Movie Review - Transformers 3 : Dark of the Moon (spoilers)

If you guys watch Transformers, ROTF, Bad Boys II and DOTM you'll notice something - The way the first movie and ROTF are filmed and edited are very similar to each other in that the pacing of cuts and editing of music follows the flow of the storyline, despite ROTF having such an incoherent plot. Both movies I felt had so much better editing done, even ROTF which kind of also had an abrupt ending too.

The way DOTM is edited together is so similar to Bay's Bad Boys II in that the shots and how they are cut together are so out of sync to how the story flows which actually kind of ruins all those explosions and robot kills. Michael Bay is a great special effects visual artist, in fact the best of Hollywood and his editing had improved so much since Bad Boys II when the 2007 movie and ROTF came out but in 2011 with DOTM I can notice that his bad editing habits have returned.

After some rethinking this is a good conclusion to the Bay Transformers era. And good is a generous enough term for me but like Christalcase I had very high expectations of this movie as Bay and co had said that the issues of ROTF would be fixed in DOTM - well to a certain level they were right as the story was more coherent but at the same time the movie suffered from faults that you'd think Michael would have learned from in the past.

Watched the movie this afternoon and loved it!
Much better than the second, not sure about the 1st as it has been a while ..

isn't there a movie review thread for this already?

Always have low expectations kids, you'll never get disappointed, mostly be right or be pleasantly surprised. Win-Win-Win.

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Originally Posted by christalcase

My biggest gripe by far is Starscream's death, come on, death by two humans?!?! That feels so demeaning of the character who's been in an important role in the first two movies. Even Shockwave, who was an epic disappointment (that guy basically didn't do anything), got the honour of being killed by Optimus Prime.

Then there's Megatron, who doesn't get much screen time at all, he didn't do much either, with the main villain being Sentinel. That was disappointing too, Megatron joins the fight for a few mins right at the end and gets easily killed by Optimus Prime immediately. I found myself wondering, why did they bother...

Also didn't like the alien spaceships, it doesn't feel very Transformers to me, it feels like another generic alien invasion technique (for lack of a better term). Shockwave's worm thing (Driller) was lame, the building being destroyed in half was lame, the Stealth Force modes were lame (to me anyway, the transition to the big screen wasn't as great as I expected) and Sam should have died a dozen times already with all the situations he's been in (especially when the Orbital Spaceship thing crashed with him on top).

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As I said before I had no issue with Starscreams end, the way he's portrayed in the previous movies is just as some misrable yesman who is kicked around by Megatron, powerfully he may be in the air, but he's still and idiot.

Megatron on the other hand did deserve more, specially when he had such a cool new look and scared Elephants. I think it was Bay just trying to tie it all up as a "screw you" to whichever poor director picks up the mantle next.

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Originally Posted by christalcase

.... and Sam should have died a dozen times already with all the situations he's been in (especially when the Orbital Spaceship thing crashed with him on top).

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+ 1, Totally agree with you about the crash, my suspension of disbelief got me past the other stunts, but not that one, geez he could have at least jumped clear, crashing aircraft doesn't kill anyone in Hollywood no more.

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Originally Posted by SkyWarp91

After some rethinking this is a good conclusion to the Bay Transformers era. And good is a generous enough term for me but like Christalcase I had very high expectations of this movie as Bay and co had said that the issues of ROTF would be fixed in DOTM - well to a certain level they were right as the story was more coherent but at the same time the movie suffered from faults that you'd think Michael would have learned from in the past.

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Bay doesn't learn ever, he just makes occasional minor concessions he's like George Lucas in that way.

I was really, really disappointed. I perhaps dislike this more than ROTF if only because of the wasted opportunity, and it seems that Bay didn't learn from his mistakes with ROTF, and to a lesser extent, the first movie.

The film starts off beautifully. The opening sequence with Cybertron is awe-inspiring. This is perhaps the first depiction of Cybertron that deserves an Autobot's description of it being a beautiful world that was later ravaged by war. It's alien, but it's logical and makes sense. The following scenes set in the 1960s are also very well done. Bravo.

However, once the film moves to Chicago, it stops being fun. It's just a random collection of explosions and scenes edited in a haphazard manner with little or no continuity (how did Bumblebee know where Sam and Lennox were? How did Bee and the other get captured by Soundwave, Barricade and co a few minutes later? When did Optimus go back for his jetpack after his trailer was wrecked? Why didn't Shockwave finish Optimus off when he tangled him in the crane cables?)


One thing I give Ethren Kruger props for is research. The name of the Autobot ship on Earth being maintained by the Wreckers is the Xantium, which was the name of the Wreckers starship in IDW's Stormbringer comic book. I was pleased by that.

All I have to say is "WHYRONHIDE?!" Why did Ironhide have to be killed! :( he's my favorite character from the movie series. Could have got rid of Ratchet. Other than that this movie was massively awesome and I can not wait to see it again!

this movie actually made sense therefore i like it, seriouslythough i did enjoy this except that the cinema did have the volume loud enough i could sworn that they turned it down a notch near the start

-=Spoiler alert=-

Literally just saw the movie. Fantastic! It was SAAWEEEEET! I loved every moment of it (excluding that scene where "Carly" was standing there in slow motion with explosions going off everywhere... Move woman!) It was a bit sad to see ALL the decepticons die and Iron Hide be murdered. Loved the plot twist BUT would a prime really do that? Made for a good story anyway. I'll be going to see it again and possibly again again :-D

i just got back from 3d gold class viewing and date night with the misses at Charlestown square here in Newy.
I must say i quite enjoyed it for what it was..an awesome array of special effects and mindblowing action scenes.
I think,as with the previous 2,it suffers from "let us get this cool character in it and not give him any characterization development"
I think only Optimus gets that treatment..but in a backwards way.He starts out ALL G1 and in the final movie is total badass and NOT so forgiving ;)


SPOILER ALERT...in a SPOILER THREAD.






I only had seen the tv spots and trailers,hadnt read any spoilers....so it came quite a shock to see Sentinel turn traitor....and also to see the numerous Cons die...Ironhide too.God knows what happened to Wheelie and the other dude Brains..but anyways...the part with Soundwave and Bumblebee has this great window of opportunity for the ultimate death as everyone probably had become attached to bee being he had had most of the screentime in the movies....but they dropped the ball...oh well :)

4th movie???I dont think so....reboot??hell yeah.