Kath and I went to see “Transformers” this afternoon.
Now I was a bit old for the animated series when it first aired, so I have no particular attachment to the characters or concepts. I’m not going to get my knickers in a knot because character designs were changed or liberties were taken. I’m much more interested in the simple concept of whether I was entertained or not.
Answer: Most definitely.
Mild spoilers below…
I have to admit that I found the first forty five minutes the most engaging. Our young hero, Sam (Shia LeBoeuf acting his heart out) buys his first car, a yellow Camaro, which turns out to be (wait for it) more than meets the eye. In short order the vehicle is playing matchmaker for Sam and a local hottie. But the car is also heavily armed and good in a fight as a shapeshifting police car goes after Sam and a titanic struggle ensues. Basically the film initially plays out like the mutant crossbreeding of “Terminator II” and “The Lovebug”…”Herbie Goes to Defcon 4,” if you will.
If that’s where the movie had remained, that honestly would have been good enough for me. But nearly an hour in, the rest of the titular heroes show up: Twenty foot tall living machines who mostly appear to have picked up our language through the internet (which would explain the wacky names they have. Bumblebee? Why in the world would an alien be named after an Earth insect?) As Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen, the original OP) explains the Autobots’ backstory while his cohorts each exhibit their one character trait, the film teeters into the arena of the truly ludicrous.
Fortunately director Michael Bay wisely decides to go with the silliness rather than fight it. The result is grin worthy sequences such as the sight of a bunch of gargantuan robots trying to remain inconspicuous in a suburban back yard and failing spectacularly. By acknowledging the inherent absurdity of the situation, Bay manages to hold on to his audience’s suspension of disbelief long enough for us to segue into some truly spectacular battle scenes, including a climactic half hour running battle between Autobots, Decepticons, and the US Army, while various bystanders desperately try not to get themselves blown up, shot up, or just plain crushed. Some gloriously hysterical dialogue (one Autobot, fed up with Sam’s annoying parents, argues the advantages of simply blowing them to hëll; at another point, Optimus Prime obliterates Sam’s mother’s garden and mutters, “Sorry…my bad”) and surprisingly scatological sequences (a Transformer chooses a very crass means of displaying his contempt for an abusive government spook) hold the entire film together. At its best when focusing on the core concept of A Boy and His Car, it nevertheless…despite a bit of unevenness…provides exactly what one would expect: Two-plus hours of mindless entertainment.
Surrender now to the certainty of a sequel.
PAD
• 
Mike, you are so incoherent that someone might actually agree with me just to get some distance from you! You say that “Peter confirmed Mark’s [rebuttal of] bill.” If that is so, it happens elsewhere than in the post to which I responded, that is, the one with “The rest of your post is just too stupid to respond to.” – which is followed by nothing other than a confirmation that PAD did indeed recognize a previous comment as directed at him.” ‘Yes, you’re right, I did take that comment as directed at me, just as you thought’ is not a response to “the rest of (bill’s) post.” Of course, “too stupid to respond to” indicates that he did not intend to respond. You should take his word for it that he didn’t; It would have been sloppy construction, something of which he is not guilty here, or very often, if you notice. He’s a good writer: That’s definitely not where I disagree with him.
I don’t think it was mindless, there is some good stuff in there, Optimus’ concern for humanity and giving them a chance when maybe Megatron is right.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.
OK, so they have the Allspark, and the Decepticons are attacking. Bumblebee takes the cube and they all head to the city. Why? I can see the humans giving him cover as he escapes, for what little good that does, but once they met up with the other Autobots, why not let them take the cube and scram? “Good luck, dudes! Go bring your planet back to life!” Why did the Autobots not take the battle for the cube far away from the humans they’re supposedly so interested in protecting?
On the politics point, I agree with your conservative detractors that you would savage baby Bush for anything he did, good or bad. I just differ from them in thinking the latter alternative is almost impossible – so that problem wouldn’t be likely to arise.
Wah wah wah. Big flipping deal–they have a scene where an unseen president with a texan accent requests a ding dong. Bush should be so lucky to have that be the kind of criticism he gets.
Jeffrey vs Mike–who wins? Who loses? WHO CARES???
Jeffrey, your inaccuracy is so severe I can only ask you as I have on a previous occasion — are you not well?
Haven’t seen the film…two kids under two with no babysitter means we’re seeing lots more on DVD release day than we’d like…but of all the summer films, this one I think I’m going to miss the most till that little DVD comes out.
And for the record, were Bush to do something I actually liked, I’d say so. Which would not change my mind about him being among the worst possible leaders this country could have at this point in time.
Not related to any of the ongoing discussions, I thought I’d note a couple of things I thought the movie did better than previous versions (by which I mostly mean the ’80s cartoon; I haven’t watched every single incarnation of the series since then).
One is the sense that these are actual shapechanging metal beings, rather than, well, metal-and-plastic toys thrown up on the screen. This was punctuated by having their weapons be a part of them, rather than accessories that magically appear in their hands after they transform. (Prime not having a magically-appearing trailer in truck form helped too.) I was always bothered by the scenes in the cartoon where Prime and Megatron had energy weapons replace their hands, because they seemed to come out of nowhere (and didn’t represent a feature of the toys); in the movie, when they did the same thing, they created the weapons by rearranging the metal of their hands, which makes much more sense to me.
The other (we’ll see if this lasts in the sequel, since you can only do a slow reveal like that once) was the sense of “robots taking the form of Earth technology to hide among us in plain sight” that the cartoon never really conveyed. This was demonstrated best by Frenzy, who took on the role that Soundwave should have but never really did: a piece of small, unassuming modern technology. The problem with Soundwave was that, since the original Transformers line was created by mixing toys from different toy lines with different scales, he was taller in robot form than most of the car characters. That made it difficult to follow through the implications of his being a tape player and actually have him infiltrate anything. By not employing the size-changing cheat, the equivalent character in the movie could actually act effectively as a spy (and also give the human characters a close-quarters opponent who wouldn’t instantly squish them).
(The concepts chosen to frame the story of the cartoon–all the Autobots live in their crashed spaceship–also made it harder to do much with the “robots in disguise” concept, since there was no reason for them to have to hide among humanity for any length of time. I don’t blame the creators of the cartoon for this, however, since the nature of the medium at the time required a status quo to frame the stories, and giving them a base of operations was a key part of that.)
I actually loathed the scene outside the house; it was a cute idea, but it went on too long. And I definitely could have done without the extended “were you mášŧûrbáŧìņg” conversation between Sam and his parents.
And geez, does John Turturro have gambling debts or something? His character was the worst part of the movie, and given that Anthony Andersen plays the world’s best hacker, that’s saying something.
Mike, your inability to present a coherent sentence concerns me, but I think I’ll get by. What “inaccuracy” is bothering you? If you think the secret wisdom is nothing beside the fact that PAD is pretty good at figuring out when someone is referring to him, rather than someone else, I surrender: It’s true – He knows how to do that. Beyond that, to make it simple for you: PAD said, essentially, that the rest of bill’s comments, other than the one he had already discussed, were too stupid to discuss. I think he didn’t discuss them – just as he predicted. Perhaps you feel that, despite claiming he wouldn’t, he did discuss them. I don’t think so. If you wanted to refute me, the best way would be something like this “No, Jeff: That’s dumb. There was absolutely no need for PAD to deal with those foolish ideas! Listen carefully and I’ll explain it to you. _____________________. There; do you see?” Sorry, but you’d have to come up with that explanation for yourself – I think he should have dealt with the points or left them alone, while it seems you think he really did deal with them, despite saying he wouldn’t.
Bill Mulligan (I’ll try to be scrupulous about your capital B to distinguish you from the unpopular “bill”): Forgive me – or don’t if you prefer – God knows why, but I like arguing with Mike, and don’t care very much whether you dislike either of us. “Big flipping deal,” as you said so movingly.
Jeffery, again you are changing the conditions of what you said would satisfy you. First you ask us to “find anything in PAD’s comment to ‘bill’ that addressed ‘the rest of (bill’s) comment.'” When we do, you make discussion your condition. Your pattern of changing your conditions qualifies you as a weasel.
John Turturro was terrible and that’s not usually the case. I can only guess that he figured the only way to play this was totally over the top. Why the director didn’t point out that he was the only one acting under this perception is beyond me.
One other minor quibble–one of the disadvantages of CGI is the tendancy for users to emphasize realism over drama. When the roboys are clashing it can be hard to tell what is happening, so blurred is the action. Stop motion, with no blur, is unrealistic and stobed but every frame is clear and sharp. I’m in the minority in prefering it though.
Just came home from seeing it for the second time, and the whole “How did they know it was on the glasses?” question became much clearer to me this showing.
The glasses themselves are pictured in the eBay auction. When we later get the close-up look at the glasses as they’re decoded by Optimus Prime, we see it has tiny Transformers language symbols embedded on it.
When the little boombox Decepticon (Soundwave?) was scanning the internet, we see quick flashes that shows he finds the newspaper story of Grandpa Witwicky finding an iceman, going crazy and writing Transformers symbols.
So what I got out of it was from scanning the internet, both Bumblebee and Soundwave found two examples of Transformers language, both directly tied to the Witwicky family. (Yes, I am willing to believe that these internet-scanning super-robots can notice the fine details on low-quality eBay pictures.)
Note also that the eBay picture of the glasses only shows one lense, meaning that they couldn’t get the complete information from just the picture, requiring them to get áhøld of the actual glasses. It probably gave them just enough information to make them realize “Hey, that looks like Megatron’s handwriting, and a piece of the location of the Allspark!”
So they all knew what the glasses contained, how it got there, and who currently had them. Which leads Bumblebee to set himself up to become Sam’s car, and the Decepticon police car to go after him for it.
The one bit I’m still hazy on is how Megatron could know the Allspark Cube was in Hoover Dam, when he’d been frozen in ice thousands of years ago. Even if his internal sensors somehow still had a track on it, Megatron imprinted the information onto the glasses in 1897, but the dialogue admits that Hoover Dam was built to house the Allspark Cube in the in the 1930s.
– Fer
Incidentally, if Bush ever did create a cure for cancer, he’d pass it on to his cronies in the health care and pharmaceutical businesses, and everyone involved would produce just a small amount at poverty-inducing prices. ‘Nuff said.
Two videos that may amuse Transformers fans:
the original Citroen C4 ad and a hilarious parody. (Be sure to watch the orginal first.
Oh – and another ad for the C4.
These came out (as i recall) before i even heard there was going to be a “Transformers” movie.
(The Citroen 2CV [“Deaux Chevaux”], featured in the parody is, from what i’ve heard, the best-selling car in the hsotory of the industry, having stayed in production longer than any other…)
As to the movie – I’ll wait till DVD, i think.
Just to reiterate from another poster, they never said the Feds moved the cube (All-Spark). They said Hoover built the dámņ around it; they only moved Megatron.
A neat trick to telling the difference between Autobot and Decepticon: eye color. The only exception I recall is the cd-player (Frenzy, was it?) who had blue eyes like the Autobots even though the rest of the Decepticons had red eyes.
John Turturro was terrible, how? He was in Brain Donors mode, and I don’t see a thing wrong with Agent Roland T. Flakfizer.
The movie poked a little fun at Bush because he was comfortably laid back on Air Force One and requesting a Little Debbie treat? You partisan hacks can be ridiculous. Didn’t notice them talking up Hoover, the Republican unlucky enough to be president when the Great Depression began?
“The movie poked a little fun at Bush because he was comfortably laid back on Air Force One and requesting a Little Debbie treat? You partisan hacks can be ridiculous.”
Is THAT what they’re complaining about? I have to admit, I’ve been largely tuning out the political strokefest that some would (ahem) transforms this into because it’s just SO ridiculous that I don’t feel it’s worth utilizing the brain cells required to follow it. But honestly, is that the alleged anti-Bush aspect under discussion? Why are we supposed to assume that that president was Bush? Because he likes snack cakes? Isn’t eating junk food as president more associated with Clinton?
When I initially dismissed the concept of hauling politics into a Transformers review as being too stupid to address, it seems that I was right to do so.
PAD
All this political talk made me think I was in the wrong thread. Why sully the pure joy and goodness of TF with politics?
I think that it was necessary to belittle the President in this movie so that the Secretary of Defense could be the man on the move. Otherwise, we’d be looking at Independence Day all over again!
“Just to reiterate from another poster, they never said the Feds moved the cube (All-Spark). They said Hoover built the dámņ around it; they only moved Megatron.”
Ahhh! Thank you, Ryu (and the original poster). Works for me.
And not to stick my nose into the political thing, but I’m kind of surprised people felt the movie had anti-Bush sentiment. I didn’t get that vibe at all. If anything I got the opposite, since the hacker kid’s computer was surrounded with Bush pictures, a deck of the “Iraqi Most Wanted” playing cards, etc.
– Fer
You all do know that Michael Bay admitted he was ok with the US military cooperating in the filming with their intention of treating it as one long recruitment film, yes?
When I was in basic training and they had us waiting around filling out forms and getting shots and such, they felt free to air filmed actions scenes. With no sense of shame, they slipped in a video of the climax of Wrath of Khan, fast forwarded to where Kirk and Spock said goodbye to each other, played it until they torpedoed Spock into space, then stopped the tape. We were so fatigued, most of the recruits had no defense against that kind of manipulation, and fed off of the implied fidelity to their heroes.
You just know if you grab a kid who’s talked to a recruiter from this point on, if you ask, he’s going to tell you the topic of Transformers came up. They’ll make it part of the playbook.
OK – There’s no point in arguing with Mike, because he very seldom argues against what one says, but rather what he thinks you might have said, or could have said, or were going to say, or he prefers you had said, or somebody else said somewhere else in another context about something else. My point was this: PAD said he was not going to address the rest of mike’s comments, as he thought they were “too stupid.” Many here think that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I don’t agree, but the numbers are against me. Mike, on the other hand, thinks that PAD did in fact address those issues – very well, I suppose. It looks like there are three points of view here:
1. The general opinion: that PAD had no need to address inane or insulting comments, and that they either had been satisfactorily dealt with elsewhere or didn’t merit comment at all. This is a matter of opinion, and pretty widely-held.
2. My opinion: that PAD should have either commented on the points or left them alone, rather than simply calling them stupid and moving on. This is also a matter of opinion, and not at all widely-held.
3. Mike’s opinion: that PAD did in fact address the issues, despite saying they were too stupid to address. This is a question of fact: whether or not PAD addressed an issue he had said he would not.
It seems to me (it is my opinion) that either 1. or 2. could be correct, and that my choice of 2. could be wrong, but 3. is simply mistaken, seeing a phantom posting not otherwise apparent here.
Obviously, my post had a foolish error of “mike” instead of “bill.” That I am fallible is no surprise.
But Jeffrey, there’s a fourth option.
PAD addressed the criticisms pertaining to the movie.
He called stupid and refused to address the argument that his rejection of certain criticisms of the movie is related somehow to his opinions about Bush, and that these opinions are independant of what Bush actually does.
How should PAD have addressed these allegations? Does he need to prove that his opinions on the movie are not related to his opinons on Bush? Or that his opinions of Bush are related to what bush did or does?
You also found fault with this reply by PAD:
“Those people have way lower standards than I have?” Oh…look…over there. It’s the horse you rode in on. Feel free to hope back on and ride it out.” Which should not be confused with “The rest of your post is just too stupid to respond to,” by the way.
This might have been somewhat harsh. But so were the words: “Those people have way lower standards than I have (which also may not be a bad thing!),” to which PAD addressed his reply.
What should he have done, started a discussion about how his standards are not low? Proved it in some way. This was not an issue that really opened itself to discussion.
In short, PAD replied harshly to too comments that were also quite harsh, perhaps even more than his. He did not open them for discusson; first, because there was nothing to discuss; secondly, because this thread is about the movie; and thirdly, because he is not obligated to reply to every comment with a long and serious discussion. What he did do, was reply to the criticisms.
So, it seems to me that your work in the self appointed role as the hypocracy police has led you agai on a false trail.
As for Mike, knock yourswlf out. You are familiar with the risks.
Any response which is a thinly veiled “Oh, yeah…screw you!” seems a mite harsh, Micah. Perhaps it’s an American or Anglo-American cultural thing, or it may be more universal – I don’t know. You may have a better perspective on that.
I think your reading of PAD’s response relies on the whole of his comments on this string. Mine relies on the specific post it addresses. So, yes: I have a good idea of what he thinks and why he rejects mike’s viewpoint; “The rest of your post is just too stupid to respond to” is as far as he went in explaining himself in the specific post. What follows is an assurance that he knows when a comment is addressed to him, rather than a refutation of any opinion. So, you have read the string accurately, but I think you are wrong about the individual post. My disagreement with PAD is the rather narrow one of thinking his response was arrogant; That with Mike is that I suspect his brain is diseased.
The only thing I thought was even remotely political about the movie was the concept of two alien races waging war on American soil. It’s not America’s war, but American people were fighting and dying because of it. I’m particularly reminded of the Israel/Hezbollah war on Lebanese soil, but I’m sure some Iraq parallels can be drawn too.
The Autobots, much as they wish to protect human life, still fought in the middle of a populated city and crashed through populated buildings. You can blame the Decepticons, I suppose, but it still makes you wonder if the Autobots didn’t make some kind of blunder or if they couldn’t have taken the battle elsewhere.
Considering the huge mobility and apparent strength/firepower advantages the Decepticons had over the Autobots, facing them in the open terrain of the desert would’ve been instant, sure death to the Autobots and total victory for the Decepticons.
Fighting in the city was the only chance the A-bots had….
Please don’t spell “mike” in all lower case unless you mean me – i think i’m the only “mike” around here who spells it that way.
If That Other Mike also uses all lower case, please find some way to distinguish him from me.
(So far as i can understand what anyone is saying, i’m with PAD on this little brouhaha.)
“Israel/Hezbollah war on Lebanese soil?”
Do you think the Hizballa or the Israelis were aliens?
The war took place on the soils of Lebanon and Israel between Israelis and the Hizballa, who are Lebanese. No aliens participated in this war to the best of my knowledge.
The war took place in cities and villages because a large part of the bunkers and mobile missiles of the Hizballa were placed in cities in Lebanon, and after they were fired, they hit cities and villages in Israel. Again, no aliens.
I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know if there was a reference to Iraq. I did see the war.
The Autobots, much as they wish to protect human life, still fought in the middle of a populated city and crashed through populated buildings. You can blame the Decepticons, I suppose, but it still makes you wonder if the Autobots didn’t make some kind of blunder or if they couldn’t have taken the battle elsewhere.
As I recall, taking the Allspark into the city was the idea of the human military folks, not the Autobots, since Optimus and crew weren’t even to the dam yet, and Bumblebee wasn’t talking yet. From the human military point of view, it was a reasonable strategy. They knew they had to get the Allspark away from the quickly awakening Megatron, and the only other Decepticons they had engaged in open combat were Blackout and Scorponok, both of whom would have had them at a distinct disadvantage in the open desert, not knowing if they were going to have air support.
Sadly, a potential city combat probably had to fall into the “acceptable losses” category when weighed against the potential extinction of the human race.
Actually, making it the humans’ decision and not Prime’s was one thing I think they did right, since Prime would have objected strenuously to risking even that many human lives.
-Rex Hondo-
Peter confirmed Mark’s comprehensive rebuttal of bill. In doing so, yes, Peter literally addressed an issue he had said he would not. Your intolerance of contradiction does not magically make contradiction a phenomenon impossible to observe.
I can keep citing the post you keep saying doesn’t exist as long as you keep denying it exists. Existentially speaking, this is no burden to me, because there is no mental contortion involved in aligning my judgments to the plain linearly-presented facts of this thread.
You on the other hand are sheltering judgments in denial of the plain linearly-presented facts of this thread, the burden of this perhaps exhibiting itself in errors even you aren’t typically prone to: confusing my name for bill’s, apologizing for it, then repeating the error with “[Peter] rejects mike’s viewpoint;” when Peter literally has not acknowledge anything I’ve said in this thread.
Typing “mike” for “bill” is not a casual mistake, and you’ve made it twice. This looks like a cry for help from your own feelings and intuitions because you are strapping down their freedom to interact with what is obvious in their environment to adopt and maintain an insincere facade. If you want to keep grinding your gears in this manner, well, that’s what you get for exerting yourself counter to what is plainly observable.
This was a very entertaining action movie, and as the biggest fan of the Transformers when I was a kid (it was the gateway comic book for me, the first one I ever collected and read every month), it was extremely fun watching it. Granted, there were a number of creative aspects of the adaptation about which I had reservations (I’ll go into that below), but that’s more subjective than the plot-character-theme stuff I usually analyze when I explore my feelings about a film, and in terms of the plot, character and theme, it was okay, especially given that it was a Michael Bay adaptation of a kid’s animated tv show.
John Turturro’s character was the worst, most annoying movie character I’ve seen in years. I don’t know why Michael Bay has to work with such bad writing. But there’s no excuse for this. And when I see that writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are both writer/producers on the upcoming Star Trek movie, I cringe.
VOICES
It was SO COOL that Peter Cullen was tapped to reprise his role of Optimus Prime! But I thought that too much of his dialogue was corny, especially, his closing monologue. But the “One shall stand…one shall fall” line was a nice bit of continuity to the ‘84 film, and his saying “My bad” when he crushed that garden fountain was jarringly funny. And I was SO HAPPY when I saw that retractable blade that came out of his arm that he used against that one Decepticon during the highway brawl. It was (or seemed to me to be) a nice adaptation of that orange “energy axe” replaced one of Prime’s hands during an episode or two of the animated series (during which Megatron had a purple spiked ball-and-chain).
It’s unfortunate that Chris Latta is no longer with us, and could not reprise his role of Starscream, but I was perplexed by Peter David’s revelation that Michael Bay didn’t want Frank Welker to reprise his role of Megatron because he had aged to the point where he didn’t feel he sounded like he wanted Megatron to sound like. That’s too bad, because while Hugo Weaving did an okay job, I found his voice to be mostly indistinguishable from say, Barricade’s. Since he was hardly marketed as a selling point (I didn’t even know it was Weaving Peter mentioned it), I wonder why they chose him, and not simply an unknown who could’ve replicated Welker’s original Megatron voice.
When first meeting Ironhide, his voice seemed to have a British accent during the utterance of one of his lines.
DESIGNS & F/X
I have to admit, I was initially skeptical of the odd-looking designs of the robots, but at the same time, I knew that when animated or comic book properties are adapted to live action film, they tend to favor more detail, and by the time I was watching the movie, I had warmed to the designs. I was also unhappy with Prime’s moving mouth, but I got used to that too, and was happy when I saw that the “mouth mask” he had in the series/toys/comic showed up as a clever piece of battle armor. I also liked that fact that the Transformers could reconfigure, or essentially shapeshift, the design of their bodies, after scanning Earth vehicles and other objects. In the comics and series, they had to be custom rebuilt by their starship in order to change their transformed modes. I also liked the use of holograms to provide the appearance of drivers, or in the case of Bumblebee, apparent damage to look like a beat-up car on a car lot.
That said, I question whether all those disparate-looking body parts that we see on the Transformers could really be accounted for by the objects they transform into, and I was unpleasantly reminded of the really bad use of CGI to cover up this type of problem in Lost in Space. One of the things I think it would’ve been nice if they retained from the series was the jerky, segmented movement and accompanying sound effect that is employed when they transform. We got a little of that sound effect, but only just.
I also didn’t like Frenzy’s odd like “Robotic Gremlin” mode of moving or talking. I also didn’t understand why, if he was a radio, did they make him Frenzy rather than Soundwave (even though I don’t think his name was mentioned in the film). I also didn’t understand if he re-formed himself after seemingly being damaged in the Bumblebee-Barricade battle, or if that was a different character.
I was confused a bit by Barricade. When I saw the cop car, I thought it was Prowl, since he was a cop car. But then he started tossing around Sam, and threatening him, and I thought, “Geez, why are the Autobots acting so mean?”. It was only after a bit that I realized it was Barricade. Why is this? Barricade was a race car (and later a missile truck), not a police car, and the plot really didn’t require that he be a police car. It just seemed kinda wrong to see a police car with the Decepticons, since it was always the case that benevolent public service vehicles like fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, etc. were always Autobots in the previous media.
And speaking of which vehicles they were, why wasn’t Bumblebee a VW Beetle? I assumed that perhaps they hadn’t gotten the rights from Volkswagen to do this, but there was a VW bug in the car lot right next to Bumblebee! Was it that VW didn’t want its vehicles to be a character engaged in violence? Or was this another creator decision?
MISCELLANEOUS STUFF
Did the Transformers arrive on Earth in ships, inside those meteors, or just fly through space and through Earth’s atmosphere unprotected?
How can a Transformer like Optimus be clumsy enough to destroy that garden fountain? He’s an extraterrestrial robotic intelligence! Should he be able to avoid that sort of thing?
Where does all that mass go when the All-Spark cube shrinks?
When did Bumblebee get his voice fixed? Ratchet told Prime that he was still working on it when we first saw all the Autobots together, and then, at the end of the film, it’s suddenly fixed. How’s this?
Why not disassemble Megatron, especially his head/brain, before putting him in the ocean?
Where did those new Decepticons come from during the final battle? Who used the cube to make them? Why couldn’t Optimus use the cube to make more Autobots?
If Jazz was torn in two, wouldn’t he still be alive if his brain were intact?
VW doesn’t want its vehicles to be associated with war robots, even if it was to be a good guy.
They seemed to arrive through space unprotected and not in ships.
As for Optimus’ clumsiness, being extraterrestrial and robotic prevents you from being clumsy on Earth because…?
The mass displacement of the Allspark may lend itself to the mass displacement common place in the G1 cartoon (such as Soundwave).
I assume Bumblebee got his voice fixed via contact with the Allspark, which is how Frenzy was made whole.
Disassembling Megatron probably seemed unnecessary, when they wanted him at the bottom of that trench ASAP, plus would’ve been inconvenient for the inevitable sequel…
They so explained how the energy from the Allspark makes Earth’s technology sentient during the Nokia phone sequence and as the reason why the Decepticons wanted the thing throughout the movie. Those near the end were created by accident through Sam. It wasn’t explained why they make ‘Decepticons’ as opposed to ‘Autobots’… perhaps the natural inclination for sentience is toward destruction and evil?
Transformers exist via their spark, not their ‘brains’. Apparently, Megatron extinguished Jazz’s spark, but that isn’t to dismiss his potential resurrection since Optimus did clench a piece of the Allspark from Megatron’s gaping wound. Besides, if Megatron is coming back…
I really don’t get what is with the John Turturro hate.
Barricade as a police car allowed him to get close to Air Force One to pick up Frenzy, so it did play a role in the plot.
How can a Transformer like Optimus be clumsy enough to destroy that garden fountain? He’s an extraterrestrial robotic intelligence! Should he be able to avoid that sort of thing?
All a matter of scale. They’re simply not used to moving around on a planet where everything is so small and fragile.
Why not disassemble Megatron, especially his head/brain, before putting him in the ocean?
Cybertronians don’t have have a brain in their heads, so to speak. Their consciousness is contained in their spark, which is usually in their chest. (A concept that originated, I believe, in Beast Wars) So, when Sam combined the Allspark with Megatron’s spark, his consciousness was (supposedly) obliterated. As to why they didn’t disassemble him… Well, that’d just make it harder to resurrect him for the sequel, wouldn’t it?
Where did those new Decepticons come from during the final battle? Who used the cube to make them? Why couldn’t Optimus use the cube to make more Autobots?
If you mean the pop machine and evil airbag, they were created when Sam hit the ground, triggering a small flash of Allspark energy. If you mean the other actual Decepticons, they were biding their time, carrying on their own searches for the Allspark, waiting for the word that it’d been found, or so I assume.
I imagine Prime probably could have created more Autobots, but I got the impression that new Transformers are essentially mindless, lashing out at anything around them. Trying to create a new “family” would just be too dangerous, I imagine, on a world so fragile, and the Allspark would be simply too dangerous to keep around, since the Decepticons would never give up trying to get it.
If Jazz was torn in two, wouldn’t he still be alive if his brain were intact?
If his spark chamber were compromised or completely destroyed, it would be like ripping a human’s head in two. There just ain’t no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.
-Rex Hondo-
“And speaking of which vehicles they were, why wasn’t Bumblebee a VW Beetle?”
I haven’t seen the movie, but based on what I’ve heard, it seems that part of Bumblebee’s role in the movie was to help the hero get the girl. It seems to me that this is something even robotic VW bugs can’t acheive. This is sci-fi, but it still has to be believeable.
My assumption had been that the first 45 minutes was SO evocative of “The Lovebug” that having Bumblebee be a VW beetle would have been simply too on-the-nose.
PAD
Weren’t all the Autobots part of the GM/Chevy/Pontiac family?
That’s why no VW 🙂
The war took place on the soils of Lebanon and Israel between Israelis and the Hizballa, who are Lebanese. No aliens participated in this war to the best of my knowledge.
I’m sure the civilians caught in the middle of the dámņëd thing saw it a little differently. In the movie, the humans were seen by the TFs as civilians, with one side trying to protect them and the other side not caring. It’s like the Israel/Hezbollah war, I feel, because of that “civilian” element. Two parties waging war in your back yard. It almost doesn’t matter who was “good” and who was “evil,” because they were both responsible for so much destruction.
The point Micha was making was that the Isreal/Hezbollah conflict was one between Isrealis and Lebonese, taking place on Isreali and Lebonese soil. Not a conflict between two non-native forces taking place on someone’s else’s soil, as in the movie. So, therefore, he felt the analogy was not particularly analogous…
Oh my God… I just realized…
Technically advanced bad guys set up shop on a planet with squishy little natives, figuring said natives to be no threat. Good guys show up and make nice with natives. Natives end up being instrumental in defeating bad guys, despite being squishy and relatively primitive.
Humans are the Ewoks of the Transformers universe!
-Rex Hondo-
The point Micha was making was that the Isreal/Hezbollah conflict was one between Isrealis and Lebonese, taking place on Isreali and Lebonese soil.
The media seemed pretty intent on portraying Hezbollah as a terrorist group separate from Lebanon in terms of politics and intentions. So I was under the impression that Hezbollah acted independently of the Lebanese government, which in my eyes makes the fact that they happened to be Lebanese more of a technicality.
Kind of like if a bunch of American football players banded together and waged war on Canada. (Or Canada waging war on America to get at the football players.) American citizens (humans) are dying because Canada (the Autobots) are going after the football players (Decepticons). Have I made this sound ridiculous enough?
As far as the analogy not working, that’s very possible. It’s a complicated situation, and it all depends on whose perspective you choose to see it from. I empathize more with the civilians, I guess. To them, it doesn’t really matter where the two warring parties come from–they might as well be aliens. And when it comes down to human versus human (or robot versus robot) it’s hard to tell one side from the other. It’s just one big mess.
PAD’s so much better at analogies… I guess that’s why he’s the Writer of Stuff.
Rex: Humans aren’t the Ewoks of the TFU. Ewoks were far more useful.
“I’m sure the civilians caught in the middle of the dámņëd thing saw it a little differently.”
Not really. The Israeli soldiers are recruited from the Israeli civilian population, and the Hizballa recruits from the Lebanese Shia population. Both the Israeli government and the Hizballa enjoyed the support of most of their population during the war. So the armies were not alien to the civilian population, and each side had very clear ideas on who was good or evil respectfully.
Although in Israel there was an Arab minority and part of the left who were against the war, and in some cases for Hizballa. And in Lebanon some of the Christians, Sunni and Druze were not per se for the war, and sought to end it, but they were patritically obligated to support the Hizballa outwardly at least. In any case the majority of Lebanese civilians affected by the war were Shia, the majority of which supported the Hizballa.
So no aliens.
So no aliens.
You’ve won this round, Prime. But I. Shall. Return.
“The media seemed pretty intent on portraying Hezbollah as a terrorist group separate from Lebanon in terms of politics and intentions. So I was under the impression that Hezbollah acted independently of the Lebanese government, which in my eyes makes the fact that they happened to be Lebanese more of a technicality.”
This is a misconception. The politics of Lebanon is very complicated. In any case, the Hizballa is not some fringe terrorist group. It is a political party representing most of the Shia population, who are in themselves, I think, somewhere between 30-40% of the population. Maybe more. Prior to the war, the Hizballa had four ministers in the government, as well as the support of the pro-Syrian Christian president, and were represented in parliament. They also ruled, militarily, the South of Lebanon (most of whose population are Shia), and other areas of the country, and certain quarters of Beirut. Prior to the war the Lebanese army dared not enter Hizballa controled areas. The Hizballa was the army (not terrorist group) whose forces were stationed opposite the Israeli border. The Hizballa also has their own TV channel Al-Manar.
So, no aliens.
Ryu: As for Optimus’ clumsiness, being extraterrestrial and robotic prevents you from being clumsy on Earth because…?
Luigi Novi: Because even the most primitive extraterrestrial machine that is capable of traveling across interstellar distances would be more sophisticated than the most sophisticated Earth machine, and have the ability to avoid accidental collisions.
Ryu: Disassembling Megatron probably seemed unnecessary, when they wanted him at the bottom of that trench ASAP…
Luigi Novi: Why did it have to be ASAP?
Ryu: …plus would’ve been inconvenient for the inevitable sequel…
Luigi Novi: Unless the sequel will have a different villain.
Ryu: Those near the end were created by accident through Sam. It wasn’t explained why they make ‘Decepticons’ as opposed to ‘Autobots’… perhaps the natural inclination for sentience is toward destruction and evil?
Luigi Novi: And how did Sam do this? That was my question? And yeah, why they were violent as opposed to benevolent, when Sam was the one holding the cube, was also part of my question.
Ryu: Transformers exist via their spark, not their ‘brains’. Apparently, Megatron extinguished Jazz’s spark, but that isn’t to dismiss his potential resurrection since Optimus did clench a piece of the Allspark from Megatron’s gaping wound. Besides, if Megatron is coming back…
Luigi Novi: Where was this established in the movie? And why would tearing Jazz in half extinguish his spark? And if this would, then what exactly is it that does this, and what type of damage won’t? Why didn’t the mutilation of Bumblebee’s legs do this?
Ryu: Barricade as a police car allowed him to get close to Air Force One to pick up Frenzy, so it did play a role in the plot.
Luigi Novi: Thanks.
Rex, thanks for the explanations. 🙂
I have to see this movie. I simply have to.
Luigi Novi: Because even the most primitive extraterrestrial machine that is capable of traveling across interstellar distances would be more sophisticated than the most sophisticated Earth machine, and have the ability to avoid accidental collisions.
You’re forgetting that the TFs aren’t giants where they come from. They are probably not used to such small life forms, having to constantly watch their step and the like.
Not only that, but even us weak little meatbags who actually live around here tend to step on things when we’re paying attention to something else. I can’t tell you how many times my wife has tripped over my sneakers or Brian’s toys resulting in ankle injury or much cursing or both.
Besides, I think it’s some kind of film tradition that when there are giant anything walking around, something’s BOUND to go squish. And if not, it bloody well seems like it is.
What cracks me up about this is that the same people harping about how flimsy and non-existant the plot was are the same people who think the US moved the allspark, that Sam picked Bumblebee by random chance, that Megatron knew he was in the same building as the Allspark (even though he asks Starscream where the Allspark is in their first scene together) etc etc etc. And yes, the dialogue between some of the military personnel also explain why they move the Allspark to L.A. When you watch a movie, folks, you’re supposed to LISTEN to it as well as WATCH it.
As for jazz’s spark, Megatron absorbed it. During the flashback sequence on Cybertron it shows him killing autobots and “eating” their sparks. This was a bigger plot point in the older script, which basically made Megatron out as a sort of Decepticon vampire.
So you see him rip Jazz in half, and sort of suck up a blue ray of light from Jazz’s chassis.
“Ryu: Disassembling Megatron probably seemed unnecessary, when they wanted him at the bottom of that trench ASAP…
Luigi Novi: Why did it have to be ASAP?”
Because they seemed to have a problem keeping down Devastator (the tank)? Considering the Autobots had trouble keeping him down, they probably didn’t really trust that Megatron was really down for the count. Also, because they should have noticed that Starscream wasn’t among the dead, Scorponok wasn’t destroyed, and Barricade’s fate remains unanswered.
“Ryu: …plus would’ve been inconvenient for the inevitable sequel…
Luigi Novi: Unless the sequel will have a different villain.”
Which is possible with Hollywood, but I feel quite confident Hasbro will want Megatron resurrected.
“Ryu: Those near the end were created by accident through Sam. It wasn’t explained why they make ‘Decepticons’ as opposed to ‘Autobots’… perhaps the natural inclination for sentience is toward destruction and evil?
Luigi Novi: And how did Sam do this? That was my question? And yeah, why they were violent as opposed to benevolent, when Sam was the one holding the cube, was also part of my question.”
It happened when he fell into the girl’s SUV and then on the ground; it jolted energy from the Allspark that effected her SUV, the 360, and the drink machine. I’m guessing the novelization would give more insight? I can only go buy what I recall from the showings I’ve seen.
As for Jazz’s spark, I don’t recall Megatron sucking out his spark probably because I wasn’t looking for it. Or it could’ve happened between scenes since Megatron held the two pieces of Jazz for quite some time before Optimus showed up… really late.