But IMO, since the writers know jack about TFs other than that they're warrior robots that have the ability to change into stuff to blend into their environment, it leaves the rest of the world to come up with explanations for other things.

 

I don't know where you got that from, but to my understanding they know the canon pretty well. If you got the impression from the movie that they didn't get it or that the neccesary info was not containied in the movie itself, maybe it's cuz it wasn't done very well.

 

The movie guide was written by Simon Furmon, and he knows his TFs. So I take what things he wrote about, like Prime's spark and Frenzy's non-centralized nueral net, as canon. The lunchables sit is negligable.

 

Furman does rock, and he knows his TFs, but "his TFs" is the operative term. The movie bots are not his TFs in fact they seem to be going out of their way not to be. Furman did not write this movie. The movie guide is a licenced product utelizing a well known TF writer to come up with his own retcons to fill gaps in the movie. It is a source of amusement, any thing in it could be completely contradicted in on screen. In terms of canon, it is no more valid than the Lunchables.

 

In any case, the point I was trying to make is that, be it a book by a seminal TF writer, or a blurb by some marketing hack, it is difficult to have any TF movie character discussion without citeing outside material because there is almost no character in the film itself.

 

As for ignoring stuff, I usually do, but he just keeps going on like this and I just wanted to tell him my opinion of his scarcasm and all of what he's said are bad things about the movie in some of the threads he's participated in about the movie. No offense meant PC.

 

This section it the 1/3 of all non agreeing posts I choose to ignore. I hope there was nothing pertenent in it...

 

Look, PC. Just because some of us enjoyed the movie and are trying to speculate on things, which is fun, you don't have to be scarcastic the entire time just cause you didn't like the movie.

 

 

Mmm... Yeah, I kinda do. :tflaugh

Good points all round. I'd have to agree that Jazz being killed would have been more effective had he been characterised better though- in fact the screenwriters did quote (as someone mentioned) that their reason for killing Jazz was that after OP and BB the audience would feel for him the most, which I'm not sure is true. (I'd agree IH had more audience empathy) In fact, all the TF deaths seemed very null in this film - many people have said to me Megatrons death was a big anti-climax and those such as blackout and bonecrusher (and Jazz) got very brief death scenes. I'm still not convinced about Jazzs role in the film though - it's a sign of bad screenwiritng when the dialogue for characters doesn't always correspond to their assigned roles. (or they don't get the lines to play their role effectively in the first place) Let's just hope when these guys write the new star trek they don't get Scotty spouting off medical jargon (I'm a doctor, not an engineer!!) and spock quoting 'hailing frequencies open!'

They're doing Star Trek? Well I hope Kirk and Spock have more than 12 Lines...

If you step back from the Transformers fan thing and just look at the movie as a movie, the whole "how many lines do the Transformers have" thing becomes a bit of a moot point. It works as a movie, but some fans might have liked it to be less a movie and more 2 1/2 hours of fanwank. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, of course, but I think too much is being made of the Transformers' screen time when that really isn't the point. The characters you are supposed to care about are Sam, Bumblebee, Mikaela, and Prime (to a lesser extent). That may not satisfy fans who want it to be all robots, all the time, but it makes for a better movie IMO. You can't just shove giant robots up the audience's collective ass and expect them to be okay with it. You have to warm them up to it.

 

I find myself anticipating a rebuttal that "this movie is called 'Transformers', not 'Humans with some Robots Sometimes'," but you know, it is just a title. "Lord of the Rings" isn't three movies starring a giant flaming eyeball.

My Big complaints about this movie are all non fan issues. Structure, Timing, Mise en scène, theme, characterization... I don't see why we always have to go back to this you wanted all robots, you wanted all G1. I thought there was a copious amount of G1. The length of time the TFs were in the movie is relevant to its length and their purposes as characters with in the story. They are valid discussions about the quality of the writing and the production as a whole. Want to put screen time aside? Fine. Then I put it to you, Bumblebee was in almost the whole movie. Why couldn't he talk? Cuz the writers couldn't figure out what he should say. Seems like that problem extended to all the TFs.

Agreed, I aws more than happy with the way the film was structured and accept that, in terms of its financial success and the wide audience it appealed to, it couldn't really have been done any other way. Still loved it as a film but there were several things which COULD have (IMO) been handled better. The bots screentime was fine, but they could made muchbetter use of that time with the dialogue and roles they fulfilled. Although Michael Bays military connections, pace and shooting style were all very appropriate for the sort of film they wanted, I can't help but feel he needed to take a step back and see that his style may have been too much for the audience to take in at times. The jerky camera, confusing fight scenes etc etc enhanced the viewing at times, but shouldn't have dominated the action as muchas it did IMO.

Then I put it to you, Bumblebee was in almost the whole movie. Why couldn't he talk? Cuz the writers couldn't figure out what he should say. Seems like that problem extended to all the TFs.

 

I think Bumblebee doesn't talk because it endangers Sam's (and by extension the audience's) sense of discovery and wonder. Sam gets the car, the car transformers and says, "Hey, I need the glasses because..." and the audience is treated to a 20 minute sit down and talk about the plot scene instead of watching the characters piece things together.

 

Now, you can argue that the execution of the characters piecing things together is less than satisfying, but from a storytelling theory standpoint, I think mute Bumblebee was the right direction to try and go in.

Then I put it to you, Bumblebee was in almost the whole movie. Why couldn't he talk? Cuz the writers couldn't figure out what he should say. Seems like that problem extended to all the TFs.

 

I think Bumblebee doesn't talk because it endangers Sam's (and by extension the audience's) sense of discovery and wonder. Sam gets the car, the car transformers and says, "Hey, I need the glasses because..." and the audience is treated to a 20 minute sit down and talk about the plot scene instead of watching the characters piece things together.

 

Now, you can argue that the execution of the characters piecing things together is less than satisfying, but from a storytelling theory standpoint, I think mute Bumblebee was the right direction to try and go in.

 

BB wasn't the only one with no lines, and when Prime showed up he just said "We need the glasses because..." anyway. Oh excuse me he said "We Ebay need Ebay the glasses Ebay because... Ebay Ebay" Ratchet could have just fixed him right then, but no. He's actually gonna be in the rest of the movie and if he could talk he'd need dialog and they'd have to knock off the bad R2-D2 rippoff.

Clearly P-C's mind is 100% made up... no point in me continuing here, I guess.

Clearly P-C's mind is 100% made up... no point in me continuing here, I guess.

 

Coward. :tflaugh

 

 

Jk