The Energon Pub

ok ... we all LOVE the movie and its pwnage (I've seen 4 times already. lol)... so like...before I get flamed as a hater...I acknowledge they are JUST NIT PICKS. none enough to distract from my LOVING THIS MOVIE! (and seeing it 4 times already.)

(most probalby just came out from screenwriter error/regular movie writing continutiy issues, but here are mine. I'm sure you all have more.)


so here are my NIT PICKS / questions...see if anyone got reasonable answers/theories:

1. bumblebee and army are driving off together (after bumblebee is freed). they pass optimus and the rest... OP does a uturn and joins them.

er... how does everyone know they are "friendlies"? just u-turn and join elite army wihtout a word from sam or anyone... ie: would have been nice to see at least shout out hte window from sam: "DONT SHOOT THEM! THEY ARE ON OUR SIDE!! They are called AUTOBOTS" (not sam actually never explained what "autobots" are). or something. just seemed weird to me they just u-turn, join the party without a word from the humans. heck, I wanna join the convoy then! I know how to u-turn too!

2. voight and tuttorro are like have a orgasms of excitement (voight was mr. coool sec of defense up to that point) about sending a signal out via radio trans. while mr las vegas is barking orders. er... WTF? looked the Editing was down from misc outtakes. editing sooo sloppy and outta step with tone/pace, imo.


3. How do Mega and OP know Sam is making a run with the cube? they are battling and mega shoots op. and next thin you know its "hang on Sam!" and "give me the cube boy!!". I imagine (cause I have to) that some kinda of radio/telepathy or whatever communication is happening between... er... someone... to them? again, woulda been nice to see that information being communcated (whole ending was awesome..but honestly, pretty disjointed on editing).

4. besides the fact its more dramatic cinematically... Why did sam have to run with the cube anyway? Why didn't one of the autobots just take it and run? not like they can't go faster, defend themselves, run and go up the building to give it to humans (if they wanted to) either or..well...take off with it. Autobots FTW! lol


5. where'd barricade go? yah...enough threads on that alreayd. heh.


6. cube only creates evil robots...again... other therads on this. but I think this will really need to be addressed later movie/s as its important to stort (as opposed to others points here which are just blahblah points).


7. ok. original goal: get the glasses.
soo..they are at the house. Frenzy is there and seeing/hearing everything (we know as he even sees the goldfish)... so like.. why didnt Frenzy just take the glasses and high tail it outta the house? what? he couldn't take down the mother with the bat? he breaks outta air force one crackdown base...but not from a house in suburbs?


8. so like... was it me..or did Maggieanalyst chick tells Glen to hot-wiring the computer to transmit the message VIA MORSE CODE. er.... hacker Glen knows morse code? he's typing... transmitting morse code? they transmitt morse code as well (you see them doing it) and he gets a message they are sending F22s. er... that's a pretty cool moresecode babblefish program he hot-wired up in 30 secs!


9. I get that Megatron is bigger/badder but ...GRRRRRRRRR!!! Optimus got PWNED by megatron. Woulda been nice to see at least A LITTLE BIT back and forth. hell, even ONE hit woulda been satifying. he impales bonecrushers head...and he can't even land one decent shot on Megatron for us to enjoy. *sigh*

oh yah...

at the end... you see the lasvegas marine guy drive up at home in a GMC truck that I thought was ironhide... yet you see it parked at the end scene with Sam and M making out and OP giving his speech.

so..different car or different time?

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:oh yah...

at the end... you see the lasvegas marine guy drive up at home in a GMC truck that I thought was ironhide... yet you see it parked at the end scene with Sam and M making out and OP giving his speech.

so..different car or different time?

I just think it was dropping him off at home.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:

1. bumblebee and army are driving off together (after bumblebee is freed). they pass optimus and the rest... OP does a uturn and joins them.

er... how does everyone know they are "friendlies"? just u-turn and join elite army wihtout a word from sam or anyone... ie: would have been nice to see at least shout out hte window from sam: "DONT SHOOT THEM! THEY ARE ON OUR SIDE!! They are called AUTOBOTS" (not sam actually never explained what "autobots" are). or something. just seemed weird to me they just u-turn, join the party without a word from the humans. heck, I wanna join the convoy then! I know how to u-turn too!

Either from the fact that the lead car in the convoy (Bumblebee) was not alarmed, or as they were heading out it was mentioned that there was more good guys. Plenty of time for something like that on the egress.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:2. voight and tuttorro are like have a orgasms of excitement (voight was mr. coool sec of defense up to that point) about sending a signal out via radio trans. while mr las vegas is barking orders. er... WTF? looked the Editing was down from misc outtakes. editing sooo sloppy and outta step with tone/pace, imo.

I think that at that point the Secdef was worrying bout getting the signal out and was fine and dandy to let Torturro's character take the lead in fighting off frenzy.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:3. How do Mega and OP know Sam is making a run with the cube? they are battling and mega shoots op. and next thin you know its "hang on Sam!" and "give me the cube boy!!". I imagine (cause I have to) that some kinda of radio/telepathy or whatever communication is happening between... er... someone... to them? again, woulda been nice to see that information being communcated (whole ending was awesome..but honestly, pretty disjointed on editing).

The Decepticons were monitoring military channels and overheard the unsecured shortwave communication Tyrese's character sent out. I'm guessing that Optimus got updated by Ratchet or Ironhide.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:4. besides the fact its more dramatic cinematically... Why did sam have to run with the cube anyway? Why didn't one of the autobots just take it and run? not like they can't go faster, defend themselves, run and go up the building to give it to humans (if they wanted to) either or..well...take off with it. Autobots FTW! lol

The Autobots knew that they were enormous targets, its a lot easier for Starscream, Megs, and Blackhawk to pick out and attack the autobots then it is for them to attack Sam.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:7. ok. original goal: get the glasses.
soo..they are at the house. Frenzy is there and seeing/hearing everything (we know as he even sees the goldfish)... so like.. why didnt Frenzy just take the glasses and high tail it outta the house? what? he couldn't take down the mother with the bat? he breaks outta air force one crackdown base...but not from a house in suburbs?

He does not know where they are and couldn't sneak around freely until after Sector 7 left.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:8. so like... was it me..or did Maggieanalyst chick tells Glen to hot-wiring the computer to transmit the message VIA MORSE CODE. er.... hacker Glen knows morse code? he's typing... transmitting morse code? they transmitt morse code as well (you see them doing it) and he gets a message they are sending F22s. er... that's a pretty cool moresecode babblefish program he hot-wired up in 30 secs!

Maggie is his good friend, she may have known that he knew morse code and thus asked him to do it. It could have been a hacker pride thing as to why he learned it.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:9. I get that Megatron is bigger/badder but ...GRRRRRRRRR!!! Optimus got PWNED by megatron. Woulda been nice to see at least A LITTLE BIT back and forth. hell, even ONE hit woulda been satifying. he impales bonecrushers head...and he can't even land one decent shot on Megatron for us to enjoy. *sigh*

There was actually a good deal of back and forth, watch the background as they do the last scenes with blackout. Its going on in the background fairly clearly and Prime is getting his hits in.

Also he forces Megatron to Crash through a building (you can see him smoking after he does this, Megatron gets a lot more hurt from it then Op does), Shoots him (before Megs shoots him, Prime shoots him to disrupt the initial shot), Punches him twice while they are wrestling on the ground and having thier verbal back and forth, takes Megs legs out from under him as he runs to get the allspark and then we also have the swings he gets in in the background when the Humans are fighting Blackout.

If I recall correctly theres three shots where you can see past Blackout, One where Megs swings at Prime and Misses, One where Prime Lands a punch on Megs and is swirling around in a roundhouse kick before Blackout obscures the view, and one where you don't see Prime but you see Megatron staggering backwards.

On top of that there is also the Loud Crash and the debris showering Sam after Prime delivers the "One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall" Line, which from the Direction of the Debris looks like Prime hit Megs just after he said it.

GrendelKhan{TSU} wrote:ok ... we all LOVE the movie and its pwnage (I've seen 4 times already. lol)... so like...before I get flamed as a hater...I acknowledge they are JUST NIT PICKS. none enough to distract from my LOVING THIS MOVIE! (and seeing it 4 times already.)

(most probalby just came out from screenwriter error/regular movie writing continutiy issues, but here are mine. I'm sure you all have more.)


so here are my NIT PICKS / questions...see if anyone got reasonable answers/theories:

1. bumblebee and army are driving off together (after bumblebee is freed). they pass optimus and the rest... OP does a uturn and joins them.

er... how does everyone know they are "friendlies"? just u-turn and join elite army wihtout a word from sam or anyone... ie: would have been nice to see at least shout out hte window from sam: "DONT SHOOT THEM! THEY ARE ON OUR SIDE!! They are called AUTOBOTS" (not sam actually never explained what "autobots" are). or something. just seemed weird to me they just u-turn, join the party without a word from the humans. heck, I wanna join the convoy then! I know how to u-turn too!

2. voight and tuttorro are like have a orgasms of excitement (voight was mr. coool sec of defense up to that point) about sending a signal out via radio trans. while mr las vegas is barking orders. er... WTF? looked the Editing was down from misc outtakes. editing sooo sloppy and outta step with tone/pace, imo.


3. How do Mega and OP know Sam is making a run with the cube? they are battling and mega shoots op. and next thin you know its "hang on Sam!" and "give me the cube boy!!". I imagine (cause I have to) that some kinda of radio/telepathy or whatever communication is happening between... er... someone... to them? again, woulda been nice to see that information being communcated (whole ending was awesome..but honestly, pretty disjointed on editing).

4. besides the fact its more dramatic cinematically... Why did sam have to run with the cube anyway? Why didn't one of the autobots just take it and run? not like they can't go faster, defend themselves, run and go up the building to give it to humans (if they wanted to) either or..well...take off with it. Autobots FTW! lol


5. where'd barricade go? yah...enough threads on that alreayd. heh.


6. cube only creates evil robots...again... other therads on this. but I think this will really need to be addressed later movie/s as its important to stort (as opposed to others points here which are just blahblah points).


7. ok. original goal: get the glasses.
soo..they are at the house. Frenzy is there and seeing/hearing everything (we know as he even sees the goldfish)... so like.. why didnt Frenzy just take the glasses and high tail it outta the house? what? he couldn't take down the mother with the bat? he breaks outta air force one crackdown base...but not from a house in suburbs?


8. so like... was it me..or did Maggieanalyst chick tells Glen to hot-wiring the computer to transmit the message VIA MORSE CODE. er.... hacker Glen knows morse code? he's typing... transmitting morse code? they transmitt morse code as well (you see them doing it) and he gets a message they are sending F22s. er... that's a pretty cool moresecode babblefish program he hot-wired up in 30 secs!


9. I get that Megatron is bigger/badder but ...GRRRRRRRRR!!! Optimus got PWNED by megatron. Woulda been nice to see at least A LITTLE BIT back and forth. hell, even ONE hit woulda been satifying. he impales bonecrushers head...and he can't even land one decent shot on Megatron for us to enjoy. *sigh*

Wow. Really good nitpicks, actually.

The Sector 7 timetable was my only real point of confusion. Megatron was found sometime in the 1800s, so what was done with him prior to being moved to the Sector 7 site? Part of my confusion might be due to the fact the movie, the prequel comics and the prequel novel all offer different time tables.

The only other thing was that Archibald was referred to as Sam's grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great-grandfather. This might've lended to my confusion with the time table.

As far as Barricade goes, I'm fairly convinced that his death was cut to leave him available for the sequel. It couldn't have cut too much time from the movie, and I can't imagine how he would've bought it that would have been the make or break deal with the rating(besides, I thought the "near R rating" was debunked a while ago).

Gierling wrote:Either from the fact that the lead car in the convoy (Bumblebee) was not alarmed, or as they were heading out it was mentioned that there was more good guys. Plenty of time for something like that on the egress.

again, I assumed something like that...just woulda been good to SEE it and not have to assume. we never see them never mention there are other autobots that might join em.

Gierling wrote:I think that at that point the Secdef was worrying bout getting the signal out and was fine and dandy to let Torturro's character take the lead in fighting off frenzy.

I'm more talking about the editing I guess. I doesn't even look like MarineVegas guy was talking to them and Sec Def was goofy frantic with the idea. completley outta character from rest of movie.

Gierling wrote:The Decepticons were monitoring military channels and overheard the unsecured shortwave communication Tyrese's character sent out. I'm guessing that Optimus got updated by Ratchet or Ironhide.

Tyrese doesn't specify its Sam. or any details for that matter. like WHERE?

I'm guess that Ratch or Ironhide had to say something too...but shouldn't have to guess is my point. +_+ and Megatron via.... Tank was the only one who should have possibly known up to that point, no?

how DO transformers communicate? besides, apparently, talking into the air (like OP does at the end) or shining lights into the sky?

Gierling wrote:The Autobots knew that they were enormous targets, its a lot easier for Starscream, Megs, and Blackhawk to pick out and attack the autobots then it is for them to attack Sam.

but his goal is to reach a roof and give it to army helicopters. which are slower, big targets with measly humans in em. I'd still say chances are better with an autobot.

Gierling wrote:He does not know where they are and couldn't sneak around freely until after Sector 7 left.

Sam says "ok I got em!". The bag is there.

Gierling wrote:Maggie is his good friend, she may have known that he knew morse code and thus asked him to do it. It could have been a hacker pride thing as to why he learned it.

even so... he has to translate morse code into typable characters to transmit (he only has a keyboard). so... er... either that came with the computer or its a downloadable google gadget I don't know about. lol

Gierling wrote:There was actually a good deal of back and forth, watch the background as they do the last scenes with blackout. Its going on in the background fairly clearly and Prime is getting his hits in.

Also he forces Megatron to Crash through a building (you can see him smoking after he does this, Megatron gets a lot more hurt from it then Op does), Shoots him (before Megs shoots him, Prime shoots him to disrupt the initial shot), Punches him twice while they are wrestling on the ground and having thier verbal back and forth, takes Megs legs out from under him as he runs to get the allspark and then we also have the swings he gets in in the background when the Humans are fighting Blackout.

If I recall correctly theres three shots where you can see past Blackout, One where Megs swings at Prime and Misses, One where Prime Lands a punch on Megs and is swirling around in a roundhouse kick before Blackout obscures the view, and one where you don't see Prime but you see Megatron staggering backwards.

On top of that there is also the Loud Crash and the debris showering Sam after Prime delivers the "One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall" Line, which from the Direction of the Debris looks like Prime hit Megs just after he said it.

direction of the debris?? ok.. that's what I mean... its all implied or in the background. WHY??? it should be THE battle. We shouldn't need a robotic battle CIS team or a bionic eye to catch the action.

NO WAY most people catch that first time seeing the movie. I didn't. I've seen it four times and still struggled to catch feeling that OP had a good showing at all even LOOKING for it.

I mean, if you watch a kung-fu flick, who would want to have the final tiger claw vs monkey pole battle (lol or whatever) be in the BACKGROUND or have to be intrepeted via blood spatter patterns.

just gimme the money shot, so to speak!! ala OP skewering Bonecrusher. I just about pee myself with how awesome that was. Why NOT give it more focus for BIG OP and MEGA battle?

I really only have one thing to say about your Prime/Megatron nit pick.

Megatron is a soldier and a damned good one by what they said in the movie.

Prime was peaceful one and probably not half the fighter as Megatron.

This is one of two Megatrons in Transformers history I actually love. The other being BW Megatron



Ok for my nit pick, Starscream didn't talk enough. The guy had a hell of a voice and it was a shame that he didn't talk more

Venomous Prime wrote:I really only have one thing to say about your Prime/Megatron nit pick.

Megatron is a soldier and a damned good one by what they said in the movie.

Prime was peaceful one and probably not half the fighter as Megatron.

This is one of two Megatrons in Transformers history I actually love. The other being BW Megatron



Ok for my nit pick, Starscream didn't talk enough. The guy had a hell of a voice and it was a shame that he didn't talk more

yah, like I said, I'm ok with him being a better soldier and ultimately winning... but OP is NOT a slouch. look what he did to Bonecrusher? I still say he got PWNED by Megaton and at least SOME more MAIN (not background) shots of OP getting a few hits in woulda been nice.

ROGER THAT on the starscream thing. BUT since we see him blasting off into space at the end.. I assume he will have a MAJOR role in Trans 2.

I am hoping Starscream is the head Con in the next movie..at least for the most part

My main nitpick?

After all the talk of "No Mass Shifting", the all spark (which is the size of a house) gets Mass Shifted by Bumblebee to be easily portable.

I've only seen it once so far, so once I see it again, I'm sure there will be a few more things that I remember that kinda agitated me in a movie that I liked overall.

i think my biggest concern is, why take the fight into the city? where millions of people may die? oh yeh i forgot its a bay movie, my bad

The "Mass Shifting" thing bothered me, quite a lot. In fact I would like to hear an explanation from the writers as to why they felt it would work for the All Spark but not for Soundwave (or Frenzy)

Also I agree about the Megs/Prime fight. It was far too one-sided for my taste. I understand that if Prime had just beat the crap out of Megatron there would have been nothing for Sam to do... but I wish that Prime had gotten in some better hits (or that the ones he did get in were shown better in the camera)

Re: Mass Shifting - I think they felt they could "cheat" with the Allspark, since it was sort of a supernatural artifact. I suspect, for all the "physics" arguments we heard, the lack of mass shifting came down to helping the effects team make the transformations work better when it came to CGing them.

Re: The City - They needed to get shortwave radios to communicate, since every other channel was down. I'm also guessing the fact that the city was more defensible also entered into the equation(if they'd just been out in the open, around Hoover Dam, they'd be easy targets). Still, if it was me, I would've had a little more discussion and apprehension about the plan. Ultimately, the loss of life in the Battle of Mission City was better than the Decepticons getting the Allspark and wiping out humanity. But the tension of making that decision could have made for a pretty powerful scene.

KoH4711 wrote:The Sector 7 timetable was my only real point of confusion. Megatron was found sometime in the 1800s, so what was done with him prior to being moved to the Sector 7 site? Part of my confusion might be due to the fact the movie, the prequel comics and the prequel novel all offer different time tables.

The only other thing was that Archibald was referred to as Sam's grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great-grandfather. This might've lended to my confusion with the time table.

As far as Barricade goes, I'm fairly convinced that his death was cut to leave him available for the sequel. It couldn't have cut too much time from the movie, and I can't imagine how he would've bought it that would have been the make or break deal with the rating(besides, I thought the "near R rating" was debunked a while ago).

I think they found the cube first.

thirteen-spades wrote:i think my biggest concern is, why take the fight into the city? where millions of people may die? oh yeh i forgot its a bay movie, my bad

agreed. maybe they needed to remodel? :p

the mass shifting was most obvious in the cube.. (actually first time I saw it I thought bumble took a PIECE of the cube..like the core of it or something. they actually never show a wide view of it totally reducing to a small portable cube. actually..WHY would it EVER need to be big if it could do that?)... but at least they didn't bring out Prime's trailer. lol. how would THAT work?

Why wasn't Ironhide red??? Would that have been so hard???

Damn that pisses me off. I'll accept the new designs and I'll accept alien faces, but would it kill them to even try a homage color scheme, even if he's black in truck mode, put some damn red on him somewhere!