The Transformers 3 Thread--A Michael Bay Thread

[jenius]

Wow... just watched this movie and it was horrible... just terrible. I can give it credit for two things:

1) Felt more comprehensible than the second film

2) Looked good

Otherwise... ouch. My wife got up a half hour in and decided to go do dishes. She couldn't stomach Sam Witwicky's being an annoying little biscuit anymore. Seriously, watching Sam for the first thirty minutes of the film is painful. He only becomes stomach-able once his screen time is comprised of him running and ducking as stuff blows up around him. I assume the two pet autobots are supposed to be comic-relief but the only time I cracked a smile was when they said "Yeah, we gonna die." Not sure if I was smiling because they were dying or if I felt that they were going out on a good note. Remember that scene where the humans get together and climb up the glass building to shoot a rocket at the pillar? Remember how that lasts like 40 minutes before the Decepticons come and knock the building down and the whole scene's net result is essentially zero? I'm thinking there could have been a better use of that screen time (as someone noted before, seeing the Autobots get captured might have been something better to show the audience). That scene dragged on so long I felt like I was watching Skyline again.

Good idea 1: let's make the main bad guy completely non-threatening by having him fall apart the whole movie. Better yet, let's make him so non-threatening that a shell-shocked blonde can stumble upon him and rather than fearing for her life, decide to strike up a mocking conversation with him. WTF? And what exactly was Megatron's plan? Did he think he and Optimus were going to shake hands after Sentinel was dead?

Good idea 2: Sure, Decepticons are bad, but it'd be cooler if we symbolized how bad they were by having them spit green fluid when they talk.

Good idea 3: Robots with personality are dumb. Let's make the Decepticons fairly generic looking and make sure they have no personality. To that end, let's start making them all look really insect-like. Heck, let's make one just be a giant worm with no alt mode (did I miss it?). Did anyone catch what the giant worm's alt mode was? I mean, it's not as stupid as movie 2's having Decepticons be able to perfectly recreate humans (which would end the series as we know it, replacing it with such hits as Revenge of the Body Snatchers) but a giant worm robot? All the Decepticons were getting pretty tentacle heavy as it was. It's good to have character designs so indistinguishable from each other that the audience has no idea of who was actually just killed.

Question, which Decepticon had the best line in the third movie. Was it "You will die!" spoken by Megatron, Starscream, or Soundwave. There are no other options because I think that's the only sentence ever uttered in the movie by Decepticon's other than Megatron's "Oh no you didn't!" to Carly.

So you might be reading this thinking "Idiot, you're thinking too much, it's a movie for kids!" I debated that a bit as I watched it. I'm guessing it's target audience is 13 year old boys by how often I was getting screen shots that made me have naughty thoughts about that Carly actress. The simplicty of the plot and it's over-reliance on action that seemed a lot like ants running from a magnifying glass might reinforce the 13 year old target demographic. There were some things that just didn't fit though. First, the lack of humor, but maybe I'm just too old now to find humor in the same things a 13 year old boy would find funny (my wife would be shocked if this is the case). Second, the violence. There were some pretty brutal human deaths in the beginning (which sadly, got me optimistic this film might not suck as bad as it seemed it was going to). Heck, an execution style murder of an Autobot was also pretty heavy. That said, the animated film was probably aimed at 13 year old boys and it didn't have a ton of humor and it definitely didn't shy away from violence.

[soul.assassin]

^

All that makes me think about going out to watch Real Steel.

[Arthurius]

So if you loved this movie, you have the brain of a 13 year old??? Thanks alot Bomba!!! I will go home and think about the 20 years of my life that didnt exist!!!

[Kanedas Bike]

Jenius, I don't disagree with most of your observations...but what did you expect? It's not like Bay was going to change is overall formula for DOTM over ROTF.

I keep reading everyone's critique on these movies and I always wonder what their expectation was going into it.

And yeah, I enjoyed this for what it was. Plot holes with a mediocre story? Yep. So-so acting? Yep. Big special-effects around alien transformable robots lots of military action, cute chick and way too much Shia? Yep, yep, yep and yep.

I mean really, the Transformer films are what they are. Set your expectations accordingly.

-b.

[jenius]

So if you loved this movie, you have the brain of a 13 year old??? Thanks alot Bomba!!! I will go home and think about the 20 years of my life that didnt exist!!!

Not at all, as Steven Colbert would point out, capitalism has spoken and this is one of the greatest films of all time and capitalism is never wrong. Clearly, it is I who has this movie all wrong.

Jenius, I don't disagree with most of your observations...but what did you expect? It's not like Bay was going to change is overall formula for DOTM over ROTF.

I keep reading everyone's critique on these movies and I always wonder what their expectation was going into it.

And yeah, I enjoyed this for what it was. Plot holes with a mediocre story? Yep. So-so acting? Yep. Big special-effects around alien transformable robots lots of military action, cute chick and way too much Shia? Yep, yep, yep and yep.

I mean really, the Transformer films are what they are. Set your expectations accordingly.

-b.

Here's the thing, after ROTF just about everyone involved with the movie said "Yeah, that movie kinda sucked, we rushed it out, we're not exactly proud of it, and we'll do better next time." So, I was expecting them to do markedly better. It's not like the franchise didn't give them a lot to work with. Honestly, I could have lived with plot holes and a mediocre story. What I hated was the unlikable characters and the time spent dwelling on them. It's like they were trying to get the audience to HATE Sam Witwicky for the first half hour. All he does and piss and moan... even to guys with machine guns. Did you have ANY respect for Sam Witwicky when he was ignoring the guys with machine guns and trying to drive his POS car into a secured government building? No, he seemed like an entitled ass. The story attempts to put him in his place when he's called "just a messenger" but then the idiot writing let's him use that as heroic redemption later. Perhaps it's unfair for me just to ramble about how bad this movie was without being constructive. Here's how I'd make the movie better:

1) The scene where the Autobots attack the Middle East in the beginning of the film can be completely stricken. Also referring to them later as rebellious teenagers can be stricken. What point did that serve? Instead, do the voiceover about the Autobots working with humanity to keep the peace to the scene where the Autobots show up in the Ukraine.

2) Remove the worm-bot with no alt mode. Remove the film's greatest line "Worm-bot is thirsty." For the love of Christ, remove that line. Instead, put Soundwave there and have him be MORE bad ass. I'm fine with him not having much of a personality, make him the strong silent type. Also, give him his angry kitty back along with Laserbeak. In the Ukraine ambush have it be a few recognizable Decepticons wrecking shop before vanishing. I said Soundwave, not Shockwave, Shockwave should either have replaced Megatron (see item 3) or been reserved for later.

3) If Megatron is beaten and beleagured REPLACE HIM. Have Shockwave be the new baddest baddy OR Starscream. I'm not saying Megatron can't have a role in the film, in fact I think the end of the film should involve the baddy who usurped him being destroyed and somehow that destruction should give Megatron a golden opportunity to repair himself and become even stronger for a future sequel. If the plot does require Megatron be killed, at least give us a scene of Galvatron leaving Cybertron as it partially emerges in Earth space.

4) Try not to make the audience hate the protagonist. There were a thousand ways they could have gone with Sam that would have been better. Instead of wasting time with his job hunting and the random and mostly pointless scenes where he's employed, have him working as an agent in what is essentially Sector 7. Let there be some humor there with the old Sector 7 guy and Sam's realization of how similar he's becoming to that guy. Let them stumble upon the moon plot with the help from that usually funny asian actor (perhaps as they investigate the deaths of people involved with NASA). Let's not have him lashing out at everyone because he saved the world twice and the whole world owes him so he gets to act like he has bigger balls than the military. The older lady and her romance with the older Sector 7 employee could be retained by making her the equivalent of Sector 7's Q (from the Bond stories).

5) Carly should have been a Decepticon sympathizer all along. Her boss should also be a Decepticon sympathizer but his role should have been limited by giving him an early death at the hands of the Decepticons. If Megatron then was replaced by Starscream acting in his place (perhaps after Starscream had nefariously seized Decepticon control by incarcerating a weakened Megatron) it would be a lot more believable if Carly then had a conversation with the Decepticon leader. The plot can have her start as a Decepticon sympathyizer who gradually warms up to Sam and in the end betrays the Decepticons (even more believable if her boss is killed at Starscream's homicidal whim). Also, a line in that currently terrible conversation should have gone something like "So it doesn't feel odd to you when this all is over you'll be taking your orders from an Autobot?"

6) The final battle needs to be slimmed down in a big way. As I said before, all that wasted time in the glass tower can go away. If Sam was a new Sector 7 employee the same could be true of the humans from previous movies so we wouldn't need all the over-the-top theatrics about soldiers in flight suits and all that jazz.

Okay, these were just some thoughts but the portrait I'm trying to paint is that I don't think the changes I'm suggesting fall outside the realm of possibility and so my expectations weren't wildly disproportionate to what they should have been. I go into every movie expecting it to be worth the amount of time it's going to take... to me, DOTM was definitely not.

Edited October 20, 2011 by jenius

[Renato]

1) The scene where the Autobots attack the Middle East in the beginning of the film can be completely stricken.

Heh. Yeah.... It's nice to introduce the good guys as a bunch of instigators. I may have mentioned this before, but on Youtube there was a camrip of the first 10 minutes and during this scene, a little boy can be heard asking "What are they doing?? Are they bad??"

[Keith]

All I realy want to know, is why they didn't bother to add scene transitions for the scenes they didn't take the time to transition. And ofr that matter, why do we still never see Nimoy-bot transform?

[Kanedas Bike]

*SNIP*

Here's the thing, after ROTF just about everyone involved with the movie said "Yeah, that movie kinda sucked, we rushed it out, we're not exactly proud of it, and we'll do better next time." So, I was expecting them to do markedly better.

*SNIP*

Okay, these were just some thoughts but the portrait I'm trying to paint is that I don't think the changes I'm suggesting fall outside the realm of possibility and so my expectations weren't wildly disproportionate to what they should have been. I go into every movie expecting it to be worth the amount of time it's going to take... to me, DOTM was definitely not.

Again, let me say that I don't necessarily disagree that a lot of the film's plot could have been constructed better. I don't share some of your views on how, but that's irrelevant.

As I read and then re-read your post it occurred to me that maybe a lot of your dislike came from the fact that the filmmakers essentially lied to you about making the movie "oh so much better than ROTF". And this is were my point about expectations comes into play, I didn't expect them to and looking at how the first two movies turned out it would have been unreasonable for me to do so.

I mean hell, it's Michael Bay. Name one movie he's ever directed that was more plot/story/character-driven than effect-driven. And with that I knew what I was in for a movie filled with top level CGI robotic eye-candy that was going to be paper-thin on plot and character.

-b.

[jenius]

I did say the movie looked good. If that's what mattered to you then it delivered. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a shaky camera fest (which was one of my expectations).

[Kanedas Bike]

A good looking movie was what I expected. There's a difference between that and what I feels/felt mattered.

-b.

[big F]

With previous efforts to not expect it to be visually stunning (shaky cam excluded) would be dumb as that is the minimum bench mark they needed to achieve. 13 year old boys are alot more complex than they give them credit for any one who has one will vouch for that, so simply giving them paper thin plot and some average eye candy to get all hormonal about is sadly lacking.

Shoulda made the building plot line 5 mins max, a bit more back ground as to what has been going on in the two years since ROTF.

More idea as to how a broken Decepticon leader who's alt mode is a truck gets from Central Africa to Down-town Detroit in What seems like ten mins, an excuse for that could be he simply used his Cybertronian alt jet tank thing, but nobody has ever hinted that previously used alt modes are reusable. If they are WTF doesnt everyone just use em as tanks with bad ass guns and jets, hover cars and stuff would be far cooler and the Humans already know they are here, so disguise is fairly redundant in most cases.

Get rid of the seemingly pointless human sub-story that goes nowhere and could be told in 20 mins max.

I don't care if Sam is getting a new job, do you really think that some one who has seen and done as much as him wouldnt be working for the military and or Sector 7, he'd be both an asset and a security risk to be anywhere other than under watch in the sort of environment that those organisations would provide.

Remove his parents from it all together since his father is nothing of the G1 equivalent he is irrelevant to the story.

More Decepticons killing squishys as should be the case as they don't like humans and see them as irrelevant, so their total disregard for humans should be shown much much more.

That said I am gonna get it on the Blu-ray 3D version I just hope the extras are worth it. I can skip all the pointless cack just as I do in the first two films.

Roll on the 4 film I say.

[Vepariga]

Alot better then the 2nd film,Glad that Megan Fox was scrapped,the only thing I didnt like was some of the scenes felt too short-cut and didnt have a flowing transition.

Example: when Sam is asking if Bee could fly the downed Decepticon fighter and giving the so-so gesture,then quick cuts to Sam getting a gun from the black dude like instantly. no transition,just felt like really quick editing. but otherwise enjoyable. I am interested to where they will go from here tho seeing as they pretty much killed the main antagonists

[Chowser]

Sure there was, after his ghost got its ass kicked one more time, it traveled back in time and possessed Waspinator....

Don't forget, Starscream got a new body from Unicron's head.

Now, when he possed waspinator, was that before or after the unicron's head story???

back on topic:

My 4-yr old got bored real quick with the movie. Glad it was just a redbox rental and not a theater ticket.

at least they brought carly in. now, when are daniel and hot rod coming in? going to have to dig up my transformers the movie and show my son.

[GU-11]

Warning: long post.

To be fair, I think DOTM got several things right, but also screwed up in places that were good in ROTF.

First off, much of the dorky humor is gone for the most part, along with less-annoying parents and a plot that, at least in the beginning, made sense. The parents are fine this time around, and actually act like normal people. What I like the most is that the military isn't ridiculously portrayed as this invincible force that is able to solve every problem with carpet bombing. Ever heard of the Vietnam war, Mike? The "guerrilla" tactics employed in DOTM should have been used in all three movies, because it's realistic and makes sense. I think I've already ranted enough times about how Megs or Starscream could have easily taken down human air bombers, so I'll just leave it at that.

On the down side, the bot-vs-bot fight scenes seem less "energetic" here than in ROTF. That part where Optimus flies down the street and takes down the enemy just isn't as cool as the forest fight scene, or when he jumps off a plane and transforms in midair. The final fight between Optimus, Sentinel and Megs was a disappointment. I won't start about how it doesn't make sense, but the action was erratic and the sparks from the explosions obscured some of the details...or maybe that as the point, to save on CG?

Micheal Bay also seems to have a problem with scale, ande I'm not talking about mass-shifting. This is a movie about an army of giant robots

invading Earth, but it seems more like a minor skirmish than a massive war. No more than a handful of tanks and jets appear in any one scene, and the Con's are depicted as a pitiful band of bots who keep missing thier shots, but seem to get nailed every single time. I haven't seen a single scene in all three movies where a Decepticon single-handedly takes down several tanks and jets at once.

And no, the scene with the Fallen at the pyramid doesn't count. With his kind of powers, he should have obliterated the whole navy by himself, using that anti-gravity trick of his.

I've seen movies with pretty bad plot holes, but DOTM has got to have the biggest one in existence. The Decepticons plan to use humans as slave labor to rebuild their planet. And just how are we supposed to do that? Humans are far more fragile, smaller, weaker, and CANNOT survive without an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Last time I checked, Cybertron doesn't even have an atmosphere. Manual labor has always favored strength, size and durability, things in which humans are inferior to compared to Cybertronians. Makes about as much sense as getting trained gerbils to build your house.

They should have just stuck to the original idea of depleting the Earth's resources.

All in all, it's a much better effort than ROTF. Pretty good in my book, but with a little more effort, it could have been great.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not asking for an Oscar-winning script here, but at least give us something that's NOT ridiculous. Iron Man had a pretty simple plot, but it works well in its simplicity.

[Vepariga]

one other thing i find amusing in the tranformer movies is the military showcase, its like Bay picks out the cool things and just throws them in there for the sake of saying 'thats cool'...

[Vermillion One]

Like the flying squirrel scene. I read an article in which he said that they were shoe-horned into the action sequence after he saw them on tv. Having said that, I enjoyed it as a big dumb action movie, too bad its titled Transformers.

[big F]

You see that show casing a lot in movies when it comes to using the military. Look at ID4 you'd think the entire U.S military only had one type of plane. Last time I was on a military base there were a whole mixture of hardware. Granted there were a few new tech items that us Techs got all steamy about, but the majority of kit was tried and tested dented and scratched. Sure you could argue in the case of ID4 the aliens wiped out every thing except for the small group of F18's IIRC they were the plane of choice at the time.

Getting back to DOTM you would expect military units to be made out of the cutting edge hardware as it would be made available because of the known threat. I would have also expected to see a ton more military might sent Detroit's direction. The feeling I got was there had been a limited military fight and then Megatron had been given the key to the city and been told your the Mayor now.

What we should have seen was a massive military strike decimated, local inhabitants subdued and small resistant cells trying to fight, also covert special forces infiltrating the city while the military try and make head way in the skies above using drone recon etc. I think that would have made it more gritty and better story wise.

In Megatron's Master Plan the Deceptions are far more ruthless, and remember that was a kids cartoon and Bay directly plundered the story arc from that.

Edited October 23, 2011 by big F

[mecha2241]

Um, the last time I checked the Willis Tower was in Chicago, not Detroit...

[anime52k8]

What we should have seen was a massive military strike decimated, local inhabitants subdued and small resistant cells trying to fight, also covert special forces infiltrating the city while the military try and make head way in the skies above using drone recon etc. I think that would have made it more gritty and better story wise.

maybe my memory is a bit fuzzy but that sound more or less exactly like how it went in the movie.

[eugimon]

maybe my memory is a bit fuzzy but that sound more or less exactly like how it went in the movie.

ah, but you're forgetting the first rule in "How to hate Michael Bay": Everything michael bay does is wrong, especially if he does what you say you want him to do.

[Kanedas Bike]

Too funny. When (not if) the 4th movie is green-lit and if Bay doesn't return I can't wait to see what the new complaints will be (and how valid they'll be).

-b.

[big F]

Too funny. When (not if) the 4th movie is green-lit and if Bay doesn't return I can't wait to see what the new complaints will be (and how valid they'll be).

-b.

Yup " I hate (fill in blank) for killing my childhood memories"

But hey I want a forth film just to see what happens when you remove Bay from the equation.

[GU-11]

Yup " I hate (fill in blank) for killing my childhood memories"

But hey I want a forth film just to see what happens when you remove Bay from the equation.

The problem here is that there are plenty of worse directors than Bay.

Another thing to worry about is the fact that the style of any film that pioneers a concept or franchise [Tim Burton's Batman], will usually be aped by a new director who takes over. In Batman's case, the whole quirky Gothic gig was replicated in the third and fourth Batman movies, which went from bad to worse.

I'm just worried that the new guy will try to do Bay's MTV thing--dorky jokes, crass humor, obnoxious explosions, annoying characters etc. And the military worship...let's not even go there.

Edited October 24, 2011 by GU-11

[RD Blade]

I want a forth film just to see what happens when you remove Bay from the equation.

Nothing too different, I'd imagine. For a couple reasons, off the top of my head.

1) As GU-11 said, any new director would likely try to emulate Bay's style. The reason: Bay's version of TFs has proven to be profitable. Deviating from a proven formula probably isn't something studios do without some arm-twisting.

2) ILM has a library of CG Transformers models that use Bay's design cues. Creating new models that look different from Bay's is expensive and time-consuming. So unless 4 is a reboot, aside from a few new additions, those models are being recycled...as seen with Barricade/Sideways and especially obvious with Blackout/Grindor.

[Kanedas Bike]

...so then from a logical stand-point, or for a sense of continuity bring back Bay and set expectations accordingly.

-b.

[jenius]

"set expectations accordingly." That's the kind of talk that made it so there were no first place awards and instead everyone gets a trophy for participating. WORM BOT THIRSTY!

[Kanedas Bike]

It's a movie about alien transformable robots, not a contest about them.

As much as you can't wrap your brain around how dumb some of the plot points were (or lack of plot, character development, special effects, on and on and on) I can't wrap my brain around why anyone expected anything different from the movie.

-b.

[jenius]

i'm sorry, that sounded snippy. I completely disagree with the idea that lowered expectations some how make bad films better.

Edited October 24, 2011 by jenius

[Kanedas Bike]

I do not contend that lowered expectations automatically make a movie, or "thing" better.

What I am contending is that based on Bay's track record overall, and how the first two Transformer movies turned out why would one expect anything different?

The filmmakers said "Hey, we know part 2 sucked story-wise and we swear we're going to do better for the third installment". Based on your own post and experience with the movie it doesn't appear that they did a very good job at that.

The point I keep trying to make is that you had higher expectations and I think you shouldn't have. Would that have made a bad movie better for you? Maybe, maybe not, but there wouldn't be this supreme disappointment that you communicated in your earlier post.

You expected a "good film".

I expected a "Michael Bay film". Read into that what you will, but I'm not referring to just who directed the movie.

Whose expectation was more in-line with reality?

-b.

[jenius]

Your logic is flawed start to finish. You expected crap, got crap, and you're stoked 'cause it met your expectations. I hoped for something good, got crap, and your saying it's my fault for hoping for something good? In the end were both holding crap but you're smiling about it and saying i'm the fool. I dunno, guess we'll just agree to disagree.

[Kanedas Bike]

With all due respect, you're missing my point from start to finish.

First, I never said I was stoked. The movie was EXACTLY as I expected it to be, a big, over the top, silly popcorn movie based on a 20 + year old property about transformable alien robots.

You expected something more and were let down. That's the crux of your beef with the movie and apparently with my contention that had you not gone looking for Shakespeare you might not feel so wronged by the experience of watching it.

But yep, let's agree to disagree.

-b.

[mikeszekely]

I hoped for something good, got crap, and your saying it's my fault for hoping for something good?

So there's this guy, and he has a reputation for giving out turds, right? One day, he tells you he's going to give you something good, but he winds up giving you a turd. Disappointing, sure. Two years later, he gives you a second turd. Two more years later, he admits that he gave you a turd, but totally promises that he's going to give you something good for real now.

You tell me, is it Bay's fault for giving you turds, or your fault for falling for it again?

[jenius]

wtf? This isn't a fool me once situation. This is me saying 'this movie is crap' and some people arguing that because we knew it would be crap we should consider it less than crap. No, just because we had every reason to expect crap doesn't mean we should be satisfied by crap.

edit, I think the argument really isn't about whether or not this movie is crap but whether a person could still enjoy it knowing it's crap if they're just in the mood to watch 3 hours of whiny shia and explosions and that's what they want to see. Sure, if you want that, and you expect that, you will enjoy it... But that certainly doesn't make the people calling it crap wrong.

I gave plenty of valid criticisms of the film. I don't think the film is crap because I had high hopes and it turned out to be terrible. I think the film is crap because it IS terrible.

Edited October 24, 2011 by jenius

[mikeszekely]

wtf? This isn't a fool me once situation. This is me saying 'this movie is crap' and some people arguing that because we knew it would be crap we should consider it less than crap. No, just because we had every reason to expect crap doesn't mean we should be satisfied by crap.

edit, I think the argument really isn't about whether or not this movie is crap but whether a person could still enjoy it knowing it's crap if they're just in the mood to watch 3 hours of whiny shia and explosions and that's what they want to see. Sure, if you want that, and you expect that, you will enjoy it... But that certainly doesn't make the people calling it crap wrong.

I gave plenty of valid criticisms of the film. I don't think the film is crap because I had high hopes and it turned out to be terrible. I think the film is crap because it IS terrible.

Let me preface this by saying that I don't disagree. Bay's treatment of Transformers has been, from the get go, awful in my book. Toilet humor, jump cuts, annoying humans, robots that look like a drawer of cutlery fell into a blender, zero personality for characters not named "Sam" or "Optimus Prime", and the names of beloved characters slapped on robots that bore little to no resemblance of previous versions of said characters.

But I do get where people like Kanedas Bike are coming from. It's not so much that we know Bay's going to hand us a turd so we should smile and thank him for crap. No one's going to make the mistake of thinking that Transformers was going to be as on the same level as The Dark Knight or anything like that. But even dumb movies have their moments, and if you want to watch giant robots smack the tar out of each other, options are limited.

[kanedaestes]

He did? Damn, talk about humble beginnings.

That's not so humble as he was the writer for ALL the Blade movies and for years before those. Goyer is very hit or miss, the only reason the Batman films are as good as they are is because he is collaborating in the writing with Jonathan and Chirs Nolan. For instance he brought us the amazing Dark city, but also gave us Nick Fury: Agent of Shield.