Before Movie apologists get all riled up, Im saying this once and Im saying this now:

This is not a place to flame or bash each other.

I want this thread to be a place for anyone, whether you have seen the movie or not, whether you liked Bhey's production or not, to post what you think went wrong with the movie.

I'll kick off with:

- confusing fast camera

- not enough screen time for the bots

- not enough bad guys (all movies need a great dialogue and quotes from a bad guy.We needed more megatron methinks).

- thin plot.

Oh and:

- Not enough advertising or movie merchandise in Japan and the release date was terrible. Spiderman 3 was the way to do things, Mr Bhey!

If you don't want everyone to get pissed off, stop calling eveybody an apologist. It helps keeping the peace if you don't start with something that potentially flammable.

Beyond that; the movie had as much failings as any other Hollywood movie. Not enough for me to notice or care for.

ya rly

Good first half, good use of human characters, great chemistry, good casting and acting. Bumblebee was well done, overall.

Second half dragged, plot was thin and muddled. Bad use of Transformer characters - some nice bits of dialog but not enough "real" moments, if you know what I mean. Cullen's voice was good as Prime but his character wasn't really that great or noble - seemed to forget about Bumblebee rather easily, didn't seem to care whatsoever about Jazz dying. The Transformers on a whole were forgettable - none of them had much to say and they more or less sounded and looked all alike. The most memorable one was arguably Frenzy, who was annoying on a level nearing Jar Jar Binks. Prime, Jazz and (surprisingly, but then he's always my favourite) Starscream were okay, and Bumblebee, as I said before, was well done, but the rest just didn't have enough going for them.

Part of this was due to the fact that the TFs just didn't have enough screen time, another failing of the movie. Although I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the human characters and writing (I thought I'd be bored by it, but would love the action scenes - turned out to be the opposite, surprisingly... more on that later), this is supposed to be about the Transformers, after all, and I think there were way too many human characters that really didn't need to be there... Did we really need to have all that character development about the soldiers, at the expense of TF character development? What about all those hackers and that weird Sector 7 guy? I think that Sam (don't know why he couldn't be called Spike, but whatever) was necessary and well done, as was his family and the girl, but that's really all you need. Way too much screen time for the supporting characters here...

Now for the action sequences. I was literally looking at my watch towards the end, and to tell you the truth, surprised by that. I thought that if there was going to be one good thing about this film (don't get me wrong, hearing all the fans loving it I went into this thinking it was going to be good, so don't accuse me of having a bad attitude), it would be the action sequences. Bay isn't known for putting much substance into his movies' plots, but he does know action, or so I thought. I didn't really see anything new or unique, and was frankly bored most of the time. The interaction between Starscream and Megatron in these shots was good, but overall I found most of the shots much too close for comfort and confusing to watch. Now, if the Transformers had been given that so-called "blocky" G1 look (think Alternators), it might have been a lot easier to tell who was who and what was going on, but as it was, it was hard to differentiate between the characters other than Prime and Bumblebee.

Finally, the designs were just plain ugly. I know it's been said time and time again, but there was no benefit to having those weird looking faces, with no emotion whatsoever or anything the audience could relate to. As a child who grew up in the Eighties, I was disappointed from day 1 that they weren't going to look like the TFs I grew up with, but after seeing the movie I would have been happy with just about any of the other TF incarnations. They were simply not cool in the least, with the possible exception of (again) Prime and Bumblebee. Bumblebee, I don't quite like as the charactere I know and love, but he does look like a cool TF at least, and he deserves special mention as the best-handled/written TF of the movie.

Overall, disappointing, and I will probably only pick this up on DVD when it goes for $10.

Don't let Prime-Collector in.

I thought the movie was merchandised well here in the states, so I can't argue. However, there was a lack of toy commercials.

As for the movie... I think it did a good job of fitting an entire backstory into a small amount of space, but I would have liked a little bit more character detail. And more Megatron.

I don't think labelling certain kinds of posters as apologists is bad. I just think that there have been certain posters who have defended the movie no matter what. Its THOSE people who are the apologists.

Merely thinking the movie is good is not the same.

Anyway, to the meat and bones of this thread...carry on.

That's Bay's style, action is that way in all his movies. It almost got on my nerves at points, but it does make the action seem more real as if you were actually underfoot giant robots.

The movie needs to appeal to humans, and more over, a general public viewing audience. Film editing isn't a science.


There were three more 'Cons than 'Bots....I don't know what to tell you.

There was a whole lot of material, and once again editing is difficult and never perfect. This didn't need to be Lord of the Rings.

I wish there was more interaction with Starscream and Megs. they only had one exchange. could have used a few more lines. Also, I thought Bonecrusher went out like a simp. that fight could have been a little longer. It reminded me of the battle in Jurassic Park 3 between the Spinosaurus and the T-Rex. too short.

sidenote:

any one else notice get the impression that Prime was acting like a dick towards Spike when he was looking for the glasses in his home. telling him to hurry, and acting upset that he had to wait. WTF?

Well....he was trying to save the freaking world

And yeah, I'm sad Bonecrusher just kinda got instantly snuffed

i just found it a little out of character for prime. i know he was trying to save the world, but acting like a prick to someone who was trying to help you save the world was a little...i dunno....unlike prime.

Starting off by calling the director "Bhey" is a pretty clear indicator of where the thread is heading.

I'm just flabbergasted that anyone could find this movie "boring".

I've seen this three times now and I've never been bored during it. The movie had the least annoying humans EVER. In fact I liked them. It always sad that the bots didn't get has much screen time as I would have liked, but that had a lot to do with budget. The bots were expensive to have on screen.

Oh, if you want to see fast camera work, go see Bourne Ultimatum, that just might make you sick.

I think the biggest flaw comes with the "revenge against Simmons" bit. Not that it was good or bad...just that it felt like it came from a completely different movie.

It was the sort of scene that plays out in a movie where our young rapscallions get their zany revenge on the jerky adult...except, we just met Simmons a scene ago. The whole scene had this "Ha we've been waiting for our chance to put you in your place!" but since we met Simmons so shortly, there was, in context, little drive for the humiliation to be so drawn out.

But that's just me.

Very true.

QFT

The first post is riddled with flame-bait. Probably best to lock this before someone gets hungry & bites...

Here is what I thought were some bad moments in the movie.

1. Frenzy was just annoying throughout the whole movie.

2. At the second half of the movie, they shot a scene with Sam and Mikaela and it was all in slow-mo where they were reaching out to each other. Thought it was just slapped right in there.

3. They tried to pass that one hot Australian as a hacker. Didn't work for me. The hacking scenes in Live Free or Die Hard made more sense then the Transformers movie.

About the shaky camera, I agree with Batman. Have you seen Bourne Ultimatum? It was shaking throughout the whole movie. Even when the actors were just talking to each other.

yeah probably

maybe michael J. Fox was the camera man *snort*

There was just a huge freaking explosion- that "slow-mo" was them experiencing the aftershock. It's pretty much like that IRL- slow and disorienting.

Yeah, I remember thinking he was acting sort of childish, myself.

I think this was partly due to most of the Transformers' dialog being short and rather simplistic. The feeling of urgency could have been better portrayed if they had worked on the dialog a bit more, and Prime probably would have come off better in that scene.

there is nothing bad about this movie, when you gross almost 500 million on your first movie then you;ve done something right...jezz

Well, saying that it was WORSE in the Bourne movie doesn't make it any better in this one.

You're right, the Aussie was just an excuse to have another hottie in the movie. Didn't really need it... Someone mentioned that this had the least annoying humans in any of the TF versions out there, and he'd be right - but the fact remains that there were simply too many, even if they were all more or less decent.

come off better? They are in a race for the well being of the entire universe IT'S A WAR! Do you want Prime to just be all nice and act as though they have all the time in the world?

Buddy, I'm in the military, and even when the situation is urgent, commanders are not supposed to act childish. So yeah, they could have come off better.

For all of you singing Bay's praises for this movie, maybe a better way to look at it is how would you make this film BETTER? Because there certainly are quite a few ways I can think of... I'm sure you all can too.

There's no point in asking what we would have done, because nobody asked us to direct the movie. It's finished. You either like it or you don't.

That can be said about any film ever depending on who you ask. I'm sure you feel justified in your opinion, as we all feel justified in ours. That doesn't make any of us right or wrong, but it sure seems to get us all pissed at each other. I'M SORRY MICHEAL BAY RAPED YOUR CHILDHOOD. But he friggin made me live mine all over again and I couldn't be happier. I hope he gets to continue to do these movies his way and he can laugh all the way to the bank for all I care because this movie was/is awesome.

BTW I'm sure glad that we all expect Prime to act in a fashion that is similar to OUR military because he's not a giant Powerglideing alien robot or anything.

IIRC all Prime ever said was "please hurry" and he got frustrated and stuff... but seriously, crap like this makes me want to nuke the world. THIS is what you're criticizing? Jesus Christ, why don't you bitch about the color of Sam's bicycle or something else that's fucking pointless. Sorry the movie wasn't completely exactly how you wanted it to be at every single second. Welcome to life and stuff.

KAY I'M PRETTY SURE ITS TIME FOR THAT LOCKY WE TALKED ABOUT EARLIER

oh yeah right, lol