Holy crap, Transformers 3 didn't suck!

[RickZarber]

Just got back from the premiere. Still kind of blown away.

I mean, it's not a great movie. It's still full of flaws. But it is so much better than what we have previously been given.

Shakey cam? Still present, but no longer omnipresent. Nice slo-mo tracking shots are more the order of the day, especially when it comes to robot fights.

Annoying characters? Sam's parents are kept down to three scenes in the whole movie. Annoying racist Autobots? Gone. There are now two little mini-auotbots, but they're just dumb rather than grating. John Turturro? Somehow more eccentric than ever, but yet much more restrained. Not quite sure how that works, but I didn't feel like punching him for most of this movie, so there's that.

Horrible "comedy"? Kept to a minimum, comparatively. Maybe only 5 or 6 whole scenes of the movie are devoted to the kind of clumsy dreck we endured for most of movie 2. Ken Jeong has a few scenes that I found painful (that whole sequence, really), but it's over fairly quickly. And even better, there's some comedy bits that actually work! Crazy, I know.

Shia Labeouf? Actually has some character progression as he goes from whiny bitch from the other movies to ballsing the fuck up and caving in some skulls.

WTF Plot? Mostly fixed! Sure, there are still planet-sized plotholes, but at least it is constantly moving in one, unified direction, and without randomly dropping plotlines.

Plus, you've got Leonard Nimoy, Alan Tudyk, Frank Welker getting more than one line as Soundwave, and freakin' John Malkovich. (Have you ever seen Bored to Death? Malkovich is basically Ted Danson from that.)

And to top it off, some of the action scenes are actually flat-out spectacular. Optimus Prime kicks the required amount of ass. And rips away the required amount of faces. Go see this movie in IMAX if you can.

My only real issue with this movie is the almost (and it's an important almost!) completely useless female eyecandy. Shameless panty shots, long lingering glances at slightly-parted lips... Ugh. Spends most of the movie in need of being rescued? Check. However, actually has at least an attempt at a personality, which still rates an improvement over Megan Fox. Just not much of one.

Anyways, I was pleasantly surprised, and I hope people will give this movie a chance, as it actually lives up to the dumb summer blockbuster ideal. Why couldn't we have had it like this for the other two.....

I think this fills my thread-starting quota for a while.

[Magus]

Haha, I like how your spoilers are not really spoilers but just "spoilers" about how characters killed other characters without actually listing which characters are killed.

I may end up seeing this by accident because it may be playing alongside Super 8 this weekend. We shall see if it is better than the first two (not too high a wall to scale, I'd say...)

[Fifthfiend]

Are all the fights still shitty incomprehensible cgipiles?

EDIT: For purposes of calibration - what did you think of Revenge of the Sith as compared with Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones?

[RickZarber]

Are all the fights still shitty incomprehensible cgipiles?I'd say it's about half and half. Whenever they brought in the slo-mo, it looked amazing. But also, I saw this in 3D IMAX and had to sit in the 4th row, so my opinions on what was distinguishable might be kinda skewed. (Though actually, this is the first 3D movie I've ever seen where I was glad I saw it that way. Perfectly naturalistic use of the technology; nothing came flying out of the screen at you. And there are some crazy camera movements of diving through things then twisting around and looking at other things that fly by and oh what's down there? that really made it work.)EDIT: For purposes of calibration - what did you think of Revenge of the Sith as compared with Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones?That's a fair analogy for TF3, as I do think RotS is a cut above the others, but it only completely works if I hatehatehated Attack of the Clones. Honestly, I'd take any of the SW prequels over the first two Transformers movies. I'd probably have to see this one at least one more time to hold it in proper perspective.

EDIT: Yeah, I guess it's good to keep in mind that I'm not claiming this is a terrific movie or anything. It's just the first Transformers film where I came away feeling like the positives outweighed the negatives.

[phil_]

We had an "early" showing of this today. Nine people came. I had to stay for an extra two-and-a-half hours at work for nine people to watch this. And now we have an earlier show so we can fit in three screenings. Meaning I have to wake up and go to work two hours earlier.

Fuck this movie.

[Magus]

EDIT: Yeah, I guess it's good to keep in mind that I'm not claiming this is a terrific movie or anything. It's just the first Transformers film where I came away feeling like the positives outweighed the negatives.

One question, if it's not too much of a spoiler: does the transforming Mountain Dew vending machine that fires cans of Mountain Dew at people* make a come back in this film?

*I believe he was called Carbonator. Not sure if this is canonical to the greater Transformers movie-verse at large.

[RickZarber]

Heh, nope!

In fact, most of the minor (or smaller) characters from the previous films are notably absent here.

Returning you have Shia, the parents, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Wheelie, Megatron, Starscream, and Soundwave. And I think that's it. Everyone/thing else, including formerly dropped plotlines, have vanished without a trace (or even a mention).

[Lumenskir]

My problem is, once I see "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," I can never see it for the first time again.

[Aerozord]

I dont know Rick, by the sounds of it your expectations were set so low thanks to the first two movies that even a movie that would qualify as bad by normal movie standards would be considered good in comparison to the other two.

[RickZarber]

Difficult to say. That may be the case, and it may take time/repeat viewings to put it into perspective. But even without relation to the previous movies, I was having a good time through most of this film's (admittedly overlong and slightly bloated) runtime. And that's all I really ask for in a popcorn flick. The other two had me cringing too much to even allow that.

[Kerensky287]

The big issue I have with this movie is that "Dark of the Moon" sounds like a typo. Every time I see that line I just go "Wow, that is so incredibly fucking awkward."

Also, I hated the first two movies. I'm probably going to see the third this weekend though because Alan Tudyk and because the trailer had a big worm monster eating through a skyscraper. It was pretty hilarious-looking.

If all else fails, I aim to get some unintentional humor value out of it.

[Magus]

I have to agree that this movie didn't exactly suck. It had a few moments wherein I was legitimately entertained and somehow the robots actually had a little bit of personality and said some things this time. I think it was Ironhide or whatever, they had this Mexican standoff with these two Decepticons and there was some actual conversation between him and this other Autobot that he was fighting alongside. And I was like "wow, if they had actually had this even slight characterization throughout these movies I would probably think this was pretty okay" but I'm 99% sure that Ironhide and that other guy said absolutely nothing for the rest of the movie. Optimus and Sentinel said quite a bit and it was mildly interesting (I say mildly because it was basically 100% Optimus talking about how freedom is good, tyranny bad), but again, when only four of your Autobot characters say one or two lines each while Sam Witwicky runs around saying a million words a minute and doing all this detective work it still continues to make it hard to see it as a real Transformers movie.

Also was this movie 4 hours long or what? I can only see five or six epic battle sequences before they get kind of old. The old fashioned medieval battle at the end was okay I guess and the action was a bit more followable in this film, but man was this movie long as hell.

EDIT: BTW what was up with Optimus executing Sentinel by shooting him in the face? It didn't seem to fit the character at all. Axing Megatron in the head is cool and all but I'd expect Optimus to be all like "I hope you have learned your lesson, Sentinel Prime. You cannot fight tyranny with tyranny. Freedom is totally great." and then maybe like Sentinel tries to jump him or whatever and Optimus kills him then. As it is Optimus seems like a stone cold killer.

[Marc v4.0]

Optimus would do what had to be done, this isn't a thing that wasn't true at any time. At the end of the day, the crimes against the dude were too great to just let him go on. A traitor is a traitor. He fought Tyranny with Justice, and that sometimes means popping a cap in a bitch


And hory shit I am glad Shia didn't run around the whole movie doing that twitchy nervous BS thing that was his entire character in the first two movies. Sam seemed generally pissed about all the shit he was catching and I liked it when he got up in people's faces about it instead of rambling and flinching. Tackling that guard was one of the better moments of his character.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

EDIT: BTW what was up with Optimus executing Sentinel by shooting him in the face? It didn't seem to fit the character at all. Axing Megatron in the head is cool and all but I'd expect Optimus to be all like "I hope you have learned your lesson, Sentinel Prime. You cannot fight tyranny with tyranny. Freedom is totally great." and then maybe like Sentinel tries to jump him or whatever and Optimus kills him then. As it is Optimus seems like a stone cold killer.

Dude. Have you been watching these movies? They turned him into a goddamn psychopath. He has a collection of faces!

[Marc v4.0]

all of them broken

[The Sevenshot Kid]

all of them broken

Were you also counting the number of faces he tore off during the movie? I stopped counting at three.

Oh, this movie is ridiculously padded. I went to the bathroom twice and missed absolutely nothing. And one of the times was during an action scene! I leave right when they're saying, "We've got to get to that point!" and I come back and it's, "We still need to get there!"

If it weren't for the terribly artificial length I would see this again in 3D. Maybe I will but I'll just walk in for the last hour. Which was insane. The movie lost it's fucking mind and it was glorious.

[Aerozord]

I have to agree that this movie didn't exactly suck. It had a few moments wherein I was legitimately entertained and somehow the robots actually had a little bit of personality and said some things this time. I think it was Ironhide or whatever, they had this Mexican standoff with these two Decepticons and there was some actual conversation between him and this other Autobot that he was fighting alongside. And I was like "wow, if they had actually had this even slight characterization throughout these movies I would probably think this was pretty okay" but I'm 99% sure that Ironhide and that other guy said absolutely nothing for the rest of the movie. Optimus and Sentinel said quite a bit and it was mildly interesting (I say mildly because it was basically 100% Optimus talking about how freedom is good, tyranny bad), but again, when only four of your Autobot characters say one or two lines each while Sam Witwicky runs around saying a million words a minute and doing all this detective work it still continues to make it hard to see it as a real Transformers movie.

see this is what I mean, your own words, slight personality, some lines, this is how you normally describe extras not the beings the freakin movie is based around

[Magus]

I wish Bay would quit using military jargon, though. Like it was seriously like "maxim one two you are good to go with the ultra magnus confirming foxtrot two ten with the uptake see you on the flip side time pants deploying ospreys to sector five one ten" every five seconds with those military guys and their fighter jets and...wingsuits? Those are actually a thing (that are super dangerous and are pretty new and used by cliffdiving daredevils, not the military, but anyway) but I'm pretty sure they are not called that. I also found it hilarious that they pulled their ripcords and floated really slowly to the ground but for some reason were never shot while doing this.

Oh, and about the fight scenes. Sometimes they are still way too busy. This was most apparent in a scene where the Decepticons are basically just strolling down the street and killing every single human they see. They are not fighting any Autobots or anything, so you'd think they would just march or saunter down the street shooting the humans. However they were still doing backflips and barrel rolls and all kinds of crap while firing lasers, even though there is zero reason to do this. It is like Bay is just obsessed with having a bunch of shit happen every single second.

Also, what the hell was the point of John Malkovich's character? Sam's boss? Seriously WTF? And why the hell did he just show up at Sam's apartment there for no reason? Weirdest shit ever...well that Jerry Wang guy was pretty pointless as well but he was just so fucking insane that I thought I was watching the Hangover II again. Seriously he was the same character as was in that movie.

Basically what I am saying is when it was about the robots it was okay, but then they stuck a bunch of pointless human characters into it that have nothing to do with the plot. They just take up time.

EDIT: lol that Jerry Wang guy was the same exact guy who was in the Hangover Part II! It is the same exact character played by the same exact actor in two different movies. I was afraid to say it without looking it up because y'know maybe I was wrong and was just thinking crazy Asian guy is crazy Asian guy but it is indeed the same exact guy.

Like did Michael Bay see him in the Hangover and was like "I need this same exact character played by the same exact actor in my robots movie"?

[Marc v4.0]

They are totally called Wingsuits, or at least I have never heard them called anything else

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I wish Bay would quit using military jargon, though. Like it was seriously like "maxim one two you are good to go with the ultra magnus confirming foxtrot two ten with the uptake see you on the flip side time pants deploying ospreys to sector five one ten" every five seconds with those military guys...

I have never actually heard this complaint about the film and I've never heard it come up around any of the people I know. Maybe it's different because I live in a heavy military town so we're all a little more used to that but I dunno. I'd actually have to say the military stuff was one of the strongest parts of the movie and I liked how well they contributed throughout the action scenes. Especially that organized takedown of Decepticons

Oh, and about the fight scenes. Sometimes they are still way too busy. This was most apparent in a scene where the Decepticons are basically just strolling down the street and killing every single human they see. They are not fighting any Autobots or anything, so you'd think they would just march or saunter down the street shooting the humans. However they were still doing backflips and barrel rolls and all kinds of crap while firing lasers, even though there is zero reason to do this. It is like Bay is just obsessed with having a bunch of shit happen every single second.

I actually thought Bay showed restrain on this one. There weren't nearly as many jumpy cuts as we've seen in his past movies and it just felt so much smoother.

Edit: On the wingsuits, they should have gone with jetpacks. Totally would have been awesome to see a bunch of those NEST agents flying around and fucking up Decepticons.

[Magus]

See that wouldn't be super ultra realistic military stuff that Bay is into, though. Like the part where Sam uses Autobot weapons to kill Starscream was actually pretty good and what they should have been doing with his character all along instead of just having him run in fear of the robots (which he still did for 95% of this movie but that scene shows that he could have actually been being an interesting protagonist for the past two films). But Bay is obsessed with showing army guys running around with assault rifles, ospreys, humvees, drones, that kind of thing.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

See that wouldn't be super ultra realistic military stuff that Bay is into, though. Like the part where Sam uses Autobot weapons to kill Starscream was actually pretty good and what they should have been doing with his character all along instead of just having him run in fear of the robots (which he still did for 95% of this movie but that scene shows that he could have actually been being an interesting protagonist for the past two films). But Bay is obsessed with showing army guys running around with assault rifles, ospreys, humvees, drones, that kind of thing.

In his defense, he makes it look really good. And I know people don't usually accuse Bay of trying to be realistic but he may have wanted to keep the human tech at reasonable levels. He probably took some of the elements introduced in ROTF and threw them right the hell out (the twins and the military possessing Transformer-grade weaponry) thanks to the averse reaction to that pile of shit.

[Marc v4.0]

Rail guns are not Transformers-level technology

[TDK]

On another note altogether, did anybody else think Shia's eye-candy girlfriend was ugly? Like in the middle of the movie they were closing up on her face for the fiftieth time and I was like "...Is she supposed to be attractive? Her face is awful. And what the fuck is she doing with her lips?"

Also she had no personality and had only her token moment of actually contributing (talking to megatron) after the entire movie being dragged around like a ragdoll and being a stereotypical Useless Woman.

Seriously, in a movie where fucking SHIA LEBOUF kills a giant robot, this chick can't man up and cap a bitch or something? Fuck.


That said, this movie was enjoyable. It was a terrible movie, but I enjoyed it. Explosions, giant robots, etc.

[Marc v4.0]

On a whole I think "Terrible ___, but I enjoyed the giant robots and explosions" pretty much sums up the entire Transformers experience, excluding the more recent runs of the comics.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I was like 5 years old when I was watching the cartoon though. And each episode was like 20 minutes a fairly hefty proportion of which was fights and explosions. And the main characters were robots. And they were easily distinguishable .

[Archbio]

And it probably didn't cost millions.

[Kerensky287]

I was afraid to say it without looking it up because y'know maybe I was wrong and was just thinking crazy Asian guy is crazy Asian guy but it is indeed the same exact guy.

Like did Michael Bay see him in the Hangover and was like "I need this same exact character played by the same exact actor in my robots movie"?

Ken Jeong has one character that he plays in every single movie. Hell, he was the exact same character in that shitty twilight parody he was in.


On another note, I just got back from the movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. I think it was the only movie in the series that I didn't actively dislike. Part of it was the fact that they toned down the comic relief robot stuff (Bumblebee was almost entirely absent, and the two wisecracking miniature guys die at the end offscreen), but I also think Bay did a good job of avoiding the shakycam this time around. I mean, I saw it in 3D, and you absolutely cannot follow shakycam if you have 3D... and yet I could still follow most of the fight scenes reasonably well.

I still object to the way all decepticons EVER are portrayed as bumbling and clumsy - fuck, guys, they're giant alien robots, why does Lazerbeak keep crashing into shit while he's trying to murder people? - but it DOES help make it believable when the SEALs succeed in killing a few. Optimus still had a higher killcount than the entire US military combined though (as he should), and it wasn't a Battle: Los Angeles type of bullshitting where they succeed against an opponent with superior weapons, numbers and technology. They're trained professionals with the element of surprise against big metal dudes who trip over every car and piece of debris, and do cartwheels whenever they get the chance.

Shia LeBouf's character was still utterly useless but at least he was entertaining sometimes, in a Charlie Sheen kind of way. Sam Witwhicky has a massively overinflated ego by this point and it shines through beautifully. His new girlfriend is useless though.

Alan Tudyk needed more screentime, his character was awesome.

[Magus]

Which guy was Alan Tudyk?

[Krylo]

Which guy was Alan Tudyk?

Dutch (http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=transformers+3+IMDB&l=1).

[Kerensky287]

Which guy was Alan Tudyk?

He was the stereotypical overtalented/underappreciated European manservant. He's the guy who found out that Trump Tower was where all the shit was going down, and he did it by hacking a cell phone camera feed somehow.

[TDK]

I think it was a traffic camera.

[Magus]

Quite hilariously, it turns out that Michael Bay quite literally reused a few stunt shots from The Island in this movie, just inserting the robots. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7kcqB3thJM&feature=player_embedded)