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December is Movies & Miscellaneous month, so you can either comment on the Movies or some other series that impressed you that wasn't featured as one of the Monthly themes.
Details of the Live Action Movies can be found here.
Did you watch any of them?
If so, what did you think of it?
Here's your chance to re-watch and review them.
Are any recommended viewing for others?
Did you watch any of them?
If so, what did you think of it?
First Movie: Despite the changes in colour and alt-modes for old characters I thought it was fantastic!
Second Movie: Shite, but a good fight scene between Optimus & some Cons in the forest, and I thought Ravage looked pretty cool
Third Movie: Better than the second one, but too long and too human focused. Some nice fight scenes near the end though and the Wreckers alt-modes looks awesome!
Essentially all 3 movies needed more robot dialogue and screen time, less complicated looking bot modes, more homage paid to the franchise and what had come before, less humans, less wackiness and less poor humor.
Are any recommended viewing for others?
*I think if you are a TF fan ya gotta watch all 3, even if only once.
Did you watch any of them? All three
If so, what did you think of it?
First movie was great and the second let me down with poor story telling. The third was average.
Are any recommended viewing for others?
Must watch the first movie. Then maybe skip to three and maybe four
I thought the 3rd was the best of the series. The second was a steaming pile. I'm a little surprised at the love for the first film - there were 2 glaring bits of astonishingly moronic plot points that bother me and make the suspension of disbelief nearly impossible: first, Sam's grandfather sees Megatron and a whole bunch of Cybertronian information gets somehow microscopically etched on his glasses as a result? Really? And second, when the Autobots have the cube that the Decpecticons are so desperately trying to get there hands on, the figure the best thing to do is take it... into a densely populated city. Those 2 points kinda ruin the first movie for me.
The first movie was the best and captured the spirit of the G1 cartoon well. I personally would've preferred something more epic that captured the spirit of the G1 comics, but I guess a more cartoony feel would have a wider audience appeal (although the AllSpark-Cube thing feels more like it was influenced by the Underbase from the G1 comics). The second movie was a trainwreck of a story, but was visually spectacular. The third movie did improve, but still wasn't quite as good as the first one -- and of course its plot contradicted the second film. Oops. :p
But for all its many flaws, the live action films do have their strengths:
> Popularity. They've made Transformers mainstream again, which has yielded what I consider to be some good and not so good results.
> The spectacle -- each film is really thrilling to watch, much like going through a rollercoaster ride.
> Giant Effing Robots. The live action films really do portray the Transformers as massive robots moreso than most other series. Even in the G1 cartoon and comics there were times where the audience may have been allowed to forget that the Transformers are gigantic robots. The films never let you forget this.
> Lots of realistic and licensed vehicle alt modes. Robots in disguise, baby! :D Again, the first movie did this the best, especially with the Mission City battle and we saw the AllSpark bringing all sorts of machines to life. ROTF failed this with the army of generic Decepti-protoform soldiers. :( DOTM did better in creating Decepticon soldiers that transformed into things like garbage trucks, and also recycled old CG models too (most likely as a cost saving measure).
> I appreciate how Bay tries to do as much live shooting as possible. It's a contrast to the Revenge of the Sith which was almost entirely shot in front of green screens.
> Another one of Bay's strengths is his close ties w/ the US military. I don't know if any other director could have pulled off the same level of cooperation w/ the military as Bay did. Although the main army characters like Lennox and Epps were actors, all the extras were actually real military personnel... so they're weren't really acting in the films per se, Bay just told them what was happening and asked them to use their training and respond accordingly as if it were actually happening. So for the extras, it was more like a training exercise rather than a more 'staged' scene. And the actors themselves were coached by actual soldiers in how to hold and use weapons, move in formation etc. And of course they would've been working alongside real US soldier extras who would've advised if anything they were doing seemed unrealistic - although not all of that advice was heeded. e.g. in ROTF when Lennox ejected Galloway from the plane with the parachute, extras were saying that they were counting the number of military violations that the character was committing. He would've been in major deep doo-doo if that had happened IRL. ;) And he was one of few directors allowed to actually film on the Great Pyramids of Giza, and he got Buzz Aldren in as a cameo! :D He was also the first director who was allowed to actually film real F22 raptors. Other films may have CGI F22s, but when you see them in Transformers they're actually the real thing! And likewise that flying membrane suit that the paratroopers wore in DOTM... when I met Julie White at SupaNova she was describing how awesome that shot was; they actually had the stunt actors jump off the top of Trump Tower and glide down with the suits! :eek:
I generally liked the Movies. They were action-packed, some cool bits here and there and some nice characters.
The first movie was great. Simple, to the point. It didn't steer too far out of the general area of what Transformers is all about and took on elements from previous incarnations, which was good.
ROTF was pretty nice as well. But then again, it didn't really go anywhere in terms of storyline. It could be a bit complicated at times. Too much human filth. :p Also, a few inappropriate moments, but I guess you could overlook them. They don't detract from the film that much.
DOTM was a step-up from ROTF IMHO. A great sense of despair and a nice plot twist. I like how the film focused on the relationship between the humans and Cybertronians, and how they affected each other. Some really cool characters here too, such as Shockwave and the Wreckers. Sad to see Ironhide taken by the GPS though. :( RIP.
Just my 2c anyway. :D;)
I consider the movies to be propaganda for the US military first & foremost.
Next, they are advertisements for GM.
Now that I have that out of the way...
The 'plot' for each of the movies is confusing, with threads going nowhere.
The dialogue is embarrassing for the actors.
There are no character arcs, no story arcs...just the barest needed to get to the next 'action' set piece.
Not only are there no character arcs, there was no actual characterization (among the TFs).
Who were the decepticons? Who were the autobots? Just a bunch of dark silver, or black, or dark grey CG mechs pounding on each other.
Micheal Bay got his start shooting advertisements & music videos. He never learned that there is a difference between them & movies.
Just to update, I now think of the movies in the following order (from best to worst):
1: Transformers: Magical - live action bots on the big screen finally!
2: Age of Extinction: Much more robot character dialogue and development (for at least some of the characters) and a big-ass Grimlock to boot!
3: Dark of the Moon: Long but good
4: Revenge of the Fallen: Eh, at least Ravage looked kinda cool