Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Spoiler ahoy!)

[SylasGaunt]

Well that's not surprising in the least. Smashed Harry Potter to bits. Could beat Spiderman 2. Holy Shit.

Wasn't it you commenting on how the man seems to be critic proof? That certainly seems to be the case, though I myself had a blast at the movie, though as with the first I still don't get the complaints that it's hard to keep track of which transformer is which.

[VF5SS]

I still don't get the complaints that it's hard to keep track of which transformer is which.

Because you're a fucking nerd! Everyone is a normal goddamn person who can't tell a car stereo from a portable hard drive without some Best Buy employee to tell them which is which.

[SylasGaunt]

If I'd looked at most of these designs beforehand you might have a point but I went in deliberately avoiding spoilers so I saw most of them the first time everyone else did. The only ones who weren't all that distinctive were the swarm of constructicons they had (because there were outright doubles) and the Decepticon mooks who.. well were mooks.

[VF5SS]

No my point is your a goddamn nerd who fucking knows how to do this regardless of prior exposure. Not that it matters since all the robots are do nothing at all except kill stuff and then go away for hours while we get more SHENANIGANS WITH THE WITWICKEYS.

[Stark]

Man that movie was fucking AWESOME.

If you didn't see it at IMAX, you fucking should- I don't know what extra Robot-on-Robot kickass action I missed out on in the regular version, but I'm glad I didn't miss anything.

Man this movie kicked so much fucking ass.

Optimus' "I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!" and numerous other supreme bad-ass moments were just fanfuckingtastic, and Megatron was as suitably awesome (just like in the first) as Starscream was his usual cowardly, obsequious, yet still dangerous self.

The Twins didn't bother me or my three friends at all, and none of them felt it was too long at all - they wanted more by the time it was over, and so did I.

The humour was great and the cinema was laughing hard, it was just all round awesome.

Fuck, my arm was in the same position on the arm rest for so long that when I got up when the movie ended the lactic acid build-up killed me. It still hurts.

What a kickass film.

As for the comments re: people not liking Ebert's review of the film because of the film he's reviewing rather than the merits of the movie, sorry, now that I've seen it, his review was simply lazy as hell. Fair enough, he hated it, whatever, that probably explains why nothing of what he says has any relationship to what happened on screen, but it's still a poor-ass review.

Is this a 'review'?

[CaptainChewbacca]

And in other news, The twins are racist. I can see where they're coming from, to a certain extent. They talk in hip-hop ghetto-speak, can't read, and one has a gold tooth for crying out loud.

I think they're bad caricatures, but they're also funny as hell.

[Vympel]

Is this a 'review'?

You're damn right.

And in other news, The twins are racist. I can see where they're coming from, to a certain extent. They talk in hip-hop ghetto-speak, can't read, and one has a gold tooth for crying out loud.

Yeah they're caricatures of wanna-be gangstas. Apparently all black people are like that, which is why it's so offensive. Or something. I mean, Tony Todd is black and voiced the Fallen, and that's racism too because it's saying blacks are evil. Or something.

And Jar Jar was racist too, because he was also just like blacks.

Really, I find this hand-wringing about alien robots just silly.

[Stark]

Okay Vymp you're a robot-observer I can trust, so have they slightly redesigned the existing robots? From the art I've seen it appears that they're less 'eight million triangles' now (particularly Prime) and look more 'solid' rather than being a skinny grey skeleton with tiny bits of fibreglass glued on like in TF1. The 'new' robots seem a lot chunkier; even Devastator (who looks retarded) has very solid-looking limbs that look like slightly reconfigured/bending vehicles.

I'm curious, because I remember being told that eight million triangles was 'more realistic' (because TF is a documentary) and they seem to have slightly changed the aesthetic.

[Vympel]

Okay Vymp you're a robot-observer I can trust, so have they slightly redesigned the existing robots? From the art I've seen it appears that they're less 'eight million triangles' now (particularly Prime) and look more 'solid' rather than being a skinny grey skeleton with tiny bits of fibreglass glued on like in TF1. The 'new' robots seem a lot chunkier; even Devastator (who looks retarded) has very solid-looking limbs that look like slightly reconfigured/bending vehicles.

I'm curious, because I remember being told that eight million triangles was 'more realistic' (because TF is a documentary) and they seem to have slightly changed the aesthetic.

I couldn't see that the aesthetic of any existing robots had been changed, nor did I really notice all the new Cons and such in that much detail (especailly during transformation) but IMAX atmosphere isn't really conducive to that sort of thing. Optimus looked the same until the end, and the reason for that is Spoiler

Jetfire sacrifices his spark and his parts so the newly resurrected, weakened Prime can kick The Fallen's ass

.

[Stark]

Oh what I've noticed is nothing as major as gluing bits of an SR-71 to his legs. I noticed it first when I saw the new toys and the shots I've seen from the movie give the same impression. Maybe it's just because it's been so long since the first movie came out. I'm just happy to see them look like robots and not skeletons that just escaped from a wrecking yard.

[Vendetta]

I still don't get the complaints that it's hard to keep track of which transformer is which.

Because you're a fucking nerd! Everyone is a normal goddamn person who can't tell a car stereo from a portable hard drive without some Best Buy employee to tell them which is which.

All the good guy ones are generally different and quite bright colours. Even if you don't know/care what they're called, they're "the yellow one" or "the blue one".

I think they're bad caricatures, but they're also funny as hell.

Sometimes they were worth a chuckle, but the film wouldn't have suffered at all without them. Hell, they do the same disappearing act in the middle of a fight that Barricade did in the first film, and no-one appears to even mention it.

[Vympel]

Oh what I've noticed is nothing as major as gluing bits of an SR-71 to his legs. I noticed it first when I saw the new toys and the shots I've seen from the movie give the same impression. Maybe it's just because it's been so long since the first movie came out. I'm just happy to see them look like robots and not skeletons that just escaped from a wrecking yard.

Well Resurrected-Triple-Changer-Megatron is awesome looking, lots of armor plating, and the huge green Constructicon dump-truck is also pretty imposing, they definitely leapt out at me. Autobot Sideswipe also gets honorable mention. The Fallen is very skeletal though.

[Stark]

If the Fallen looks like the pre-release shots (ie red skeleton with pointy head) then he officially looks fucking stupid.

[Anguirus]

I highly doubt that any of the existing robots got an extensive redesign, because money was so tight that like the cartoons they are now blatantly using "repaints" of guys who are already dead. I know that Bumblebee got a tweak because the production model of that Camaro came out. I suspect it is more that we are now used to how the movieverse aesthetic looks.

Frankly, I never got all the hand-wringing over the movie designs. Megatron was a bit questionable, but they then redesigned him due to fan outcry, and then redesigned him again (and an improvement I might add) for this movie.

[Vympel]

If the Fallen looks like the pre-release shots (ie red skeleton with pointy head) then he officially looks fucking stupid.

Yeah I didn't like his look. Luckily Optimus rips his fucking face off (it's spoiler ahoy! so who cares) whilst saying "I want your face". So yeah.

[Vendetta]

If the Fallen looks like the pre-release shots (ie red skeleton with pointy head) then he officially looks fucking stupid.

The Fallen looks like a Necron Lord. Stick and all. And he dies like a pussy.

[Stark]

I highly doubt that any of the existing robots got an extensive redesign, because money was so tight that like the cartoons they are now blatantly using "repaints" of guys who are already dead. I know that Bumblebee got a tweak because the production model of that Camaro came out. I suspect it is more that we are now used to how the movieverse aesthetic looks.

Frankly, I never got all the hand-wringing over the movie designs. Megatron was a bit questionable, but they then redesigned him due to fan outcry, and then redesigned him again (and an improvement I might add) for this movie.

If it was extensive, it'd be more obvious than 'oh wow Prime doesn't have giant holes in his chest armour anymore'.

[Old Plympto]

I hear a lot of complaints from other places of how the robots look like and how they're not like their G1 toys. "If the G1 toys is poseable and transformable, why can't they just use the exact same design?"

I believe these people forgot how the G1 toys looked like. There weren't like what we saw on the old cartoon. Even Sunstreaker, which I own, can't separate his two legs. It just extends. No knees. Arms pivot in one plane only. Their torsos are basically a single flat plate where the car's roof or hood fold down upon. These would look horrible on the big screen as realistic CGI. The smaller Diaclone based ones - Bumblebee, Gears, etc - are even worse looking.

Then we come to the boxy designs of the cartoons and the comic. The animators cheated a lot - I just saw the first season again. The robots basically stretched like rubber to move their arm around. No way a boxy design can both pivot a shoulder along the vertical axis as well as raise it up to the side.

Even if we look at the high-end realistic Alternator toys, who can move their arms like how I described it above, you only have space for hinges and not for the servomotors or whatever passes as a muscle analogue for the bots.

I guess that's why ILM designed the bots in the movie to look as it does: so the parts fit in both bot and alt modes as well as there is space for both muscle and skeleton.

[Stark]

Uh... thanks for that? Nobody even mentioned the G1 toys. The characters have had piles of redesigns in the past (Prime has had like, two dozen at least), nobody cares that they got redesigned for the new movie.

Well, aside from obsessive nerd crazy folk anyway. But I'm glad to hear more about how eight million triangles and giant gaps in armour (which appears to be aluminum anyway) is more realistic.

[CaptJodan]

Just got back from seeing it.

Understand that I rather hated the first film, mostly due to lack of any real character development on the part of the bots, or any sense of why either side was out to kill humans for the fun of it, or save them for the fun of it (beyond their desire to find the Allspark). I watched it later and grew to at least accept it for what it was, a "turn your brain off" movie, but I went in with pretty low expectations on this one. I'm not sure if my expectations color my experience.

The Good:
-I hated the voice they used for Bumblebee in the first movie. Having him communicate through the radio again was the way it should stay. It was part of his charm in the first movie, and the fact that they went with it in the second movie and stuck with it throughout was a real plus for me.

-Longer. I like longer movies, so long as they entertain, and am not one of those people who give a shit if it's 3 hours long (which this wasn't). Though there were several areas of the movie I felt bogged it down and could be removed, on the whole I liked the longer running time, which leads me to the next one.

-Bot screen time. Maybe it was because it was longer, but I felt there was definitely more character action going on. Certain characters got to be distinct in this movie, and there was just more speaking going on.

-A fairly good mix of bots and humans fighting together, with a general feel that one couldn't make it through this shit without the other. I especially liked the rail gun scene, for some reason.

-I despised Simmons in the last movie, and while he wasn't exactly NOT annoying in this one, he seemed to be less so. We had the roommate to take his place. What the fuck was with the "we're not going to warn you about this one" ass shot, though? It was hilarious to hear the crowd groan and gag at that, there was a definite reaction that rolled through the theater.

-The fights seemed better in this one, with the obvious exception of the end fight.

-Some justifications and explanations on why they do what they do. Not exactly stellar explanations mind you, but I felt it was better this time than last.

-Little things. I was able to figure out who was what and what was going on far easier in this one than the last one, as pertaining to the fight scenes.

-Pretty cool to see Scorpinok (sp) come back in to the fight, though his presence was short lived. Wondered what happened to him.

The Bad:

-Roommate. Nough said. Though I didn't find him as annoying as Simmons in the first movie.

-General idiocy on the part of Sam. Honestly, he brought most of what happened to him in the first part of the movie on himself. I realize that he wanted nothing to do with the whole war, but you don't do that by giving a piece of the cube to your girlfriend, you give it to Bumblebee and have him ship it off to Prime or some such. Not telling Prime or B about his little spaz attacks didn't help either.

-Bay's continued butchering of the time it takes to mass an army and get them on station. One of the biggest issues in the first movie was just how fast A-10s went from on the ground to on station, and how many assets were in the area at the time. This movie didn't do that quite as badly, there were moments where it actually took time for the forces to arrive, but I still can't imagine a force as strong as they had beach-landed being that ready. Of course, I'm no expert on the subject, but it seemed convenient.

-Megatron's retreat seemed very much like the old style cartoon villain. "You may have won this time, Prime, but I'll be back!" (no, he didn't say this, but it seemed implied at the end with Starscream). Having Starscream just burst out of the atmosphere seemed a better "We'll be back" than this one.

-The twins annoyed me at times. Just a hair too goofy at times, while other times I didn't mind them quite as much.

Overall, I felt this movie did a better job than the first one. There was more service to the bots this time around, I felt, and the fight scenes were handled much better. The characters seemed to live more, as well. I'd put it under the category of seeing it again, but I still have to check my brain at the door first.

[Vympel]

-Longer. I like longer movies, so long as they entertain, and am not one of those people who give a shit if it's 3 hours long (which this wasn't). Though there were several areas of the movie I felt bogged it down and could be removed, on the whole I liked the longer running time, which leads me to the next one.

-Bot screen time. Maybe it was because it was longer, but I felt there was definitely more character action going on. Certain characters got to be distinct in this movie, and there was just more speaking going on.

It's only four to five minutes longer than the original, really.

[Majin Gojira]

This movie had me wish for a tighter scripting and tigher editing.

It may not have been longer than the first film, but it was less interesting and intense than the first one.

Brainless fun, but it needed a tigher script overall.

Also, the Twins overstayed their welcome. In small doses, they worked, but they were on for too long. More time with other Autobots or have other autobots to balance out their 'antics' aside from bumblebee (who had no voice to tell them to shut their yaps) made things worse.

Sure, I enjoyed it, but I enjoy bad movies. And this was a bad movie.

[CaptJodan]

It's only four to five minutes longer than the original, really.

Hmm. Sure felt longer. That's either a product of some of the things I felt were unnecessary or slowed down the pace, or a product of better/more battle scenery.

[Vympel]

Yeah, it's an entirely a subjective thing. All three of my friends wanted more, and couldn't believe it was already over.

[GuppyShark]

This movie had me wish for a tighter scripting and tigher editing.

It may not have been longer than the first film, but it was less interesting and intense than the first one.

Brainless fun, but it needed a tigher script overall.

Also, the Twins overstayed their welcome. In small doses, they worked, but they were on for too long. More time with other Autobots or have other autobots to balance out their 'antics' aside from bumblebee (who had no voice to tell them to shut their yaps) made things worse.

Sure, I enjoyed it, but I enjoy bad movies. And this was a bad movie.

Agreed.

In terms of plotting, the first film was fairly elegant - there's only three or four 'threads' and they all combine neatly into the ending. In this film, it's like a crazy ... actually, I don't know enough about threadwork to finish my metaphor, but suffice to say characters are all over the place doing things almost at random, bouncing from point to point without any real motive. For example, as much as I love the Section 7 guy, wouldn't the Autobots be the people Sam goes to when he has to translate mysterious Transformer glyphs?

I look forward to the Director's Commentary on the DVD because a lot of this film gives me the impression it was actually lower budget than the first.

Finally, as someone who wasn't really all that impressed with the film, I want to make clear I still think that Egbert's review is fucking terrible. Damned near every sentence is a blatant falsehood.