Nobody is forcing you to watch them. I don't care much about Dragon Ball but I'm cool with other people liking it.

Here's the thing. The quality of any work of fiction is almost entirely subjective. It's the reason lots of people like Eva and lots of people think it's pretentious crap. Same reason lots of people think Bay's Transformers movies are mindless drivel and lots of other people (like me) think they're mindless but highly entertaining movie. Nobody is claiming they're masterpieces of writing (except for Chuckman, whose mind works on levels of wisdom our puny brains could not possibly compehend) but they are a lot of fun, and cinematographically they're very well shot. They're the film equivalent of toys- they're not amazingly complex or artful, but they do give a few hours worth of enjoyment now and then.

The Transformers movies are popular for the same reason the Transformers cartoon was popular in the 80s- because they're mindless fun starring robots that turn into vehicles. That's pretty much all that Transformers has ever had going for it anyway- they're based on toys for crying out loud! In fact, I reckon that if children's entertainment in the 80s wasn't so keenly censored, the cartoon would have closely resembled Bay's movies in terms of vulgar humour. Jesus, remember Carbombya? Transformers has never, ever been good, nor will it ever be. But at least the Bay movies aren't filled to the brim with QUALITY and scale issues.

Coming out in (slight) defense of Bay for a Moment. What about Bruce Willis in Armageddon? Or Will Smith in Bad Boys II? Those are really the only two movies of his I really like. That's only because I'm a Big fan of both actors. Mark Wahlberg has lots of fans, does it have something to do with that? Star appeal?

Actually I have not seen either of thos emovies so I can't really comment on their performances inthem. In my post I was mostly talking about the characters in his transformers movies , which I suppose should have been a bit more specific as I don't have alotof exposure to his work outside of that franchise.

Trajan wrote:Considering we're talking about Pacific Rim in a thread about Transformers, I don't think anyone really has the standing to bring out the derailment card, my friend.

I recognize the irony, but even so, in context . . .

Yeah, I got nothin'.

Ray wrote:Coming out in (slight) defense of Bay for a Moment. What about Bruce Willis in Armageddon? Or Will Smith in Bad Boys II? Those are really the only two movies of his I really like. That's only because I'm a Big fan of both actors. Mark Wahlberg has lots of fans, does it have something to do with that? Star appeal?

I haven't liked any of them, personally. I keep trying to like his films, but have yet to succeed. Well, with one exception . . .

We know it sucks, So why do MILLIONS of people go see it?

I can't explain the others, but having just seen it I can tell you why T4 has made a billion bucks: it's because it doesn't suck. I mean, I can't believe I'm saying that, really, but it doesn't. And I can tell you why in one little phrase: the useless shit is gone. The stupid human tricks (like the military porn and the like), the government types who have their own little subplots that don't relate to the TFs, the minor characters who are only there for cheap laughs, the idiotic scenes taking up space and breaking up the movie, all that shit is gone. What's there is there for a reason, and it mostly holds together pretty well.

The human cast is not great, but it is not awful. Bay can't direct them for shit, of course, and that made it impossible to like them (though most of the KSI staff really grew on me). But none of them were there solely as comic relief, and most were not actively annoying. What's more, they were useful. I'm not gonna comment on the plausibility of that, but nevertheless, once the film established that a given trick worked the humans used it to good effect. I especially liked the battle with Lockdown; both the humans and Bumblebee had solid parts in that fight and none of it felt manufactured or forced (well, Lockdown had to tapdance a bit to avoid squishing the human at the end, but that was relatively minor; the rest of it was great).

The Transformers themselves were more distinct than they've ever been. Hound, Drift, and Crosshairs in particular were fantastic. I really loved the way Prime went through a serious crisis of faith, and ultimately found his faith in humanity restored. Lockdown was outstanding, and I really liked the way the manufactured transformers looked and moved and felt different from the others. The Dinobots didn't get enough screentime, but what they did get was terrific. I really dig the whole "dark knight" schtick they had going on. And I gotta say, there were a couple of points where Prime and Bee wound up literally juggling the humans through the air as they all went careening after an explosion or whatever, and managed to keep them safe. That was some impressive camera work on Bay's part.

Even the plot held together pretty well; the CIA guys had a solid motivation ("there are no good Transformers, and there are no bad Transformers. There's just them, and us." That's wrong, of course, but after seeing a city wrecked it's a defensible viewpoint), the corporate guys had a solid motivation, the conspiracy between the two was believable, and Galvatron and Lockdown were doing their things with solid motives. Yes, there was handwaving with the seed and the creators, and there were some dumb moments (if Prime can fly why didn't he just take the seed out of the city himself, why didn't anyone shoot the damn magnet earlier, how the fuck did everyone get from Beijing to Hong Kong by car in any reasonable amount of time, DEAR GODS WHY DO THEY THINK MAKING U.S. MILITARY ASSETS IN MAINLAND CHINA WILL WORK OUT WELL FOR THEM, etc), but the broad structure of the plot was alright. The big issue was that it was too damn bloated. All of the plotlines were good, and they intersected well, but there was just too darn much of it. Anything cut out would be a loss, though.

And then there were the minor details: the weapons and tactics used were more diverse and generally more sound. Hound in particular made great use of them, and Crosshairs did as well at a couple of points. Also, particularly apropos given the PR talk: there were multiple significant female characters, they all did important shit, and when the setting shifts locales we actually got, y'know, Chinese people in China. That shouldn't even be noteworthy, but since PR didn't even bother . . . Also, the film doesn't glorify Communism or any of that rot: it just shows the government responding competently to an alien invasion, same as we saw with the Americans in the other movies. But in stark contrast to those their response didn't take screen away from the TFs, which was really nice.

ElMariachi: I didn't see any stereotypes there apart from Drift, but maybe I'm missing something. The thing to remember with Drift is that he's an established part of the TF universe, not something Bay cooked up. He's been around since the Armada days. The character himself is a stereotype, yes, and it's legit to ask why he was included when so many others weren't, but this wasn't a Bayism or anything (also, given the way TFs work in the Bayverse I wonder if he didn't intentionally model himself after a Japanese stereotype. The whole honor bit seemed to be his schtick, so who knows?). Hound, so far as I can tell, was modeled on Goodman himself, not anyone of any specific ethnicity. And Crosshairs looked like an RPG archetype/stereotype, but again, I didn't get any ethnic vibe from him. If there's something in particular about these two I'm missing I'd be happy if you'd elaborate.

But overall my impression matches yours: I agree re: Prime flying off into space (the ship was right there, man, and Lockdown even had it flying and everything . . . ), and that Romeo and Juliet card was indeed creepy as hell (the two kids were the most annoying characters in the film IMO, even if they did prove useful at points). I also agree that the heel/face turn of the scientist was forced (though OTOH that was also kinda a self-preservation thing at that point). But at the same time the movie didn't pretend to be anything more than what it is: an action movie designed to convey lots of awesome action scenes involving transforming robots that beat the crap out of one another. And it delivered that in spades. Yes, there were problems. Lots of them, actually. But it delivered on its promise, and (this is the important part) nobody else does that.

And that's why it's made a billion bucks.

To be fair, I haven’t seen the fourth installment. I was mildly entertained by the first time, and shut the second film off after Optimus Prime dies. A friend of mine had me finish it with him, and even then he found himself pointing out the sloppy script. (And he was a fan of the series thus far.)

So of course I never saw the third one. I kept hearing it was the sequel the first movie should have gotten, but I felt it might have been too little too late. And the way Bay just decided to introduce another love interest for Shia without explanation as to why was just insulting. I mean, I’m no fan of Megan Fox, but does the storyteller honestly think he can swap put what he thinks are major characters and not feel the need to explain why? It was insulting to my intelligence, and I hadn’t even bothered seeing it.

Now I do hear that the 4th movie doesn’t suck as hard, I guess. I honestly can’t put the effort into giving these movies anymore chances, especially since I’ve waited for the DVD rentals before seeing the films since the first movie. 2 whole movies that stretch a maybe 90-minute concept into over 2 and a half hours each was just waiting too much of my time. So I never bothered with any of the other installments, or anything else by Micheal Bay for that matter. The Rock is his best work, and that’s the only one I might spend time with again. But nothing else.

Busting through a wall in Manhattan into a forest in the middle of... somewhere is a very Transformers thing to do.

Freaky: I don't blame you for giving up. It's the only rational thing to do after the first, much less the second and third. But nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised.

And I absolutely hated The Rock. I've hated every Michael Bay movie, actually, save perhaps the original Bad Boys. And even that was iffy. Guy knows his craft, but that doesn't mean it works for me. But this one was alright.

And I saw an extended trailer for TMNT, and I honestly think this is the best treatment they'll have gotten since Eastman and Laird. I mean, they've been treated like shit since then, so that's not hard, but even so.

The Rock has a terrible script but the visuals are astounding.

The Rocket Man line is painful, but who cares?

Bay isn't the writer on these things. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the stuff people find so objectionable in these movies comes from the studio or even Hasbro. Orci and Kurtzman get steady work despite being terrible writers because they do what they're told and give the studio what they ask for without arguing about craft or whatever.

Holy crap what's going on in here?

*scratches head*

Dataprime wrote:Holy crap what's going on in here?

*scratches head*

Everyone's hating on TF4 even though I'm pretty sure El and I are the only ones who've actually seen it.

Yeah, let's not do that. Idiocy purged.

If you haven't seen the film in question you probably should just shut up and lurk. Which is what I will go back to doing now, assuming no more stupidity happens.

That is a good point. Bay doesn't write these things, he just directs the visual side. If you paired Bay up with a genuinely good writer I reckon the result would be a fantastic film.

On topic, I thought Hound stole the show. I mean, I never expected anything less from John Goodman, but holy crap was he great! I mean, sure he was just Walter from The Big Lebowski in robot form, but...I fail to see the problem with that. I hope we see him again in TF5- he was easily one of the best things about the movie (although Prime was badass as usual, hearing Frank Whelker as Galvatron was great, and Lockdown was wonderfully nasty). Kinda miss John Tuturro, but his character was getting old (although in my humble opinion, he single-handedly saved ROTF. "I am directly below...enemy scrotum!")

Drift was cool as well, and Ken Watanabe gave a good performance as him. Crosshairs was the least interesting of the 3, but still pretty cool. Robot trenchcoat, man. Bumblebee was OK, with his radiospeak rant over the Stinger presentation being rather amusing- but I've always liked Bumblebee, so eh.

Also, James Bachman was great (although it helps that I'm familiar with some of his other work and find him really funny). There's something about him I just really dig.

The MLP reference can go die in a hole though. Feed it to Unicron I say.

Agreed on all points, Squig. Hound was fantastic. And I love that even more since Hound was one of my favorite TFs back in the day. Great stuff.

Holy shit, you guys thought my hatepost was serious? I was just piggybacking on the comment Bagheera made about people hating T4 when they haven't even seen it. C'mon EGF. I thought you knew me better than that.

In all honesty, the Transformers franchise never really interested me all that much. I'm too young to have remembered the original cartoon and too old to have been driven crazy by the 2007 version when it first came out, so all that's really here is mild indifference. Of course watching people bitch and moan about them is half the fun.

Yep, I am too young to remember the OG 80's toon as well.
My first Transformers was in fact Beast Wars

Bagheera wrote:Agreed on all points, Squig. Hound was fantastic. And I love that even more since Hound was one of my favorite TFs back in the day. Great stuff.

Yeah, Hound was always one of the better ones in the cartoon (although Jazz was always my favourite Autobot, probably because of the dulcet tones of number one super guy Scatman Crothers). I liked that they managed to make Hound just as likeable as his cartoon self without making him a carbon copy of the G1 character. I think the decision to only have just the 5 Autobots helped the film a lot actually- it worked well in the first movie (in my opinion the best one), as it allowed for some amusing character interaction and didn't crowd the screen with too many characters- Ratchet was the snarky medic, Ironhide (my favourite from the first movie incidentally) was the expert but highly-strung weapons expert, Jazz was the chill, in-control recon dude, Bumblebee was the loyal, reliable guardian character and Prime...well, he's Prime.

Fun fact: When he was first coming up with a voice for the character for the '84 cartoon, Peter Cullen based his Optimus Prime voice on his (sadly deceased) brother, who was a sergeant in Vietnam, known for his calm, in-charge and reassuring demeanour. So that's awesome.

Bagheera wrote:ElMariachi: I didn't see any stereotypes there apart from Drift, but maybe I'm missing something. The thing to remember with Drift is that he's an established part of the TF universe, not something Bay cooked up. He's been around since the Armada days. The character himself is a stereotype, yes, and it's legit to ask why he was included when so many others weren't, but this wasn't a Bayism or anything (also, given the way TFs work in the Bayverse I wonder if he didn't intentionally model himself after a Japanese stereotype. The whole honor bit seemed to be his schtick, so who knows?). Hound, so far as I can tell, was modeled on Goodman himself, not anyone of any specific ethnicity. And Crosshairs looked like an RPG archetype/stereotype, but again, I didn't get any ethnic vibe from him. If there's something in particular about these two I'm missing I'd be happy if you'd elaborate.

Well, maybe it comes from the dubbed version, it gave Hound some weird voice with more pronounced "R". Maybe the awful puns that made me hate the new Autobots so much isn't present in the original version?

As for Drift, as I said I know next to nothing about the lore so I didn't know that Drift already existed in previous series. As I said, it's much more a movie for the Transformer fanbase than the other were.

Nostalgia Chick Talks Transformers:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick/44764-starscream

Ray wrote:Nostalgia Chick Talks Transformers:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick/44764-starscream

No, she talks Starscream. And what of it?

Bout halfway through she talks about the movie Scream. . .