The Energon Pub

From reading alot of the reviews here some say how the movies weren't that great, sucked etc..

What comic book, action figure, cartoon made into live action have been perfect or everything you wanted?

Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Watchmen, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: First Class, Spider-Man 2, Superman, Superman Returns.

I think the main problem with the Transformers movies lies in the fact that Micheal Bay directed them. Not that the screen writers weren't to blame either. I personally loved the first and third movies and thought the second was good for what it was. The problem is Micheal Bay, like Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) likes to make movies that are more global than personal. He likes to show the military involvement in the fight then the reaction from the guy at the newspaper stand then the first main character, then the secondary dude, then the main character's father and so on. Its alot to take in and it jumps all over the place. It makes for a great summer blockbuster, but the plot tends to be stretched too thin with all these characters that you are supposed to try and relate to. Also I think alot of fans are disappointed to see that because so much time is spent focusing on the 90 or so human characters, barely any time is spent developing the Transformer characters. The transformer characters we know and love all have different personalities yet my sister (who has seen all the movies) can only name Optimus Prime, Bumblbee and Megatron and refers to the other characters as "that red guy" or "the guy with the wheels". The Transformers deserve some development yet they are never given any more than a few lines with the exception of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the Main villain of the movie. Its alot like the Aliens in Independence Day. We get a few lines of dialog explaining why the aliens are attacking and that's it. The aliens, much like the Transformers are just an obstacle for humans to overcome. Granted the third movie did a much better job on fixing this problem, but it still is a problem. Imagine if you had a TMNT movie and the movie was from April O'Neal perspective with the turtles just saving her from the foot clan and barely talking. I understand the need to put a human face in the movie, but for one reason or another Bay doesn't understand that the Transformers can have conversations with each other. They had a whole society for millions of years before we did, you can't have a scene or two where they discuss what the Decepticons are planning or something?


Bay also for whatever reason loves to add wacky characters to "mix it up" or basically relieve tension from what would be just a long drawn out battle scene. So you get characters like Sam's parents, Leo, the Twins and Simmons. They are temporary distractions. Notice how in ROTF all of these characters suddenly disappear when the Decpticons start attacking full force (after Devvie dies)? They are never heard from again either. The problem is not the characters, its that Bay doesn't know what to do with them after they served their purpose. Granted a battle scene is no place for Sam's parents, but then why include them in the story at all? I like how DOTM handled them, they showed up and did their song and dance and gave Sam some advice but after that they weren't in the movie any more as they aren't important. Simmons is the most well rounded comic relief character of the bunch and DOTM handled him nicely as well, by sticking him in a command center instead of having him help take down a massive decepticon and then disappear for no explainable reason. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with comic relief characters. They are essential to the movie, but having 14 or so throughout the course of a nearly 3 hour movie is a bit much. It just gives the impression that we aren't supposed to take the film seriously, which I understand its a film based on a toyline about robots from space who can turn into cars, but there does come a point where you have to cut the jokes and focus on something more intense. A good example is the Spider-man series. The first two film took the content seriously but did have some jokes and campyness in there to not make it super serious but not enough to overdo it. By the time the third film came around you had Peter combing his hair to look Emo and dancing in a jazz club to show off his "bad attitude" just all around silliness. The earlier Batman movies where the same way. You had Tim Burton's darker tone that eventually morphed into Joel Schumacher's garbage series with Neon lights galore and Bat-Credit Cards. Its all about Balance really. Micheal Bay thinks if he throws enough wacky moments in there it will balance out with the hard core action scenes, when more often than not the wacky scenes kinda stand out and make you say "What the heck was that?" Bay's intentions are some what warranted. While Transformer fans like us may want to see 2 and a half hours of robot carnage, most modern day movie goers like to see a more human side of things. I do think Bay is improving with this however. Wheelie and Brains in DOTM where a great example of this. Showing that the comic relief can also help in the action is a great step forward. Granted I felt that Mudflap and Skids "slowing down" devvie was a precursor to this.

tl;dr I feel that the main problem with the Transformers series lies in Micheal Bay's style of having the movie be more global rather than more personal. It focues on too many things at once and the plot and development of characters suffers as a result. Bay who is know for his explosive action scenes also tries to level out the carnage with wacky characters that if used for other things than just comedy wouldn't be a problem. I loved the film series but I think there is room for improvement in alot of ways.

Tyrannotaur wrote:*snip*

Wow. Let me just say if I could save this post into a folder of "favorites," I would.
The third movie felt REALLY disconnected/bigger picture to me than the first two films - and this is one of the reasons I think I have such an unemotional tone to it - I didn't feel involved in the scenes quite like I did in the first two. It's not that I didn't like it (as I think over scenes, I LOVED them individually) - but it's like I wasn't as close to it, and so don't care as much, if that makes sense.
So in that sense, I felt Battle: LA was a better movie in terms of an alien-invasion flick.

*AHEM*
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, to try and keep on topic, I must say I've seen very few films with extensive knowledge/background in their roots. Yes, I knew about Spiderman, X Men, etc. before their films. I could name some of the main villains and in the case of X Men, the protagonists, and some of their story. But I never got deep enough into any of them to be able to say definitively "oh, that should have been so-and-so not him doing that," or "That's referencing the wrong thing!" or, "They can't do thaaat!" :[
So my attempt to stay on topic is pretty weak. D:

the first blade was good and so was the adam west batman movie...

what?

The Dark knight, Iron Man, X-men 1, 2 and X-men 1st class, Spiderman 2, Silent Hill, Scott Pilgrim, Kick @$$, 300, Watchmen. What exactly was your point again.

Gemini220 wrote:From reading alot of the reviews here some say how the movies weren't that great, sucked etc..

What comic book, action figure, cartoon made into live action have been perfect or everything you wanted?

no one is asking for perfect or evrything we want (well the sanest of us arent)

what we want is something to be true to the characters or the spirit of the non live action universes we wanted

- batman
- xmen
- first superman
- blade
- kickass
- 300
- ironman