So after seeing a press screening by myself on Monday and attending the US Premiere here in Chicago with my wife (and found out later that night at the after party that we sat in the same row with the Transformers brand team), my wife and I took our daughters (8 years old and 2.5), my daughter's buddy next door (who's 9), my buddy Ben/Shadowbeast from our forums, and my wife's cousin and her husband and their 5 year old son to go to a 2D showing at Muvico in Rosemont (for those of you familiar with my area, it's the movie theater near where TFcon Chicago was located).
2D is definitely the way to go for me. I was able to be immersed in the movie at last, which was enjoyable. The audio, which had been ear blowing at the first 2 showings I attended, was at a much more tolerable level ... and surprise! Thanks to that I could finally understand what each and every Transformer said very clearly, including the Knights at the beginning (which I swore one of the podcast guys said during our recording the other night that I couldn't understand them because they were speaking Celtic, which I didn't catch at all tonight because I could actually hear them, and could understand all of the "deep" talking Transformers, including Canopy. It was wonderful, plus I caught various things that the humans said as well that I had missed because of the blaring audio at the first two showings.
For any of you who have issues with focusing on the 3D initially or just find it frustrating to watch, I did some reading just now about 3D viewing with astigmatism. I have a very slight astigmatism which causes me to have 25/20 vision or something along those lines (things further away are visible but need to be sharpened, much like you would an image on a computer in Photoshop). After reading these articles for the past 30 minutes, maybe it's time for me to make a trip to an optometrist regarding my poor 3D viewing experiences.
https://www.google.com/#q=eye+%22astigm ... +3d+moviesWith that aside, I still enjoyed the movie. And I enjoyed it for what it was, the good and the bad. It's not a perfect movie, nor did I ever expect it to be (especially as a die-hard Transformers fan). But it is definitely an enjoyable movie. I liked The Last Knight in the same vein that I liked the first movie, Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon, and Age of Extinction. They all had their flaws, but there were things that I enjoyed watching in all of them as well.
One thing I caught during tonight's viewing (though I still didn't catch Scorn or Strafe if they're actually there in the Junkyard), was how you have to really pay attention to the fast moving dialogue during key scenes. Michael Bay's films have a habit of tossing in a very important line of dialogue about something that is happening, needs to happen, or will happen and if you miss that line, you won't know what's going on next. This also happens with visual cues where someone might grab something or do something quickly that you might miss while your eyes are focused elsewhere on the screen. Some of you will mock this line, but if you really want to follow the storyline, I think you really have to pay extreme attention to every line of dialogue and try to catch as much as you can. One could argue that you shouldn't have to work that hard to catch those things, but another might argue that it's his "art form" of sorts (or his style). I'm torn about how I feel about that because it's obvious to me that the film style is deliberate (but unfortunately is lost even on myself at times). It always intrigues me when I rewatch the previous Transformers films and I catch things that I've never caught before even though I've seen each of these movies dozens and dozens of times (with the exception of AOE which is probably only around a half dozen times or so). I can't remember what was said tonight that I caught, but I think it was something during the submarine "Transformer" jumping its moorings scene.
If any of you have doubts about whether or not my opinions have been compromised with this whole amazing experience with the Transformers films over the course of the past 10 years (especially with these incredible Last Knight experiences), I have gained an entire new appreciation for the art of Hollywood film making during the past year. The endless hours and tedious work and attention to detail that goes on behind the scenes to make a movie like Transformers The Last Knight is mind blowing.
One of the things that I constantly think about pertaining to this film, that didn't initially impress me at the time, was seeing a group of 4 or 5 people, "seamstresses" if you will, working on sewing parts of the "barbarian" warrior costumes. They told us that they were working on costumes for 300 to 400 warriors (if I recall correctly). At the time, it was all lost on me because I didn't care about seeing costumes being made from the era of 400 AD, especially when I was there to see them working on a Transformers movie. I had no frame of reference at the time. No story line to understand the relevance, nor had any movie trailers been released when I was seeing this. However, in retrospect, it might have been one of the coolest things I had seen, along with the massive sets for the underwater ship scene, Merlin's tomb and (if I'm remembering this correctly) Cybertron (Quintessa's throne room?). I was amazed that they would spend the amount of time and money to make that many costumes for that many actors instead of just CGI'ing them, and I was amazed that they built out those sets for that ship underwater including several of the knights and those tendrils hanging from the ceiling. I actually got to see a massive Cybertron set that was built out for the most part. Basically everything you see the actors interacting with during those scenes, walking on, etc, was all "real".
Regardless of whether or not I agree with Michael Bay's vision, I absolutely respect the man's talents and skills. I have seen him work on 3 of these films now, TLK being the most and closest I've seen him working after seeing him directing for part of a day last year and seeing him show us some stuff in his office in Santa Monica. I doubt many directors work harder than Michael Bay. Again, this is regardless of how you feel about his final products. This is just talking about that the man is extremely passionate about his work as a director and his vision. He works his ass off and he is an amazing professional at one he does.
To bring this back down to every day Transformers stuff in our world, for those of you who are familiar with Transformers UK writer Simon Furman, my thoughts about Furman's writings is similar to what I think about Michael Bay's directing. However, I feel like Furman has done some of his best work when he is confined and has to figure out how to work within the box. Some of less beloved work of Furman (Simon, if you happen to be reading this ... you are absolutely awesome, I love most of your comics, I've enjoyed drinking some beers with you and other fond memories, so no offense!) is when Simon has been left to his own devices with the Transformers stories. I think Michael Bay needs to have some higher ups who can confine and rein him in a bit. But at the same time, especially in his 50s, I doubt Michael Bay would want to be directed so we'll probably never see that happen.
So I'm kind of rambling here, which I have done on my own forums for quite some time. I love good debates about movies and I appreciate my buddy philswitch_engage calling me out so I can defend myself. Here's to that next beer my friend!
