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I saw it last night, and I must admit I'm a little frustrated with Mr. Bay's work this time 'round. With the first movie, I thought he did a credible job indroducing the incredible concept on giant alien robots that turn into cars. With TF2, notsomuch.
The 'sposions were great (as were Megan Fox and Lizzy Lucas, especially Miss Lucas, yum!), but I found the plot to be disjointed, hokey and simplistic even for a Michael Bay film. When you have a character calling for plot exposition in the middle of the film, it's not a good sign. :)
As for the Transformers themselves, I was a little disappointed. The Bayformers are overly complicated for fast-paced action sequences. The battle scenes were so busy that I wanted to be able to pause the film to admire the great character design.
There was almost no character developement for any of the new transformers, and most of the autobots had virtually no speaking parts. Most were just charicatures or stereotypes (grumpy old codger, cocky hotshot, horny little punk). Now, I don't expect most of the Decepticons to say much, but a beauty shot and brief introduction would have been nice (secret gathering where they take super villian role call or something) before they get scrapped.
The only robot characters that got decent screen time were those annoying twins (which struck me as being a racist stereotype) and Prime (who I thought behaved out of character, what with all the berrating of his foes he did). That and Megatron and Starscream got to explore their dom/sub relationship a bit more this time.
To sum up: Baysplosions good. Rest of film bad. But hey, aren't sequels supposed to suck, then the third film is really great? Leaves me hoping for dinobots in 2011. Me Grimlock smash puny story. Dinobots always get autobots out of messes they get themselves into.
Director of Sales
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There is an incredibly funny review of TF2 over on io9.
The opening line:
Critical consensus on Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is overwhelmingly negative. But the critics are wrong. Michael Bay used a squillion dollars and a hundred supercomputers' worth of CG for a brilliant art movie about the illusory nature of plot.
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There is an incredibly funny review of TF2 over on io9.
The opening line:
Critical consensus on Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is overwhelmingly negative. But the critics are wrong. Michael Bay used a squillion dollars and a hundred supercomputers' worth of CG for a brilliant art movie about the illusory nature of plot.
"And around hour six of ROTF, something curious happens..."
hee.
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Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues
For those with no care to link:
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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" introduces some 40 new mechanized characters of all shapes, sizes and even sexes — but it's a pair of jive-talking 'bots that critics are singling out as more than just harmless comic relief.
Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact Chevys, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.
As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But the traits they're ascribed raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace" was criticized as a racial caricature.
Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern described Binks in 1999 as a "Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit," a reference to a black character from the 1920s and '30s that exploited negative stereotypes for comic effect. Extending that metaphor to the "Transformers" sequel was AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire, who calls Skids and Mudflap "Jar Jar Binks in car form."
And Manohla Dargis, film critic for The New York Times, takes it a step further, writing that the "Transformers" characters were given "conspicuously cartoonish, so-called black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas."
Director Michael Bay insists that the bumbling 'bots are just good clean fun.
"We're just putting more personality in," Bay said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."
Just got back from seeing it. I am not sure what people were so disappointed with. Even the two goofballs weren't that bad, and despite people saying they didn't do anything, they actually gave one decepticon a few good hits. As for being illiterate, well they couldn't read the language shown to them, but then again nobody could so I don't think that proves they couldn't read anything. I was glad to Arcee was in it, that was pretty cool, maybe her and Bee will start something in the next one.
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Whether you will enjoy this movie or not comes down to expectations.
If you expect the film to match "Gone with the Wind" or "Ben Hur" (like most of the movie critics), you will be sorely disappointed.
If you expect to see lots of explosions - you will be blown away.
If you expect to see giant robots duking it out - you will not be disappointed (maybe confused as to whom is hitting whom, but not disappointed).
If you want relive a childhood fantasy of your favorite toys coming to life - you will happy with this film.
Does the film have plot holes? Yep, big enough for Optimus Prime to drive through.
Are there unnecessary humor moments? Yep. But at least one should make you chuckle.
In the end, it's not high cinema. It's a movie about explosions, action, and giant shapeshifting robots. It does a great job in those respects.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, and if you are looking for the above mentioned action, explosions, and giant shapeshifting robots, you won't be disappointed either.
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I haven't seen the movie, so I will reserve judgement on the subject. However, as a very wise, and suprisingly very left leaning man once told me, projecting racism where no race is involved often says more about the person making the accusation then it does about the person being accused.
IMO That holds as much water as the "who smelt it, dealt it" argument. :)
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but looks like a giant robot duck that turns into an icecream truck (and incidentally was designed and built by someone who may not have sufficient appreciation or understanding of duck culture), is it still a duck?
I agree that nobody should be fooled into thinking TF2 was high cinema; I had just hoped for a plot that didn't require me to disconnect my higher brain functions before the opening credits.
'Splosions are good in any movie (some would be better with more -I'm looking at you, Shakespeare in Love), but I don't think they should be the whole point.
Just IMO. There is no nerd rage, nor do I want my money back.. just a vague sense of disappointment.
I love how one of the guys that did the voices for the twins described them. They are not two stupid black robots, they are two stupid poser robots. Have you even seen a couple of stupid white kids from suburbia trying to act "hard-core", yeah that's what it is like.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Did anyone catch the Oompah Loompah in the film?
Deep Roy FTW!
As for the movie in general, I thought the same as I did for the first: It delivers exactly what it promises, nothing more, nothing less. It is chock full of explosions and giant robots smashing each other up, gratuitous hoochies liberally sprinkled throughout, obnoxious bureaucrats who just don't get it, brave and harried hero types trying desperately to survive, and heaping scoops of narm and scenery porn.
Along with John Turturro looking up at Devastator and seeing a two wrecking balls ringing like bells... :)
I thought it was a lot of fun, even through the handful of cringe-worthy moments (mostly involving Mrs. Witwicky and the AutoboTwins). I did think the transformers (good & bad) went down a lot more easily in this movie than they did in the first; maybe that's a feature of all the NEST soldiers having better anti-transformer ammo/weapons after 2 years of fighting them. All in all, tho, a generally enjoyable popcorn action flick.
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I haven't seen the movie, so I will reserve judgement on the subject. However, as a very wise, and suprisingly very left leaning man once told me, projecting racism where no race is involved often says more about the person making the accusation then it does about the person being accused.IMO That holds as much water as the "who smelt it, dealt it" argument. :)
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but looks like a giant robot duck that turns into an icecream truck (and incidentally was designed and built by someone who may not have sufficient appreciation or understanding of duck culture), is it still a duck?
Well consider the case of Jazz or Captain Tarpuls. Both of them walked like a duck, talked like a duck and looked like a duck. Captain Tarpuls was exactly like Jar Jar, other than being clumsy. Jazz had the same street slang that the twins use, was a breakdancer, and so forth. However, no one ever cried racist over those characters, because they were heroic and good role models. However, they still filled the same sterotypical roles in the movie. So if someone can look at Jazz or Tarpuls and not say that they represent a negative black sterotype then by saying Jar Jar or the twins represent a negative sterotype then I agree with Dr. Stephen Robards that it says much more about the person making the claim of racism then the one who is being accused of it.
By the way, this discussion reminds me of my favorite scene in Pelham 123. A young mother asks the black man sitting across from her if he has a plan for defeating the hijackers. he asks "Why would I have a plan, because I'm a big badass black man?" The mother says no, it's because she notice the Army Airborne ring that he was wearing, the same one her husband had worn. If a person spends all their time looking for racism, they are sure to find it. Of course it doesn't always mean that the racism they find really exists, except in their own mind.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well consider the case of Jazz or Captain Tarpuls. Both of them walked like a duck, talked like a duck and looked like a duck. Captain Tarpuls was exactly like Jar Jar, other than being clumsy. Jazz had the same street slang that the twins use, was a breakdancer, and so forth. However, no one ever cried racist over those characters, because they were heroic and good role models. However, they still filled the same sterotypical roles in the movie. So if someone can look at Jazz or Tarpuls and not say that they represent a negative black sterotype then by saying Jar Jar or the twins represent a negative sterotype then I agree with Dr. Stephen Robards that it says much more about the person making the claim of racism then the one who is being accused of it.
In Jazz's case I assumed it's because the 'original' Jazz was voiced by Scatman Caruthers.
It would have been like if we saw stenceled on the side of Starscream's jet mode "Commander Christopher Latta". (Which would have been awesome.)
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Over all, I thought the movie was great. The twins were annoying, but they were meant to be IMO. They more reminded me of the wannabe gangsta skater white boy in my gaming group then any of the real bangers that I knew growing up. Jetfire was awesome. I felt that some of the humor was more crude than it needed to be. My major complant is
It was two hours where I didn't have to think about anything but the movie and my popcorn. I thought it was pretty good, despite the twins. The action and fight scenes were great, but I was so hoping the old transformer they were looking for was the Memphis Bell, talk about a tease.
Best of all, my son paid for everything, so I'm not out any money even if I had hated it.
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... huh
... I kind of liked it better then the first one.
As for the racist thing, they reminded me of white wannabe gansta's more than your black racial stereotype.
Heck if you ask me, Jazz was WAY worse.
Think about it, he did the dancing thing, talked the talk, and when he died and was shown to Optimus Prime they BARELY mourned him saying something like "We lost a good friend but gained many more in the process."
Translation if you looked around, aside from Tyrese Gibson, it was like saying "Our one black friend died but we got ourselves a bunch of white friends, so it's all ok." Shame on you Mr. Bay ... shame on you
Well consider the case of Jazz or Captain Tarpuls. Both of them walked like a duck, talked like a duck and looked like a duck. Captain Tarpuls was exactly like Jar Jar, other than being clumsy. Jazz had the same street slang that the twins use, was a breakdancer, and so forth. However, no one ever cried racist over those characters, because they were heroic and good role models. However, they still filled the same sterotypical roles in the movie. So if someone can look at Jazz or Tarpuls and not say that they represent a negative black sterotype then by saying Jar Jar or the twins represent a negative sterotype then I agree with Dr. Stephen Robards that it says much more about the person making the claim of racism then the one who is being accused of it.
By the way, this discussion reminds me of my favorite scene in Pelham 123. A young mother asks the black man sitting across from her if he has a plan for defeating the hijackers. he asks "Why would I have a plan, because I'm a big badass black man?" The mother says no, it's because she notice the Army Airborne ring that he was wearing, the same one her husband had worn. If a person spends all their time looking for racism, they are sure to find it. Of course it doesn't always mean that the racism they find really exists, except in their own mind.
Most people found Captain Tarpuls just as offensive as Jar Jar, mainly because this reinforced a very specific(and rarely seen) stereotype/exchange that was popular in blackface comedy- dimwitted stereotypical character gets promoted over person who is slightly less stereotypical and more competent- something that translated over into mainstream comedy. However, Jar Jar was by far the poster boy for racism charges because of what we remember of that style of "comedy". I still hold the character(and the creation of his race after watching Clone Wars) against Lucas, although I enjoy his other work.
However, I completely agree on the Jazz point- and if anything Jazz was by far more offensive due to the fact that he went down in one punch after a rather ineffective offense he mounted against Megatron.
Saw it Friday night. The twins were surprisingly amusing. Not enough screen time for all the robots; I'd like to have seen more of Sideswipe, Arcee, and the Decepticons. The comment about the Fallen/Megatron relationship DID remind me of the Sith, I admit. I feel like Mikaela was kind of extraneous towards the end, though, which is a shame, since Megan Fox is wonderful eye-candy. My one comment:
Went and saw it Friday. The good of it outweighed the bad, even though some of the bad made me cringe.
Like the first, the robot parts are great, but the parts with the humans suck. Makes you wonder why Optimus and gang put up with them.
If half the dumb potty joke crap had been taken out of the movie, I would have taken my kids to see this movie and they would have loved it. Its almost like the guys from Southpark wrote all the non-robot scenes.
Was it just my imagination, or were the individual constructicons fighting in the ruins at the same time while Devastator (the combined constructicon) was atop the pyramid? And didn't optimus take out Bonecrusher (one of the constructicons) near the beginning of the movie?
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My impression is that several gun-metal gray Decepticons towards the movie's end were 'extras', representing very minor or previously non-existant characters from the comics. I could be wrong; perhaps there is a diehard solid breakdown of each and every character's location and activities to satisfy the purists and realists.
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If half the dumb potty joke crap had been taken out of the movie, I would have taken my kids to see this movie and they would have loved it. Its almost like the guys from Southpark wrote all the non-robot scenes.
You may like the Transformers: Animated series that just concluded on Cartoon Network then. It's geared for kids, but has lots of homages to the previous series (the art director is a huge G1 fan). The humour is more mature too. :)
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My impression is that several gun-metal gray Decepticons towards the movie's end were 'extras', representing very minor or previously non-existant characters from the comics. I could be wrong; perhaps there is a diehard solid breakdown of each and every character's location and activities to satisfy the purists and realists.
Now, that's a movie extra job that's hard to fill. I bet there's only a handful of extras in the universe capable of filling that role. :)
As I understand from the comics that are considered canon to the movie events, the big problem is energon: the transformer lifeblood.
In the movie universe, energon is obnoxiously hard to come by. It takes draining the fusion core of a star to get it. The device used to do so is rather massive, and needs to be decently near the star in question to avoid wasting copious amounts of precious energon. Hence specifically looking for suns, aka, stars with nearby planets.
New transformer life simply can not survive without energon to fuel it, similar to how the dietary needs of an infant are so much different from adulthood. Even then, while a transformer could run on mundane fuels for a long time, without energon they will degrade over time (Jetfire). I can't say if a constant source of energon would make a transformer effectively immortal, but the time-scale is so much larger than human that the point is rather moot.
The self repair abilities of transformers apparently makes it significantly easier to "clone" them than to create from scratch. (Think of it like second edition trolls, which would fully regrow from severed body parts.) This is why we see multiple versions of the same transformers in TF2, and ones that died in the previous movie. Apparently, after Megatron's defeat in the first movie, Starscream bailed back to their ship on Mars or such, and started cloning troops. Unique bots like Soundwave/Ravage were likely called in similar to the new Autobots.
This is why the Cube from the first movie was such a prize. It was effectively an artifact, a rule breaking item. Even the transformers don't know where it came from, but it effectively contains an unlimited amount of energon, which is why it is capable of creating "new" transformer life from scratch. The Sun Eating Device of the second movie was very much a "Plan B" for the Decepticons, compared to retreival of the Cube.
Saw it yesterday. Since when are autobots a bunch of killers?
Movie was pretty bad, fights are still way to blurry.
Worst scene: So Jetfire sarcrifices himself to give optimus his parts, optimus kills the fallen is two seconds and then discards, yes discards, all of jetfire's parts. Rendering the sacrifice moot.........