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

[SkyWarp91]

-snip-

Great comic strip lol!

Megatron is truly the master of evil plans in BAD TIMING heheh

Given some more time to think I've realized that with Bay's previous history of big action flicks that have been box-office smashers I shouldn't expect heavy plots with deep character developments with the Transformers. I know that some people may argue that just because a movie is made by Michael Bay it doesn't mean he can't include a good storyline/well developed characters - in the end I don't think he cares what script he is given, he just wants special effects and it's a style of film-making that seems to be working as he makes the big bucks. There's a reason why Michael Bay's name is often seen proudly with his movie titles, it's because when audiences see that they can expect his movies to deliver with so much action that they get their bang for the buck.

Everyone I know that is only a fan of TFs by Bay movies enjoy the movies because they deliver so much in terms of action and entertainment and whenever I tell them that Bay is no longer directing the Transformers movies they sigh and tell me that the franchise will be crap without him. Some people want robots filled with emotion, others want robots that create mass destruction. To each their own.

I still don't like the abrupt editing of DOTM, nor the fact that SAm went to robot heaven in ROTF but I am VERY grateful now for the fact that Bay's movies have been action masterpieces.

[Sleeve]

Comprehensive timeline, taking into account all the comics and books along with the movies.

[GoktimusPrime]

That is a funny one.

But consider the following canonical facts:

+ Sentinel Prime was initially the mentor of both Optimus and Megatron until it is discovered that Optimus is part of the dynasty of the Primes and is therefore a Prime by "birthright" - something which Megatron does not agree with (preferring meritocracy over nepotism)

+ The Fallen's sarcophagus is uncovered at an excavation site (at Simfur?) - the sarcophagus is covertly kept by Megatron who communes with the Fallen and becomes his secret apprentice. Eventually Megatron forms the Decepticon empire and conquers Cybertron.

+ Under orders from the Fallen, Megatron builds the Nemesis. The Fallen's sarcophagus is placed inside along with the majority of the Decepticon forces to find the Matrix. The Fallen leaves Cybertron with Megatron commanding a greatly reduced Decepticon army, tasked with defending the AllSpark.

+ The reduced Decepticon empire has trouble maintaining control over Cybertron -- the Autobot resistance gains power and civil war erupts. The AllSpark is ejected into space.

+ The Nemesis detects the AllSpark's energy signature and begins following it.

+ Having lost contact with the Nemesis and the Fallen, Megatron makes a secret pact with Sentinel Prime... Sentinel Prime would use his Space Bridge technology to travel to Earth and locate the last Star Harvester and with it, the Matrix of Leadership. (I'm not sure if this is because Megatron had assumed the Nemesis to be destroyed and thus changed his plans, or if he was still holding out hope that the Nemesis still survived somewhere and was planning on betraying Sentinel Prime later on -- my guess is the former).

+ The Nemesis is hit in a blind collision by the Ark (which would have been hurtling toward Earth, as that was its initial destination before being shot since Sentinel Prime was going to travel there to retrieve the last Star Harvester) - leaving a space bridge portal in its wake (after all, Sentinel Prime was attempting to open up a Space Bridge portal in the first place to travel to Earth). With the Nemesis crashed on a dead planet, the Nemesis orders Soundwave to take the Decepticons from the Nemesis aboard the Longshot and pursue the Ark through the Space Bridge.

+ Megatron leaves Cybertron in pursuit of the Cube. On the way he detects the Nemesis' emergency beacon and goes to find it. The Fallen is furious that Megatron has made a detour and orders him to resume chase of the AllSpark.

+ Millennia later, Soundwave returns to the Nemesis having recovered a pillar from the Ark. The Fallen tells Soundwave that Megatron is on Earth and uses the pillar to escape his sarcophagus (which he had been imprisoned in by the last of the original Primes).

+ After the events of the first movie and before Revenge of the Fallen, the Decepticons uses another pillar to jury-rig his own Space Bridge in (as seen in "The Reign of Starscream").

+ Megatron makes a secret pact with Sentinel Prime... Sentinel Prime would use his Space Bridge technology to travel to Earth and locate the last Star Harvester and with it, the Matrix of Leadership.

Edit: ah damnit Sleeve! You made that post while I took ages to type the above! (mostly cos I kept getting interrupted by my daughter ) -- aaah, I don't wanna delete all that now, but anyway... Sleeve's link provides a more comprehensive explanation (I probably should've looked at TFwiki for something like that before typing up my own timeline )

Everyone I know that is only a fan of TFs by Bay movies enjoy the movies because they deliver so much in terms of action and entertainment and whenever I tell them that Bay is no longer directing the Transformers movies they sigh and tell me that the franchise will be crap without him.

The Transformers franchise existed long before Michael Bay came along - and while the Bay franchise has certainly given the franchise a massive boost, the franchise was already doing pretty well before him anyway. The one thing that really brought Transformers back to life was Beast Wars, which made Transformers massively successful in 1996-97 after the TF franchise was nearly killed by Generation 2 (1993-95); remember that by 1997-98, Transformers had become the 3rd top selling boys toy line after Toy Story and Star Wars. It was the success of Beast Wars that sent the Transformers franchise from strength to strength - leading to Car Robot/RiD, then the Unicron Trilogy, Binaltech/Alternators etc etc., and of course, the movie franchise.

The movie franchise took an already strong and popular Transformers franchise and made it even more popular, I will definitely give Michael Bay kudos for doing that. But I hold greater respect for Beast Wars which took a virtually dead Transformers franchise in 1995 and made it strong and popular again.

Some people want robots filled with emotion, others want robots that create mass destruction. To each their own.

It depends if you want to see Transformers as actual characters or if you're just happy to see giant effing robots stomping and transforming around the place. The casual audience member may enjoy the latter, but I'd say most of the long-term fans would prefer the former.

It depends if the story-teller just wants to make a story that people will enjoy today but maybe lose interest tomorrow, or stories that people can enjoy long into the future. Sure, watching giant transforming robots in action is pretty damn cool -- and Michael Bay has directed some freakin' GREAT action scenes with them. I love how he gives them that immense sense of scale with that fast and furious fight action. With other Transformer series like G1, you often don't get quite the same sense of scale -- but with Michael Bay, he constantly reminds you that these are giant effing robots, and humans are just ants among them!

But if you look at most of the long-time fans of the Transformers mythos, like long-time fans of G1 or Beast Wars... I'd say for most of them it was the quality of the story writing that sustained most of them. The people who are only fans of Bay's Transformers... I wonder how long they will continue to be die-hard fans of Bayformers, or if their interest will span onto other Transformer franchises (and thus become fans of Transformers in a wider sense), or if they'll stop being fans of Transformers altogether. How many of them will continue to be die-hard fans of the Bay-franchise only for the next 15-25 years?

but I am VERY grateful now for the fact that Bay's movies have been action masterpieces.

I'm also grateful for the action-fest of the movies, and I'm also delighted that the Bay franchise has given Transformers such a massive boost in popularity (which in itself has been a mixed blessing, but overall it's been a positive impact).

[griffin]

Comprehensive timeline, taking into account all the comics and books along with the movies.

Yeah, I posted that in the 'on screen' universe timeline topic, to show how the comic writers have tried to explain all the stuff introduced in the movies... as well as all the other stuff they introduced themselves hoping that a later movie writer wouldn't contradict it (because they aren't bound by anything in peripheral items like the comics).

I mean, how many Arks were there... how many times did Dispensor and Barricade die... and how much of the distant past was 'retold' with sudden appearances of Soundwave and Shockwave...

And their literal interpretation of the 'Sentinel Prime's Ark being "lost" in the beginning of the movie had them showing it destroyed in the prequel comic... They shoulda checked with the Movie people first to realise that it wasn't 'lost' in that complete manner.
Or how about the carnage in Rising Storm to clear the stage for the 'on-screen' Movie cast? All those characters introduced in the last 4 years in the comic universe... and they still missed a couple (Arcee, Chromia).

(The big question will be, what will IDW do with Megatron, now that he lives in the 'comic' universe, but not the 'on-screen' universe?)

[GoktimusPrime]

I'd say the movie events retcon the comic ones as out-of-continuity.

[griffin]

+ Having lost contact with the Nemesis and the Fallen, Megatron makes a secret pact with Sentinel Prime... Sentinel Prime would use his Space Bridge technology to travel to Earth and locate the last Star Harvester and with it, the Matrix of Leadership. (I'm not sure if this is because Megatron had assumed the Nemesis to be destroyed and thus changed his plans, or if he was still holding out hope that the Nemesis still survived somewhere and was planning on betraying Sentinel Prime later on -- my guess is the former).

What was this in? The book or the comic? I don't recall any mention of him using his spacebridge before it was activated on Earth during the movie. In both versions of the Ark's 'loss', it was either completely destroyed (comic), or sent drifting lifelessly from Cybertron to Earth (Movie).
It sounds like a longwinded explanation by an author working off the movie script... a script that conflicts with events of the first two movies.

+ The Nemesis is hit in a blind collision by the Ark (which would have been hurtling toward Earth, as that was its initial destination before being shot since Sentinel Prime was going to travel there to retrieve the last Star Harvester) - leaving a space bridge portal in its wake (after all, Sentinel Prime was attempting to open up a Space Bridge portal in the first place to travel to Earth). With the Nemesis crashed on a dead planet, the Nemesis orders Soundwave to take the Decepticons from the Nemesis aboard the Longshot and pursue the Ark through the Space Bridge.

A blind collision out in space? From two vessels sent from two different points in time and space... unless there was a marked 'highway' between the two planets, the odds of that happening would be even less than all these items arriving on the same planet or star system. It's just so implausible, that seeing this sort of explanation in a book or a comic feels like a fan-made justification. It's almost an insult to our intelligence.

+ Millennia later, Soundwave returns to the Nemesis having recovered a pillar from the Ark. The Fallen tells Soundwave that Megatron is on Earth and uses the pillar to escape his sarcophagus (which he had been imprisoned in by the last of the original Primes).

That doesn't make sense, (if in a book or a comic), as the Decepticons didn't know Megatron was on Earth in the first movie, or else they would have found and rescued him decades ago.


I'm not trying to discourage people from reading the books or comics, as they are interesting in themselves. I'm also not rubbishing them either - as stated, I find them just as interesting and rewarding to read as they broaden the view on elements and characters.
I'm just saying that I'm finding the Movies a lot easier to understand without the comics, which puts a different, more implausible spin on things due to all the extra stuff they've introduced over the years.

[GoktimusPrime]

What was this in? The book or the comic? I don't recall any mention of him using his spacebridge before it was activated on Earth during the movie.

Mostly from the comics, though admittedly I've filled in some gaps...

In the comic adaptation of DotM Megatron states, "Sentinel was to seek out the last Star Harvester - to fuel our empire's expansion..." - so that was the purpose of the Ark's fateful voyage... it was going to locate the last Star Harvester, which was on Earth. So it's not beyond reason to assume that the Ark had Earth's coordinates locked into her navicomputer, and of course if the Ark was equipped with Space Bridge technology, why not use it to help travel to Earth?

In both versions of the Ark's 'loss', it was either completely destroyed (comic), or sent drifting lifelessly from Cybertron to Earth (Movie).

Yes, I'd say the image of the Ark being utterly destroyed is now retconned out-of-continuity by the events in the film.

A blind collision out in space? From two vessels sent from two different points in time and space... unless there was a marked 'highway' between the two planets, the odds of that happening would be even less than all these items arriving on the same planet or star system. It's just so implausible, that seeing this sort of explanation in a book or a comic feels like a fan-made justification. It's almost an insult to our intelligence.

If both the Ark and the Nemesis were tracking the Cube back to Earth, then there's a possibility that they may have collided into each other while following the AllSpark's trail. Still highly improbable, but a lot more probable than the Ark just randomly crashing into the Earth's moon for no apparent reason whatsoever!

That doesn't make sense, (if in a book or a comic), as the Decepticons didn't know Megatron was on Earth in the first movie, or else they would have found and rescued him decades ago.

The Fallen told Soundwave that Megatron had travelled to Earth, as per the Fallen's orders. Neither of them would have known what happened to Megatron after that. It's possible that when the Longshot arrived in the Solar System and approached Earth, Soundwave may have attempted to contact Megatron, but failing to receive a response presumed that he either never made it to Earth, or he'd somehow been destroyed since arriving.

I don't write this stuff, I just read it then try to make sense of it in terms of how it fits in with the films. If it makes more sense to you to disregard the comics, then go ahead and do it.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I did enjoy that Spock played Sentinel Prime, and his line 'the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few'. Classic nod to Star Trek.

I got a bit tired of all the Star Trek references in it. Yeh, I got it when I heard his voice that he's Mr Spock as well. Thankyou. I think they over did it. I would have preferred it to have been left at the TV quote from Brains.

The "Needs of the many..." was too much for me, made me roll my eyes and think that the Transformers movies can't stand on their own as sci-fi, but need crossovers.. ROTF had the horrible 'apprentice' reference from the Fallen.

Still DOTM is a better movie than ROTF by a long shot

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Yeesh, if Katsuhiro Otomo can turn the Akira manga into a mere 2 hour anime which still makes sense (well, mostly) as a self-contained story, and Mamoru Oshii and Kazunori Ito can adapt the Ghost in the Shell manga into a coherent - and brilliant - film lasting less than one and a half hours, you'd think they (well, I suppose Ehren Kruger in this case) could at least write a third feature in a trilogy that is consistent with said trilogy, or even just the immediate prequel.
Even the Star Wars prequilogy did better than this, and that's a really low standard to be outdone by.

[Krittle]

HAHAHA that comic strip was completely awesome!!!!! MAJOR LOL!