The Energon Pub

I know it's the summer and movies don't stay at the top for very long during the summer, but Transformers has a lot of things going against it. First of all, the novelty has worn off. Everyone who wanted to go see giant robots fighting has already gone and done so. And let's face it, that turned out to be the only thing the movie has going for it. Which brings me to my second point: what keeps a movie afloat after its opening weekend is repeat viewings, and what keeps people coming back is having an emotional connection to the characters. Star Wars, Titanic, Lord of The Rings, all of these, despite being heavy on the effects, had characters with genuine human conflicts, passions, emotions, etc. Establishing a connection with the one-dimensional archetypes in Transformers is not possible. They are, at best, forgettable.

So we've seen the robots, and we don't care much for the humans. Then we have the luke-warm reviews. Which, had they been favorable, might have convinced the fence-sitters to go watch it, but will most likely encourage them to go watch a different summer action flick instead, like Die Hard. These reviews are also a reflection of the bad word of mouth this movie has been getting. While the average joe may not know or care what the critics are saying, his friends' opinion may be enough to sway him one way or the other.

And finally, and possibly worst of all, you have Harry Potter coming out next week. Aimed at roughly the same target audience, it will severely cut into Transformers' second week profits. I'm sorry to say this, but I seriously doubt Transformers will pass the $200 million mark domestically.

Uh....Okay.

I don't care. I just got back from seeing it again.
I'll probably see it a couple more times.

These reviews are also a reflection of the bad word of mouth this movie has been getting. While the average joe may not know or care what the critics are saying, his friends' opinion may be enough to sway him one way or the other.

If you only knew how many previously interested coworkers / other people online who I've turned away from this movie.

Typical conversation:

"I'm seeing Transformers tonight with a bunch of friends. I used to watch that. Had tons of them, so this should be good".

"Oh boy. Well, this isn't exactly what you're thinking it is."

"Why... wasn't it any good?"

"Depends... do you like all those teen shows on TV?"

"No... why, is that's what it's like? What about the robots?"

"They were in there... somewhere."

"Ah, I was afraid it'd go that way. screw that."

"Yeah, what a letdown."

And as of the second week Transformers will have already made a profit.

This movie is more successful then the first, please accept that.

well i very highly doubt die hard will rake in more money then transformers this weekend seein as harry potter and transformers are kids/teen based and die hard is basicaly for the adult genre.

I have yet to speak to anyone in person who did not absolutely love it. So I don't know what kind of "word of mouth" you're talking about.

cyclonus11 wrote:I have yet to speak to anyone in person who did not absolutely love it. So I don't know what kind of "word of mouth" you're talking about.

It's actually diarrhea of the mouth. And it's a social disease that must stop.

I'm not terribly concerned if the movie has a drop off in the second week. As has been pointed out already, by the end of this one, it will have made its money back anyway, so who cares?

oh and i forgot to tell you, read this from comingsoon.net. it reached 100 million!!!!!! so what makes you think it wont cross 200?
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=21787

The movie will probably net around $140 million this weekend, by the time's all said and done.

If it has a typical 65% drop-off for this summer(it's what Spiderman 3, Pirates 3 and Shrek 3 all had), that still brings it close to $200 mil by next weekend.

Sorry, there's no way it's NOT going to make $200 million domestically.

well honestly in my opinion this weekend will put the movie somewhere in the 160-180 ball park. but i think it will make more. besides the last three harry potter movies haven't done as well as the first because of how much story they leave out from the books.
besides this summer was all about back biting and stealing the next movies thunder. its like spiderman was out then before you could think about it pirates came out then the next week shrek came out. and it has kinda been like that all summer.
but mark my words transformers will do at least 250, but i am leaning towards 300 million

I've personally really gotten tired of Harry Potter. I've grown up with the stuff, but both the last book and the last movie were below par. If I represent the general audience, I doubt next week will be a problem.

Die hard making more money than TFs It didn't even beat Ratatoullie it's first week. Thanks for the laugh though.

Riotflea wrote:

These reviews are also a reflection of the bad word of mouth this movie has been getting. While the average joe may not know or care what the critics are saying, his friends' opinion may be enough to sway him one way or the other.

If you only knew how many previously interested coworkers / other people online who I've turned away from this movie.

Typical conversation:

"I'm seeing Transformers tonight with a bunch of friends. I used to watch that. Had tons of them, so this should be good".

"Oh boy. Well, this isn't exactly what you're thinking it is."

"Why... wasn't it any good?"

"Depends... do you like all those teen shows on TV?"

"No... why, is that's what it's like? What about the robots?"

"They were in there... somewhere."

"Ah, I was afraid it'd go that way. screw that."

"Yeah, what a letdown."

Why not just let them see the movie and decide for themselves? Didn't want anyone you know to come back and tell you they loved it and have no idea what you were complaining about? Then again, they probably would have loved it since they're so easily suggestible that they were convinced by the obviously colored negative review of one person.

The internet: Taking complaining to new levels.

This movie has gotten nothing but good word of mouth from anyone I've heard. Even people who are not in the target audience agree it's an entertaining movie, so I don't know what kind of people you're hanging out with.

Second piece of advice: there is no link between quality and box-office success (or lack, for that matter). Great movies can sometimes perform badly in sales, and poor movies can sometimes do well. And poor can do poorly . . . you get my idea. The reason I say this is that in the event the movie does well (or poorly), you might want to think on this. To whit: don't expect anyone to take your argument seriously when you look at the movie's financial intake, for anyone here is entirely justified in their enjoyment, or dislike, apart from how it performs at the box office. Otherwise, it's sheep mentality.

<3

If only people had to click "I agree" to that before being allowed to make topics.

Blackout wrote:

Riotflea wrote:If you only knew how many previously interested coworkers / other people online who I've turned away from this movie.

Why do people cite what they have heard and somehow claim it represents the majority or makes their opinion more worthy? I could easily counter your quote by repeating how many co-workers have stated that they love the movie, or copying the praise it's received from online reviewers. Of course I wont't; none of this is indicative of how the population truly feels, nor should it mean that our subjective opinion is more important than anyone else's.

Heh heh, nice one.

You're still right though, I'm far from the majority. My only reason for describing the interaction is that people seem let down when I point out it's not the G1 guys really.

Describing the problems with it as a movie (any movie) just puts a nail in their coffin.
To be fair, I do toss in a "well, it's making money so you might like it", but they still poopoo it on the basis it's not the G1 continuity being retold.

And to an extent, that last part suprises me. I thought I was just a fringe geek for having such hopes of a G1 retelling.

Anyone else fed up of these topics being posted by some well known haters in their vain and increasingly desperate efforts to find some way for the movie to fail?

Guess what, it's a success, stick that in your pipe and smoke it Butz and Riotflea.

This thread is just total BS. I recommend it for deletion.

Bender Prime wrote:Anyone else fed up of these topics being posted by some well known haters in their vain and increasingly desperate efforts to find some way for the movie to fail?

Guess what, it's a success, stick that in your pipe and smoke it Butz and Riotflea.

This thread is just total BS. I recommend it for deletion.

Speaking of....I havent see trypticon lately?

Hey there!

Yeah, so the movie still is terrible. If it was a success (financially) it would be doing Spiderman or Harry Potter type numbers. It aint. Instead it's breaking all those "Weekday" figures no one's ever heard of. It hasn't broken a single regular release number yet. In a week's time, it just barely broke 100 million domestically. Next week, with our ADD, no one will care or remember.

And then, Harry Potter. For the win. You can not defeat an international fanbase who is eagerly anticipating the last book in a seven part series (being released in two weeks) and thus rabid for anything Potter. The new Harry Potter movie will rake in so much money, it will remind people that well written movies with characters get franchises, and poorly scripted dreck-fests get, well, Godzilla 98 comparisons.

Perhaps if Transformers had shot higher, aimed for a better story, with relatable characters ("Wus up lil Bitches?") people would go back to see it again, making it a bankable franchise, you know, like Harry Potter.

But if this film can't even do those kinds of numbers, what will the sequel (which makes less money) do?