The Energon Pub

Meantoy wrote:You know after watching District 9 for like the 10th time ill say this, for all the money spent making the movies D9 blows them away on special effects, weapons, and the mech suit looked a hell of a lot more realistic than any of the bots or cons did.

Subjective opinion I'm afraid. Both films have a very specific styles of action film about them that's like comparing apples to oranges. Those being small scale action grounded in reality despite the alien technology on display versus over the top action more akin to a cartoon series or comic book so in the end it boils down to personal taste.

To make a comparison it's like comparing Gundam to Gurren Lagann (and I hope that made sense to some of you )

Plus it didnt cost nowhere near what they spent to film one tf film.

To emphasize this District 9's production didn't spend nearly as much money on location shooting, pyrotechnics, vehicle rental, special effects and other expendatures. This again has to do with the scale of the events in the two films. District 9 takes place in a single city with battles between what amount to small PMC and rebel groups. Transformers had giant robot wars that devestate entire cities that had been preceeded by globe trotting quests.

And having a weapon that can launch a pig as a projectile is pure win.

Ok you got me on this one.

Hey, you know what? It seems like the people who hate the Bayformers movies point out fairly objective ways in which they suck (stories are poorly structured, too many useless human characters, no emotional investment in any of the robot characters, ethnic stereotypes, etc.), while those who defend the movies are limited to saying "but they made epic moneys!" and "yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man".

Guess which group the critics agree with.

JetOptimus23 wrote:Can't we just enjoy Transformers Prime and stop bitching about the movies...please?

I can enjoy Prime and bitch about the movies, especially considering how vastly superior the former is to the latter. I mean that sincerely; if we had gotten a shot-for-shot, word-for-word live-action version of Darkness Rising in '07 instead of "Mumblebee pisses on John Turturro", I would have called it the best movie ever.

5150 Cruiser wrote:TF has never had strong story telling.

Go watch "Fire in the Sky" and "Code of Hero" in an infinite loop until the Common Sense Fairy comes and hits you on the head.

5150 Cruiser wrote:ROTF was proabably the worst of the 3, but you know what? It was the one that probabaly was based the most on TF mytho's.

NONE of the movies had ANYTHING to do with the TF mythos, although DotM borrowed a few plot points from The Ultimate Doom and Megatron's Master Plan.

cotss2012 wrote:

5150 Cruiser wrote:ROTF was proabably the worst of the 3, but you know what? It was the one that probabaly was based the most on TF mytho's.

NONE of the movies had ANYTHING to do with the TF mythos,.

thats not exactly true, all the films had its fare share of TF series influences, either in the shape of visual Easter eggs or direct plot borrowing.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:all the films had its fare share of TF series influences, either in the shape of visual Easter eggs or direct plot borrowing.

Naming every movie's maguffin after a totally unrelated concept from the cartoon doesn't count

cotss2012 wrote: Hey, you know what? It seems like the people who hate the Bayformers movies point out fairly objective ways in which they suck (stories are poorly structured, too many useless human characters, no emotional investment in any of the robot characters, ethnic stereotypes, etc.), while those who defend the movies are limited to saying "but they made epic moneys!" and "yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man"..

That's because the movie haters "points" are not Objective, there subjective. Saying the plot sucked, poorly structed etc, etc, is subjective. Not fact. Further it is meanrly your opinion and said that being said, you can not force that opinion on others nor label them as facts.
as far as the money arugment, that is the one absolute in all of this. The movies made money. Lots of it. people don't flock to the movies in these numbers if they don't like what they see. They don't make this kind of profit if people dislike what they see.

cotss2012 wrote:

5150 Cruiser wrote:TF has never had strong story telling.

Go watch "Fire in the Sky" and "Code of Hero" in an infinite loop until the Common Sense Fairy comes and hits you on the head..

I'll check them out. maybe i'll like them. (I've proabaly seen them, i just don't reconise all episodes by name) But even if i do, two stories out of thousands aren't going to convince me that TF were based on good story telling. (untill recently that is. Animated was good, and Prime is fantastic (which borrows heavily from the movies))I've seen G1 from top to bottom and the stories for the most parts suck. (and yes, this is mearly my opinion)

5150 Cruiser wrote:ROTF was proabably the worst of the 3, but you know what? It was the one that probabaly was based the most on TF mytho's.

cotss2012 wrote:NONE of the movies had ANYTHING to do with the TF mythos, .

Thats just not true man. And if you honestly believe that then there's no basis for anything you say.

cotss2012 wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:all the films had its fare share of TF series influences, either in the shape of visual Easter eggs or direct plot borrowing.

Naming every movie's maguffin after a totally unrelated concept from the cartoon doesn't count

Says who?

I'm sorry but, you might not like what was done, or how they applied what they borrowed....but it counts.

cotss2012 wrote:Hey, you know what? It seems like the people who hate the Bayformers movies point out fairly objective ways in which they suck (stories are poorly structured, too many useless human characters, no emotional investment in any of the robot characters, ethnic stereotypes, etc.), while those who defend the movies are limited to saying "but they made epic moneys!" and "yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man".

Guess which group the critics agree with.

The critics can say what they want. Didn't stop me from seeing each film multiple times in theaters and buying them on DVD and Blu-Ray. Many others did the same. Fans and non fans alike.

Some of what the critics have said was true, some, but not all. Some hate on autopilot and aren't even willing to look at the positives, at all.

They seem to forget that this is science FICTION, and it makes them look whiny and stupid when they say "Oh, it has this outlandish and silly plot involving the space race and goes downhill from there." ...it's supposed to be outlandish. That's part of the whole deal. And if a ship did crash on the Moon, we'd be bustin' our humps to get up there. This one was more in touch with reality than the last two.

First movie: A cube brings life to technology and they need a pair of glasses to find it. Robots, the title characters, had little screen time. Critics thought it was neat. Did well at the box office.

Second movie: Their version of Satan uses Megatron to kill Optimus, the last Prime, so they can activate a giant death ray to harvest energy. Robots had far more screen time and incredible visuals. Critics hated it, said the robots weren't discernible, it borrowed elements from the coveted and precious G1. (Those elements were what the critics hated, btw) Broke records, did phenomenally well at the box office.

Third movie: Megatron was actually the mastermind behind everything, let everyone else carry the burden. An alien ship crashes on the Moon, we go to investigate it. (this is the most realistic scenario offered in the trilogy, thus far.) The Autobots are sabotaged by one of their own, kicked off the planet and selflessly come to our rescue when they could've kept running. Some of the best action sequences ever recorded on film, CGI that looked breathtakingly real and 3D that rivaled, or was better than, Avatar. Broke records, is in the top 5 domestic moneymakers of all time, and critics still crapped all over it.

Can you honestly sit there and tell me they're right? If you can, then I'm clearly wasting my time and this post to you will be my first and last. Because you're willingly ignoring facts and unwilling to respect the opinions of others. Though, most of what I posted here was fact. Here's opinion for you: I think the first movie sucks.

cotss2012 wrote:

JetOptimus23 wrote:Can't we just enjoy Transformers Prime and stop bitching about the movies...please?

I can enjoy Prime and bitch about the movies, especially considering how vastly superior the former is to the latter. I mean that sincerely; if we had gotten a shot-for-shot, word-for-word live-action version of Darkness Rising in '07 instead of "Mumblebee pisses on John Turturro", I would have called it the best movie ever.

You can, yes. Doesn't mean anyone wants to hear it. After a while of hearing it a million times from millions of others, we don't need a million and one. Instead of bitching and retreading old paths, why don't you blaze a new one and come up with positive ideas that could be embraced instead of crapping all over everyone's happiness?

Darkness Rising was good, but "best movie ever" material? No. Yes, no doubt it would've been better than what the first film turned out to be, I can't deny that, but it certainly wasn't fodder for the best movie ever. It still had that Orci & Kurtzman feel to it. They were one of the biggest problems with the franchise.

cotss2012 wrote:

5150 Cruiser wrote:TF has never had strong story telling.

Go watch "Fire in the Sky" and "Code of Hero" in an infinite loop until the Common Sense Fairy comes and hits you on the head.

Wow. What a pleasant attitude. Just because he's voicing an opinion, doesn't mean he lacks common sense. And you haven't the right to state such a thing. I can see you're going to run afoul of a lot of people. It's one thing to have and share an opinion, it's another to be rude about it and shove it down people's throats.

Fire In The Sky? Meh. It was alright, better than some, worse than others. Code Of Hero? I'll give you that one. But that's ONE. There's a list of episodes of TF that are just awful, and wrote the book on how to be awful.

cotss2012 wrote:

5150 Cruiser wrote:ROTF was proabably the worst of the 3, but you know what? It was the one that probabaly was based the most on TF mytho's.

NONE of the movies had ANYTHING to do with the TF mythos, although DotM borrowed a few plot points from The Ultimate Doom and Megatron's Master Plan.

Incorrect. Absolutely incorrect. You seem to be missing a very important point: This was intended to be a reboot. This was intended to be it's own universe. It was supposed to start it's own mythos. We whined and complained and went on and on and they caved and borrowed from G1 and look what it got us. The first movie was boring, the second one was outlandish and the third one, somehow miraculously, pulled it off.

Blinders are for horses, not people. Take off your's and put down your glass of Haterade.

5150 Cruiser wrote:

cotss2012 wrote:NONE of the movies had ANYTHING to do with the TF mythos, .

Thats just not true man. And if you honestly believe that then there's no basis for anything you say.

Agreed.

5150 Cruiser wrote:That's because the movie haters "points" are not Objective, there subjective. Saying the plot sucked, poorly structed etc, etc, is subjective. Not fact. Further it is meanrly your opinion

Fact: if the entire "hackers" subplot AND the entire "Qatar" subplot were 100% removed from the first movie, this would cut the movie's runtime down by an hour and the audience wouldn't miss a single damn thing. That's poor story structure.

Fact: Both Shia and the Master of Disaster admitted that RotF sucked.

Fact: In the real world, the Smithsonian is not located in a desert in Arizona, but in RotF, it is.

Fact: Carly did absolutely NOT A SINGLE DAMN THING of any story-relevant importance in DotM, until the very end, where she taunted Megatron by calling him "Sentinel's bitch"... which shouldn't have bothered him at all, considering that he had been The Fallen's bitch for quite some time.

I really could compose a much larger list than this, but others have done it for me. What matters is that when every movie critic in the world says that the movies have no redeeming qualities whatsoever except awesome CGI and awesome action scenes, and they level the same criticisms regarding story structure, racism, etc., and the opposition has no counterargument except "they made mad cash at the box office", the opposition is clearly in the wrong.

Are these the same movie critics who liked Cloverfield? I rest my case.

cotss2012 wrote:What matters is that when every movie critic in the world says that the movies have no redeeming qualities whatsoever except awesome CGI and awesome action scenes, and they level the same criticisms regarding story structure, racism, etc., and the opposition has no counterargument except "they made mad cash at the box office", the opposition is clearly in the wrong.

*BUZZ* Incorrect.

1.) The critics are a mixed bag themselves. Plenty lambasted the visuals and action, as well as the storytelling. While other praised all three elements. It's not 100% one way or the other. I even pointed out that critics complained about the visuals. That's your first strike.

2.) The opposition is not clearly in the wrong. No one's clearly wrong or clearly right. Heck, when you can't even get the critics issue right, you can't say who the opposition is. You can't even figure out which side of the fence you're on. That's your second strike.

3.) Critics can hate them all they want, but the simple fact is that these movies made over two billion in combined ticket sales. That means the audience enjoyed them. Some of the audience found these movies to have some depth, comedy that made them laugh, thrills that made them gasp, etc, etc, etc. And some of those people are not simpleton fools as some of the critics would have you believe. (Ebert, in particular.) They like to say we all are, simply for liking this film series. It's not true, it just isn't. We might not agree with the critics and they might not agree with us, but that makes neither side stupid. No one has the right to label the other as such. (Though, you clearly agree with critics who do, which makes you wrong.) This time, the critics are the minority and the majority rule wins. Strike three.

You're outta here!

Man...that block list is filling up fast. I hope there's not a limit.

Well, gee gosh golly, your three strikes would surely be impressive if you could actually point to a particular review praising the story, writing, acting, and/or other important points of filmmaking. I do not doubt, however, that some critics found the CGI less than convincing. As usual, the pro-bayformers argument consists of nothing more than "they made a bajillion bucks at the box office", which counts for NOTHING when determining the actual merits of a movie.

As opposed to the anti-bayformers argument which consists of "it sucks because I said so"

*yawn* Bored now.


Now i'm not!

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:ROTF sure as hell felt epic to me. I think it was probably even more epic than DOTM.

Maybe epic wasn't the right word. How should I put this? I really meant that the scenes lacked "scale," which might be an even worse word to use.

I've watched quite a few Asian war movies set in ancient times, and the scenes used there exude what I call epic: tens of thousands of soldiers and horses sweeping across the landscape like a human tide, the sound of metal on metal ringing in the air.

My definition of an epic TF scene would kind of like DOTM, when the Cons teleport to Chicago using the space bridge, except on a grander scale. Thousands of TF's swarming the city like ants, blood soaking the streets and walls as a discreet hint of the amount of killin that went on off-screen.

In ROTF, the invasion was just a dozen or so TF's in "comet" mode streaking across the sky, one crashing into a clock tower etc, a few crashing into an aircraft carrier, and some scenes with a couple of Cons standing on a bridge and on top of a skyscraper.

Speaking of the aircraft carrier scene, IMO it would have looked so cool if the Fallen had single-handedly destroyed it with his anti-gravity thing. Just my personal opinion, but a few comet mode TF's crashing into it just doesn;t do it for me.

I would have to respectfully agree. ROTF felt forced in it's attempt to be on a grander scale. (Remember this is MY opinion. I am not stating this comment as fact.) It had its moments here and there but the film fell short of my expectations.

I'm so glad I've stayed away from this forum. The same number of narrow-minded people as there were 6 months ago.

Let me just say this:

"The Michael Bay Transformers movies suck and anyone who enjoys them has bad taste, has extremely low standards, and is extremely unintelligent."(citation needed)

"The Michael Bay Transformers movies are the greatest movies ever made and whoever dislikes them is just plain stupid, narrow-minded, and is a troll by default."(citation needed)

OptiMagnus wrote:I'm so glad I've stayed away from this forum. The same number of narrow-minded people as there were 6 months ago.

Let me just say this:

"The Michael Bay Transformers movies suck and anyone who enjoys them has bad taste, has extremely low standards, and is extremely unintelligent."(citation needed)

"The Michael Bay Transformers movies are the greatest movies ever made and whoever dislikes them is just plain stupid, narrow-minded, and is a troll by default."(citation needed)

The difference between these two hyperboles is that the former is backed up by demonstrable faults in story structure, like the total uselessness of the hacker subplot and Qatar subplot in the first movie, and by the fact that SHIA AND THE MASTER OF DISASTER BOTH ADMITTED THAT ROTF SUCKED.

Citations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2leoH_0ucU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbj02-897fQ
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... rs-Revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD-oTKEDQnA
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... f-the-Moon

cotss2012 wrote:

The difference between these two hyperboles is that the former is backed up by demonstrable faults in story structure, like the total uselessness of the hacker subplot and Qatar subplot in the first movie, and by the fact that SHIA AND THE MASTER OF DISASTER BOTH ADMITTED THAT ROTF SUCKED.

Citations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2leoH_0ucU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbj02-897fQ
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... rs-Revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD-oTKEDQnA
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... f-the-Moon

Actually, if you bothered to pay attention, you'd see the hacker subplot played a key point in the first movie. The point was for the Decepticons could..

1.- Learn the location of the all spark.
2.- Learn the location of Megatron.

At this point you don't like the movie. That's fine man. You don't have to like it. But stop labeling your opinion as fact and get over that fact that not everyone disliked the movies. I liked them. And a few youtube video's aren't going to sway my desecion. NO ones saying the movies were perfect. They were far from it. BUt the reality is there isn't one movie out there that is.

Since Bay and Shia both said that ROTF "Suckedy it again, the majority liked the movies. " as you call it, (they didn't actually admit it sucked, just that it could of been better), then by your logic, DOTM was a fantastic movie, since both stated it was great work and were proud to be involved.

OptiMagnus wrote:I'm so glad I've stayed away from this forum. The same number of narrow-minded people as there were 6 months ago.

6 months ago??

This topic was only started Oct 7th 2011

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

OptiMagnus wrote:I'm so glad I've stayed away from this forum. The same number of narrow-minded people as there were 6 months ago.

6 months ago??

This topic was only started Oct 7th 2011

I think you'll find he's talking about how this thread is pretty much the same as the multitude of other "anti-movie" threads that have popped up over the last six months.

The ones I normally end up having to lock because the latest "bayhater" goes too far and insults someone.

Burn wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

OptiMagnus wrote:I'm so glad I've stayed away from this forum. The same number of narrow-minded people as there were 6 months ago.

6 months ago??

This topic was only started Oct 7th 2011

I think you'll find he's talking about how this thread is pretty much the same as the multitude of other "anti-movie" threads that have popped up over the last six months.

The ones I normally end up having to lock because the latest "bayhater" goes too far and insults someone.

I think your right.

5150 Cruiser wrote:Actually, if you bothered to pay attention, you'd see the hacker subplot played a key point in the first movie. The point was for the Decepticons could..

1.- Learn the location of the all spark.
2.- Learn the location of Megatron.

The Decepticons never needed to do much hacking at all: Sam and Mikaela took Frenzy straight into the Hoover Dam, though that was only possible because Sam and Evil Prowl ran into each other by accident... after hacking into Air Force One somehow led Frenzy to Sam's eBay page, which might have allowed them to access Sam's address, which would make perfect sense if Evil Prowl had been anywhere near Sam's house when they met (this is why the STORY STRUCTURE IS CRAP).

The virus that Frenzy uploaded ultimately meant nothing. The involvement of the Australian chick and her overweight friend analyzing the signal also ended up going nowhere, though they conveniently knew how to hook up a radio to a computer in such a way as to transmit Morse code for the purpose of calling in some Raptors for Starscream to tear up...

cotss2012 wrote:

5150 Cruiser wrote:Actually, if you bothered to pay attention, you'd see the hacker subplot played a key point in the first movie. The point was for the Decepticons could..

1.- Learn the location of the all spark.
2.- Learn the location of Megatron.

The Decepticons never needed to do much hacking at all: Sam and Mikaela took Frenzy straight into the Hoover Dam, though that was only possible because Sam and Evil Prowl ran into each other by accident... after hacking into Air Force One somehow led Frenzy to Sam's eBay page, which might have allowed them to access Sam's address, which would make perfect sense if Evil Prowl had been anywhere near Sam's house when they met (this is why the STORY STRUCTURE IS CRAP).

Earth is a big place, the Decepticons knew Megatron and the Allspark were on it somewhere. Instead of going over every square inch of the planet they started hacking computer networks to find information on the location of Megatron and the Allspark. The whole reason Barricade was even in Sam's town(which is pretty close to where he lives) is because Frenzy found the glasses on his ebay page. They found that by searching the name Witwicky which Frenzy found when he hacked Air Force One.

The virus that Frenzy uploaded ultimately meant nothing. The involvement of the Australian chick and her overweight friend analyzing the signal also ended up going nowhere, though they conveniently knew how to hook up a radio to a computer in such a way as to transmit Morse code for the purpose of calling in some Raptors for Starscream to tear up...

She alerted everyone when Frenzy was hacking Air Force One and convinced them to shut down the network to prevent the Decepticons from finding where Megatron and the Allspark were. If not for that Megatron would be free with the Allspark in his possession before the Autobots even got to Earth. And those Raptors shot Megatron down which gave Sam the opportunity to shove the Allspark in his chest.

Cruiser, Nub, I think it's great you've posted intelligently, with facts and kept your patience, but it's not worth it.

I'd give up now. We see it one way, they see it another, which is fine, but it's just not worth the hassle or potential trouble.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:Earth is a big place, the Decepticons knew Megatron and the Allspark were on it somewhere. Instead of going over every square inch of the planet they started hacking computer networks to find information on the location of Megatron and the Allspark.

Yes, I know their decision to do that made sense. It just didn't amount to anything - at least not directly.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:The whole reason Barricade was even in Sam's town(which is pretty close to where he lives) is because Frenzy found the glasses on his ebay page. They found that by searching the name Witwicky which Frenzy found when he hacked Air Force One.

I know. I saw that too. And it would have made perfect sense if they had actually met at Sam's house. Instead, they run into each other almost purely by accident after Frenzy went through the trouble of finding where Sam lived. This is called CRAP STORY STRUCTURE.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:She alerted everyone when Frenzy was hacking Air Force One and convinced them to shut down the network to prevent the Decepticons from finding where Megatron and the Allspark were. If not for that Megatron would be free with the Allspark in his possession before the Autobots even got to Earth.

Or you could remove every single scene involving Qatar, the NSA, and the stupid plate of donuts, and the plot would still make just as much sense. The audience might wonder how Evil Prowl was able to locate Sam, but given that we're never told how Bumblebee was able to locate Sam (see also: CRAP STORY STRUCTURE), I don't think it would matter that much.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:And those Raptors shot Megatron down which gave Sam the opportunity to shove the Allspark in his chest.

Really? I thought it was all the tanks and AC-130 gunships and military guys with M203 grenade-launchers, and while I may have been hallucinating at the time, I think Optimus helped a little bit too. Not that we actually NEEDED an explanation for why the Air Force would be showing up to a battle in which the US Military is fighting giant alien robots that are tearing up huge parts of an American city...

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

Burn wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

OptiMagnus wrote:I'm so glad I've stayed away from this forum. The same number of narrow-minded people as there were 6 months ago.

6 months ago??

This topic was only started Oct 7th 2011

I think you'll find he's talking about how this thread is pretty much the same as the multitude of other "anti-movie" threads that have popped up over the last six months.

The ones I normally end up having to lock because the latest "bayhater" goes too far and insults someone.

I think your right.

As usual, Burn knows what I mean.
But really, this crap just goes on forever and no one wins, because eventually "the latest "bayhater" goes too far and insults someone", resulting in a locked thread. I used to be the extremist newbie on the opposite side of the spectrum, but I never remember insulting anyone. Maybe I did, but I never directly got a thread locked. However, I've been told I have a defective brain and that I have extremely low standards in this forum over this movie debate, and it seems the level of intelligence has not improved. In fact, I think I'm seeing a larger rate of locked threads than before.

well, If there is one thing I noticed throughout the three films, it's that starscream never tried to overthrow megatron. I mean, there was the one scene in the first film with the f-22 bombings, but was that even proven?
My point is, Starscream wasn't the only bot to act out of character from time to time, but that's one thing they SHOULD have worked in. Including a scene were Megatron offs, or at least tries to (And fails to) Off starscream. That's all I really needed to say. The movies don't suck. Their flawed, sure, but they don't suck.
If you have a broken TF, but all that's broken is his gun, would you still get rid of him?