The Energon Pub

Megatron Wolf wrote:And how they were able to make a great movie like Star Trek and then this fail is beyond me. Oh wait Trek had JJ and ROTF had Bay. Just answered my own question.

But Star Trek also had inconsistencies, like the Black holes.

Robinson wrote:Yeah I dont see the hype with abrams.

It's not like I hate the guy, I liked Cloverfield and Star Trek. But almost all of the complaints from at least the '07 movie, were multiplied ten-fold in Cloverfield. The whole movie is shaky cam, entirely focuses on the humans, you never get a good look at the monster, and they never even explain where it came from. And Lost...have they even explained anything in Lost?

[quote]The whole 13/Fallen/Megatron thing, ultimately, makes no sense. Furthermore why should I go out and spend £10-£14 just for it to make sense?[quote]

Why should you? Oh I dunno, maybe because you like Transformers and give a crap about the story? I admit that it didn't get a lot of clarity in the movie but I like a story that's told through various medias. The Halo games for instance, have a huge universe with a lot of interesting history that for the most part is detailed in the novels. Instead of bashing it up front because you didn't understand it maybe you could look into it a bit more, do a little research, speculate a bit. Sounds like work but it can be fun to unravel the details of the bigger picture stuff.

I don't want to argue. I just threw out some of the positive things I took from the movie. You clearly didn't enjoy it much and that's fine but going through and stomping everything I liked about it and then the 'more than one brain cell' comment, that's just unnecessary.

Shadowman wrote:

Robinson wrote:Yeah I dont see the hype with abrams.

It's not like I hate the guy, I liked Cloverfield and Star Trek. But almost all of the complaints from at least the '07 movie, were multiplied ten-fold in Cloverfield. The whole movie is shaky cam, entirely focuses on the humans, you never get a good look at the monster, and they never even explain where it came from. And Lost...have they even explained anything in Lost?

I'm still waiting for the harlem globetrotters to show up on the island.

Robinson wrote:

Shadowman wrote:

Robinson wrote:Yeah I dont see the hype with abrams.

It's not like I hate the guy, I liked Cloverfield and Star Trek. But almost all of the complaints from at least the '07 movie, were multiplied ten-fold in Cloverfield. The whole movie is shaky cam, entirely focuses on the humans, you never get a good look at the monster, and they never even explain where it came from. And Lost...have they even explained anything in Lost?

I'm still waiting for the harlem globetrotters to show up on the island.

No no no, it's clearly Gilligan's Island. The Professor accidentally turned the Skipper into the Smoke Monster.

HECTOR wrote:

The whole 13/Fallen/Megatron thing, ultimately, makes no sense. Furthermore why should I go out and spend £10-£14 just for it to make sense?

Why should you? Oh I dunno, maybe because you like Transformers and give a crap about the story? I admit that it didn't get a lot of clarity in the movie but I like a story that's told through various medias. The Halo games for instance, have a huge universe with a lot of interesting history that for the most part is detailed in the novels. Instead of bashing it up front because you didn't understand it maybe you could look into it a bit more, do a little research, speculate a bit. Sounds like work but it can be fun to unravel the details of the bigger picture stuff.

It can be fun to explore franchises in depth in other media; however the Halo series is a computer game. It can be enjoyed on its own terms without the need to experience the supporting media. How many of the millions who've seen ROTF are even aware that a prequel comic exists?

By all means use a comic series (or other media) to elaborate and expand on a particular fictional universe.

But I judge a film on its own merits, and if a movie needs a comic book in order to clarify some plot points then that's a failure on the part of the movie (IMHO).

And to those who accuse Lost of having a bewildering plot... maybe you should wait to see how it ends, before making judgments?

starfish wrote:And to those who accuse Lost of having a bewildering plot... maybe you should wait to see how it ends, before making judgments?

Lost has lasted five seasons, ad it hasn't even answered any of the plot questions it brought up. Say "wait till it ends" all you want, a show should not go that long without answering anything.

Shadowman wrote:

starfish wrote:And to those who accuse Lost of having a bewildering plot... maybe you should wait to see how it ends, before making judgments?

Lost has lasted five seasons, ad it hasn't even answered any of the plot questions it brought up. Say "wait till it ends" all you want, a show should not go that long without answering anything.

Why not? As long as the ending is satisfactory, why should it matter when (or if) things are explained? Surely any explanations are best left to the end?

What if the plot twist of 'The Sixth Sense' had occurred in the middle of the film? Sticking with Citizen Kane, would the film be as good if we found out what 'Rosebud' was too early? Indeed, some great films, such as "The Italian Job" (the good one), "Cube" and "Primer" managed to satisfy without even having full resolutions and/or explanations.

And of course, there is another famous precedent: Lost (thematically and stylistically) draws very heavily on the classic 60s TV show "The Prisoner", a freakishly bizarre show which left all explanations to the very final episode, a conclusion which completely confounded expectations by being simultaneously baffling, open-ended, and yet aesthetically right. Fans of "The Prisoner" still debate the meaning of the ending to this very day, yet it's almost universally accepted as being the perfect way to end the show.

And besides, to say Lost "hasn't answered anything" is a bit silly. We know far more about the island (the monster, the Others, The Dharma Initiative, the polar bears) than we did at the the start of the series. It's just that, as old mysteries are answered (or semi-answered), new mysteries are set up as well. Just because explanations are coming at a slow pace, doesn't mean they aren't there.

Anyway, this is all veering horribly off-topic, so that's my final word on Lost. I'm here to talk about ROTF, not fan the flames of a Bay v Abrams argument.

The problem is, the Sixth Sense and Citizen Kane didn't keep half their plots a mystery for five years. A show is so much less fun when I have no idea what's going on. Or, to be more precise, the end does not justify the means.

This very much happened to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odessey", The critic hated it but it got an award for best special effects.

Razorclaw0000 wrote:The movie was fun and entertaining and *epic* in scope. I did what it set out to do and it did it well. It was never pretending to be Citizen Kane. It's 2 and 1/2 hours of robots punching each other. I went to the movie expecting 2 1/2 hours of robots beating each other up and I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. I'll admit there were some annoying things, like the twins, Leo, Simmons in a thong, etc. But it was still a spectacle.

2 1/2 of robots beating each other up? The robots weren't in the movie that long.

HECTOR wrote:Reading these comments makes me sad If this movie didn't please fans then what will? Seriously! What do you nay-sayers want??

Just an overall great time. Prime's death had me on the edge of my seat saying 'what? . . .' You know you were too! Admit it! If Optimus Prime dying doesn't make you sad then you don't deserve to be called a fan.

Deserve to be called a fan? Fans who have been in Transformers long before the Bayformers are more likely to give a nod and smile when Prime died, it's reoccuring, it's happened in almost every series and we know what'll come next.

On the inside we're glad that we got a live action movie but millions of dollars have been put into this and it's been opened to the public for critism. I think we have the right to complain and if we're not fans then why do we hang out on this board? Besides, if we all said "the movie is perfect" then we wouldn't have anything to talk about

Megatron Wolf wrote: . Any way, im sure bay had some influence on the script so all three are at fault. And how they were able to make a great movie like Star Trek and then this fail is beyond me. Oh wait Trek had JJ and ROTF had Bay. Just answered my own question.

Cause Star Trek had a real background story to fall on, unlike TF. I'm sorry, but i have yet to find any TF series that had an exceptional, non cheesy plot and story line. Nothing from G1, Nothing from Armada, and for sure nothing from Energon. (yes i know there are more, but just giving examples).
I still fail to see why people feel that this movie should have broken new ground on story/plot when the rest of the franchise was seriously lacking of it.

So here's the skinny of what I am getting from Starfish and Shadowman's convo. Starfish likes story and to be intrigued. It doesn't matter to you how long it takes to tell the story, just as long as it's told right, and by the end everything makes sense. Shadowman on the other hand likes a good story also, but is not story driven like Starfish and likes instant satisfaction more. Now, I'm with Starfish because I absolutely hated ROTF and I love Lost. This is the same argument my girlfriend and I had. She likes everything to be put out there. She doesn't want to have to sit through 5 seasons of Lost, or have to commit to multiple movies to get the whole story. It's why she loves Hong Kong action movies, especially old Jackie Chan movies. They had just enough action, comedy, and drama for her. She left feeling like she got to see Jackie do some crazy ****, she laughed, and feel sympathetic to whatever drams he was going through. And that is why she and a lot of other people liked ROTF... and that is fine. Me though, I like action and explosions, but I also like to think. If something is going to be in the story, then there should be a reason for it. My thinking is also that if it takes more than one movie, or multiple seasons, to tell your story the right way, then do it. And that's part of the reason why I didn't like ROTF and other who think like me didn't like it. And that's fine too. ROTF was not for us long story driven people.

HECTOR wrote:Reading these comments makes me sad If this movie didn't please fans then what will? Seriously! What do you nay-sayers want??
I thought that it was an awesome flick! There were so many satisfying G1 tidbits! Devastator, Soundwave (voiced by Welker himself!), Ravage, Energon, Pretenders, the first 13 cybertronians, a super-bad dude from an obscure cancelled comic series (awesome!) and even the Matrix of Leadership itself! Complete with a near death revelation!

A lotta people seem upset over Megatron's association with the Fallen. The IDW prequel comics shed a lot of light on that but yeah the best way to describe it is it's like Darth Vader and the Emperor. He's still No. 1 but there's also an older bad guy who can offer him a lotta power, and he kinda owes him for saving his life.

Just an overall great time. Prime's death had me on the edge of my seat saying 'what? . . .' You know you were too! Admit it! If Optimus Prime dying doesn't make you sad then you don't deserve to be called a fan.

You don't deserve to be called a fan if seeing Optimus Prime die doesn't make you sad? Excuse me, how can you be sad when you know it's a Primes' job requirement to die and eventually be brought back to life. In all of the Transformers series, how many times has an Optimus Prime died and been resurrected?

Magnus_Rex wrote:So here's the skinny of what I am getting from Starfish and Shadowman's convo. Starfish likes story and to be intrigued. It doesn't matter to you how long it takes to tell the story, just as long as it's told right, and by the end everything makes sense. Shadowman on the other hand likes a good story also, but is not story driven like Starfish and likes instant satisfaction more.

No, I love a good story, though I don't hold it on the highest of pedestals, which allows me to enjoy action movies more. And I love a good season-wide story arc, but I also like closure. "Wait for the series finale" doesn't work for me.

Magnus_Rex wrote:You don't deserve to be called a fan if seeing Optimus Prime die doesn't make you sad? Excuse me, how can you be sad when you know it's a Primes' job requirement to die and eventually be brought back to life. In all of the Transformers series, how many times has an Optimus Prime died and been resurrected?

Yeah, I gotta agree with you there. You kind of get desensitized to Prime dying after the...what are we on, the ninth time? Tenth?

Shadowman wrote:The problem is, the Sixth Sense and Citizen Kane didn't keep half their plots a mystery for five years. A show is so much less fun when I have no idea what's going on. Or, to be more precise, the end does not justify the means.

X-Files...

Gah!

Counterpunch wrote:

Shadowman wrote:The problem is, the Sixth Sense and Citizen Kane didn't keep half their plots a mystery for five years. A show is so much less fun when I have no idea what's going on. Or, to be more precise, the end does not justify the means.

X-Files...

Gah!

The thing abut the X-Files is that the long-standing plots didn't get in the way of the rest of the show. They didn't spend ten years just fighting aliens, or just looking for Mulder's sister, they spent a good portion of that ten years fighting the Devil, or crazy psychics, or any number of urban legends.

And curse your psychic powers! How did you know I thought of bringing that up?!

5150 Cruiser wrote:I still fail to see why people feel that this movie should have broken new ground on story/plot when the rest of the franchise was seriously lacking of it.

So a multi-million dollar movie stands up well when compared to "Carnage in C-Minor" and "Buster Witwicky & the Car Wash of Doom"? Silly me, that makes it all okay then.

Shadowman wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

Shadowman wrote:The problem is, the Sixth Sense and Citizen Kane didn't keep half their plots a mystery for five years. A show is so much less fun when I have no idea what's going on. Or, to be more precise, the end does not justify the means.

X-Files...

Gah!

The thing abut the X-Files is that the long-standing plots didn't get in the way of the rest of the show. They didn't spend ten years just fighting aliens, or just looking for Mulder's sister, they spent a good portion of that ten years fighting the Devil, or crazy psychics, or any number of urban legends.

And curse your psychic powers! How did you know I thought of bringing that up?!

Now we're talking X-Files so I really have to jump in. The problem I had with the X-Files is that somewhere along the line they lost site of the overall story they wanted to tell. It just started to drag, make less sense, to the point where you had to wonder if they were just pulling ideas out their asses. I'm pretty sure if the show remained popular and was still on today, we still wouldn't know what the hell was going on.

Magnus_Rex wrote:

Shadowman wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

Shadowman wrote:The problem is, the Sixth Sense and Citizen Kane didn't keep half their plots a mystery for five years. A show is so much less fun when I have no idea what's going on. Or, to be more precise, the end does not justify the means.

X-Files...

Gah!

The thing abut the X-Files is that the long-standing plots didn't get in the way of the rest of the show. They didn't spend ten years just fighting aliens, or just looking for Mulder's sister, they spent a good portion of that ten years fighting the Devil, or crazy psychics, or any number of urban legends.

And curse your psychic powers! How did you know I thought of bringing that up?!

Now we're talking X-Files so I really have to jump in. The problem I had with the X-Files is that somewhere along the line they lost site of the overall story they wanted to tell. It just started to drag, make less sense, to the point where you had to wonder if they were just pulling ideas out their asses. I'm pretty sure if the show remained popular and was still on today, we still wouldn't know what the hell was going on.

I completely agree. The X-Files story-arc seemed to me as if it was being made up as they went along, rather than planned in advance.

I believe I'm right in saying that the story arc was so messy that creator/writer Chris Carter had to explain the entire plot of the first five seasons in a bonus "hidden track" at the end of the 'Fight the Future' soundtrack CD!

Hahahhahahahhahahhaahaahhahahahh suuck it you pansy film critics . That demostrates the power of Megan fox and um the face less one i mean the fallen

5150 Cruiser wrote: Cause Star Trek had a real background story to fall on, unlike TF. I'm sorry, but i have yet to find any TF series that had an exceptional, non cheesy plot and story line. Nothing from G1, Nothing from Armada, and for sure nothing from Energon. (yes i know there are more, but just giving examples).
I still fail to see why people feel that this movie should have broken new ground on story/plot when the rest of the franchise was seriously lacking of it.

I don't think thats the issue here. I'm pro "Story" per say when this issue is brought up by others members concerning this movie. I'm a fan not well versed in the mythos, and I'm an artist and a special effects guy and I luv action movies and all that jazz......but I still expect a story to make sense. It's funny I was reading a interview of "The Bay" and the question was brought up if he thought special effects guys would be good to become directors. His response was along the lines of this,

"I don't think so. Being a director is about telling stories...and not everyone can do that"

And yet, the biggest issue of this film is the "STORY". Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the eye candy, but like I posted somewhere else, it all just felt like ILM or even Michael Bays Demo reel. Or better yet, the film just felt like one big long movie trailer....nothing but action sequences with tid bits of diologue to hold it together.

Again I'm not versed in the mythos, I'm a fan of film, but being so I went into watching this film with rather reasonable expectations of things making sense....and on that aspect I agree with others that this film was not up to par with the skill set the people working on it (Spielberg, Bay) have proved themselves to accomplish.

So if people are ridiculing others on grounds of "I can't believe you expected a story line to make sense, your impossible to please" then I happily disagree. I expect stories to make sense...hell The Hulk made more sense! Especially from established high grade directors and producers as Speilberg and Bay. If a no name director made this film, then I might be more generous to overlook it, but even then a no name director might would've been so eager to please and prove his/herself they would have done a good job verses someone who feels as if they did it soley for the Benjamins.

Laters,
Josh