The Energon Pub

Here are the results of a little experiment I wanted to do. I re-watched ROTF recently, and as I did, I took note of each character's total screentime with a chronometer. I steered away from keeping track of the main characters like Bumblebee or Megatron, I wanted to focus instead on the new TFs, or the ones we knew had very little screen time... it's interesting to see how little screentime that actually is when you start counting!

For the sake of clarity, I rounded the times up to either the "0" or "5" mark - since I probably had a margin of error of a few seconds here or there. I counted whenever the character was on screen (in robot or vehicle mode). In cases of hectic, shaky cam action (for example, Prime fighting the Fallen at the end) I just let the chronometer run until it was clear the character was off-screen (or dead, as the case may be).

Here they are, in order (with some screenshots to make it look cool):



The Twins: 6 min. 40 sec.



Jetfire: 6 min. 30 sec.



The Fallen: 5 min. 10 sec.



Devastator: 3 min. 35 sec.



Wheelie : 3 min. 10 sec.



Sideswipe: 2 min. 15 sec.



Rampage: 1 min. 45 sec.



The Doctor/Scalpel: 1 min. 40 sec.



Soundwave/Dr. Claw: 1 min. 35 sec.



Ravage: 1 min. 35 sec.



Ratchet: 1 min. 35 sec.



Demolishor: 1 min. 15 sec.



Arcee(s): 1 min.



Long Haul: 45 sec.



Mix Master: 45 sec.



Grindor/Blackout: 45 sec.



Sideways: 40 sec.



Jolt: 35 sec.

I think this is a good indicator of how fast this movie moves at times. When you actually count the seconds go by, you see how little time there is to take everything in.

Next time, I should count how much time Bay spends focusing on military equipment and soldiers running around... I'm sure it's a solid 10 minutes of the movie...

Hope this has been interesting for some...

I always thought they got way less screen time than this! Especually Sideswipe, I thaoght he got 20 seconds!

Seems like they shammed the cool characters in favor of the uglier, non-favorable ones.

I'd have rather seen more of Soundwave than 'The Fallen'.

That's interesting! I didn't remember Sideswipe was only ~2 mins long in the movie...

Did you count how much time Megs, BBee or Prime was on screen?

Skowl wrote:Long Haul: 45 sec.

Mix Master: 45 sec.

Grindor/Blackout: 45 sec.

Those seem incredibly short, even for this movie. I'd think they'd get at least a minute with the Megatron revival/forest fight scenes. Guess not.

Skowl wrote:something...

Dude, Skowl!! Where have you been man? Nice to see ya around!

That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

KingEmperor wrote:

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

Yeah, and I have somthing to counter every one of those statements.

A while back, I counted the number of seconds that Grindor was in the movie (in order to try to justify to myself the fact that he got a Voyager class toy), and came out to around 56 seconds. Of course, I counted the exact number of seconds he was on screen...

SlyTF1 wrote:

KingEmperor wrote:

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

Yeah, and I have somthing to counter every one of those statements.

Hey wow! So does the sig!

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

So you half-assed it, left out the important characters just to support your point that the robots didn't get much screen time.

Why even bother? After all I was under the impression you hatted these movies with a passion, why watch it so many times to see how long the characters are on screen?

Dead Metal wrote::shock:
Why even bother? After all I was under the impression you hatted these movies with a passion, why watch it so many times to see how long the characters are on screen?

And this supports the idea that he did this just to show how little screentime thay had.

Skowl wrote:


The Twins: 6 min. 40 sec.

*bitterly weeps at the thought of the Twins' massive screentime and gnashes his teeth*

Don't want to sound like a hater, though. ^^; I liked ROTF, aside from a few minor grievances. I found the ending came too quickly after Optimus got up...a bit anti-climactic, in my opinion. But I thought they did a better job in the second movie of incorporating the transformers as fluid, real characters in this film. Starscream seemed a lot more like himself in this film, IMHO - I liked the way that he was portrayed. Much better schemer in this film than the last one.

But Skidz and Mudflap? *grumble, grumble, grumble*

It must have taken an insane amount of effort to compile all the screentimes. I salute thee, Skowl!

ScattorshotMKII wrote:*bitterly weeps at the thought of the Twins' massive screentime and gnashes his teeth*

Under 7 minutes being massive screentime.

Noideaforaname wrote:

ScattorshotMKII wrote:*bitterly weeps at the thought of the Twins' massive screentime and gnashes his teeth*

Under 7 minutes being massive screentime.

Massive in comparison to Soundwave's, and that of the vast majority of the transformers I was looking forward to seeing in the film. *more grumble grumble* Don't mind me - if I had nothing to complainn about, I'd be miserable.

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

KingEmperor wrote:

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

Yeah, and I have somthing to counter every one of those statements.

Hey wow! So does the sig!

Yeah, but my points are valid and I know I changed atleast 3 peoples minds about ROTF by pointing out the obvious things that they complain about.

Going by those totals, we have around 41 minutes of the movie where minor/side characters are present. This doesn't include Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee, or Starscream screentime.

Considering the length of the movie and the characters not included, that's quite a bit.

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

KingEmperor wrote:

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

Yeah, and I have somthing to counter every one of those statements.

Hey wow! So does the sig!

But his sigs come backs aren't very good, and portrays the person defending the film as backpeddling idiot. Rather than expand the point being made they regress the statement back.

Lastjustice wrote:

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

KingEmperor wrote:

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

Yeah, and I have somthing to counter every one of those statements.

Hey wow! So does the sig!

But his sigs come backs aren't very good, and portrays the person defending the film as backpeddling idiot. Rather than expand the point being made they regress the statement back.

Thats what I was thinking. PS: The TFs above have about 37 minutes and 55 seconds total, not counting the TFs with 9 and 12 minutes of screen time. (Optimus and Bumblebee)

Lastjustice wrote:

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

KingEmperor wrote:

Skowl wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:That seems pretty biased. You're trying to point out that the robots don't have a lot of screen time, but you left out the robots that had the most screen time?

It's not biased. I didn't calculated Prime, BB, Megatron or Starscream because it would have been too difficult and time-consuming.

It is much easier to track characters like Long Haul or Jolt, when they only appear on screen for less than one minute of the entire movie.

It's not bias - anybody who did what I did would end up with pretty much the same results, give or take a few seconds...

Haha. Love your sig, Skowl.

Yeah, and I have somthing to counter every one of those statements.

Hey wow! So does the sig!

But his sigs come backs aren't very good, and portrays the person defending the film as backpeddling idiot. Rather than expand the point being made they regress the statement back.

While I can not argue with your assessment, they are replies that have been used to refute the exact claims which the first speaker is making, and in some cases, on this very website.

Once more, I'm not trying to argue you, I'm just saying that as stupid as the come backs are, they are real-life ones that people use to support ROTF. How many times in this very forum has someone used the "this isn't G1" arguement alone? If I were to say that ROTF was foolish at times, someone without fail would/has thrown out the notion that ROTF is not G1, and that G1 itself was silly and campy, so I should stop 'defending' G1 by liking it better. I'm just pointing that out.

While I can not argue with your assessment, they are replies that have been used to refute the exact claims which the first speaker is making, and in some cases, on this very website.

Once more, I'm not trying to argue you, I'm just saying that as stupid as the come backs are, they are real-life ones that people use to support ROTF. How many times in this very forum has someone used the "this isn't G1" arguement alone? If I were to say that ROTF was foolish at times, someone without fail would/has thrown out the notion that ROTF is not G1, and that G1 itself was silly and campy, so I should stop 'defending' G1 by liking it better. I'm just pointing that out.

I disagree, as stating the movie's aren't G1 isn't a stupid comeback. Anything can be argued intelligently, but the picture basically has the people backpeddling and looking like morons. Anything can also be argued poorly as that also shows. Plenty of people seem to expect it to be, but thru magic of nostalgia seem to forgotten just how flawed G1 was too. Sure it borrows plenty from it, as there's as many similiarities as there are differences. it's just not going be a carbon copy, and never will be. (thankfully.) Which said people are on this website saying it's not enough like G1.

Ultimately tons of logic can never be applied to transformers universe or there's no movie. Honestly why the Decepticons would mess around with us in a head on fight is just silly. Even if they can potentially curb stomp us, it's a waste of resources.

They could easily just killed every human beings from orbit, then take all the sweet time they needed to in order find the All Spark or later the matrix of leadership. I'm guessing the Decepticons would have some form of WMD they could bombarded us with. If we can build them, and they're much more advanced than us, they likely would too. Even if they didn't, just going to a near by asteroid belt, and shoving huge rocks down on us would waste us. (which would made this a different Bay Movie hehe.) The decepticons had no issue with wiping us out all out, I don't see why they would opt to fight "fair". It's just far more effective to take humans out of the picture all together.

Transformers ultimately follows The Rule of Cool. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool It's an action film and does alot for sake of having fun, and plenty of other movies are just as guilty as this.

One thing I dont get. Why did you leave Ironhide off that list? He only had about 30 seconds of screen time he wasnt with one of the characters you DID keep track of. Shouldnt be hard to figure out.