Heh, im the one intolerant of other peoples opinions? Thats rich coming from someone like you.
You outright said you were sick of other people's opinions. Unless you're going to take that back, it's most certainly not "rich" coming from someone like me since I'm only against opinion pushing and Hype.
My defense for doing such a thing is that you are claiming the movie should have been a better movie than it was, but I am claiming that such a movie could not have been made due to the public's view of TF's. Yes, far sillier subjects get better treatments, but that's because those sillier subjects are ironically taken more seriously by the public.
There is no concrete evidence for the public views on how well Transformers can be done. ANd either way, if it was done well enough, would they care about their initial misconceptions? I doubt it.
Therefore, what we got was more or less the best it could have been.
No, it really wasn't. There are several things they could have changed, not just a select few, that would have greatly improved the movie and only added to it's box office success. Easier to follow designs, no shaky cam, better script, the Decepticons being actual characters, Jazz being more like what we'd remember him to be instead of an irritating Gangsta, less gung ho "YAY US MILITARY". Leaving Arcee in might have helped too, the Autobots felt far too few.
We got exactly what I'd expected. Low grade popcorn flick with cheap laughs and lots of noise. The laughs were even more low-brow this time around, which I didn't appreciate and was the reason I didn't see it again.
You have absolutely no real evidence to back up what you're saying, though. Transformers, contrary to what some fans have been lead to believe by the likes of Nelson and Don Murphy and even Bay himself, is quite fondly remembered and it's an idea a lot of people want to see done seriously.
At least in the UK, the Transformers comic was very successful and was very well written.
I don't think Beast Wars would have been a success if what you're saying is true. It was "Epic", and was not only appreciated by TF fans but millions of children and probably quite a few bored students too, all of which make up a sizable chunk of the movie audience for Transformers.
From my point, that seems very much to be case these days, hence my additude.
I don't think so. Even a Spider-man 3 style "Epic" would have worked better. I don't think that the comic book movies, for the most part, had the same sense of it.
Actually, one movie comes to mind, Pirates of the Carribbean. It wasn't really very LOTR, but was epic. It really got shamefully bad reviews for the last 2 films, they were really quite good, critics hate sequels nowadays.
it's a 2x4 to the head, pounding into your brain, this is epic, this is epic! And it doesn't work.
But that's not an excuse not to try at all. I almost get the feeling the movie WAS trying. There were several shots in the movie that were exactly what you describe - Megatron being revealed, the Allspark, the whole last 20 minutes, and the whole "I'm glad I got in the car to you line" suggested that something more epic had happened than actually had.
It was trying to be epic, after a sense. It just didn't have the approach to the sheer scale and wonder it should have had. I veered away too much from recent comic book movies, and the 80s Transformers cartoon and comics. They should have found the bits that made those work, and changed everything else, instead of "Updating" almost everything.
Epic in the sense of an epic movie does happen entirely on it's own. If you try to make an epic, it become overblown and silly. The very first Star Wars, episode IV, is the perfect example of the opposite. It's actualy a rather humble story for most of it's length. The Empire gets its **** ruined basically through happy circumstance. At the time it's awesome and great, and then when you back on it, it's even better because it sticks with you. Every moment of the movie had it's own subtle charm, and so it sticks with you and BAM!! A true epic movie. I, II, and III, on the other hand shove it down your throat. Even III is lame to me now. Most of it is so lackluster at that moment, that what do we remember? The look, the effects, and the action? What about the characters? Anakin who? Oh yeah, that whiny guy.
See what I mean? You can't make an epic on purpose.
No, I do believe you can. The problem is you're citing poor attempts. Not every epic has to be completely grandious in scale - I can think of a few "Epic" movies that had somewhat "low key" stories, but the little details added up to something epic.
That's the key, really working on those little details, a sense of consistency, and a sense of scale, even in the actual scope of the movie isn't huge. One movie that comes to mind, is the original Die Hard. It was all set in one building, about the fate of that one building, and at no point tried to overblow the situation. Yet it was epic, in it's own way - and the presentation of the film made it obvious. It was highlighting the drama, the Tension
I'd count the Tim Burton Batman films as much the same, to a lesser extent. "Epic" is a lot to do with the kind of shots you have, and how you get across a sense of atmosphere. "Modern" and "Epic" rarely mix - which is why Transformers miss out on this. Modern is all about the flash - all about the hitting you over the head telling you this movie is swanky and great. Unfortunately - most Transformers fans fell for this, as "most" people are vulnerable for it. It's something that wears off with time, and I guarantee you that if the second Transformers movie stays more true to it's roots, people will very quickly forget about the first. Something similiar happened with X-men.
Epics should be timeless, even if they draw heavily from current events. The Transformers movie is too "MTV". Watching Napoleon Dynamite recently, an MTV Film, I noticed a lot in parrellels in the way the movies were presented, even if they were very different films with different tones. They both had a very "Laid back" approach to characterisation, it's hard to describe. It was very "Whatever". So was the Transformers movie, as far as I'm concerned, going so far as "My Bad".
That's fine for a comedy or silly novelty film like Napoleon. Not Transformers.
What they needed to make an epic movie, was not to make an MTV movie. TF is a story that can almost write itsself if you don't stray too far from the source material.
That is how you make an epic "on Purpose" - you painstakingly work out these details. But as I said - you're half correct in that it's not entirely something you can work at - it's to do with the person making it, and how inspired they are. That's the biggest key to an epic.
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