I liked TF1 Optimus Prime as he was pretty much true to the G1 character insofar as being an altruist. He'd rather sacrifice himself to destroy the AllSpark, and even cried out, "No, Sam!" when he used it to destroy Megatron. Then in ROTF he did a complete about face and became more like Dai Atlas insofar as being utterly merciless towards opponents in battle. The way he executed Scavenger in cold blood was just as morally dubious as the way Dai Atlas killed a retreating Predaking. Although at least Dai Atlas was consistently merciless... ROTF Optimus Prime really was not the same character as TF1 Optimus Prime.Originally Posted by Bidoofdude
I didn't think Shockwave was much of a homage to his G1 incarnation at all.
G1 cartoon Shockwave = the sycophant ("Cybertron will remain as you leave it")
G1 comic Shockwave = treacherous evil Vulcan ("I could tear your head from your body and reduce your remains to molten slag, Megatron")
DotM Shockwave = uh... beast master? ("Driller-bot is hungry")
Jetfire is an example of how Bay doesn't know how to time his jokes properly. Having Jetfire fart a parachute in the middle of an important exposition is just distracting and detracts from the story. Could you imagine if this happened in other movies?
The Empire Strikes Back: "No, I..." <farts> "...am your father."
The Fellowship of the Ring: "In the common tongue it reads 'One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to bind them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness..." <faaarrrt> "...aaah... bind them. Phew."
Gone With The Wind (heh): "Frankly my dear," <fart> "...I don't give a damn."
Dead Poets Society: "Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives..." <fart> "...extraordinary!"
Titanic: "I'm the..." <fart> "...king of the world!"
See, there's a reason why other directors don't do this -- because it would make all those epic and important story moments silly! The key to good humour is in the timing and its delivery.
An example of some good humour from RotF would be:
"Freshman!"
"Yeah?"
"Is that your car in our bushes?"
"No, uh, it's a friend of mine's, he's just... went to go get you a tighter shirt."
"There isn't a tighter shirt. We checked." <fist.bumps>
See, now that's well timed and well delivered!
Yeah, but at least Bumblebee's appearances served the story. There's nothing wrong with a character absorbing screen time so long as the time is well spent to tell the story. It's not as bad as say G1 cartoon Wheelie and Daniel or Jar Jar Binks who just waste their screen time doing crap that's completely inconsequential and irrelevant to the actual tale. I do agree that Bumblebee's screen time could've been much better spent. Some actual characterisation might've been nice.-Bumblebee. BB was okay in the films. An energetic kiddy kind of bot, whom we, the audience, could follow along with from his point of view. What bugs (No, just no BD) me was how he was too much of a focus point and took up too much screentime, compared to other characters, which IMO deserved to be fleshed out a lot more. I like him, but I don't want him shoved in my face for a good part of the film.
I was looking forward to seeing more of his personality. The movieverse DotM prequel comics set up Shockwave as being much like his G1 comic namesake - cold, cruel, logical and verbose - as well as being one tough dude. In the movie he didn't show ANY of those qualities and left most of the fighting to his pet. And when Optimus Prime did finally come to fight him, he went down faster than the integrity of the plot-line.
^Yup, totally agree. Although to the movie makers' credit, they did address this weakness in ROTF in DOTM; Megatron finally had an Earthen alt mode, and the Decepticon minions who came through the Space Bridge quickly started scanning vehicles to transform into.-Cybertronian Altmodes. Too unidentifiable as any kind of vehicle, even if they were alien.
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