Transformers: Age of Extinction

[applejack]

The teaser trailer is out:



EDIT - Sorry, the embedding function is not working for me...

EDIT 2 - Nevermind, fixed it.

[Grumman]

I think they need a better word than "Transformer" for dialogue - "I think we just found a Cybertronian"? And the daughter shows no signs yet of being an interesting character.

I expect this to be offensively bad and badly offensive, but the trailer shows no real signs of that. So mission accomplished, I guess.

[Parallax]

Please, someone make Bay stop.
Please.

[Crossroads Inc.]

It's… It's like the guy REALLY thinks he can make a "good" movie with nothing but over the top action Sequences…
Optimus Riding a GIANT ROBOT DINOSAUR! RRRAAARRR!!

And yeah, they could have easily started using "Cybertronian" in the first movie.

[Adam Reynolds]

This is what happens when one worries about international markets too much. Given that more grounded thrillers require dialog which usually fails to translate as well, over the top action it is.

[Grumman]

It's… It's like the guy REALLY thinks he can make a "good" movie with nothing but over the top action Sequences…

Nothing but over the top action sequences would be a step up for Bay. At least watching Bonecrusher body check a bus is fun. Bay's attempts at comedy, on the other hand, should be banned by the Geneva Conventions.

[paladin]

I have never seen a movie trailer that makes me think I'll wait for it to come to cable.

[Ted C]

Nothing but over the top action sequences would be a step up for Bay. At least watching Bonecrusher body check a bus is fun. Bay's attempts at comedy, on the other hand, should be banned by the Geneva Conventions.

^^^^^
Truth!

[StarSword]

I'm a little unclear on the scenario here. Is this a reboot or did they just switch to a new human cast?

[cadbrowser]

I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Mark Wahlburg? Seriously?

Yeah, I'll wait for this to come out on cable me thinks.

[JLTucker]

It's… It's like the guy REALLY thinks he can make a "good" movie with nothing but over the top action Sequences…
Optimus Riding a GIANT ROBOT DINOSAUR! RRRAAARRR!!

The Island and Pain and Gain are proof that even the non-action stuff is golden, both being his art house movies. The former is a meditative look on home schooling and fundamentalism while the latter satirizes the American Dream (TM). People need to watch his entire filmography before spewing ignorant comments.

[Elheru Aran]

Mark Wahlberg is actually a reasonably competent actor. He's had a few good performances since he matured past the whole Marky-Mark thing. At the very least hopefully he can be better than Josh Duhamel.

And for all you say Michael Bay can be a competent director, all I have to do is look at the last two Transformers movies to forget that entirely. Though I'm not sure how much to blame Damon Lindelof and whatshisname, the other writer, and Shia Labeouf for how much of a stinker they were...

[applejack]

I'm a little unclear on the scenario here. Is this a reboot or did they just switch to a new human cast?

Bay's website says that it takes place after the third film:

He also confirms that the series will pick up where the last one left off in Chicago — with Peter Cullen back as the voice of Optimus Prime

So it looks like it's simply a cast change. Can't say I'll miss the previous cast.

[Iroscato]

Man, that trailer was so 'meh'. As for the old cast, I will miss John Turturro - he was quite funny in some scenes, though he wasn't given much to do in the third film - not that anyone of them were except scream and look intense.

[biostem]

I'd love for them to just make the movie focus on the transformers first, then only involve some humans as peripheral to the events. This trailer makes it appear like the government learned nothing form the first 3 movies, and instead just tries to kill *all* transformers upon discovery...

[jollyreaper]

I'd love for them to just make the movie focus on the transformers first, then only involve some humans as peripheral to the events. This trailer makes it appear like the government learned nothing form the first 3 movies, and instead just tries to kill *all* transformers upon discovery...

These movies are pretty much morbid curiosity for me, like Honey Boo-Boo with explosions. Just how degraded can American pop culture become? These films are a major hit franchise. There's your answer.

The whole Transformers concept can't really translate into a live action film setting. It's just too fundamentally animated. It's hard to be purist about something that's a gigantic commercial for toys from the 80's, I'm not going there. I'm just saying as trying to tell a decent story with the premise, it's a fucking mess and a good director would have been hard-pressed to come up with something useful, especially if he's forced to do it as live-action and try to move beyond the 6-12 year old target audience while somehow keeping the original premise. Then again, what resulted was profitable awfulness so what do I know?

Going by this trailer, I think this might be the most Transformery of the movies. The 'murican imagery with flags spammed everywhere and more chaotically idiotic action scenes seems like it will put the prior films in the dust. What will be this film's clanking robot balls? Fundamentally, the robots are too big and powerful to leave humans much of a place in the story. Shia and crew's action scenes had little to do with actually contributing to a fight, just avoiding crushing, blasting and impalement with dramatic Hollywood leaping. The soldier characters didn't do much better. Usually a squishy character should bring something else to the table, like being smart or sneaky, can help the team out in some way that doesn't involve fighting. But Shia was just an idiot of no account who never should have been in the stor in the first place. He was an average nobody that a robot latched onto. "Shit! Guys, we have to drag him along just because. No arguments."

I look forward to the Rifftrax.

[JLTucker]

And for all you say Michael Bay can be a competent director, all I have to do is look at the last two Transformers movies to forget that entirely.

Why? Two bad movies soils his entire career?

[Metahive]

Why? Two bad movies soils his entire career?

Just two? Try almost all of Bay's entire ouevre. You can count Bay's "good" movies on one hand with most of the fingers shot off.

[Alkaloid]

Honestly Pearl Harbour should count as about 12 bad movies.

[JLTucker]

Why? Two bad movies soils his entire career?

Just two? Try almost all of Bay's entire ouevre. You can count Bay's "good" movies on one hand with most of the fingers shot off.

The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, The Island, and Pain and Gain. Those are six good ones.

[Metahive]

The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, The Island, and Pain and Gain. Those are six good ones.

The Rock I give you, but otherwise...it's good to have low standards, helps to avoid disappointment.

[JLTucker]

For aaction movies? You're goddamned right I have low standards. None are high art, which I would prefer. But Hollywood is full of people who don't' want to take a risk with anything.

I do wonder if you've seen all of Bay movies I've listed. I'm gonna say no because it's popular for forum dwellers to take a dump on his work.

[Elheru Aran]

Even The Rock wasn't that great. It was a decent action movie with a lot of fun to it (mostly due to Sean Connery, Nick Cage, and Ed Harris being themselves) but beyond that it could've been made by any of the major action directors like John Mctiernan or Tony Scott and I doubt there'd have been anything but stylistic differences. Less explosions, maybe. As for the rest--

Armageddon: Cheesy movie about blowing up a big-ass meteor, shitty romance, big explosion.

Bad Boys and II: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence smart-ass around and shit blows up.

The Island: Ewan Mcgregor looks serious. Scarlett Johanssen looks sexy. Shit probably (I honestly haven't seen it) blows up.

Seriously, there's a reason "Baysplosions" is a slang term around here. His movies are basically loosely connected strings of people snarking or cheap drama, and then stuff blows up, and ACTION! ensues. More explosions, and then lame contrived resolution (Daddy sacrificed himself to blow up the asteroid? Welp, guess I'm getting married to the guy he hated).

There's low standards and then there's Michael Bay. But as they say, taste is subjective... I honestly don't mind the first Transformers but the last two were just painful. As long as this one doesn't have Shia Labeouf, I can probably tolerate it.

[JLTucker]

Simplistic views from a simpleton who doesn't know how to critique art.

Armageddon: action movie about people coming together to save the world. It's unlikely this would happen, but it's still a neat thought. Granted, it's very Pro America and the science is wrong (who cares?), but it's strongly acted, has a great sense of drama and humor, and is competently directed and shot.

Bad Boys and Bad Boys II: Satirizes macho cop behavior and all of the problems therein. This much is obvious. It's also competently directed and shot.

The Island: Already told you what it's about, but it's awesomesauce to see Elheru Aaran judge a movie he hasn't seen because he's, as previously noted, a simpleton.

[NeoGoomba]

I know the internet says it's super cool to just bash Bay across the board, but some of his stuff is damn entertaining. The Rock, Armageddon, Horsemen (the first 80% at least), and Transformers I find to be highly watchable.