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Official ROTF Review Thread

Discuss anything and everything related to the Transformers Live Action Films franchise, which are directed by Michael Bay. Join us to discuss the movies and stuff up to date with news for the 2017 release of Transformers 5. Check out our Live Action Film section here.

Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby 5150 Cruiser » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:16 pm

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Just saw the movie.

I have to say i loved it! It wasn't ithout its faults, but what movie isn't?

Since there isn't much that hasn't already been discused, i'l just add the my biggest likes and gripes.

Skids, MudFlap, and Jetfire were without a doubt the best Characters of the movie! Great personnalities, great comedy! Loved every minute of them!

My only real gripes were the "duplicate" constructicons. That didn't make much sence at all. I could go on, but it wouldn't be adding anything new to the conversation. (not that the construcicon clones hadn'e already been talked about).

Over all, great movie. I loved it!
Decepticons... Com in get yo ice cream!.... And then get yo ass whop'in!!

Suck my popsicle!! :p

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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Choc-o-bot » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:17 pm

Here's a review from the Nostalgia Critic that's actually pretty positive:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videol ... c/8875-tf2

Most of his complaints with the film are similar to mine, ie: the new characters not having enough dialog/screen time, Devestator not actually doing too much, while still looking cool though; And the final battle being kind of short. But I didn't mind that so much mostly because it's not about the length of the battle but how badass it is.
Case in point:
When Prime said "Let's roll" Everyone in the theater just exploded in applause.
Prime shoots half of Megatron's face off with his own gun!
He rips off Fallen's face!
Then goes and punches Fallen through the back, ripping out his spark and shows it to him as he dies!

So while the battle was short there was a whole lot of badass packed into it.

Also after thinking about it, along with ripping apart Blackout/Grindor's face in the forest and shooting Demolishor in the head as well, I think Optimus has a problem with the way Decepticon's faces look.

And to put it to rest as well, Bonecrusher can be seen in robot mode in the scene where one of the Arcee twins gets shot. Look to the left behind the building.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby wingdarkness » Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:19 pm

Alright, saw this thing last Thursday and didn't have a chance to really examine it, but now I will...It sucked and I will explain why in somewhat intricate detail, but before I break the glass ceiling that is Bay's fandom I'll say what I mildly enjoyed...

1) I thought Soundwave was handled well...Ejecting missiles as a satellite as opposed to tapedeck material was one of the few interesting things in this movie..Ultimately nothing more came of Soundwave, and Ravage looked horrible upclose, but I remember thinking that was cool...

2) Shia Lebouf despite having literally nothing but a bag of dust to work with, he still shows great potential at times...He's just normal geek enuff without being super-geeky, and he's still action guy enuff without being "action-guy"...He's got good natural comedic timing and if given a real script that takes advantage of his talent he can deliver...

3) Starscream's voice change to the original sounding voice was nice and so was his sniveling to Megatron...He still looks like a horrid metal garbage can, but I liked his more consistent character...Couldn't make out much more dialogue in this movie than his though...

Alright now let's move on to movie review, I'll try and make it as quick as possible as if that's possible...Worst five things...

5) A HUMANFORMER in TRANSFORMERS? I've seen alot of TF stuff, read lots of material, but I've never seen a human chick who was actually a decpticon...Underneath the panty-showing mini-skirt lies the rejected concept art of Terminator 2...Honestly so many of the liquid-aluminum looking stuff in this movie just didn't feel TF-like...Guess we'll never get to see what she was gonna transform into...A b1tch maybe??

4)Terrible editing...Bay wasn't lying when he said he just finished this movie a week before airtime, because the editing was a joke...This is like what I did in my first editing class in college using adobe premiere...Maybe having a degree in this stuff makes me more of an a$$ in judging it but I can imagine 3 video-screens with the rough draft of the movie playing and one of those pendulum birds hitting his beak against a button that randomly switches between the 3 drafts...The 360 degree cuts ran the gamut between nauseating and poop-inducing...

3)Matrix of leadership an F-ing Sword?? A bag of dust?? Jesus Skywalker, one has to wonder how plum out of ideas or creativity a director or a writer has when the evilly-McEvil thing in the movie is this...Why would something that could destroy all of mankind be called "THE MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP"?!?!? That's like the biggest bully in 3rd grade being called "Nice guy Paul"..."Oh noooooes, he has the matrix of leadership!!! What's he gonna do?!!! Skillfully and tactfully lead us?!!?! Oh OK..." ^^

2) Eddie Gordo tribute...Any fans of Tekken should appreciate this because when the TF crashed upon earth they had to link with the sega-dreamcast central computer and just stole all of Eddie Gordo's (Tiger) fighting moves...There were some good action scenes (not as much good TForming effects like PT1 though), but most of them followed this script..Confusing, camera-jumping bull$hit with Eddie Gordo jumping and landing (It's just as bad in the first film but you can atleast see it better)...

1) Who cared about Fallen?? Transformers Return of The Fallen was about nothing...Fallen was nothing, pretty meaningless...Made Megatron ghey for wanting to follow this flake, and made the ending as about as anticlimatic as a fly verses my hand...I was more concerned with whoever's gonna make the toys for this movie because they should get a congressional award...I mean these are some of the ugliest and most incomprehensible faces I've ever seen on a bot, and to think that you're gonna have to transform a car just to see mudflaps grill or something, I don't think Rainman could transform any of these toys in less than 20 mins...But I guess i care more about that than Fallen the jungle-tribe killing Superbot...


As for the rest the plot was meaningless (I felt like Sam and company listening to the Aussie bot'a gibberish--that's how I felt about the plot of this movie), Megan Fox didn't even get as exploited as everyone claimed, and like I said The Fallen was a joke...We waited through 2 1/2 hours of movie to see a villain who was actually nobody special at all...In the end TF2 was much worse than the first which actually had somewhat of an emotional connection to the robots, but this version was just like that line from Jeff Goldblum in JURASSIC PARK (Back when Speilberg didn't jump the shark yet), "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should..." This is how Bay's mind thinks...Let's just put 40 TF's in a movie because we can, not that it'll be any damn good or coherent...

I mean this movie was loooong as hell and you could have easily cut 40 mins out of it...It would have only taken maybe 20 mins to introduce the new TF and reestablish Sam, and//or Josh Duhmel's team in relationship to the new TFs (Making the fighting actually have something called "importance") ...There's no moment where you can simply just look at the new TF in any detail or enjoy the fact that ur favorite TF was in the movie, just chaotic bull$hit that if you went to the show high off a good bag of weed (Or matrix-dust) you could slow time down enuff to notice someone like Arcee actually being in this movie...

Where's the scene where the new TF's meet Sam and company or engage themselves with the audience?? That's why this movie was pretty souless...Because it's basically a 3 minute trailer stretched out to be a 2 1/2 hour movie...Plowing through plots, characters, and anything else in the way of Bay's chaotic agenda...

There's no adventure, there's no wonder in this movie at all, only unfiltered rapage that ends as randomly as it began...If this is what you guys love and think is faithful to the Transformer lore all I can do is schedule a lobotomy to extract everything I've ever known about TF so I can just enjoy a meaningless robot pic...

3 outta 10 if I'm being fair...I'm not some rigid a$$ that needs an ejecting tape bird with a beak of lasery to ease my mind...Just something that has a soul...This movie doesn't...After the movie ended I kinda felt like shanking Bay with "The Matrix of Leadership", but he oddly wouldn't be scared of that i think...
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Evolution Prime » Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:31 pm

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wingdarkness wrote:5) A HUMANFORMER in TRANSFORMERS? I've seen alot of TF stuff, read lots of material, but I've never seen a human chick who was actually a decpticon...Underneath the panty-showing mini-skirt lies the rejected concept art of Terminator 2...Honestly so many of the liquid-aluminum looking stuff in this movie just didn't feel TF-like...Guess we'll never get to see what she was gonna transform into...A b1tch maybe??


Try looking up Pretenders.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby wingdarkness » Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:48 pm

^Hmm, I wasn't aware of the Pretender series since Headmasters was the last TF anime series I watched until after 2000 with the more recent series, but I do remember seeing some human-like Transformers somewhere but they had all kinds of armor on in their human-form, not just plain human-looking...I'm willing to take a step back on that though since the pretenders do have a lineage...In the movie it just seemed odd to me...Definitely not something i saw in G1, but I accept your response...
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Evolution Prime » Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:54 pm

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Not a huge fan of Pretenders myself but they were apart of Transformers. Not sure how he would have done the college part without using it. Maybe some spy drones like the Insecticons that were used in the desert.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby oldskooltf » Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:10 pm

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wingdarkness wrote:
3)Matrix of leadership an F-ing Sword?? A bag of dust?? Jesus Skywalker, one has to wonder how plum out of ideas or creativity a director or a writer has when the evilly-McEvil thing in the movie is this...Why would something that could destroy all of mankind be called "THE MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP"?!?!? That's like the biggest bully in 3rd grade being called "Nice guy Paul"..."Oh noooooes, he has the matrix of leadership!!! What's he gonna do?!!! Skillfully and tactfully lead us?!!?! Oh OK..." ^^


I'm confused. Are you upset with how the Matrix looked or with the fact that it's called "The Matrix of Leadership" and you think that sounds dumb? Cause it was in the original cartoon movie and it was able to defeat Unicron despite how small and non-terrifying that it looked. So, this idea of the "Matrix of Leadership" is not new to the TF lore. Bay and the writers likely included it to please the hardcore fans -- yet still some of those fans don't like it. He can never win, can he?

2) Eddie Gordo tribute...Any fans of Tekken should appreciate this because when the TF crashed upon earth they had to link with the sega-dreamcast central computer and just stole all of Eddie Gordo's (Tiger) fighting moves...There were some good action scenes (not as much good TForming effects like PT1 though), but most of them followed this script..Confusing, camera-jumping bull$hit with Eddie Gordo jumping and landing (It's just as bad in the first film but you can atleast see it better)...


What was that all about? :???:

1) Who cared about Fallen?? Transformers Return of The Fallen was about nothing...Fallen was nothing, pretty meaningless...Made Megatron ghey for wanting to follow this flake, and made the ending as about as anticlimatic as a fly verses my hand...I was more concerned with whoever's gonna make the toys for this movie because they should get a congressional award...I mean these are some of the ugliest and most incomprehensible faces I've ever seen on a bot, and to think that you're gonna have to transform a car just to see mudflaps grill or something, I don't think Rainman could transform any of these toys in less than 20 mins...But I guess i care more about that than Fallen the jungle-tribe killing Superbot...


In the cartoon, Prime was leader after Alpha Trion, so why can't we accept that Megatron followed after a previous leader, The Fallen -- who by the way was in TF lore in some comics. His look is supposed to tie into the Egyptian history I'd guess which makes sense to me with the whole pharoah look. Obviously you likely didn't like most of the movie designs from TF1 & TF2 -- so I'm assuming your review of the first TF movie (2007) was also a star or two lower due to your unacceptance of the TFs look. Fine -- it's your opinion -- but to make it #1 on your list makes me question your openess to the movie before you even saw it.



As for the rest the plot was meaningless (I felt like Sam and company listening to the Aussie bot'a gibberish--that's how I felt about the plot of this movie), Megan Fox didn't even get as exploited as everyone claimed, and like I said The Fallen was a joke...We waited through 2 1/2 hours of movie to see a villain who was actually nobody special at all...In the end TF2 was much worse than the first which actually had somewhat of an emotional connection to the robots, but this version was just like that line from Jeff Goldblum in JURASSIC PARK (Back when Speilberg didn't jump the shark yet), "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should..." This is how Bay's mind thinks...Let's just put 40 TF's in a movie because we can, not that it'll be any damn good or coherent...


Bay gave us 40 TFs cause the hardcore fans wanted more TFs than what we got in the first movie. We should realize that more TFs will mean less characterization for most of them. Again, he apparently can't please everyone.
I agree that I expected the Fallen to be a little more powerful, but let's remember that he was older than dirt and yet was still was lightning fast. Got to give him some credit for that...


I mean this movie was loooong as hell and you could have easily cut 40 mins out of it...It would have only taken maybe 20 mins to introduce the new TF and reestablish Sam, and//or Josh Duhmel's team in relationship to the new TFs (Making the fighting actually have something called "importance") ...There's no moment where you can simply just look at the new TF in any detail or enjoy the fact that ur favorite TF was in the movie,...


If they cut out the scenes you're mentioning, there'd be less characterization than what it already had which would just make more fans irate. So, come on...

There are plenty of moments that you can look at the TFs in detail, including some of the new ones -- Prime, Bumblebee, Starscream, Megatron, the Fallen, Ravage, Soundwave, Devastator, The Doctor, Wheelie... so I disagree with that statement.

I agree that Sideswipe, the Arcee bikes, Jolt (especially him) and Sideways got jipped big time... and I was a little disappointed with that, but the other new bots did not.

Yes, the movie was long, but only 10 minutes longer than the last one.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby dreamers » Sun Jun 28, 2009 9:00 pm

I just saw this movie the other day, and while it was better than the first one, it wasn`t by much.

my biggest gripe in the movie is the scenes where they had two people talking and the camera rotates around them, like when megan`s char is talking to shia`s char, and the camera is just spinning around them. i felt dizzy just looking at that scene, and others like it (maybe there was just one more not too sure).

also the action scenes to me were just big blurs sometimes. i understand its an action film, and it was great to have the close up to show the hecticness of the battle, but sometimes just pan the camera back a bit and let us have a look at the bigger picture.

sam`s parents comic relief vs the twins? i say that sam`s parents have that on in the bag. they were funnier than the twins even though the twins were on screen longer. sam`s parents were to me the highlight of the beginning of the movie. only other highlight was optimus prime and jetfire combo.

all in all, i liked the movie, just didn`t love it like most here.

but i am hoping that they put powermasters/head masters in the next transformers movie.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby 5150 Cruiser » Sun Jun 28, 2009 9:16 pm

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wingdarkness wrote:^Hmm, I wasn't aware of the Pretender series since Headmasters was the last TF anime series I watched until after 2000 with the more recent series, but I do remember seeing some human-like Transformers somewhere but they had all kinds of armor on in their human-form, not just plain human-looking...I'm willing to take a step back on that though since the pretenders do have a lineage...In the movie it just seemed odd to me...Definitely not something i saw in G1, but I accept your response...


Thats the spirt! :APPLAUSE:
Decepticons... Com in get yo ice cream!.... And then get yo ass whop'in!!

Suck my popsicle!! :p

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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Prime Riblet » Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:05 pm

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FINALLY got to see it today. I accept that there were plot holes, and a few other things that could have been different/better. I have to admit I loved it though. There is no question that Optimus Prime is a badass. Like people have said though, I really wish they would have used Ironhide and Ratchet a bit more instead of the twins. The twins didn't bother me though. All I know is that I want to own it.
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Savage's Thoughts on ROTF

Postby Savage » Mon Jun 29, 2009 12:12 am

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I saw the movie for the second time today, and several things stuck out to me.

Be warned, if you haven't seen the movie yet, this post contains MAJOR spoilers!




So, first, the Arcee bikes. Is it just me or did the purple one survive? And does she have a name? Sure, they're all technically Arcee, but the figure for the blue one is named Chromia. I wonder if Hasbro has a name for the purple one. And please not Moonracer or Firestar.

Also, I know we're all older than we were in 1986, and those who kept up with spoilers knew it wasn't permanent, but not even the children in my theater cried when Prime died. Are we just that insensitive as a society nowadays? Or was the scene just not emotional enough? Did you cry?

Does that Smithsonian airplane room scream Aerialbots for TF3 to anybody else?

In Ravage's arrival and theft of the shard, those little balls/bots he coughs up that merge into one, does that have a name? I tend to think of the little bug-like bots as Insecticons. Ripping off IDW a bit, was their combined burglarbot "the Swarm"? Does it have a name?

Was anybody else sad that they seemed to reuse cgi a lot in the final battle? I saw at least one Decepticon that was basically a protoform body (probably ganked from the first film) with Megatron's face.

Overall, I still enjoyed the movie immensely. Everytime I watch it, I catch little nods/references to various elements of all the continuities that came before. My second viewing resulted in a trip to WalMart and the purchase of Chromia and Demolisher. Ravage will be picked up as soon as I see him.

Speaking of Ravage, I still can't get over the single eye. I mean, would it have killed them to give him two eyes?! Other than that, I absolutely love Ravage's movie incarnation. I was especially happy to see the guns on his haunches, another great nod to G1.

And what's the deal with Decepticons growing new troops in pods a la The Matrix?! "Hatchlings"? I suppose it's no worse than any other explanation of TF reproduction that we've been handed over the years, but I hope they expand on it in a future film, explain the process a bit more or something.

Okay, I'm done rambling. Anybody else got some thoughts on these topics?
What did you love about the movie?
What really made it feel like TransFormers for you?

Please no "I hated the movie" responses. That's not what this thread is about.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Starscreams bad comedy » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:26 am

After having just watched Bay's sequel to his Transformers movie, if i had to pick one world to sum it up it would be 'Why'. There were a lot of whys in this movie and here are some of them:


Why are the Autobots considered top secret if they go around in the middle of citys blowing stuff up?
Why are dogs humping?
Why s Bumblebee just chilling in Sams garage and not with the rest of the Autobots/NEST?
Why is he protecting him?
Why cant Bumblebee still not speak?
Why does Mikela need to air brush a bike with her ass up in the air like a cat in heat?
Why does eating pot laced brownies make you act like youre on cocaine/hyper active?
Why do the Decepticons suddenly have Terminator technology?
Why dont the Decpticons just use said Terminator tech to infiltrate the human government?
Why and how did the Terminator chick just suddenly show up at Sams college?
Why would sam keep the fact that there is a All Spark shard hidden from the rest of the Autobots?
Why yell for Bumblebees help then scold him and tell him to go away?
Why give the All Spark shard to your dumb girlfriend instead of an Autobot for protection?
Why were the Deceptions trying to get the shard?
Why were they trying to get the info in Sams head if there was another All Spark shard with the same info?
Why not get the info from the other shard after you stole it?
Why resurrect Megatron if hes not the leader in the first place?
Why were the Fallen/Decepticons based on one of Saturns moons?
Why if they were based on one of Saturns moons did they make no attempt to search for Megatron back when he went missing searching on earth for the All Spark in part one?
Why were the Autobots fighting Megatron and Starscream in a factory one minute then the middle of a remote forest the next?
Why did we need to see John Tuturos ass?
Why was jetfire just chilling on earth all this time?
Why do the humans have technology that can detect TF's but the bots dont, considering that human tech is based on TF tech?
Why is the Smithsonian in the middle of a desert graveyard for planes?
Why did the twins and Bumblebee transport with Jetfire if they were not near him?
Why did Sam know he was in Egypt just by looking around at some mountains?
Why can only a Prime defeat the Fallen?
Why did the Matrix disintegrate?
Why did the Matrix work on humans/organics?
Why were most of the Decepticons clones?
Why were the Constructicons clones?
Why if the Constructicons are clones they can not form more than one Devastator?
Why was Devastators main function that of a giant vacuum/wood chipper?
Why did Devastator have "balls"?
Why would a Transformer know how to hump?
Why would a Transformer have a beard or cane?
Why do most of the bots have to be silver colored?
Why did the rail gun apparently have only one shot?
Why didnt they just use the All Spark shard to revive Prime ala Megatron?
Why did the Decepticons kidnap Sams parents?
Why did the Decepticons land in the middle of the ocean on a aircraft carrier?
Why not use the rail gun on the pyramid instead of devastator?
Why couldnt Jetfire just teleport Prime to the top of the pyramid instead of "dying" and giving him his parts?
Why worry about dying when you can just resurrect anybody with the All Spark fragments and or Matrix?
Why do the Decepticons have liquid metal tech?



Setting aside all the whys for a moment I would just like to say that a lot of the problems with the first movie are still present in this one and to even greater degrees:

We got even more attempts/forced humor this time. Did we really need to see dogs and bots humping, Sams parents talking about sex, or Sams mom spazing out, ass shots etc etc.? All this humor just undercuts any tension thats created and makes you feel that there is no real danger for the heros.

There more humans this time around. Whats worse is that most of them just seemed to be there to set up the lame toilet humor.

The close up shots with the robots fighting/rolling around on the ground is still present and still sucks. If you are going to have bots grappling at least make them more distinguishable.

Over use of slow motion. Explosions everywhere.

Humans doing the bulk of the actual killing of bots.

Characters just up and disappearing in the middle of the movie or being reduced to background characters with little to no dialogue.

And did we really have to have almost every scene with Sam and Mikela have the camera rotating around them while some crappy pop music plays underneath them for the whole scene? It comes off as some bad music video.

The plot (what little there was) was pretty much pointless and really only served two roles. As the set up for the toilet humor/bad jokes and for the crappy action scenes. As I mentioned above,there are so many whys with this movie its to the point of distraction. A bad action movie can be enjoyed just for he action alone at least, but with this movie youre left scratching your head so much that you cant even really do that. And coupled with the bad camera work it makes the action not enough to overcome that.


Then there is the issue of the "racial" twins. People are blowing this whole thing out of proportion. As was the case with Jar Jar its much ado about nothing. Sure they talk in slang, but its really not anything you woulndt find on any Eminem record or top 40 music station for that matter. The twins come of more as poser thugs then racially charged minstrels as some have claimed.There was nothing offensive or overtly racial about them. Stereotypical maybe, but then again most stereotypes are based on some form of reality. I put this in the same category as Resident Evil 5 being racist cause its set in Africa and you kill black zombies.

The other issue I take with this film is all the toilet humor and profanity. Im no prude, but really do we need to see humping and s bombs and the like. I mean this is supposed to be for kids. The original Transformers cartoon didnt need such things to appeal to kids. The Transformers them selfs where more then enough. Maybe if the writers spent a little more time building the bots characters they wouldnt need all the lame toilet humor in the first place.

Basically this movie plays to the lowest common denominator. It presents you a film with not real plot or story and what little there is is a jumbled mess. Its got plenty of toilet humor and explosions to distract you from this fact, but if your brain is turned on in the slightest all that flashing lights and color fails. The action is muddled at best and cant overcome the weaknesses present in this movie. While the first Transformers was a mess as well, it managed to barely be a throw away popcorn flick that actually had a more coherent story than this one. Bottom line, this movie is a rental at best and in reality a bargain bin special.

If I had to give this a letter grade I would give it a D. I will say though that the special effects were pretty good, but then again, for 200mil they better be.
Last edited by Starscreams bad comedy on Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Rodimus Prime » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:27 am

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I saw it for the 4th time tonight, and was still impressed by the action. Damn. It is what Bay does best. Yeah, the story still sucks, but it's still funny, even after hearing the punchlines before. But the main reason I saw it repeatedly was the awesome action,. mainly Prime's fights. Though the end fight was a bit too short. nonetheless, this was the most fun movie of the year, only Star Trek comes close. But that one had a good story as well. I can't believe the same writers are responsible. I'm definitely getting this on DVD. All you haters and critics can suck Bay's $200m nutsack.
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Re: Savage's Thoughts on ROTF

Postby Jacob P. Galvatron » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:28 am

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Savage wrote:In Ravage's arrival and theft of the shard, those little balls/bots he coughs up that merge into one, does that have a name? I tend to think of the little bug-like bots as Insecticons. Ripping off IDW a bit, was their combined burglarbot "the Swarm"? Does it have a name?

Apparently, his name is "Reedman."

Yah, I know.
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Re: Savage's Thoughts on ROTF

Postby Rodimus Prime » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:39 am

Motto: "Individual freedom above all else."
Savage wrote:So, first, the Arcee bikes.


Yeah, 2 out of the 3 were killed, or at least taken out of the battle with serious damage.

Also, I know we're all older than we were in 1986, and those who kept up with spoilers knew it wasn't permanent, but not even the children in my theater cried when Prime died. Are we just that insensitive as a society nowadays? Or was the scene just not emotional enough? Did you cry?


The first time I saw it, I didn't have a reaction, really. It may have been because I was still stunned by the action of the fight. The second time I saw it, I did get a bit of a lump in my throat.

Does that Smithsonian airplane room scream Aerialbots for TF3 to anybody else?


Wow, i never even thought about that. But yeah, the first plane they showed was the Concorde. (Silverbolt!)

Was anybody else sad that they seemed to reuse cgi a lot in the final battle? I saw at least one Decepticon that was basically a protoform body (probably ganked from the first film) with Megatron's face.


Actually, I didn't mind. I didn't even mind the re-used shots from the first film. More bots the better.

Overall, I liked the movie as well.

Action: 10/10
Story: 5/10
Comedy: 7/10
Characters: 6/10

Average: 7/10.

And a truckload of new respect for Optimus Prime.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Razor_Raid » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:01 am

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Weapon: Rapid-Fire, Electrostatic Pulse Rifle
Eyeglaze Prime wrote:I think ROTF could possibly be the greatest movie ever. It's a lock for a clean sweep in probably every category at this years Oscars.

Awesome. Michael Bay, I want to have your children. Obviously all the haters on here are just jealous of you brilliance.



:-? That's it, I'm done. Good day seibertron.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Razor_Raid » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:04 am

Motto: "War is a dirty game... and I'm a dirty player!"
Weapon: Rapid-Fire, Electrostatic Pulse Rifle
Rodimus Prime wrote:All you haters and critics can suck Bay's $200m nutsack.


I can see this isn't the community I thought it was..

Differing opinions are bad.


I said good day.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby oldskooltf » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:30 am

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Starscreams bad comedy wrote:After having just watched Bay's sequel to his Transformers movie, if i had to pick one world to sum it up it would be 'Why'. There were a lot of whys in this movie and here are some of them:


Why are the Autobots considered top secret if they go around in the middle of citys blowing stuff up?
Why are dogs humping?
Why s Bumblebee just chilling in Sams garage and not with the rest of the Autobots/NEST?
Why is he protecting him?
Why cant Bumblebee still not speak?
Why does Mikela need to air brush a bike with her ass up in the air like a cat in heat?
Why does eating pot laced brownies make you act like youre on cocaine/hyper active?
Why do the Decepticons suddenly have Terminator technology?
Why dont the Decpticons just use said Terminator tech to infiltrate the human government?
Why and how did the Terminator chick just suddenly show up at Sams college?
Why would sam keep the fact that there is a All Spark shard hidden from the rest of the Autobots?
Why yell for Bumblebees help then scold him and tell him to go away?
Why give the All Spark shard to your dumb girlfriend instead of an Autobot for protection?
Why were the Deceptions trying to get the shard?
Why were they trying to get the info in Sams head if there was another All Spark shard with the same info?
Why not get the info from the other shard after you stole it?
Why resurrect Megatron if hes not the leader in the first place?
Why were the Fallen/Decepticons based on one of Saturns moons?
Why if they were based on one of Saturns moons did they make no attempt to search for Megatron back when he went missing searching on earth for the All Spark in part one?
Why were the Autobots fighting Megatron and Starscream in a factory one minute then the middle of a remote forest the next?
Why did we need to see John Tuturos ass?
Why was jetfire just chilling on earth all this time?
Why do the humans have technology that can detect TF's but the bots dont, considering that human tech is based on TF tech?
Why is the Smithsonian in the middle of a desert graveyard for planes?
Why did the twins and Bumblebee transport with Jetfire if they were not near him?
Why did Sam know he was in Egypt just by looking around at some mountains?
Why can only a Prime defeat the Fallen?
Why did the Matrix disintegrate?
Why did the Matrix work on humans/organics?
Why were most of the Decepticons clones?
Why were the Constructicons clones?
Why if the Constructicons are clones they can not form more than one Devastator?
Why was Devastators main function that of a giant vacuum/wood chipper?
Why did Devastator have "balls"?
Why would a Transformer know how to hump?
Why would a Transformer have a beard or cane?
Why do most of the bots have to be silver colored?
Why did the rail gun apparently have only one shot?
Why didnt they just use the All Spark shard to revive Prime ala Megatron?
Why did the Decepticons kidnap Sams parents?
Why did the Decepticons land in the middle of the ocean on a aircraft carrier?
Why not use the rail gun on the pyramid instead of devastator?
Why couldnt Jetfire just teleport Prime to the top of the pyramid instead of "dying" and giving him his parts?
Why worry about dying when you can just resurrect anybody with the All Spark fragments and or Matrix?
Why do the Decepticons have liquid metal tech?


Why did I spend 3 minutes of my time reading all those "why" questions?

Dude... I totally dig the transformers, and always have as a kid, but come on... there are gazillion "why" questions with the franchise. Please don't think this movie is the beginning of the "why"'s with Transformers.

In G1, Alpha Trion had a beard, so did Wreck Gar... I'm not going to make an enormous list like above. Face it... Transformers did not become popular due to its amazing writing. Sure I wish it was better, but I've come to expect it over the 25 years with a few exceptions.

Come to think of it, lots of sci-fi and super hero movies and shows have things that are quite absurd when you think about it. Doesn't stop me from enjoying it.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby roblinb » Mon Jun 29, 2009 3:19 am

that blackwing or whatever the guys name was... his post gave me a headache. It's like he was trying to sound smart (but doesn't really know much about Transformers) in his review where he was tearing down the movie heh

Starscream comedy dude's review was really nutty... I mean he must have a photographic memory of the movie to come up with so many "why" questions... I guess the fun part for him (or her) was to nit pick about every problem about a movie BASED ON A TOY lol

I'm not smart so I don't pretend to be... old boy could probably be better off thinking the same way :idea:
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Starscreams bad comedy » Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:04 am

oldskooltf wrote:
Why did I spend 3 minutes of my time reading all those "why" questions?

Dude... I totally dig the transformers, and always have as a kid, but come on... there are gazillion "why" questions with the franchise. Please don't think this movie is the beginning of the "why"'s with Transformers.

In G1, Alpha Trion had a beard, so did Wreck Gar... I'm not going to make an enormous list like above. Face it... Transformers did not become popular due to its amazing writing. Sure I wish it was better, but I've come to expect it over the 25 years with a few exceptions.

Come to think of it, lots of sci-fi and super hero movies and shows have things that are quite absurd when you think about it. Doesn't stop me from enjoying it.



Dont forget Unicron and Scourge, they also had beards. I'll grant you about the beards thing but the business with the cane was just dumb. I mean they are machines....they can repair or replace their parts. But even that is a minor complaint in the overall mess that is the movie. Sure every movie and or franchise has its whys if you stop and think about them, and Im sure TF has many of them over a 25 year course. But at the same time that doesnt give a free pass to the movie to have so many of them either. Some of those I listed were after watching the movie and thinking about it for a bit, but a lot were popping in my head as Im watching the thing. And really a good movie shouldnt make you think like that. Even if the plot was such that you can pretty much tear it apart afterwords, if everything else was done well enough you can overlook it while you are in the moment watching the movie. In the case of TF2 that just wasnt the case.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Collectorbot » Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:19 am

After reading all the bad points about this film, again and again, including the ones I posted, i thought i'd mention the things i thought were great about ROTF

Constructicons - whether they were clones or not, they looked awesome. Long Haul and Mixmaster were too cool for school

Shanghai - The whole scene was good. Demolishor transforming then tearing down highway and throwing cars off the road was great. Sideswipe vs Sideways was cool, but shame Sideways bought it so early.

Soundwave - Great character. Ok, so they didn't use the Synthesiser on his voice. Who cares man, he was still awesome!

Devastator combining scene was great.

Bumblebee - Lot harder in this film, I enjoyed seeing him fight well :)


I still think Bay made plenty of mistakes, and is pretty arrogant, but you can't deny there were some great moments despite the mistakes :)
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Re: just finished watching ROTF

Postby Magnus » Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:20 am

War Hammer wrote:
I wasn't happy about the balance of the film.



WH, I agree with your review 100%, but with that line in particular. I enjoyed the film overall, but I wish I would have been in the editing room to dial some of the elements up or down.

Too much:
-Sam and Mikelah running while stuff blew up around them.
-Sam's roommate clowning and fearing for his life.
-Sam's mom clowning.
-Random soldiers shooting at random Decepticons.
-Stock footage of military units deploying.
-Random soldiers speaking urgently into headsets.

Not enough:
-Genuine "moments" between Sam and Mikelah. I was glad they didn't overdo the teen-soap stuff...kudos. But, I thought they missed an opportunity to have them have a poignant conversation about what their lives had become. They came close when she says, "who else could be your girlfriend?" But the scene ends abruptly.

-Character development of the Transformers. While there was a lot of this, I could have sacrificed a few one-liners by Mudflap, Skids, and Wheelie in order to hear Sideswipe or Arcee say something interesting.

-Ending. The ending of the first movie was absolutely perfect, so it's no surprise I was disappointed in this one. Sam and Optimus could have had a "moment" at the edge of the carrier deck, but they don't. Instead, they cut to a Prime VO that not only starts the same as the last one, but doesn't really make sense. Fell flat to me.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby syphonn » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:18 pm

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I've seen it and pretty much agree with Spacebridge (pg6) and Starscreams bad comedy (pg13). Adding to your whys, why is The Fallen older than Jetfire, yet Jetfire is the one with the cane and falling parts?

I really did not like was the role of the military, if the first movie could be described as a GM car commercial, then this one would be a promotional film for the Air Force and Navy. At times it felt like the US military vs. the Decepticons and the autobots were a secondary thought. I know the military influenced the script, but dang it feels like they actually wrote their scenes.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Prime Riblet » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:12 pm

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Weapon: Double-Barreled, Armor-Piercing Particle Beam Cann...
There really should have been a battle scene between Jetfire and Starscream. It would have been an opportunity to explain why Jetfire decided to become an Autobot as well as possibly produce a reason for Jetfire to be wounded enough that he felt the need to give his life and parts for Optimus Prime. It seemed like he was kicking major butt, and then he just decided to kill himself and give up his parts-out of the blue, from out of nowhere.

One other thing that actually bugged me was that a Prime has to kill another Prime. So when Megatron killed Optimus in the woods, did he really kill him? He looked pretty dead to me, and Megs is not a Prime.
I not really too clear on that whole idea.
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Re: Official ROTF Review Thread

Postby Predaprince » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:21 pm

Motto: ""Destruction is the fate of all sentient beings.""
Weapon: Sonic Rifle
Prime Riblet wrote:There really should have been a battle scene between Jetfire and Starscream. It would have been an opportunity to explain why Jetfire decided to become an Autobot as well as possibly produce a reason for Jetfire to be wounded enough that he felt the need to give his life and parts for Optimus Prime. It seemed like he was kicking major butt, and then he just decided to kill himself and give up his parts-out of the blue, from out of nowhere.

One other thing that actually bugged me was that a Prime has to kill another Prime. So when Megatron killed Optimus in the woods, did he really kill him? He looked pretty dead to me, and Megs is not a Prime.
I not really too clear on that whole idea.


Why would Jetfire fight Starscream? They don't have a connection to each other in this film like in G1.

It doesn't take a Prime to kill another Prime. It takes a Prime to kill the Fallen.
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