Burn wrote:Hasbro have kind of shot themselves in the foot here by rebooting the main series every couple of years. Oh sure, it makes sense, they have to keep things fresh (provided Optimus Prime is a red truck and Bumblebee a yellow car ... can't confuse the kids too much) for the kids.
But the result is multiple "universes" with the same theme told again and again but with a slightly different spin each time.
What they need to do is take a huge gamble and develop a series that is connected, but very distant from all that's been before.
I think they're still wary of changing the formula after what happened the first time (killing Optimus in the 80's animated movie). Ever since then, Optimus has always remained the star of the show in one form or another.
Burn wrote:No really, it's probably more a case of an oversight on the animators part, or even laziness. It doesn't make sense, but then, the majority of movies have flaws, but most of them are made to entertain so you tend to forgive them.
Actually, Bay had to make the vehicles look nice and pristine for the camera since GM had given him free use of all their car in return for free publicity. The battle damage was initially done in sequences for the bot modes, making them more damaged as the story went on, but the cars had to remain all shiny and clean.
Basically, it's the came case with the US military, but that's another story.
Again, it's been ages since I listened to the DVD commentary, but that's pretty much the gist of it.
TurboMMaster wrote:Oh, it is not only that, in first movie, the cast was relatively small, so each character at least seems to be unique.We don't have identical characters, or generic mooks, each character at least have he's own style. Also,with smaller cast Decepticons seems to be more dangreus. For Example, Starscream beats Ironhide and Ratchet with ease, and Brawl proves to be a challenge for 4 Autobots, human troops and a silicon princess.
Very true. The Decepticons were portrayed as an exceedingly dangerous force in the first movie. They were military vehicles, and easily strong-armed their way forward in pursuit of the Allspark. That scene where Starscream took on a whole squadron of F-22's remains my favorite scene of him.
TurboMMaster wrote:In first movie Optimus wasn't weak: He kills Bonecrusher relatively easily (And he do that with exceptional sense of style) and he slow down Megatron and survived to tell the tale. Also, in next movies he isn't invincible at all, and in RotF and DotM comics and novels adaptation, while he is still strong, but far for beign overpowered. Many things like Prime killing Grindor or fightning with both Megatron AND the Fallen at once are entirely Bay's idea.
Hey, don't shoot the messenger!
I was just saying what Bay and/or O&K said in the commentary.
You have a point in the forest fight scene, though. As absolutely awesome as it was cinematically, OP was a one-man wrecking crew. I don't know; if you don't mind the fanon maybe he just summoned all his strength in a desperate attempt to save Sam.
All in all, the forest fight scene is easily forgivable due to sheer awesome ass-kicking.
That said, I found his fight with The Fallen and Megatron far more jarring. It just doesn't make sense that the parts from a rusty old bot like Jetfire could power Optimus up to the point where he could take on The Fallen and Megs simultaneously. If it has something to do with the Matrix re-optimizing Optimus and Jetfire's parts back into peak condition, then it should have been explained.
I just don't like having to rely on fanon and tie-in media to make sense of something.
Sabrblade wrote:The humans I've genuinely liked in all three films have been William Lennox, Robert Epps, John Keller, Ron Witwicky, General Moreshower, and Dylan Gould.
I actually do kinda wonder how different the films would have been if Lennox and Epps, instead of Sam and his girlfriends, had been the lead humans of the films.
This. I absolutely hate the "comic relief" characters, and only marginally warmed up to Simmons in DOTM. Sam's mom was tolerable in the first movie and DOTM. Leo, I'm glad wasn't involved in DOTM or any other TF movie after ROTF. Jerry's dead, so good riddance.
I still blame Spielberg for "suggesting" that they go the "kid and his first car" route. The whole thing with the glasses seems to have been shoehorned into the plot, where if you took out that part of the story, it'd still work. Instead of Frenzy hacking the US military servers and discovering info on the glasses, just have him search directly for project Ice Man. The story proceeds as usual, and have a newly awakened Megatron rushes toward the location of the cube (thereby removing the part about the humans hiding it in Hoover Dam).
And without Sam, The Autobots can show up during Scorponok's attack and save Lennox and Epps, and telling them the reason for coming to Earth--to find the Cube or stop Megatron.