The Energon Pub

I was always pretty iffy on the movie, but one thing actually got me really excited over it - back when the Transformers game website was released, it had that epic picture of Prime and Megatron, and the most epic Lord of the Rings style music in the background.

I thought, Wow, maybe this movie will be something special after all, despite Bay directing.

But it really isn't, not like that.

The point is that there are so many terrible, logically unsound defenses for things in the movie, but the worst has to be "It's just an action flick".

Yet I'm harkening back to seeing that page and hearing that music, and feeling really up for it. Amazingly, Transformers did NOT look ridiculous being set to serious, deep, epic music.

This is where the movie went wrong - it COULD have been epic. Lots of tweaks along the way would have helped the feel of the movie towards this end - tidier, more varied designs(too much grey/black), drawing more from the comics, and other things like that, but ultimately, this needed to be a lot huger than it was, instead of being Epic, it was an Epic Fail on that front.

Think about it. Why is Transformers such a silly idea? Why can't it have anything more than a popcorn flick?

It's about two warring alien factions, destroying their world for power, and in their struggle arriving on our world with us torn in between, but trying to hide amongst us all the same.

I don't know about you, but that sounds epic. In fact, it sounds like it could be the start of the most epic story ever made. Have I drilled that in yet?

"Transformers isn't shakespear" - I don't know if you noticed, but even Shakespear was quite whimsical, so it shows people aren't thinking through that comparison at all. It doesn't matter. Transformers fans are the ones who seem to take of note of the fact that they're "Just Toys" - they claim the general public do, but they do it far more often than anyone else.

Why? Probably because we've had to deal with so much **** the last few years. People defending the changes in design, etc., fail to realise that only G1 was really universally liked and loved on *some* level, it was the only Transformers to truly pierce the mainstream, and is still recognisable today; people have already forgotten Armada.

People have had to put up with so much bad "change", watering down, they've never stopped to realise what Transformers COULD be, what changes would actually be best - most of us have become Toy collectors, and have little attatchment to the characters. I've never seen a fanbase so willing to defend a movie that bears a little too much resemblence to the Super Mario Brothers movie in terms of cheesy Hollywood "Getting things somewhat wrong" syndrome.

I feel that thinking Transformers could only be a popcorn flick is where Hollywood went wrong here. We've seen from the G1, G2 comics and Beast Wars that Transformers can be epic. You could make an epic movie out of Tetris if you wanted to - something that's already BEEN well developed getting something with such a weak plot is just sad.

I wanted Transformers to be something really special. Something to fill children and adults alike with wonder and love for these amazing characters and where they're coming from.

You all thought that changing the designs was necessary for making it "Not for Kids", but what I'm saying is what needed to be done, and you know it. It's not even that much to do with the designs, if you want a Mature Transformers movie, you have a mature plot and well developed characters. This movie fell below the G1 Cartoon in some of those respects, which isn't something to celebrate.

The Decepticons should not have been monsters, they should have gone the opposite direction - an opposing faction that aren't necessarily always wrong, but are still more or less "The Bad Guys". Moral ambiguity. Decepticons we can relate to. One thing they should have taken out of Armada(Starscream). The focus should not have been on stereotypical, relatively uninteresting humans.

I'm sorry for not conforming to the ridiculous notion that the characters and universe I love are nothing but a folly. I'm sorry for the fans that feel the same way I do and have managed to persevere being active through this for a lot longer than I have.

welcome to seibs.. thanks for the good read..

i do agree with you...a few changes here and there and it could have been epic. which it was in a few parts, but i wished it would have been more.

Spark Light wrote:I was always pretty iffy on the movie, but one thing actually got me really excited over it - back when the Transformers game website was released, it had that epic picture of Prime and Megatron, and the most epic Lord of the Rings style music in the background.

I thought, Wow, maybe this movie will be something special after all, despite Bay directing.

But it really isn't, not like that.

The point is that there are so many terrible, logically unsound defenses for things in the movie, but the worst has to be "It's just an action flick".

Yet I'm harkening back to seeing that page and hearing that music, and feeling really up for it. Amazingly, Transformers did NOT look ridiculous being set to serious, deep, epic music.

This is where the movie went wrong - it COULD have been epic. Lots of tweaks along the way would have helped the feel of the movie towards this end - tidier, more varied designs(too much grey/black), drawing more from the comics, and other things like that, but ultimately, this needed to be a lot huger than it was, instead of being Epic, it was an Epic Fail on that front.

Think about it. Why is Transformers such a silly idea? Why can't it have anything more than a popcorn flick?

It's about two warring alien factions, destroying their world for power, and in their struggle arriving on our world with us torn in between, but trying to hide amongst us all the same.

I don't know about you, but that sounds epic. In fact, it sounds like it could be the start of the most epic story ever made. Have I drilled that in yet?

"Transformers isn't shakespear" - I don't know if you noticed, but even Shakespear was quite whimsical, so it shows people aren't thinking through that comparison at all. It doesn't matter. Transformers fans are the ones who seem to take of note of the fact that they're "Just Toys" - they claim the general public do, but they do it far more often than anyone else.

Why? Probably because we've had to deal with so much **** the last few years. People defending the changes in design, etc., fail to realise that only G1 was really universally liked and loved on *some* level, it was the only Transformers to truly pierce the mainstream, and is still recognisable today; people have already forgotten Armada.

People have had to put up with so much bad "change", watering down, they've never stopped to realise what Transformers COULD be, what changes would actually be best - most of us have become Toy collectors, and have little attatchment to the characters. I've never seen a fanbase so willing to defend a movie that bears a little too much resemblence to the Super Mario Brothers movie in terms of cheesy Hollywood "Getting things somewhat wrong" syndrome.

I feel that thinking Transformers could only be a popcorn flick is where Hollywood went wrong here. We've seen from the G1, G2 comics and Beast Wars that Transformers can be epic. You could make an epic movie out of Tetris if you wanted to - something that's already BEEN well developed getting something with such a weak plot is just sad.

I wanted Transformers to be something really special. Something to fill children and adults alike with wonder and love for these amazing characters and where they're coming from.

You all thought that changing the designs was necessary for making it "Not for Kids", but what I'm saying is what needed to be done, and you know it. It's not even that much to do with the designs, if you want a Mature Transformers movie, you have a mature plot and well developed characters. This movie fell below the G1 Cartoon in some of those respects, which isn't something to celebrate.

The Decepticons should not have been monsters, they should have gone the opposite direction - an opposing faction that aren't necessarily always wrong, but are still more or less "The Bad Guys". Moral ambiguity. Decepticons we can relate to. One thing they should have taken out of Armada(Starscream). The focus should not have been on stereotypical, relatively uninteresting humans.

I'm sorry for not conforming to the ridiculous notion that the characters and universe I love are nothing but a folly. I'm sorry for the fans that feel the same way I do and have managed to persevere being active through this for a lot longer than I have.

I think the movie did what it was intended to do. It made alot of money and is still going. The entertainment side of this argument has taken a product that was originally concieved to sell toys but along the way they created a unique mythology whether it was intended or not. Having done so they were able to capture imaginations which made people want to buy the product more. Anytime there is a strong following to a consumer entity, Hollywood will jump at the chance to capitalize on a built in audience. This day and age, the entertainment industry is desparate to exploit as much popular material from any time period or genre and commercialize it. Once they decide to reintroduce this kind of pop-culture, they are going to try and cater to greatest common denominator or broadest audience. Granted the true fan knows exactly what would make a great story or "epic" tale but that would not translate well to the broadest of audiences who know nothing of the Transformers. What I mean is most people would not want a ultra-technical variation of the robots that dealt with real science and scientific phenomena which is why Star Trek is not for everyone. What Hollywood does know is that in order to make an epic movie you have to take great risks and spend millions of dollars which they want to recoup after release. It is only smart business sense that makes them lower the risk of low return on investment by making it more inline with modern-day pop-culture and staying away from more serious and technical craftsmenship. I am sure if the effects hadn't been such a huge part of the budget and the action sequences hadn't cost so much and if they didn't need huge names like Bay and Spielberg tied to it and if they didn't have to spend millions marketing it to people who dont know what it is then yes you would have your epic movie because they could have put all available resources into making it that way. It's not our world holmes, we just live in it and play by the rules.

Ummmm difference between Lord of the Rings and Transformers........ LOTR has been a book for decades that's sold an insane amount of copies way before the Movie...... Transformers had to create its own story so to speak. LOTR was never a childrens toy or show.. it didnt have to find a way to grow up.

Was there more ways to make the movie feel epic? Yes, but they made the movie HOPING (keyword here) for it to sell enough to make a second. They could of written an epic script that carried more over into the second movie but only 1 movie was greenlit.....unlike LOTR which started out knowing it was going to be 3 movies.

I think they could of made a few more shots at making more similarities to the original TF characters like they did OP, BB, Jazz and Brawl.. but overall I think what Bay did worked great......as evidenced by 200+ Million and counting already. They are going to be able to to make a second movie just with the profit they are making on this first one...

There should be no apology for the movie ..the movie was done great.. and no movie is perfect. This movie was made to make money.. if you want a close nit G-1 movie, Raise the 150 Million yourself and there go. Pyschologically you had to distance this movie from the cartoon pretty far because people who are not TF fans will think OMG...cartoon huh. Just like 90% of the people I know thought up until the trailers were shown less than a year ago.

There is still hope for a more G1 based TF show or movie but it will have to be after the second movie or 3rd and TF has to make it as big then as this last movie was. We could write and discuss with Hasbro and company and with enough popularity that could be generated by the movies, we might be able to get a G-1 based Cartoon or show (with much much cheaper effects) geared for teens/adults. Stargate franchise for SciFi seems to be falling apart and they might be in need of something in a few years to keep viewers. Just an idea

Cinema_Major wrote:Ummmm difference between Lord of the Rings and Transformers........ LOTR has been a book for decades that's sold an insane amount of copies way before the Movie...... Transformers had to create its own story so to speak. LOTR was never a childrens toy or show.. it didnt have to find a way to grow up.

Neither did Transformers. There were "grown" versions. Ink and colors, words and myths, all in print. The comics had it, and all they had to do was to pick from those.

But it never happened.

Just a side note: Tolkien wrote the precursor to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, as a children's fantasy book. I always find that fact kinda funny when people bring up the TF-LOTR comparisons.

As for the lack of epic storytelling and "it's an action flick" being no excuse...yeah, the assessment is right on the mark. Hell, it seems like something with even the most basic story elements that the Transformers concept brings to a project, "action" would not be the appropriate genre. Yet, there was likely no chance that the concept would come to fruition otherwise--"science fiction" doesn't sell as well to mainstream audiences as the old formula of "boobs 'n' 'splosions," so what happens?

Instead of the "epic" of conflicting ideologies set against the backdrop of our own world, we get a lot of explosions, a few instances of sexual objectification, and a generally fun movie that is made more fun, no doubt, by the amount of testosterone that's in an audience member's biological makeup. And it made its money back in a week.

In a way, it could be taken as a sad commentary on the state of cinema in the United States (and no doubt anyone who has seen it wouldn't deny that this is an American movie, even in spirit): the death of "adventure" as a genre apart from "action," the decline of film as an art form, the rise of film as strictly commercial product, and so on. But here's the biggest rub of all:

Transformers isn't some piece of art, unfortunately. It's a franchise, intended to sell products for profit. It's why just over twenty years ago, a lot of children saw their favorite characters die horribly for the sake of a new "cast" of newly-produced toys. And it's why, in the end, the closest to a Transformers "epic" will come from a comic, or maybe a video game or new television series if we're lucky, but not from such a commercial venture as a feature film.

That's why I'm writing a fanfic but with the 2007 characters in it. Somehow I might be able to make them epic.

It's a movie that failed to capitalize on potential that was already laid out and ripe for pickings. That's outstandingly weak.

Creature SH wrote:It's a movie that failed to capitalize on potential that was already laid out and ripe for pickings. That's outstandingly weak.

so true

Blackout wrote:As for the decline of the 'art film', I have to say I strongly disagree. There has always been a strong independent film industry, and while art films never make as much money as TFs or DH4, the very fact that they still exist a good example why hollywood is not 'killing' other forms of films. It is only in recent times that independent movies have grown and can survive - up to twenty years ago, that just wouldn't happen.

Though I'm curious about what support you have for that last statement, it's neither here nor there. My point was more that the continued trend of "blockbusters" has taken its toll not just on more artistic films, but on much of the film industry itself: suddenly, it isn't about what could be the more award-winning feature (the old-but-still-flawed standard), but what could be the more adrenaline-charged, bare-knuckle, explosion-filled, sexy sassy flick. Other films exist, sure, but I'd argue that the impetus to create them has diminished--and such was what happened with Transformers.

(On the other hand, if major studios give up making anything but blockbusters, independent studios will probably explode in revenue... )

Second, so what if the comics were like that? For 99% of the audience who aren't obsessed about the (in my opinion) over-exaggerated comics, the film cannot be said to have failed the franchise or mythos. It's simply a fun movie, deal with it.

Here's the thing: not everyone thinks it's a fun movie, obviously. A healthy chunk of the critics, for sure, but even a lot of the people I know who have seen the movie felt it was lacking in a lot of ways that other "fun" movies don't. The Fifth Element, the first Pirates of the Carribean, and Hot Fuzz were all fun movies, but they were also mostly well-written, well-acted flicks that drew in a lot of audiences for bigger reasons than "giant effing robots."

And I'd argue, that's what happened with Transformers: sure, it was fun (and like I said, it helps if you're watching to have testosterone), but even if not an "epic," it could've been a better movie in plenty of ways...even if just an "action flick."

Oh well. All the griping won't change it now; it's done.

Get back to our fun with the toys.

Blackout  wrote:A question: have you seen the movie yet, Creature?

What for ? Mindless action movies bore me.

Everyone should watch the movie before they criticize it. Even if everything in the movie is confirmed as they feared it.

If someone brings in all sorts of negative emotions into the movie of course it's going to be ****. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well, as Kranix pointed out earlier, before the epic of Lord of the Rings, there was the stand alone Hobbit. Lord of the Rings wouldn't have happened if people hadn't shown such a tremendous interest in the world Tolkien created.

In the Transformers history, there are plenty of examples as well. Both the cartoon and comic book started with mini-series to introduce the basic concept. Neither one set up very much background information at the start.

And just as people have differing opinions on the movie, not everyone agrees the G1 and G2 comic books are the epitome of Transformers history. Not everyone enjoyed them.

I watched a movie called "blue chips" last night, and nick nolte, the main character, a basketball coach, said something I think that really encapsulates my problem with the movie perfectly:"you can't win half assed"
I keep hearing people say, "it made money", or "it was not a deep movie, but it was not meant to be".
thats crap.
lord of the rings and harry potter exhibit that you can have a mature plot, well developed characters, even a dark atmosphere, and still have the movie considered to be "family friendly" and have mass appeal.
"masters of the universe", remember that one?
in my opinion, some of dolph lundgren's and frank langella's best acting, pretty good story, but bad direction.
that movie could have been great, but the did it half assed.
the sad part is that transformers, with all the new special effects, is for me still comparable with "masters of the universe", and did not outdo it's predecessor in terms of plot, character development, or scale.
scale being the fact that the most recent transformers movie took place on one planet, the cartoon movie took place on 4.

Spark Light wrote:
The point is that there are so many terrible, logically unsound defenses for things in the movie, but the worst has to be "It's just an action flick".

Yes because it was directed by Bay.

I agree with you on this.
BUT
You're forgetting.
We don't need a new movie.
We already have something epic.
Really epic.
Think about it. All three seasons of the G1 Cartoon along with the '86 Movie, the Beast Era, and two whole generations of comics.
That's the most epic thing ever. Let the newer TF fans enjoy these temporary "new" series, knowing that we have about 10 years of material.

I'm having difficulty understanding how people can simply label this film as a "mindless action flick", cause it's not. There are stories through which the end result can only be solved through conflict, struggle, and sacrifice. I'm not sure when the consciousness of America was switched to thinking that little, low-budget artsy films are the "proper" way to tell a good story, but it's getting to be really annoying. It's not that people these days are mad because movies have no emotional subtext; it's that the subtext isn't spelled out for them. Kinda like how people think a movie doesn't have emotion if someone in the film doesn't cry.

So, to counter the OP, Transformers was NOT a failure. It didn't come to prick our souls, get us warm and fuzzy, or make us question our existence. Read the taglines. Read the synopsis. The movie came to show us the relationship between a boy and his car as they became involved in a war between transforming alien robots.

a boy and his car *sniff*

I agree with the overall sentiment, but think that where they failed the TF story is the way character development on BOTH sides of the conflict was (not) handled.

I think if you ask just about any TF fan who their favorite 5 TF's are, there will be a mix of 'bots and 'cons. A huge appeal to the universe is the bad guys are just as fleshed-out as any of the heroes, and both sides are approachable. In the movie, only the protagonists are developed, and barely.

Imagine if Return of the Jedi was written solely from the Ewok point of view. Invaders land on Endor, and the Ewoks have no way to defeat them. In fact the Ewoks can't even understand why the invaders showed up. Suddenly this other strange alien race arrives, sworn enemies of the invaders. This new race convinces the Ewoks to help, and together they go to war, defeating the invaders. And there's a big explosion in the end. Yay, we can sing Yub-yub. Without talking about the Empire at all, this story is pretty bland, despite how cool looking you made the Ewoks, the aliens, or the invaders...no matter how many rabid, pissing Ewoks you throw in (although that would be pretty funny).

TF07 = FX, amazing. Story...? Not so much.