DOTM - not excited? [possible spoils]

[Bartrim]

I'm a fan of ROTF. The movie has it's faults I really think they should of waited until after the writers strike to make the film but all things considered I think they did quite well.

[Golden Phoenix]

My main gripe about TF2 was that the writers changed Optimus from being the iconic 'childhood hero' that every other version has been to past fans. This one was cold, callous and calculating... pretty much Decepticon in his behaviour, from killing a disabled Decepticon without hesitation at the start, to using and then dumping the body of Jetfire like trash at the end. And since he was dead for most of the movie, he was certainly not one of the Hero elements of TF2.
Those are the sorts of characteristics that Hasbro has power of veto over (one of the few things Bay doesn't have absolute power over in the TFs brand), with their small number of historically iconic characters, so this darkening of Optimus' character and removal of his 'hero' status would had to have been approved by Hasbro. Or else Bay is just making them so much money that they don't care what he does now.

I actually liked this change.
I looked at it as if he had started as the hero type and the war had changed him. Made him lose touch every now and then and in the heat of battle he forgets and just goes from the kill.

[UltraMarginal]

I am in the freak minority that enjoyed and likes ROTF (also spiderman 3 )

Was never off a fan of the passive aggressive Autobots, ah dudes, there is a whole fraction of Bots just waiting to annihilate you all, don't you think you should step it up a little?!

And thank you Bay, thats what you delivered. In addition to that, besides the dedicated fans, not many others want or like the 80's heroics. Its the new millennium, you want universal peace, you gonna have to murder and take down a few to achieve that!

I thoroughly enjoyed bits of it.

I loved the fight scene, in the forest, Elements of the fight scene at the end were great. the dynamic between Starscream and Megatron was fleshed out well. Jetfire was an SR-71 !! The more agresive tone of the autobots was pretty good I thought, maybe not the cold blooded killing but the overall agression reflected the attitude that you would be in after an eons long war.

What I didn't like, was the "pretender" though it was well explained in the novel, the old broken jetfire with a walking stick, spitting, drooling robots, devastator was such a waste of money and time and everything. the fallen.


Like has been said before, the bay movies have done so much for transformers, the have brought the property out into the mainstream, there is no way we would have the broad selectioni of tv shows, comics and most of all toys if it weren't for these films.

and more than anything else, i'll be going to the cinema to watch dotm, not for the quality script (though if it does have a quality script I'll be the last to complain), but for the giant robots "blowing shit up". If there's one thing that Michael Bay is good at it's car chases and blowing shit up.

[griffin]

I agree that it was more likely war weary Autobots (Ironhide was just as bad), but it wasn't as obvious, if at all, in the first one.
But I guess the first movie was done more 'classic' to win over fans and kids, and from number 2 onwards we get war-hardened Autobots - who don't have time or resources for prisoners, or want to risk their lives by having a Decepticon live longer than it 'needs' to.

[Gutsman Heavy]

My hatred was rather well documented at the SA meets (Ranting lunatic is probably an understatement)

My general distaste for ROTF can be summed up as such.

Devastator was killed by an off-screen cannon.

OFF
SCREEN
CANNON

Weak man, f'ing weak.

[BlackConvoy]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way

This thread has brought back some awful flashbacks of ROTF that I'd forgotten about.

- The Pretender, enough said.
- The countless anonymous Decepticons there purely for fodder for the Autobot carnage.
- I guess he forgot he named the tank Devastator in the first film.
- The twins were annoying, if they'd died at the hands of Devastator, I could have been a bit more forgiving... but they took his face off. Not happy.
- Bumblebee tearing out Ravage's spine.
- Prime getting resurrected through "love".
- Decepticon babies??

To me, it felt like a video game. Not a good one either, much like every "game of the movie" is awful, this felt like watching someone play one of those. Its all about Prime, he goes through a stage killing a bunch of miscellaneous Decepticons before reaching a 'boss'. In between fights, theres some cutscenes involving Ms Fox curves and Mr Lebeouf's big ears, then its back to something involving Prime. Plenty of other robots make their token appearances for their 2 minutes of onscreen time. Even when he dies, its still all about Prime.

@Paulbot - True, there are a few great episodes, and I hope I don't offend when I bring up a few things from Season 2 that I didn't like...

- Seaspray turning into a mermaid.
- A transformer afraid of heights (Silverbolt).
- Ripping Prime's body into pieces and using them as parts around a city (I remember a part as a crocodile, his arm and rifle ontop of a building)... I forget the name of this episode.
- So many episodes with the "mini" transformers as the main characters, so kids that could only afford those still felt special (Ok, this sounds mean - I just didnt like them)
- Cosmos can fit all Autobots inside him (I dislike Astrotrain for this reason too)
- Whoever made the decision on how Warpath should speak.
- Omega Supreme is godlike in one episode, a broken down wreck in the next.
- Omega Supreme having happy-fun times on Cybertron with the Constructicons, 3 million years prior - yet Megatron created them in Season 1.
- Acid rain on Cybertron.

... now I sound like all I do is complain.

Season 1 had great characters, and build up to a nice finale, and the movie just topped it off for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed Beast Wars for the same reason. It had great character development and didn't try to cram each episode with a heap of new characters to try and sell. The plot twist at the end of Season 2 was fantastic.

Now we're at TF:Prime, I've not been so eager to see the next episode since I was a kid watching Gen1. Can't wait until this series hits Blu-ray.

BC

[GoktimusPrime]

I grew up with G1, looking back on it now, Season 2 and 3 were pretty bad. Still have a great love for Season 1 and the movie.

The G1 comics were better than the G1 cartoon IMO.

With that in mind, what Bay did with the first movie was fantastic.

The first movie captures the spirit of the G1 cartoon really well.

The second greatly upset me. I can't help but feel his "expert" advisors with their "encyclopedic" knowledge of the Transformers woke up one day and thought they'd try their luck. Autobots do not arbitrarily destroy anything, even Decepticons in hiding. Seems they were hiding for 100 years too without incident based on the photos Sector 7 had, yet never took a stand when us humans developed weaponry capable of hurting them.

Actually, there were lots of incidents that occured since the discovery of the "Ice Man," from Bonnie and Clyde to reverse-engineered Nazi mecha in WWII. Humans developed weapons capable to effecting Cybertronians because of this history of encounters (and of course, studying NBE-1).

Wasn't 'til the Autobots showed up that the war started.

Again, see the Sector 7 series that's currently on sale now!

Also, why bother breaking into military facilities, even Air Force One in the first film, when Soundwave can just hump a satellite. This just ruins the whole reasoning behind the first film.

Do we know if Soundwave was floating around in Earth orbit during the events of the first film, or did he arrive some time after?

When I heard Jetfire was in it, I got really excited. To see him include a walking stick in his transformation made me retch. I was all set to cast this disgust aside when he merged with Prime (wished there was an 'Optimal Optimus' reference, but no)... only to have Jetfires parts just cast aside like a piece of trash when he was done using him. No send-off or appreciation for the sacrifice. This isn't what Autobots are.

Hey, Optimus Prime totally mourned for Jetfire.









For about as much as he mourned for Jazz. (at least it's consistent )

This brings us to the upcoming one. Going by the trailer, lets say the government was able to cover up the existence of a space-ship on the moon. Wouldn't the Autobots have picked it up on their way past in the first film?

Not if it's inactive and not giving out any signals, energy signatures etc.

Or Starscream and that Fallen joke in the second?

When I first heard that the movie was called "Revenge of The Fallen," I got all excited, cos I quite like the original Fallen character from Neo-G1... then when I saw him on film it was kinda like... oh. That... wasn't quite what I was hoping for... (he's not even on fire all the time...)

Having just seen TF:Prime, it really puts in perspective - the movies are crap. Plus a Megatron without Welker isn't a Megatron at all.

I think Weaving Megatron is fine.

My main gripe about TF2 was that the writers changed Optimus from being the iconic 'childhood hero' that every other version has been to past fans. This one was cold, callous and calculating... pretty much Decepticon in his behaviour, from killing a disabled Decepticon without hesitation at the start, to using and then dumping the body of Jetfire like trash at the end.

Yeah, I thought ROTF Optimus Prime was much like Dai Atlas from Transformers Zone, and for anyone who hasn't watched it yet STOP READING NOW!




(spoiler space)









Dai Atlas is a character who has LONG been widely disliked by Japanese G1 fans. The main criticism against him was that he's too ruthless and incompassionate as an Autobot Commander. If you watch Transformers Zone he takes no prisoners and kills every Decepticon who comes across his way. Japanese fans have often felt that he does not adequately carry the true spirit of "Convoy," of an Autobot leader... that he should be more compassionate.

But having said that, Dai Atlas was usually not as bad as ROTF Optimus Prime because Dai Atlas only every killed enemy combatants in battle. Most of them were not defeated and defenceless opponents. Dai Atlas' most cruel moment was probably when he killed Predaking -- because Predaking was retreating at the time he dissected him with his sword. But at least Predaking wasn't utterly defeated and helpless like Demolishor was. Predaking _could_ have turned and fought Dai Atlas, but instead chose to flee like a coward.

And since he was dead for most of the movie, he was certainly not one of the Hero elements of TF2.

...dead characters need to stay dead...

Those are the sorts of characteristics that Hasbro has power of veto over (one of the few things Bay doesn't have absolute power over in the TFs brand), with their small number of historically iconic characters, so this darkening of Optimus' character and removal of his 'hero' status would had to have been approved by Hasbro. Or else Bay is just making them so much money that they don't care what he does now.

Hasbro seems to be very lenient in approving almost anything with this film franchise. If you watch the DVD interviews you can see that some of the writers etc. were pleasantly surprised at how much free reign Hasbro gave them. A bit too much free reign perhaps.

From what I can ascertain, it seemed the only few times that Hasbro intervened was when:
+ Insisting that Optimus Prime needed to have a red chest. Michael Bay explained to Archer that this would be difficult to film, so a compromised was reached - thus the chopper flames.
+ Certain character designs were redone at Hasbro's request if they felt that it would be too challenging to engineer as a toy. e.g. Optimus Prime's tires were originally meant to split and come right off the wheels; this was redone at Hasbro's request, so the tyres still split slightly, but remain on the wheels. Having said that, Hasbro still let them get away with really WEIRD designs for characters like Reedman and Alice... which Hasbro has yet to make toys for. It seems that they don't seem interested in making toys of them. This irks me... I wish Hasbro wouldn't approve Transformers for the film that they have no intention of making toys of.

I actually liked this change.
I looked at it as if he had started as the hero type and the war had changed him. Made him lose touch every now and then and in the heat of battle he forgets and just goes from the kill.

This is way more than just losing touch in the heat of battle. Optimus Prime is meant to be a seasoned veteran combatant, not some random civilian conscript who's recently taken up arms. Put it this way, when professional soldiers abuse, torture or execute defeated or captured enemy combatants they would be prosecuted for having committed war crimes.

My general distaste for ROTF can be summed up as such.

Devastator was killed by an off-screen cannon.

OFF
SCREEN
CANNON

Weak man, f'ing weak.

tru dat.

[Sky Shadow]

So I'm new here, and not looking for a fight...

Hi! I'm old here and just bought a new pair of virtual boxing gloves.

I grew up with G1, looking back on it now, Season 2 and 3 were pretty bad.

If Season 2 was pretty bad then Season 1 must have been completely awful.

This thread has brought back some awful flashbacks of ROTF that I'd forgotten about.

- The Pretender, enough said.

Alice was the only good bit in the film. She needs a toy.

I thoroughly enjoyed Beast Wars for the same reason. It had great character development and didn't try to cram each episode with a heap of new characters to try and sell. The plot twist at the end of Season 2 was fantastic.

Comparing Beast Wars to the G1 cartoon is like comparing apples and rotten orange peel.

...

Oh, and welcome!

[Demonac]

I just think ROTF is an awful film, that shows what happens when you let the someone have too much power. It joins other esteemed 'movies' such as:
Battlefield: Earth (Travolta); Star Trek 5 (Shatner); Glitter (Mariah Carey) and many others.
Unless this upcoming film fares better, I'm not wasting movie or time on it.

[Doubledealer]

Part of the reason why RotF was so disappointing is due to it not matching the quality of the excellent first film. Things are a bit different this time, we've had one cracker and one stinker, and because of this I think the majority of movie goers will go into TF3 with lesser expectations.

What will be interesting to see is how much mulah-lah DOTM makes compared to ROTF. Why? Well, the first movie appealed to not just Transformers fans, it appealed to all movie goers who enjoy fun action movies (I don't know anyone who didn't like or love it). Because of this, a LOT of people would have been looking forward to the sequel. Because RotF was such an epic fail, I wonder if these fans of the first film will even bother with this new one. Only time will tell!

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing the new movie and will absolutely see it on the opening night as I have done with the others. Hoping to be pleasantly surprised.