The Energon Pub

Since this seems to be the biggest plot hole, I decided to start a new thread for it.

Upon further investigation of the novelized version of the movie, I discovered why they entered the city. They were looking for somebody who has a shortwave radio (I think that's what it was). Now, every city on God's green earth has numerous electronics stores from what I've seen, and all the electronics stores I've seen have shortwave radios. They needed the radio so they could call in the Raptors for air strikes on the Decepticons.

Night Raid wrote:Upon further investigation of the novelized version of the movie, I discovered why they entered the city. They were looking for somebody who has a shortwave radio (I think that's what it was) [...] They needed the radio so they could call in the Raptors for air strikes on the Decepticons.

Finally a reason that makes sense! Of course, I'm assuming that the Raptors have short-wave radios, too, and that the rest of the aircraft systems weren't affected by the virus.

iopele wrote:

Night Raid wrote:Upon further investigation of the novelized version of the movie, I discovered why they entered the city. They were looking for somebody who has a shortwave radio (I think that's what it was) [...] They needed the radio so they could call in the Raptors for air strikes on the Decepticons.

Finally a reason that makes sense! Of course, I'm assuming that the Raptors have short-wave radios, too, and that the rest of the aircraft systems weren't affected by the virus.

Yeah, how else are the Raptors going to know where to go? The LAST thing they need is a bunch of clueless jets flying around totally lost.

Night Raid wrote:Since this seems to be the biggest plot hole, I decided to start a new thread for it.

Upon further investigation of the novelized version of the movie, I discovered why they entered the city. They were looking for somebody who has a shortwave radio (I think that's what it was). Now, every city on God's green earth has numerous electronics stores from what I've seen, and all the electronics stores I've seen have shortwave radios. They needed the radio so they could call in the Raptors for air strikes on the Decepticons.

didn't you see the sign, it said someones pawn shop, and in the imax, it shows him in the store. thats were he got it

autobot commander wrote:

Night Raid wrote:Since this seems to be the biggest plot hole, I decided to start a new thread for it.

Upon further investigation of the novelized version of the movie, I discovered why they entered the city. They were looking for somebody who has a shortwave radio (I think that's what it was). Now, every city on God's green earth has numerous electronics stores from what I've seen, and all the electronics stores I've seen have shortwave radios. They needed the radio so they could call in the Raptors for air strikes on the Decepticons.

didn't you see the sign, it said someones pawn shop, and in the imax, it shows him in the store. thats were he got it

And where was the pawn shop? The city, I'll bet.

I was under the impression that the city was only a stopping point en route to the nearby Air Force Base, but they got ambushed before they could continue on to it.

JazZeke wrote:I was under the impression that the city was only a stopping point en route to the nearby Air Force Base, but they got ambushed before they could continue on to it.

Could be both... and it probably was.

Michigan City was the point in which the Cube was to be extracted to get it away from the Dam. The radios were a quick pick up that they HOPED would work. Remember the Air Force would have never shown up had they not got through to them on the computer hot wired morse code.

Does anyone know what kind of radio systems are actually in those jets? I know next to nothing about radio types, but from what I understand, shortwave is ancient. Would there even be shortwave radios in high-tech jets?

JazZeke wrote:I was under the impression that the city was only a stopping point en route to the nearby Air Force Base, but they got ambushed before they could continue on to it.

That was probably in the early drafts. The route between Hoover Dam and Nellis Air Force Base is US 93 north, which passes through Henderson and Las Vegas.

It is just that when they filmed it, they made it sound like the city itself was the destination, not Nellis Air Force Base.


Michael

Uhm, their destination was the city. They were gonna hide the cube there. Seeing as if anyone of you knows some strategy, then you should know that a city gives a strategically advantage for anyone.

JazZeke wrote:I was under the impression that the city was only a stopping point en route to the nearby Air Force Base, but they got ambushed before they could continue on to it.

I took it that they had to get the radios to talk to the jets, and had to stop off in the city to nab them. I cannot remember another base being talked about, but it's quite plausible.

Although part of me thinks it remembers something being said about them being able to hide in the city... (yes, lets just lure the giant evil robots into a densely populated area...)

Tetsu Aero wrote:Uhm, their destination was the city. They were gonna hide the cube there. Seeing as if anyone of you knows some strategy, then you should know that a city gives a strategically advantage for anyone.

I know this was never said specifically in the movie, but I kinda thought the reason they went into the city was due to all the concrete from the buildings and whatnot. They mentioned that they hid the Cube in the dam originally because the concrete hid the energy it emanated. So, it would be reasonable to think that the city would also provide the same type of protection.

To note, I'm not disagreeing with any other theory already stated. I am just giving the reason I came up with to counter the 'Why in the HELL did they take the Cube to a heavily populated city??' question I had after watching the film. And of course, it seemed that the Decepticons had no trouble finding where exactly it was in the city, so my theory isn't perfect.

Or maybe they hoped the Cube's energy signal would be in some way masked or dampened by all the OTHER energy signals a city produces. Heat, radio waves, TV, the internet, other things I can't currently think of... If you can't shut it up, drown it out!

All Plausible ideas.

I think this is the longest a Movie thread has gone without derailing/turning into an argument. Well done everyone.

I think Lennox's reasoning for going to the city was from a strategic perspective. Infantry(in this case, Lennox and his team) have always had a mobilty advantage over mobile armor(in this case, the Decepeticons) in urban environments. He probably hoped to use the confined space of the city to out-maneuver the much larger robots and put up a presentable defense until air support could arrive.

Rampage01 wrote:I think Lennox's reasoning for going to the city was from a strategic perspective. Infantry(in this case, Lennox and his team) have always had a mobilty advantage over mobile armor(in this case, the Decepeticons) in urban environments. He probably hoped to use the confined space of the city to out-maneuver the much larger robots and put up a presentable defense until air support could arrive.

True, that. Big honkin' robots in narrow city streets are gonna have a hard time doing much of anything. In that case, the humans are gonna totally OWN them in terms of maneuverability.

The tight spaces generated by the tall buildings will throw off the airborne ones (Starscream and Blackout), in that I doubt Blackout's rotor blade 'wingspan' will fit very well in a city street without A LOT of care taken on his part and Starscream better have some dang good reflexes at the speed he's going.

Starscream: "Oh sweet Primus, WALL!" *boom* "Medic!"

Devastator/Brawl's f***ed as is, since tanks are a real pain to maneuver on open, level terrain. Imagine working your way down a street and driving over cars and stuff. It may be insanely fun, but it's going to slow you down. Same goes for Bonecrusher. Slow movement = easy target. It doesn't matter how thick your armor is or how much sheer raw power you've got going (you getting this, Megatron?). Throw in enough sabot rounds under these circumstances (REALLY big, slow-moving target) and you're screwed either way. Thicker armor just means it'll take longer to take you down.

To sum it all up, things would have turned out VERY differently had this battle occurred anywhere else.