The Energon Pub

I just watched ROTF again last night and...wow. I am here to tell you that I am no longer a follower of Michael Bay I now believe that this is the worst movie ever conceived by man kind. This movie is the greatest crime that humanity could ever commit. And humanity can commit some dastardly crimes. I now believe that G1 is the only true Transformers series ... I'm sorry. But, this is ridiculous. This is just freaking ridiculous. Come on guys, this is I don't even know what to say. I've always loved this movie, but now I just...I'm lost. This time I watched the movie I payed attention to every little detail. I took mental notes in my mind of everything and I just don't believe it. What is so wrong with this movie? Just answer that question for me, what is so wrong with this movie?

I payed attention to everything in the movie and the only potholes are that Wheelie and the Twins are missing for most of the final battle. People say that it can't be morning in Washington and Egypt at the same time. It wasn't. Didn't you pay attention to anything? It was in the afternoon in DC and it was early in the morning in Egypt. Plus, the sun is huge, the sun is 108.97 times the size of earth, so I'm pretty sure it can effect a few hundred miles. I am just baffled. Like it or not, the movie had a story, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. The movie had everything a movie should have, it had a story, clarification, it had morals, symbolism, a memorable score, what else could you want? What in the name of ass do people keep complaining about?

I'm sorry, I just had to say this. Every damn time I try to watch the movie, I'm forced to do analysis on the freaking movie all because people won't leave me alone. People act like this movie is the worst sin that any human being could ever commit. What is wrong with people? This should show us how damn fragile the human race can be. A team of people make a movie and they blame one person, sending him death threats because of a movie. I'm honestly starting to think that people just hate and talk bad about this movie because it's a successful movie directed by Michael Bay.

This thread is not going to last long. It's all been covered a million times before.

I'm with you, I understand where you're coming from, but this ain't gonna win anyone over to your side.

I've come to the point where defending one movie and trashing the other is pointless. No one listens in either direction and you end up pulling your hair out over it.

And all for what? A movie about toys. Toys.

You'll go insane if you get deep enough into it.

Autobot032 wrote: 1. This thread is not going to last long. It's all been covered a million times before.

I'm with you, I understand where you're coming from, but this ain't gonna win anyone over to your side.

I've come to the point where defending one movie and trashing the other is pointless. No one listens in either direction and you end up pulling your hair out over it.

And all for what? A movie about toys. Toys.

2. You'll go insane if you get deep enough into it.

1. I know.

2. I think I already have.

I agree that his won't go anywhere...unless a radical BayBasher happens to come across it and start a war.
I honestly can't find the horridness that people want me to find. I watch it over and over and I just don't see what's so wrong. What I really don't get is why some people are so obsessed with turning me against ROTF, or why they blow up when I say something positive. All I really ask is that I be left alone to enjoy what I enjoy.
But honestly dude, you're not going to win disciples here. Most likely you'll get more enemies that disagree with you. I agree that the movies aren't as incredibly bad as some want you to think, but you can't change the minds of people that don't like them. You never will. I tried it before. I failed. I tried it again. I failed. I tried it a third time. I lost all my credibility and destroyed my reputation.

Bottom line, both sides need to get the slagging hell over it.
Bay fans: You can't change the minds of people that don't like the movies. Get over it.
Bay bashers: You can't boycott the movies and you can't make the movie fans hate the movies. Get over it.

Heya.

My restrained two cents: (Warning: Long post).

I'm a movie fan, and altho I bash Bay here and there, it's only for particular times and events. I also admire and respect him here and there.

My suggestion is this: that it's likely, as this experience gets repeated throughout your life (that of discusssing a film about a loved subject within an equally passionate and educated circle of people/fans ), you'll identify a lot of mainstream media (eg: Movie Critic) complaints being regurgitated via the fans.

Theoretically, these are the unresearched, parroted complaints. At least in my experience, these are often (but in all fairness, not always) baseless arguments, and can stem from far enough as a trend.

Others will almost surely be criticisms based on legit reasons, for you to investigate and eventually agree or disagree with, but it doesn't mean you should feel as powerfully as others do: We have different preconditioning, and shouldn't hold our preconditioning against one another.

The idea that a film is perfectly brilliantly excellent is a BIG quest to fulfil as well.What was that massive epic blockbuster where the Egyptian soldier was wearing a wristwatch?

As a Fan, there are reasons why I should feel personally offended or neglected by the film and the people who made it. As a moviegoer, the film is just fine.Better than plenty of other production line formulations of nowayear.For me, Rotf has it's flaws,some of which are very in your face, but it still works just fine for the big screen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lastly, because I know that you, Sly, are clued up on conspiracies vs. the real deal as I saw in some recent posts (Mayan calendar and extraTerrestrial life questions), I'll share this with you, but I want to be clear that I'm NOT TRYING TO BAIT A NEW DISCUSSION, I am responding in context to the topic of this thread, figuring that you'll appreciate it in it's draft form, so I can be done with it.If others appreciated it, too, that's nice, but to me it's too nowhere for anything other than footnote value:

I'm suspect about Michael bay publically agreeing that Rotf is a disaster/failure/whatever his specific wording was.I believe that I have dealt with his kind of person/character enough times in the past to deem that I should know how they can be expected to work (not that I or anyone else is perfect, of course, but that's the 'concrete' basis for my theory), and in that, I have a firm conviction that this is out of character for him.

Yes, I should be the first to acknowledge that I can be wrong, and I do watch and wait for my mistakes, but my opinion of Rotf is one that the film is not a total failure, in fact it's 85% good stuff MINIMUM by my head, and since he knows better than me, because it's his living to KNOW this stuff about a film, what is he doing? He KNOWS the film is a good film: Why isn't he telling the critics where to shove it? For me, this is all funny business, or "sh.tty business" as my Old Dad would say (or "Mixed business" as my Old Ma would say. Heheh).

I have two half baked considerations:
The first is that he accepted responsibility only after establishing for certain that after people investigate they would determine that he has Zero responsibility (that's my street cred version which assumes I know what his character type will do, and also my initial impression which some folks taught me to always trust).

The other is that he's smokescreening some kind of proffessional disagreement or reservation towards either his bosses wishes (theoretically only a specific few considered irrational by Bay) or something else in the works.My uneducated guess theorizes it's perhaps his original reservation about going 3D (tho current news puts him in the thumbs up for it), Pre Bayverse Bay Basher posts continue to abound on other sites insisting he shouldn't be taken for his word-they said it, not me..

That's all I have- little enough concrete realism to have avoided posting this up every other time. Bottom line is that admitting what he did when he didn't do it doesn't add up according to my personal life experience, so it's my kneejerk reaction to suspect he might be setting up a safety net for something anticipated to remain unseen until a later time.

I wouldn't put it past him, but that's just my reserved two cents.

Use it for fun, don't get serious with it. TF3 will be a very memorable movie for TF fans (at least), regardless of all the worries, and it's likely to flesh out TF2's perceived flaws and raise it's value as well.

I don't get why suddenly after so long so many people feel the need to give their opinion on a movie that's been out for nearly 2 years.

Attention seeking?

Boredom?

Trolling?

At this point, does anyone really care what another person thinks of the movie?

[quote="Autobot Smoketreader"

Lastly, because I know that you, Sly, are clued up on conspiracies vs. the real deal as I saw in some recent posts (Mayan calendar and extraTerrestrial life questions), I'll share this with you, but I want to be clear that I'm NOT TRYING TO BAIT A NEW DISCUSSION, I am responding in context to the topic of this thread, figuring that you'll appreciate it in it's draft form, so I can be done with it.If others appreciated it, too, that's nice, but to me it's too nowhere for anything other than footnote value: [/quote]

That's another reason I love the movie too. This is the only movie that I know of that deals with this sort of thing. Plus, it's Transformers, so ROTF was like my dream come true.

SlyTF1 wrote:[quote="Autobot Smoketreader"

Lastly, because I know that you, Sly, are clued up on conspiracies vs. the real deal as I saw in some recent posts (Mayan calendar and extraTerrestrial life questions), I'll share this with you, but I want to be clear that I'm NOT TRYING TO BAIT A NEW DISCUSSION, I am responding in context to the topic of this thread, figuring that you'll appreciate it in it's draft form, so I can be done with it.If others appreciated it, too, that's nice, but to me it's too nowhere for anything other than footnote value:

That's another reason I love the movie too. This is the only movie that I know of that deals with this sort of thing. Plus, it's Transformers, so ROTF was like my dream come true.[/quote]


My Wife loved the idea that the Pyramids were built around something like the Sun Harvester, and the whole presentation in TF1 of alien symbols on ancient ruins internationally. Because she's a Teacher, she really sympathises for the Twins not knowing the language of the Primes (but takes great satisfaction from seeing 'Bee knock their heads together in the tomb because they can't sit still for a minute!).

She still hates the two sets of Constructiconss direction, saying "Can't you see they're teaching kids to ask for the same toy twice, rather than two different toys once?".

Oh, and Stargate deals with this kinda stuff, too, but I can't think of any others right now. I liked the original Predator film for ET stuff, tho there's no majestic ruins in it, there's still an ancient forest and an ancient civilization that moved out of it into nearby cities, with a legend about a creature that only shows up whenever it's excessively hot.

Autobot Smoketreader wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:[quote="Autobot Smoketreader"

Lastly, because I know that you, Sly, are clued up on conspiracies vs. the real deal as I saw in some recent posts (Mayan calendar and extraTerrestrial life questions), I'll share this with you, but I want to be clear that I'm NOT TRYING TO BAIT A NEW DISCUSSION, I am responding in context to the topic of this thread, figuring that you'll appreciate it in it's draft form, so I can be done with it.If others appreciated it, too, that's nice, but to me it's too nowhere for anything other than footnote value:

That's another reason I love the movie too. This is the only movie that I know of that deals with this sort of thing. Plus, it's Transformers, so ROTF was like my dream come true.

My Wife loved the idea that the Pyramids were built around something like the Sun Harvester, and the whole presentation in TF1 of alien symbols on ancient ruins internationally. Because she's a Teacher, she really sympathises for the Twins not knowing the language of the Primes (but takes great satisfaction from seeing 'Bee knock their heads together in the tomb because they can't sit still for a minute!).

She still hates the two sets of Constructiconss direction, saying "Can't you see they're teaching kids to ask for the same toy twice, rather than two different toys once?".

Oh, and Stargate deals with this kinda stuff, too, but I can't think of any others right now. I liked the original Predator film for ET stuff, tho there's no majestic ruins in it, there's still an ancient forest and an ancient civilization that moved out of it into nearby cities, with a legend about a creature that only shows up whenever it's excessively hot.[/quote]

See, that's the problem. The only people that actually like the movie are the smart people. The teachers and such. I heard of a teacher that made their students watch ROTF in class, and my science teacher from last year liked the movie too (he was also in the military). Maybe it's because they can accept the fact that its just a movie and they can actually watch the movie and see that it has a story, without bashing it because it has a few stupid jokes. I just watched ROTF again, and the jokes in total are only like 10 seconds of an entire 2 hour and 22 minute movie.

SlyTF1 wrote:



See, that's the problem. The only people that actually like the movie are the smart people. The teachers and such. I heard of a teacher that made their students watch ROTF in class, and my science teacher from last year liked the movie too (he was also in the military). Maybe it's because they can accept the fact that its just a movie and they can actually watch the movie and see that it has a story, without bashing it because it has a few stupid jokes. I just watched ROTF again, and the jokes in total are only like 10 seconds of an entire 2 hour and 22 minute movie.

Okay, on jokes first: Remember the joke in the first film where they're calling in for support against Skorponok and come through to an Indian call center? That joke lays all the rest in a deep, deep grave! As the D-Generation used to say: Champagne Comedy!
Furthermore, Steve Martin, in 'Inside the Actors Studio' or whatever the show is called, gets asked about how hard it was to avoid big nose jokes in the film Roxanne. Martin says there were so many fantastic jokes on set that they got crammed into a 5 minute scene in rapid fire, but he also said (To the effect of): If it's about appearance, body excretions (or something else that I forget right now, dammit!!!) then it's not comedy, it's a swipe below the belt for a cheap laugh.
I can't agree with you that the people unimpressed with the joke standards are not intellectuals.Sorry.

I had a teacher in pimary school who was absolutely fascinated with the whole "genius" of my and my pals G1 bricks.

On smart people, I was head of a border patrol in the Greek army when I first watched Rotf, with my Platoon, on DVD, as a rewrd for something we did. People are impressed for different reasons based on where they grew up. NOBODY on my team was impressed that Sam survived explosions with scratches. Everybody was curious why Mikaela didn't kick Wheelie into the nearest wall when he humped her, and instead she put up with it. NOBODY was impressed with Devastator and his "stupid idea for a mouth weapon on such a large weapons platform". Everybody was impressed by the "little bits, Man!" that the railgun made. It just depends on what you consider relevant, based on where we each come from.The fact that, in a forum, we will learn things from others that we never considered, simply because we didn't ASSUME they were relevant...it's a good thing.

Gotta bolt again. Back 2mrw. Gnite 2 all.

I'm with ya Sly, I've tried seeing what all the hate is about and the only thing I can kind of agree with is the humor bad. It didn't bother me though, but I'd like to see them do better.

The "plot holes" I've heard people mention vary from pointless- like "where did Sam get the bandage for his hand?"(probably a first-aid kit in one of the 3 cars he's traveling with, it's still not relevant to the plot) To flat out hallucinations- "why did Optimus chase after Megatron after he saved Sam in the warehouse?" I actually saw that on TFW, in the movie Megatron chases Optimus after he picks up Sam, not the other way around. I don't know where he got that idea.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:I'm with ya Sly, I've tried seeing what all the hate is about and the only thing I can kind of agree with is the humor bad. It didn't bother me though, but I'd like to see them do better.

The "plot holes" I've heard people mention vary from pointless- like "where did Sam get the bandage for his hand?"(probably a first-aid kit in one of the 3 cars he's traveling with, it's still not relevant to the plot) To flat out hallucinations- "why did Optimus chase after Megatron after he saved Sam in the warehouse?" I actually saw that on TFW, in the movie Megatron chases Optimus after he picks up Sam, not the other way around. I don't know where he got that idea.

People just want to see the movie fail. That's all they want. I mean, I hear just stupid things that never even happen in the movie at all, then they say they don't like the whole movie just because of that non existent flaw. Once, I even saw that someone wrote they didn't like the movie just because Jetfire had a beard and they wanted to know what part of the plane did those pieces make. Does it matter at all? Maybe they're part of the floor.

Sly, lemme give you some advice. You'll feel alot better once you stop taking the opinions of those who hate the film to heart. Now I don't mean the basic "I didn't like it" crowd, but rather those I addressed in my "Call for Sanity" post on the negative side of things. Angry Joe put it best:

"GUYS! RELAX! It's a movie!"

We understand you like RotF, and at the end of the day nothing said by someone so worked up by it they feel the need to insult those who liked it matter. Not Bob Somebody on a random forum or Roger Ebert himself matter if YOU liked it. And that's how simple it is.

Capt.Failure wrote:Sly, lemme give you some advice. You'll feel alot better once you stop taking the opinions of those who hate the film to heart. Now I don't mean the basic "I didn't like it" crowd, but rather those I addressed in my "Call for Sanity" post on the negative side of things. Angry Joe put it best:

"GUYS! RELAX! It's a movie!"

We understand you like RotF, and at the end of the day nothing said by someone so worked up by it they feel the need to insult those who liked it matter. Not Bob Somebody on a random forum or Roger Ebert himself matter if YOU liked it. And that's how simple it is.

This is exactly how I feel about the issue. If someone needs to hate on something I like, no matter what it is, how does that hurt me? If someone on the Web wants to insult me because I like something, again, how does that hurt me? Ebert wrote something beyond insulting regarding this movie's fan base. I will never understand why he did that. Maybe he did so because someone insulted him for not liking the film. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. That has not stopped me from occasionally reading his reviews of movies I might be interested in, or interested in what the "critics" think, as the case more often is, because like me, he is only human.

I think the key [to Vector Sigma ] is to separate "cyberspace" from "real space." I am amazed at how people use the anonymity of user names to "say" things on the Web they would never say to someone's face (though some people, famous like Ebert or not, don't care if they are not anonymous, and perhaps that says something about them, but maybe it says more about the people who think it does). And unfortunately more and more I have noticed that attitude slip into the "real space" of personal interaction, perhaps because people allow themselves to lose their inhibitions in "cyberspace anonymity."

All I know is that I do not want to be someone like that, so I use my name in my user names as a reminder to myself that I am writing something other people will read and possibly respond to, and because of that I need to keep myself in check as best I can. That little reminder works both ways for me, as I also constantly remember that I am still holding onto a piece of anonymity for my own personal protection, so I cannot hold an anonymous moniker against someone else even if that person doesn't just disagree with me but insults me along the way. What this last paragraph has to do with the above I'm not entirely sure of, but I digress...

Capt.Failure wrote:Sly, lemme give you some advice. You'll feel alot better once you stop taking the opinions of those who hate the film to heart. Now I don't mean the basic "I didn't like it" crowd, but rather those I addressed in my "Call for Sanity" post on the negative side of things. Angry Joe put it best:

"GUYS! RELAX! It's a movie!"

We understand you like RotF, and at the end of the day nothing said by someone so worked up by it they feel the need to insult those who liked it matter. Not Bob Somebody on a random forum or Roger Ebert himself matter if YOU liked it. And that's how simple it is.

Well, I know where he's coming from. I've been 'round and 'round the debate table with people over these movies, especially ROTF. It's been my past experience that you aren't allowed to like what you want, at least not in peace. There's always someone who not only can't leave well enough alone, but they must go out of their way to be obnoxious and make it entirely unpleasant for you.

Sometimes, it's just not necessary to say anything. No one gets that memo, apparently.

That being said, I do think this thread was ill-conceived and flamebait. It wasn't Sly's intention. He's young, he gets excited about his hobby, and he pressed the submit button. We've all done it too many times to count, so I can't blame him for being impatient and jumping the gun, but I hope he reads this post and takes my advice.

It's over and done with, there's no point in beating a dead horse now. When DOTM comes out, we'll all have something to bitch about, whether it's people not agreeing with us, content in the film, the toys, whatever, ROTF is over and done with. It's time to move on.

Besides, if DOTM outshines ROTF or sucks worse than it, that'll revitalize this discussion in a heartbeat. No point in stirring up the hornet's nest when it'll do just fine on it's own, in it's own time.

It's a fandom, it's one of the guarantees.

Heya.

I finally recalled the Steve Martin thing to memory: he said it isn't comedy if it focuses on appearance, religion or bodily waste.

Autobot Smoketreader wrote:Heya.

I finally recalled the Steve Martin thing to memory: he said it isn't comedy if it focuses on appearance, religion or bodily waste.

By those standards that means a lot of comedians are not performing comedy routines. I wonder what that says about those people?

Autobot Smoketreader wrote:Heya.

I finally recalled the Steve Martin thing to memory: he said it isn't comedy if it focuses on appearance, religion or bodily waste.

He's right. But we've all laughed at jokes aimed at the three subjects he mentioned, so I guess we don't know what comedy is. And yes, I'm agreeing with him.

The movie satisfied me as I was able to suspend my disbelief and enjoy it. Sure it has technical issues here and there. And some of the comedy was kinda lame, like Simmons in a thong. Or him saying scrotum, when it would have been much funnier to me if he'd just kinda made a face and ignored it from there or just completely let it go by. Something more subtle then scrotum. But the idea of Devy having huge clanging wrecking balls actually makes me laugh by itself.

But I went in and got what I wanted out of the movie. A story that linked together well enough scenes of robots just smashing the hell out of each other. Entertainment at it's best, let me tell you. Something movies like Bridges of Madison County or Fried Green Tomatoes could have benefited from.

I watch RoTF once in a while, but I don't just sit down and watch it because the story isn't worth it. I start with the Shanghai scenes, Sam's opening scenes, then I skip forward to the forest fight, and then finally the end battle. That's still an hour of the movie, but it's just the good parts. I don't need to be reminded that Sam and Mikaela are having "problems."

The 2007 movie, on the other hand, I can sit through over and over again. It's in my top 5 favorite movies of all time.

Rodimus Prime wrote:I watch RoTF once in a while, but I don't just sit down and watch it because the story isn't worth it. I start with the Shanghai scenes, Sam's opening scenes, then I skip forward to the forest fight, and then finally the end battle. That's still an hour of the movie, but it's just the good parts. I don't need to be reminded that Sam and Mikaela are having "problems."

The 2007 movie, on the other hand, I can sit through over and over again. It's in my top 5 favorite movies of all time.

Same with me, but replace ROTF with the 07 movie. I only skip all the way towards the end in the first movie. Nothing else matters to me.

Agreed. Honestly, the only things I didn't like about it were the robot heaven scene, some of the adult humor was just stupid, and the twins. I honestly thought it was way better than the first because I felt it was more like the G1 universe with Megatron actually beating Starscream up for failing him or trying to take command of the Decepticons, and them trying to obtain energon and all.

I keep forgetting it exists, cuz I have a low opinion of it, but Sams' Ma gettting stoned is stupidly done, and showing a happy stoned person rather than a zonked out one is a dumb message to hold up to a little kid in a kids' movie.

There's something that can count as a moviegoer complaint rather than a fan one.

DoctorZero986 wrote:Agreed. Honestly, the only things I didn't like about it were the robot heaven scene, some of the adult humor was just stupid, and the twins. I honestly thought it was way better than the first because I felt it was more like the G1 universe with Megatron actually beating Starscream up for failing him or trying to take command of the Decepticons, and them trying to obtain energon and all.

This post brings up a point.

On the one hand, you have the group who looks at it like this: G1 is considered THE TransFormers universe and everything else is an homage or re-envisioning of it, but none are better than G1. So automatically, they're going to hate the movies with a passion, and for the most part...they do.

On the other hand, you have the group who looks at it like this: G1 was the groundwork, but what was built upon it far surpasses what came before, such as the movies. I still can't find much to like about G1, admittedly, it just grates on my nerves because it's so cheesy, so campy, so corny, so silly, etc.

And then you have the critics who are in neither camp and either like the film or dislike it, without any prior knowledge of what's come before, other than they know it merely exists.

The first film was total Hollywood and aimed for a reboot, making G1 nonexistent in the movieverse. Critics and a large number of fans embraced it and it made money with praise. Had a mix of teen movie humor, which obviously appeals to a large audience, and it took a more realistic approach to the TF mythos. Well, as realistic as possible.

The second film still had some Hollywood to it, but it went back to the G1 roots and borrowed heavily from it, such as the massive weapon of doom idea, the aforementioned Megatron/Starscream squabbling, and it was just silly, overblown FUN. This one wasn't even close to the realm of the realistic. A large number of fans and critics hated it. Still made large sums of money though.

So, it's confusing, really. What is it exactly that we all want?

The first film was more realistic, rather dark in spots, and showed the human side of the matter more than the title of the film would have you believe. Sure, the film WAS about TransFormers, but not directly. It was more about how WE take to them, observe them, integrate with them. It won a lot of people over solely on the wow factor. I can't deny it, even I could feel goosebumps, pulse racing, flat out excitement when Optimus transformed for the first time. It's THE definitive scene in the movie verse. There's not another scene in either film that can top it. Problem is, that's one scene, and they're bit characters in the first film, really.

The second went back to the G1 roots and was loud, insane, cartoonish, and a LOT of fun. It was dark in some spots, absolutely hilarious in others, and the TransFormers were no longer bit players, they were just as heavily featured as the humans, and perhaps even more so in some scenes. The wow factor is gone at this point, but you really don't need it. You need a plot, and ROTF had one. Yes, razor thin, but still a plot.

So...we go back to G1 for ideas, people hate it, yet all they did was bitch about the films being nothing like G1.

We tried realism, as much as possible, and it sated the critics and most of Hollywood, but left us behind.

Obviously we cannot have it both ways, so how do we compromise? How do we win?

G1's not going to work anymore.
Making the TF's bit players isn't going to work anymore.
So, I guess the third movie is our only hope. By all accounts, the only way is up, since we're already in the gutter with the first two films.

So, how does the writer keep a link to the past and the future? I'm not sure it's possible. No one's willing to be pleased with what we've been given, so it's really just a hopeless cause, isn't it?

I'm just going to find the first film boring, love the second one, and merely enjoy the experience of TFs in the theater for the 3rd one. I have literally no expectations good or bad for DOTM, because at this point, it's pretty much over. This is the final and third act of our story, the trilogy is finished, there's nowhere to go from here as far as we know, so we're going to have to take it as is, good or bad. And I realize there's not a damn thing I can do about that, so I'm just gonna watch it and let the chips fall where they may.

We can't win here, because we're not willing to let it happen.

My thing is both movies Bay just gave his films really easy targets(particularly the second film.) for haters to latch on to and repeat over and over like a collective hive mind. I'm sure there's people who dislike the film formore legitimate reasons too, but I constantly would see people fire off on the obvious weak points. It's like have the death star with a big neon sign on it that says please don't shoot here.

First film: Due to budget reasons transformers were used more sparingly. Humans dominated much of the screen time, and fights suffered from blue balls as they d just start getting good then the movie would run off to shot what a human is doing somewhere. It ultimately takes far less flack than the second.

Second film: Bay got the budget for the job, but now they had a different problem...the writer strike and two so so writers to begin with. This gave the story some minor weak points and allowed some really low brow humor to get in. Some of the character designs didnt work for people. (I liked the majority.) The bad jokes and the twins pretty much became the rally cry for everyone to bash the film with across the web. You couldn't miss them or overlook them like the Sam's happy time joke because was a single throw away line in the first film.

Those are different areas I would have liked seen ironed out, but all in all I still liked all things the film did right as the good out weights the bad if you want it too. These people don't and you can't reason with them for most part. I'd rather go watch the film again than spend all my free time on the web defending the movies from people who hate them. I intially had alot of discussions about it, but it became crystal clear they wanted to continue to moan and scream about it. (which was made all more sad when they hated the first film.)

In this case you say ok, you give it a shot and the first film burnt you. You thought hey may be the second film was more to your liking as the trailers always wow you. Now I think everyone who hasnt figured out they don't want to see Bay's transformers universe should skip the 3rd. they won't because that's never how it works, but they've been warned heh.

So Sly don't let these lemmings get to you, as chasing off them as they jump off that cliff is the path to madness. These boards here tend to keep a more balanced view so I think it's a safe place to discuss these topics with out having always feel like you're on the defensive.