuity errors with AoE, but you could see how the new writers are trying to bend the older films to fit a new framework. Toph's post really brought it home how much there was in that, which does make it feel like it was trying to fit too much in from the writers' room, but as it's own continuity I am now at least interested and am keen to see how those various concepts become their own spinoff films. If they do.
I got a thrill too from the scene at the Navy museum - where I was watching you could literally walk out of the cinema and see it across the water. There was an audible ripple that ran through the audience at that point. I'd have loved it if Alliance had transformed.
I must now find a Stonehenge model in scale with the Leader Megatron for a diorama display.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 2, 2017 19:30:12 GMT
I now feel the urge to rank the films in order with 1 = best. 1: Transformers: The Movie. It's actually called _The_ Transformers: The Movie, to be really pedantic. Hmmm. None of the cinema releases of Transformers films are great. If you put aside production values, the best / least worst of them (in my opinion the first Michael Bay one) is well below the standard of the best Transformers comics and cartoons, and well below the standard of the weakest Marvel Cinematic Universe films and the two live-action G.I. Joe films. But at least Transformers (2007) made a decent attempt at re-telling the basic TF story, which is a great story, albeit doing so in a somewhat loud and crude fashion. The film that annoys me the most now is The Transformers: The Movie because it has nothing to do with alien robots in disguise on Earth and appears to me to have been written by someone who likes Star Wars more than they like the 1984-6 TF cartoon series or TF comics. And I reckon its plot made even less sense if you nit-pick it than any of the Bay films. I think if you took away the nostalgia and the fact that it's drawn in the style of the cartoon series, it wouldn't hold up so well in comparison to the Bay films. I dunno... Maybe I reckon TFs would be better served by a live-action TV series. Martin
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Post by blueshift on Jul 2, 2017 19:44:15 GMT
The film that annoys me the most now is The Transformers: The Movie because it has nothing to do with alien robots in disguise on Earth and appears to me to have been written by someone who likes Star Wars more than they like the 1984-6 TF cartoon series or TF comics. Man, I must be the anti-Martin I thought the early Transformers was boring and it only reached its full potential when they went back into space like true robots ad turned into spaceships and tech cars!!
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 2, 2017 19:55:05 GMT
Yes, we've pointed out before how you're wrong about that. They're supposed to be Robots In Disguise. Have you read Man of Iron yet?
However, by the time of the film the cartoon had already moved beyond that, so it was never going to use that premise. It was Hasbro's first bid to find a new direction.
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Post by blueshift on Jul 2, 2017 20:02:56 GMT
Have you read Man of Iron yet? I have! I must write a review. A harrowing story highlighting the dark side of 80s celebrities, as faced by a mysterious and powerful menace, the Autobots instead devote all their time and energy into luring a small boy out of his bed and into a stranger's car.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 2, 2017 20:15:32 GMT
If people want to make a franchise out of wise-cracking futuristic space robots flying around space in the future, then by all means make a franchise out of wise-cracking futuristic space robots flying around space in the future, but why do you have to do it by taking a highly successful existing franchise about robots disguised as Earth vehicles on present-day Earth and use its one cinema slot to do a completely different franchise? The TF:TM didn't even pretend to build on what had gone before and take it in a bold new direction (though Simon Furman managed to do that in the far superior Target: 2006), but created a completely new background story and rewrote all the rules, knocking off major existing characters early on without even name-checking them, in ways that shouldn't even have been fatal in the existing universe. And fans moaned about Michael Bay messing stuff up!
It turned out OK in the end because Simon built so much good stuff around the Movie, but all his Movie spin-off sagas and his present-day Unicron war were so much better than the Movie itself. Perhaps we can all at least agree on that?
Martin
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 2, 2017 20:28:10 GMT
And another thing. If you feel the need to take the story into the future and into space because present-day Earth is boring, why populate the water planet with robot versions of present-day Earth fish, and populate the junk planet with metal men riding / turning into Earth-style motorbikes and quoting present-day Earth TV shows, and make the big bad guy a Death Star who turns into an Earth-style devil humanoid robot with legs but no floor to walk on?
OK, got that off-topic rant out of my system. No way I could have done all that once Rhyming Week begins.
Martin
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 2, 2017 21:13:01 GMT
We forget the context of the time. The 86 movie (like the cartoon show) was something that existed purely to sell toys and with the film especially existed to sell the new design toys now Hasbro was running out of Microman/Diaclone moulds. Punting out a film was just a way to cash in on a toy hit of the time before the kids moved on to something else*. We have seen it several times since with other toy ranges. The Angry Pigs movie being a recent example.
Any artistic merits (or lack of) of the 86 movie are entirely incidental.
-Ralph
*Interestingly, having the film animated in 4:3 and the cropped/masked to 16:9 for theatrical release does suggest there may have been some thinking that it was destined for home video and tv markets of the time anyway. The GI Joe movie which didn't get a cinematic release was also animated for 4:3 (ie the way TV sets displayed programming of the time)
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 2, 2017 21:19:21 GMT
Hmmm. None of the cinema releases of Transformers films are great. If you put aside production values, the best / least worst of them (in my opinion the first Michael Bay one) is well below the standard of ......................... the two live-action G.I. Joe films. Martin I was thinking about this recently. For all the crap Bay and these films get non of the other similar 80/90s toy based films have gotten close to them in financial terms. 2 GiJoe films, Battleship, TMNTs, Power Rangers. All of those have as much potential as Transformers (okay not Battleships, though I really liked that one) but have been varying degrees of failure. Then theres all the ones that seem to be in continual development but never seem to progress. Theres plenty of ways to look at this but one obvious one is that Bay is a megastar director, he has a specific vision and delivers it, the others aren't and don't. (again Im a big Peter Berg? fan thanks to Friday Night Lights and I like Battleships, but theres nothing overly distinctive about what you see on screen) To varying degrees all of them have been watered down versions of transformers. So for the people who say Transformers should get a better director I always wonder who they have in mind. Sure there are better directors out there, but how many of them would take on Transformers? They didn't take on those other properties why would they take over from Bay? Either the owners of those brands can't get or don't want directors with their own vision of the product. Name a big director and they more than likely dont want the hassle of dealing with Hasbros input on top of the usual studio interference. A non big name director is unlikely to have the clout to push their vision past of the hasbro and studio execs. I know Marvel Studios seem to manage it, but unless Hasbro are going to set up their own studio to produce the films independently its probably not a fair comparison. Plus Marvel seem like a bit of a freak because similar efforts haven't been entirely successful for DC or Fox or Sony.
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 2, 2017 21:21:54 GMT
*Interestingly, having the film animated in 4:3 and the cropped/masked to 16:9 for theatrical release does suggest there may have been some thinking that it was destined for home video and tv markets of the time anyway. The GI Joe movie which didn't get a cinematic release was also animated for 4:3 (ie the way TV sets displayed programming of the time) Considering they must have started production right after or even before Transformers launched in 84 that would make sense.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 2, 2017 22:19:46 GMT
Well we have a Transformers film directed by Travis Knight for this time next year so we will have the chance to see how someone else manages the property on screen.
Is Allspark Pictures still a thing?
-Ralph
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Post by Bogatan on Jul 2, 2017 22:31:22 GMT
Which will be interesting. Im sure it will be very much be a bay style film still, but I hope he brings something new that encourages further changes down the road.
Given TLK take so far I guess Hasbro and Paramount will be thinking the same.
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Post by Toph on Jul 3, 2017 0:15:48 GMT
I think bayformers have hit the wall.
From a generalized standpoint, it's five movies in a row of basically the exact same thing. They follow the same formula, the same basic visuals, the same style. -Humans act silly -giant robots fight in big spectacle -everyone looks for magic maguffin -giant robots destroy city/famous monument -optimus prime makes tired speech about humans and aliens can only survive...together. Each one is the same plot, just with some of the details changed.
Star Trek has had 13 films. Each one has a dramatically different plot. And even if some parts are similar to others, how they handle it is wildly different. (TMP, and IV are the exact same concept: god-like alien probe is threatening to destroy earth. But thats the end of the similarities)
I genuinely think Bay's importance to the franchise is overblown. The general fandom narrative falls back to "TF wouldn't be the success it is without his vision!" But what if that's backwards? What if he's what's held it down, while someone with a stronger vision and better storytelling abilities would have blown everything else out of the water?
Most non-fans I talk to don't understand bayformer plots. They don't understand what's going on. They're just watching for the spectacle. Hell, many TF fans don't understand the plots. TLK, I believe has reached the point where the typical non-fan's reaction is "ugh, ANOTHER one?" (Which is how I respond to a new Saw, or Fast & Furious movie.)
I also think film intakes have also hit a ceiling, where performance expectations have become unreasonable. TKL is by no means a flop, or failure. But anything now that does not break $100m on it's opening weekend is deemed to be "dismal." Even if it reaches $95m in three days, and has several weeks to go.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 3, 2017 9:04:08 GMT
The only thing that will change the direction of the films towards better story telling and characterisation is money. And a significant fall in it is likely to lead to cancellation rather than redirection.
A live action TV show on the other hand would create space and opportunity to do something a bit more 'serious' with lower commercial expectation.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 3, 2017 17:29:08 GMT
We forget the context of the time. The 86 movie (like the cartoon show) was something that existed purely to sell toys and with the film especially existed to sell the new design toys now Hasbro was running out of Microman/Diaclone moulds. The Transformers: The Movie Existed purely to sell toys And sold them successfully To many girls and boys. They couldn't get enough Of all that on-screen stuff So hurried to the store Eager and with awe Seeking all that they just saw Except Unicron and Arcee and all the Lithones and Quintessons and Junkions (other than Wreck Gar) and spaceships and exo-suits and so on, which were sadly unavailable. Martin
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primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
Posts: 6,001
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Post by primenova on Jul 3, 2017 18:34:02 GMT
We didn't get the Primes box set for Movie 2. Could we be seeing the Humans sets next year for TF5?
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 8, 2017 10:01:21 GMT
TFW have some concept art up. Canopy was a tube train! oh man... that would have been the BEST movie toy EVER
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Post by Baron B of Triple B on Jul 8, 2017 21:51:29 GMT
I'm about 15 minutes in and it's not looking good.
Merlin doing an impression of The Mandarin from Iron Man 3, Transformers playing football, Sqweeks annoying the life out me, a voiceover that Transformers are 'illegal' and an exploded Bumblebee magically reforming.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 8, 2017 23:43:40 GMT
I hope you are not posting while in the showing!! Cinema etiquette
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 9, 2017 0:10:46 GMT
I suspect if BigB is watching an 11pm screening at this point, there won't be anyone else there to complain...
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