Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILERS)

[captcalhoun]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

oh, you mean Ironhide the gun nut and bumblebee the caring guardian and sideswipe the badass blade master were nobodies? please.

alright, Jolt was a non-entity, but he was shoehorned in to ROTF late on to appease GM.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

Mirage/Dino is a Ferrari in this continuity, though, instead of a race car.

Wait, do you mean there's an Autobot whose car-mode is a Ferrari and it's called... Dino? Ok, this is actually lovely.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

Yeah, possibly, if...

ok, so i hated the first one.

Oh, in that case. No.

ETA: What God Magnus said.

 

[inflatabledalek]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

First, you're comparing the animated death of a robot to the disintegration of live action human beings and their skulls rolling around?

Kids were apparently crying in the cinema during Prime's death in the original film. I've not yet heard of even the most excessive moments of the Bay films having a similar impact.

Though context is everything of course, a large part of what made the ubber violence in the original film so shocking for contempoary viewers was it coming off the back of a very silly kids cartoon where the characters seemed to go out of their way never to do each other any real damage. The Bay films are at least roughly in keeping with many other 12A films in the UK (hell, the new series of Doctor Who has done the smouldering skeleton thing a couple of times in a kids show that goes out in the afternoon).

Second, you're comparing a robot being pink with a live woman being introduced by her ass, who the camera creepily caresses as someone describes the curves of a car, and is the only image onscreen when a character says "nice box?"

I'd certainly agree Carly is the main weak link in the film (and a shame after Mikaela, despite the body worship, was a proactive strong character who had useful mechanical skills and was frequently the one pulling Sam's ass out the fire). Though to be better than just about any other previous female character in the franchise she doesn't have to try very hard. Even a decent character like Black Arachnia still had the great bit woobly pair of tits banging up and down in front of her face.

Third, even if these things were comparable (which they're not), saying some folk saw something over 20 years ago are fine so this is, too...just because something was acceptable decades ago doesn't make it so now. Besides, obviously we didn't turn out okay...we're making and enjoying these misogynistic images still to this day.

Oh I'm certainly not saying it's OK (and the tendancy for all the female robots to be weak willed pink things was annoying even at the time so I don't think it was back then either), just that kids watching are likely going to survive just like we did. And in fairness, there's far more shots of muscular young men in uniform getting all sweaty in the films than there is female body closeups, so there's certainly something for everyone (and the most naked person in all three films remains Simmon's thong clad arse in the second one).

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Given the Lunar aspects of this movie it would've been neat to have seen a a battle, or at least a Transformer on the moon in the form of the Lunar Rover maybe guarding the crashed ship it we could have had a battle between it and Optimus or something for a bit.

 

[Saquist]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I think folks complaining about Shockwave is sort of the point. He was a decoy villain to distract everyone from the real villain: Sentinel Prime. He was just there to stand around and distract our attention.

I know that was razorbeak but was that building destroying monster ravage?

 

[Garak]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Really? People are complaining about the way CGI robots are killing other CGI robots? Really?

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I think folks complaining about Shockwave is sort of the point. He was a decoy villain to distract everyone from the real villain: Sentinel Prime. He was just there to stand around and distract our attention.

I know that was razorbeak but was that building destroying monster ravage?

no, because Ravage had his spine ripped out by Bumblebee in 2.

and it's laserbeak.

the drilling thingy was called 'driller' shockingly.

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

Mirage/Dino is a Ferrari in this continuity, though, instead of a race car.

Wait, do you mean there's an Autobot whose car-mode is a Ferrari and it's called... Dino? Ok, this is actually lovely.

he's called Dino in dialogue in the film. his comic appearances refer to him as Mirage.

iirc, the toy's called Mirage too.

not a dissimilar situation to 'the tank thing' in 1, which self-identified in subtitles as 'Devastator', but was called 'Brawl' everywhere else.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

I remember the Mirage toy (huge Transformer fan as a kid), but he was a F1 racing car, not a sport car. Having an Autobot with a Ferrari car mode is nice: having him named Dino is truly a lovely homage to Alfredo (Dino) Ferrari.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I remember the emotional impact that Optimus Prime's death in "Transformers: The Movie" had for me when I first saw and it was years later after already knowing about it. It was much more of an emotional impact than his "death" in "Revenge of the Fallen". That was more of a homage. I think T:TM was violent especially the first fifteen or so minutes with the initial Decepticon attack on Autobot City. After being only familiar with the cartoon I'm sure a lot of kids were shocked by that.

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

it could've been worse. a draft script had Windcharger blown to bits and a rain of an arm, two legs and then his torso.

Prime's death in ROTF didn't have such an impact on me, becuase he gets killed and comes back so many times, it's a joke.

 

[inflatabledalek]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I remember the emotional impact that Optimus Prime's death in "Transformers: The Movie" had for me when I first saw and it was years later after already knowing about it. It was much more of an emotional impact than his "death" in "Revenge of the Fallen". That was more of a homage. I think T:TM was violent especially the first fifteen or so minutes with the initial Decepticon attack on Autobot City. After being only familiar with the cartoon I'm sure a lot of kids were shocked by that.

Indeed, as much as I love the old film (mainly for nostalgia, objectively it's deeply flawed in a lot of ways. Mind, there's still lots of brilliant dialogue that any action film would be desperate for, "I've got better things to do tonight than die!"), the drastic increase in violence and the killing off/replacement of three of the most popular characters in Prime Megs and Starscream (plus all the others as well of course) was one of several decisions that resulted in it being a massive flop and delivering a killer blow to the franchises momentum.

But then, and this is part of the reason I'm still so fond of it, they were making a film in uncharted territory. Theatrical films spun off from TV shows (and also set in continuity with it) were still very rare at the time, off the top of my head there's the West Batman, a Get Smart film and the first few Trek's. I'm not even aware of any other cartoon shows that had managed a film by this point.

It's very obvious that the film makers didn't really have a clue how to format the thing to make the transition from TV to silver screen, and have gone more than a bit giddy with the extra freedom (violence! swearing! A all star cast almost entirely made of people the target audience would have no interest in!).

No kids cartoon film would ever be done like this (even it's ultimately straight to video stablemate GI Joe film had some drastic editing done to it to try and tone the excess down, even if a lot of the similar madness still remains in it). And that makes it sort of special, and much more fun than things like the tamer and more corporate Pokemon films (and that's not to be completely disparaging to Pokemon as the first one at least was decent enough, it's just a lot safer).

 

[Admiral_Young]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I still haven't seen this movie yet. I'm not surprised at the monster box office numbers. They did an incredibly smart thing by pushing up the release date to take advantage of the full long weekend, including Canada Day here on Friday. I have been hesitant to see it. I probably will at some point. The monster box office probably is gonna have Paramount having some interesting discussions amongst it's execs about what to do with the future of the franchise. Clearly there is still an appetite out there among the fandom and movie goers in general.

Collider has come out and provided a list of possible directors who could take over the franchise.

http://collider.com/transformers-4-director-suggestions/100332/

Personally out of the choices I'd go with Joe Johnston or David Yates, with a leaning towards Yates. He's proven he can handle a mega-franchise before. I think if Paramount decides to continue the franchise they're reboot it.

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

No. It pisses all over the G1 body of material. And I have enjoyed Animated, BW/BM and every iteration of G1. Bayformers by far has to be the far the worst iteration of transformers. Worse than ever the Unicron Trilogy and Kiss Players.

ok great, this guy knows what he's talking about.

btw what do you mean by BW/BM?

i've seen the G1 show seasons 1,2,3 and that mini-season 4 plus the movie. am i missing anything? i watched the movie in bluray and man, it was terrible, they did a really bad job with it.

 

[DonIago]

Re: Transformers 3: Can a fan of G1 enjoy this movie?

Beast Wars/Beast Machines, I presume.

I can't get over the movie showing Decepticons in the vicinity of Hoover Dam but not openly attacking it. I understand the behind-the-scenes reasons, but does anyone really think that Decepticons wouldn't blow up the dam out of spite if nothing else?

 

[marillion]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Saw it.. Enjoyed it.. Avoided 3D for now, but I'm sure my son will want to see it that way before long... Moving in in anticipation of Cowboys and Aliens and Captain America.

Not sure where all the people who said the female lead wasn't hot were looking, but she is DAMN hot... Even my wife said so...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

After this movie's underperformance, the stock market has finally had it:

Investors Slam Movie Theater Chains As Box Office Sales Miss Expectations

It's been a very poor season at the movies, box office-wise. Warners will probably end up best off since it would probably take a K-T event to kill Harry Potter.

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

transformers has taken over $400mill worlwide in under a week.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

The financial markets are not impressed - investors expected thirty million better in the U.S. for the opening weekend. That the movie is off from the 2009 movie's opening even adding in the 3D boost is not helping.