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Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by 3000 »

As far as we know, with the end of Dark Of The Moon, Michael Bay's directed franchise is coming to an end (unless he wants more money bad enough,but the guy is rich as it is).

So, what are your opinions on the series as a whole?

What did you think of the first film? Second? Third?

What were your gripes with the films?

What did Bay do right?

Favorite parts/scenes?

Favorite Characters?

Anything else you'd like to add?

--

Transformers (2007): I remember vividly well, that warm summers day on July 3rd, 2007. I was (i think) thirteen years old at the time, and i had already gotten my tickets in advance. I was super excited. I grew up with Armada, not G1, so maybe that's something that helped me like the films more. I go into the theater, and I'm in absolute awe, the whole time. The sheer awesomeness of seeing some of my favorite characters on the big screen looking realistic and coming to life for me, was just a great experience altogether. Something, i'll never find myself forgetting. I saw the film numerous times afterwards, including a special IMAX presentation, (i attended the first one in my town) and some IMAX bigwigs came in and gave everyone free Transformers posters and keychains and bumper stickers. Awesome.

The first film, out of sheer enjoyment gets a 10/10.
On a critical standpoint, looking back, i still think it's the best of the three, and definitely the most "magical," if you will. 7/10.


Transformers: RoTF (2009): I came into this one hoping for the same magic that I did before. I didn't quite get that, possibly because I was growing up, or possibly because it simply wasn't as good. The action was well done, and there were some things that bothered me about it. I still found myself enjoying it. Though, i find it hard to rewatch on DVD and stay interested.

Enjoyment: 7/10
Critical: 5/10

Transformers: DoTM (2011): I was expecting Bay to improve over his failings in RoTF, and on that front, he didn't disappoint. I think he fixed or attempted to fix, almost all of the issues with RoTF. I thought action was solid, the last hour especially, and I didn't once feel like it dragged out. Sentinel Prime was a great villain, and it was definitely better written than the second one. 3D was top notch.

Enjoyment: 9/10
Critical: 6/10

My gripes about the series in general:
- Characters that weren't Optimus Prime or Bumblebee weren't developed on too much
- Character deaths really irritated me, because they were inconsistent. Megatron got killed, and his spark got burned out, yet Jazz got ripped in half and can't be revived by the matrix? Also, when a character dies, the Autobots almost don't give a shit.
*Optimus dies*- "yeah, just toss him off the helicopter."
*Ironhide dies*- "who the fuck is Ironhide?"
- Decepticons were mostly just drones to kill. I'm looking at you, Constructicons
- Decepticon Clones
- Megatron being a bitch "There is no leadership but mine." *2 seconds later* "..My master..." (to the fallen)
- We never really got a decent Megatron Vs. Optimus 'equal strength, match to match, blow to blow' fight. it was either once sided in primes favor, or one sided in Megatrons.
- The Fallen was a total waste


I think Bay did a lot of things right with the series.
- Radical Character redesigns. if the g1 fanboys got their prime they wanted to get, it'd look fake, and shitty.
- Great action scenes
- Good knack for doing things realistic
- Keeps them exciting
- General public appeal, reigniting major interest in the franchise.

Favorite parts/scenes?
- Forrest Battle
- Ironhide and Sideswipe vs. The Dreads
- Ironhide/Ratchet/Jazz vs. Brawl

Favorite Characters?
- Optimus Prime: Peter Cullen is great. Optimus is essentially a BAMF.
- Ironhide: Badass character, wished he didn't die. :/

Anything else you'd like to add?
- I honestly enjoy these films. They entertain me.
- I think Bay just strives to entertain, and i think he does it well.

The series as a whole for me?
Probably 7/10.
--

Thoughts guys?
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Gojira21 »

I agree with pretty much everything u said man, but sadly i have not yet seen Transformers 3 -_-...But thing with RoTF it was the character development was pretty lame and way to much unesscary comedic scenes, even though the "special brownie" scene was actually good. I still remember when first teaser trailer came out for Transformers(2007) with the mars rover, that got me soo freaking pumped for this. Actually the first movie is what actually got me into Transformers
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Spirit Ghidorah 2010 »

Transformers (2007) was shit. Yeah, absolute shit. Bored the ever-loving fuck out of me. I wanted to see robots beating the chrome off of eachother, not an hour and a half of Shia LeBouf making awkward advances on Megan Fox. The final battle scene also did not impress me. Sure, the battle between Optimus and Bionecrusher was badass; too bad it lasted 50 goddamn seconds. 5/10

Revenge of the Fallen (2009) was THE shit. Hater gonna hate, this was everything that the first movie SHOULD have been. More focus on the actual transformers and not the human characters (because having a Transformers movie be about Transformers makes too much damn sense, apparently). Epic action scenes throughout. Plus watching Optimus fuse with Jetfire was pants-shitting. And fuck off if you thought The Twins were racist. They weren't reflecting black people; they were reflecting wiggers. And yes, wiggers talk and act like that, so don't act so insecure when you see these guys mouthing off like that. Besides, Michale bay could have features Chinese cars with heavy accents, tiny guns, and an inability to drive straight, and I would still laugh my ass off. It's called "loosening the fuck up". Yeah, we have 4 seconds of dogs humping, and John Totorro's thong, but that didn't ruin the movie for me. Is this movie perfect? No! Tifa Lockhart isn't perfect either, but I'd bend her over and make her spell "Run" in an instant. Was this movie damn good? You bet it is. It delivered everything I wanted in a Transformers movie. 9.3/10

Dark of the Moon (2011) was passable. It took everything good about ROTF and everything bad about TF'07 and smacked them both together. On one hand, we had some more epic action scenes. The wingsuit sequence was especially awe-inspiring. Plus seeing Shockwave and his driller hunting for the humans was mind-numbingly tense. On the other hand, we had to plod through a cesspool of needless human subplots. We could have EASILY shaved off a good half-hour from the whole "Sam is trying to find a job" schtick, plus that Asian conspiracist was by far the most annoying character in the movie. Hell, if he was an actual Asian "racist" stereotype, I would have laughed my ass off at him. But no, he was just annoying and took up too much screen time. I cheered when Laserbeak defenestrated him. Oh, and the human villian was both completely unnecessary and a complete dick as well. The movie should have instead focused on more development of the Transformers, especially Shockwave. All in all, it wasn't a disappointment like TF'07 was, but it wasn't as epic. 8.6/10
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by HayesAJones »

The first was actually a pretty solid film. The second was only good for the action sequences. The third one just didn't do it for me.

It annoyed me how they tried to give the robot's personalities with ridiculous accents, not by actually spending time characterizing them. And I hated how the Decepticons would growl and roar and slaver. What's with that? They really couldn't find another way to make them seem evil than that? And most of the deaths were very underwhelming.

Overall, masterpieces if watched for the action alone, but if you wanted decent movies...

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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by therealmccoy »

The first movie was good; I liked it because it was a Transformers live-action movie, and the bots were awesome. I thought the human aspect was interesting, even though there was a little too much, but it was really a building block for the series to me, so that was forgiveable. And I like Shia Labouef, don't care what anybody says. 8/10 for me.

ROTF: I'm mixed on this one. Lots of bots, which was cool, but the shoehorned-in feeling of the humor was a little much. Skids and Mudflap were probably the most annoying characters in that movie. The Fallen, a supposed all-powerful and dangerous being, got the shit kicked out of him and died in a matter of minutes. Even though Optimus was stronger, it felt a little shallow to me. The human aspect was still enjoyable to me, although Epps constant whining and cracking stupid jokes wore on my ears a lot. 6/10

DOTM: The human aspect was still enjoyable to me here. I'm glad John Tuturro was in all 3; he cracks me up. Eppswasn't so annoying, and Patrick Dempsey was a good villain. The bot action was even better than the 2nd movie. Sentinel was a great villain, and the addition of shockwave was cool.

I remember after ROTF came out, I went on the IMDB and read some user comments, and they completely trashed Bay, Fox, and Labouef; mostly Bay, saying the only reason he did this was to milk the franchise, and other things like that. Pft. I never got that. I think he did a great job bringing a long-loved franchise to the big screen, and for pete's sake, it was 3 movies. The whole series gets a 9/10 from me.
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by ZimMan2 »

Looking back on the first film, while far from perfect, it was vastly enjoyable. The action was well-done, the effect were fantastic, and the human element wasn't irritating. And, as I said in the DOTM thread, it had a very Speilbergian vibe from it all, which I loved.

ROTF was and is a hot mess. Even as a mindless action film. The pacing, one of the strongest things about the first film, is broken. Switching from Ludicrous Speed to slow as molasses and back again over and over and over and over. The action, while improved, does not have nearly as much dramatic weight, and the final battle suffers from being overlong and a total lack of a satisfying conclusion. Add on to the that the fact ALL of the human characters, with the possible exception of John Tutturo, are annoying as fuck AND every ounce of potential it had as a Transformers story is utterly wasted, and I think it is fair to say I hate this movie.

DOTM, I'm more mixed about. The human characters weren't annoying this time, and the action was better constructed as a whole, but the pacing was still all over the place and a lot of potential was again wasted. At the very least,it gave us the best version of Laserbeak ever (yeah, I went there) and the final confrontation between Optimus and Sentinal was actually satisfying.
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by shinmattiathekaiju »

The first movie was like Godzilla Final Wars:Stupid,inconsistent but so much fun. 3/5

Revenge Of The Fallen:Terrible terrible movie! Not only it has many plotholes but also annoying and offensive jokes,annoying characters played by actors who can't display human emotions correctly(Looking at ya Fox and Labitch). 1/5


Dark Of The Moon:Liked at first because it doesn't have the same problems of ROTF but looking at it now,is kind of a boring movie,Sam turning into an aggressive douchebag made the character more annoying,the puny humans still got more space on screen than the transformers despite being the only reasons why we see these movies and the characters of Megatron and Shockwave are badly written as well as Sentil Prime sudden betrayal. 2,5/5
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Gigan X3 »

So, what are your opinions on the series as a whole?
I haven't seen much besides these 3 live action movies but I did like 'em as a Saga.

What did you think of the first film?
I like it a lot, did back then when I saw it in theaters, and still do. It's Fun, Interesting and entertaining among other things, the robot designs are pretty cool, I'm a fan of Bumble Bee and Starscream since then and because of them went to watch...

Second?
...This thing, It was a complete snorefest, the camera was too shaky for my taste, there were too many robots and I couldn't tell many apart from each other, I loved the first action scene with the giant robot in the city but after that everything was decent or so but not as good as the first since by the time the action came, I was already to bored because of the abysmal plot and acting.

Third?
Very fun, a bit too long for my taste and the human characters made while more sense than in ROTF, less than in the first film, and didn't need that much screen time, the robots were much more well designed here, mostly everyone was given enough lines to get SOME idea of who they are and so on, so forth, I liked pretty much everyone except for Sentinel Prime but I guess you're not supposed to like him. The Action scenes were nice and that's what I went to see so I was pretty satisfied overall.

What were your gripes with the films?
The humans take too much screen time, I don't mind it if it's ACTUALLY funny characters like some from the first film, but if it's that hideous Ken Jeong from the third film then HELL NO.

What did Bay do right?
The Robots, the action scenes, most robots had cool personalities and that's a big plus.

Favorite parts/scenes?
Every scene with the Robots in the first film, the first action scene in the second and just the Robot Action in the third.

Favorite Characters?
Humans:That fat nerd kid from the first movie that eats the donuts and Mr. "CRIMINALS ARE HOT!"
Autobots: BumbleBee, Wheeljack and Sideswipe.
Decepticons: Starscream, Ravage and Laserbeak.

I liked most robots but these are my tops.

Anything else you'd like to add?
I Wouldn't mind another film in 5 years.
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by 3000 »

mecha-gino wrote:http://www.tohokingdom.com/forum/viewto ... ansformers

Beat ya too it 3000. :P
Almost a year old. Seems old enough to me. Plus, this is the post-dotm thread, and it's NOT counting the animated movies. just the bay films.

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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Gojira21 »

Well ive already heard that they plan on making a 4th movie, and it is supposed to kick off a new trilogy. But both Bay and Labouf will not be returning. Cant remember the site or i would post it
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Gojira21 »

Ah ok, well i usually dont follow transformers sites
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by gwolf »

[quote="3000"]
What did you think of the films?

I went back and watched it before I went to DOTM. It's better than I thought. Still not brillant but some nice moments, decent graphics etc. Humour and characterisation did bug me quite a bit though I'd give it a 6

The second and third films basically was a handful of solid scenes separated by bad caricatures and humour that wasn't really funny. I'd give ROTF a 4 and DOTM a 5. DOTM was a good farewell to Bay's style...but we needed a goodbye to Bay's style.

What were your gripes with the films?


Characterisation. I think Gogdog on TFW summed it up well. Epps is the only genuine person in this. Everyone else is a caricature pushed to 11. The Transformers themselves improved as the series went on, but it became very clear the creators of the movie never really saw them as anything more than vocal special effects. Just overall poor, with some shining moments of course. Bay cannot direct people. That's not being mean or negative...it's an observation
Designs. While they work well enough...they're not great. Although there has been a notable improvement throughout the series.
Humour. Awful. Absolutely awful. I think people laughed because it was a tension release, not because seeing a guy pull a map out of his crotch and rub it on a guys nose is funny. Too many caricatures, too much...just too much really
Action scenes. While they're certainly extensive, in retrospect...they're kinda dull. The best ones are the hand to hand, and they only make up a tiny percentage of what we see on screen. Mostly...it's hide and shoot. Which is dull. Plus the general filming style, especially the POV aspects on major fights doesn't work.
"Romance" characters. Awful...just...just awful. Not even good eye candy, let alone good actresses

What did Bay do right?


When he got the action right, he got it right. There are glimmers of genuine success in there.
That's really the big one. All in all things were inoffensive, but not fantastic, outside of those stand alone scenes.
Murder Prime. Why? Cause he's fecking hilarious. I have spent a lot of time having a laugh of the idea of the fourth movie being about him snapping and going on a killing spree.

Favorite parts/scenes?
Dread chase
Forest fight

Favorite Characters?
Ironhide

Anything else you'd like to add?

These are not any example of good cinema, but the reaction they get from either the fanbase or many reviewers, is completely out of proportion. Over all the series is a low 5. I saw some explosions, but I gained nothing from the experience. In the days of movies like Thor and Iron Man, which can do genuinely good movies out of similar concepts, there's no reason why Transformers can't.

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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by StonedHope »

The movies are a technical master pieces, superbly entertaining and very silly. They are dumb but way before the point of not being any good. I love them to pieces. its embarrassing to see people on the web ripp into these movies. If these people were around for the wizard of Oz I feel like they'd be bitching then too. Haters gonna hate. But I will enjoy my transformers with a fucckin bowel of popcorn, to compliment it.

Also I recently lost my love affair with 3D and have been avoiding it like the plague. But it has been re-kindled. 3D had just become to hard to focus on detailed objects and to dark. Non of those problems happened during my viewing of TF3. I just have to be more selective in the future.
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Giga Kaiju »

This Movies are Good Entertaiment, this are not my favorite but i enjoy them.
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Re: Michael Bay's Transformers Films

Post by Crocodile »

I liked the first one
I hated the second one, but Jetfire was awesome. Skids and Mudflap though, all of my hatred.
I'll see the 3rd on Blu-ray when it comes out
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General Transformers Thread

Post by UltramanGoji »

We have one for the third movie.
We have one for the TV series.
Here's one for everything.

Discuss anything about the greatest cartoon robot series ever. (Gundam fans, cry me a river)
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Re: General Transformers Thread

Post by Primevalgodzilla V2 »

Comic series>Cartoon series by a pretty long shot, save for Beast Wars and Animated, actually.
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Re: General Transformers Thread

Post by Breakdown »

Movie verse > G1 *raises shield*

But yea Im completely honest when i say that, I REALLY like the movie universe of the Transformers. G1 is all right and is fun to watch, but I could never get into it.
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Re: General Transformers Thread

Post by Primevalgodzilla V2 »

Read the G1 comics instead (the cartoon is crap once you get past the nostalgia). IDW (the guys behind the Goji comics) has produced a shitton of TF comics and most and pretty awesome.
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