Michael Bay comes strong with his special effects.  Those were nice.  Especially towards the end.

There were parts at the beginning that I thought were kind of  corny.  And why oh why do they have to include some cheesy romance into the mix.  The transformers were bad-ass and then you had a bunch of cheesy moments that negated that.

They could have focused on the military folks but noooo, that would make too much sense.

In summary, overall a good movie.  If you were a transformer fan in your childhood, they didnt screw it up.

Oh yea; effects wise, they are really starting to compete with George Lucas and his shop.  In all honesty, these effects probably surpassed (just a bit) the light and magic people.

You clearly weren't a transformer fan in your childhood.  They SERIOUSLY fucked it up.  The re-design of the Decepticons is chief in the list of fuck-ups.

Oh goody, a thread full of fan-boy frothing.

Nah, I haven't the energy for it.

The movie was good as a standalone movie, but that's not what it was.  It was presented as THE TRANFORMERS movie.  They used an existing, popular license to sell tickets.  That done, they should have honored the material.

If they had just made a giant robots from space movie, then I'd have no trouble with that.  Why use existing canon just to mangle and alter it to suit some sort of arrogant need to be "artistic" with the source material? 

I know it's all about business and revenue, but damn.  They could have made a Transformers movie that was true to the material and made just as much money.  Probably more.

"Compete" with ILM?  They ARE ILM!

wha?

I understood the movie producers hired ILM (Industrial Light and Magic -- you know, George Lucas's company) to implement their 'transforming vehicle into 30 foot tall robot' effect.  Have I been mis-informed?

I understand the ILM bit, but not the "compete" bit.

Bot had mentioned, "in special effects, they're really starting to compete with George Lucas"

To which I replied, "Compete?  They hired George Lucas.  How is that competing?"

"To which I replied, "Compete?  They hired George Lucas.  How is that competing?"

Well that explains it.

And they did ruin megatron.  Good god.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatron

No shit.  They ruined ALL of the Decepticons.  They look RIDICULOUS.

Although, Megatron's ORIGINAL toy package art was a little... err.. rough, too.  It made him look like he had a tremendous package.  And he looked all proud of it, too.

This is what I'd consider the Canonical Megatron:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/Tf3.jpg

Saw it at the drive-in on Friday night.

I never watched the cartoon, so I didn't have the baggage of seeing how loyal it was to the original.

I thought it was an enjoyable enough movie, though I would have liked it a *lot* better if, as Bot mentioned, they stuck with the military guys and stayed away from the whole teen romance schtick. It was edited weird as well - for instance the hacker guy sideplot that just fizzled into irrelevance.

It had the potential to be truly epic. Instead it's a summer movie that I doubt I'll rewatch in years to come.

yeah the editing was terrible  SPOILERS FOLLOW

















The teen romance was pretty much mandatory because the cartoon featured human teens as major players in the plot.

Let me restate that the editing was terrible.  When Jazz dies it's horrendously glossed over and barely even noticable.  Not nearly enough time was spent developing the Autobots as characters.  NO time was spent developing the Decepticons.  Megatron had no personality whatsoever.  He was dormant, he woke up, he broke shit, he died.

Terrible.

***MORE SPOILERS***

"Megatron had no personality whatsoever.  He was dormant, he woke up, he broke shit, he died. Terrible."

Why dont you tell us how you really feel.

I did watch the cartoon (maybe not a super fan), grew up with the toys.  But could only remember the original megatron (one from the cartoon), optimus prime, bumble bee(which made a horrible toy, head kept popping off), smokescreen.  But couldn't remember a lot of the plot.  But looking through wikipedia, it seems they dropped the ball.

Also, that whole S7 plot with john turturro seemed corny.

What happened to soundwave?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starscream


If they can find a way to make a legos movie, I can die happy.  Pixar could make it happen.

They could have made a great show by just borrowing one small part of the Transformers universe -- they didn't have to try to touch upon everything from beginning to fini.

Are you kidding?  They left out REAMS AND REAMS of the Transformers universe.  They touched only on major, core characters.

Completely redoing Ratchet as a European looking ambulance was stupid, too.  Most of the other transformers kept something close to their original appearance, why the re-deco on just ratchet?  They mixed and matched iterations, which is a sure fire way to piss even casual fans off.

Starscream got a decent amount of screen time, but he got like, ONE LINE, and he just followed orders and blew stuff up, no Starscream personality, nothing.

It was terrible.  They made the Transformers into the aliens from Independence Day or something: totally alien, not much personality or even much dialogue, just this huge deus ex machina that controls the plot from afar.  In short they made a hokey summer movie and slapped Transformers branding on it to drive ticket sales.

Utter bullshit.

I suspected as much.

Though they seemingly spend a LOT of money on the 'Transformation' animation. 

The US Military "Kick-butt hardware" seemed a little out-of-place in an anti-alien movie.  Wasn't the original point that we NEEDED the Autobots to defeat the Decepticons for us, because 'normal' Human Tech simply wasn't up to the job?

Though I must admit, watching the "kick-butt hardware" in action did make me bounce on my movie seat.

I was impressed by how accurate the non-transformer military hardware really was.

"I was impressed by how accurate the non-transformer military hardware really was."

Hehe, I noticed that also.  Did you notice how they had to use the laser target designator.

And I also noticed they machine guns were possibly M4 carbines?  With laser guided scopes.