The Energon Pub

Every movie has a story, even **** as Dead Metal says. Without a story, a movie is simply a set of random images flashing across a flat surface. Essentially, everything has a story which moves the thing from its beginning point to its end point. In a later post, you yourself site examples from the ROTF story, like Prime's death and the conversation between MEgatron, SS and the Fallen. Movies are generally seen for the stories they portray. Again, I don't mean that in a negative way towards you, but even the maze on the back of a cereal box is driven by an existant story.

Even if ROTF was a bunch of random ass images of robots beating the crap out of eachother, Id be happy with that. I mean, most movies NEED a story to drive them, but things like Transformers or GI Joe, you can basically put anything in in any order at random, and make it look cool, and make me happy

SlyTF1 wrote:

Every movie has a story, even **** as Dead Metal says. Without a story, a movie is simply a set of random images flashing across a flat surface. Essentially, everything has a story which moves the thing from its beginning point to its end point. In a later post, you yourself site examples from the ROTF story, like Prime's death and the conversation between MEgatron, SS and the Fallen. Movies are generally seen for the stories they portray. Again, I don't mean that in a negative way towards you, but even the maze on the back of a cereal box is driven by an existant story.

Even if ROTF was a bunch of random ass images of robots beating the crap out of eachother, Id be happy with that. I mean, most movies NEED a story to drive them, but things like Transformers or GI Joe, you can basically put anything in in any order at random, and make it look cool, and make me happy

Yeah, I understand. I thought G I Joe was a great movie, better than ROTF (I know, I know, heresy.) but honestly, virtually everything has a story. I fell in love with Transformers in general as a child because of the story, so if I prefer an at least slightly cohesive storyline in something I enjoy, forgive me please.
Plus, that's just your opinion. The people who are saying that they disliked ROTF because it was a bad storyline obviously don't feel the same way about random robot images being flashed at them. I understand that all the arguement over ROTF and basically everything in the world is a matter of opinion at its core, but you must have some concern for the story of the movie, or else why would you have posted the thing you did about Sam and Prime in the graveyard? That was an element of the story, so I mean, on some level you've shown interest in the story.
I'm not nitpicking, dude, honestly. I like having conversation, so just ignore me if you think I'm being a jag, but you know, both sides of the arguement learn something if a conversation breaks out above the level of "No, you're stupid because you don't swear ROTF the greatest movie EVER!!!!"

SlyTF1 wrote:

Every movie has a story, even **** as Dead Metal says. Without a story, a movie is simply a set of random images flashing across a flat surface. Essentially, everything has a story which moves the thing from its beginning point to its end point. In a later post, you yourself site examples from the ROTF story, like Prime's death and the conversation between MEgatron, SS and the Fallen. Movies are generally seen for the stories they portray. Again, I don't mean that in a negative way towards you, but even the maze on the back of a cereal box is driven by an existant story.

Even if ROTF was a bunch of random ass images of robots beating the crap out of eachother, Id be happy with that. I mean, most movies NEED a story to drive them, but things like Transformers or GI Joe, you can basically put anything in in any order at random, and make it look cool, and make me happy

It still needs a story, but it doesn't have to be deep. Just give the Autobots and Decepticons something to fight over is all that's needed.

Dagon wrote:EDIT: I am shocked to realize that the filter or whatever on here blocked out the word p o r n .

I think that's my fault, I used to have it twice in my sig and due to the nature of how many posts I made it was decided that it's no longer PG13, or something along those lines.
I killed P**n

Noideaforaname wrote:That's the only flaw you saw? You have no problem at all with a giant planet eating robot coming out of nowhere,

No. New characters generally 'come out of nowhere' when they're first introduced.

Noideaforaname wrote:or OP pulling something that just so happens to kill the giant planet eating robot out of his chest that he happened to be holding onto the whole time?

lol Someone's either new to the fandom or never read the 80s comics. Comic Optimus always had the Matrix (although it was called the Creation Matrix and looked and functioned differently). You also forget that they started working on the movie before Season 2 was completed.

Noideaforaname wrote:Unlike the Bay movies, the '86 film had an entire show's worth of backstory to use (which if indeed they were making the movie while making the show, they could've at least hinted at)

Uh. No it didn't. It had one complete season to use. The cartoon and comic came out in 1984. Season 2 was in 1985. The movie came out in 1986. An animated movie took over a year to make back then. Meaning it was started sometime in 1984, which also means they were making Season 2 at the same times as the movie. What does that mean? There were at least two teams working on Season 2 and the movie at the same time.

Noideaforaname wrote:And a bunch of Autobots die pretty pathetically early on.

One rushed a bunch of Decepticons unarmed and got taken out by a direct hit by Megatron's gun mode. Megatron's fusion cannon is redirected to his gun barrel in gun mode and you see later in the movie that it (Megatron's fusion cannon) destroys part of a mountain.

People often complain about Prowl's death, stating that Scrapper's weapon is weak. For 1) a well aimed shot from a Derringer can kill a man and for 2) immediately after the shot connected smoke billows out from Prowl's mouth. What does that mean? It means the shot ruptured a fuel/oil/similar fluid line inside of Prowl and the liquids hit a mechanical part inside of his body. The heat then made the fluid smoke and billow out of his mouth and out of the wound when he hits the ground. In mechanical terms something important inside of Prowl was ruptured and the fluid hit something hot, what would this be equivalent of in a human? Internal bleeding.

The Decepticons take cover from the Autobot's return fire and Ratchet and Ironhide are shot multiple times not only by Megatron in gun mode wielded by Starscream but also by two of the Constructicons and Starscream's null rays. It's been proven before that mass shifting has no impact on Megatron's firepower capabilities.

Finally Ironhide takes a direct hit from Megatron's Fusion Cannon at point blank range.

Died patheticly? No. More like they were completely outmatched. Add to this the line earlier in the movie that said that the Autobots were low on power and the sequence makes sense. The only flaw in the scene is the fact that Megatron probably would have blown a hole in the floor when he killed Ironhide with his Fusion Cannon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umwZ8qVorwo

Noideaforaname wrote:And Devastator is shaken apart by a couple of cassettes. (Yet humans using very real, very powerful weapons to knock him off a structure he wasn't holding onto very tightly and thus falls off, crashes, and dies is completely illogical?)

Yeah and? Bruticus was shot in the back in his weak point once and it triggered a failsafe that deactivated the Transformation. Perceptor shot Monstructor with such accuracy in IDW that it not only made them fall out of combination that it knocked them into stasis lock. Ultra Magnus used a combination of psychological warfare and pure brute force to take down Menasor in IDW with something as simple as ramming him in the head at top speed to beat them. Then there's the time that Menasor was beaten by a human who launched his car at it at top speed. Combiner doesn't mean unstoppable juggernaut. The team in question has to remain concentrated to maintain the combined state at any point, and it's been proven several times that a Combiner can be beaten in one attack, not just by other combiners (Menasor beats Bruticus with some kind of dropkick in one move in Starscream's Brigade) but by normal Transformers.

And yes it's illogical that one shot from a weapon that's still being worked on and tested killing a giant alien robot composed of smaller, but still giant alien robots. Especially considering the real Rail Guns you're talking about have slightly more damage yield than a BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles.

The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division demonstrated an 8 MJ rail gun firing 3.2 kg projectiles in October 2006 as a prototype of a 64 MJ weapon to be deployed aboard Navy warships. The main problem the Navy has had with implementing a railgun cannon system is that the guns wear out due to the immense heat produced by firing. Such weapons are expected to be powerful enough to do a little more damage than a BGM-109 Tomahawk missile at a fraction of the projectile cost.[13] Since then, BAE Systems has delivered a 32 MJ prototype to the Navy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun#Tests

The first movie and RotF showed that all Transformers are capable of surviving not only the heat from re-entry but the impact of slamming into the Earth at who knows how fast from freaking space. I'm pretty sure that space is higher up then 500 feet. Which is roughly how tall that pyramid is in real life.

Noideaforaname wrote:

A month long writer's strike wouldn't have phased the production of the animated movie at all. Because by they can't start animating (except for trailers, as the trailer had a bunch of unused animation) until the script is completed. And they would have waited until the strike was over anyway since it was going to take over a year to make it regardless of waiting on a writers strike.

CGI takes time too, you know.
I'm not sure if movies of any sort have the luxury of waiting until a strike wraps up. I don't make movies, but I'd imagine there is a deadline for making a movie after it's been OK'd, regardless of any possible setbacks.

Sure CGI takes time, but it doesn't take over a year to make. Especially given the fact that RotF isn't completely CGI. The '86 movie was completely animated.

SlyTF1 wrote:I dont understand why the hell anyone would see a movie for the story, if you want a story, go read a f*ckin book.

... I've lost any faith I had in the younger generation with this single post. Or any generation for that matter. You go right on enjoying movies with little to no story and rocking out to Nickelback kiddo. And I'll probably continue drinking myself to death because of posts like yours.

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:lol Someone's either new to the fandom or never read the 80s comics. Comic Optimus always had the Matrix (although it was called the Creation Matrix and looked and functioned differently). You also forget that they started working on the movie before Season 2 was completed.

Wouldnt they have had the rest of season 2 planned out? You cant just bust in and start making new episodes.

SlyTF1 wrote:

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:lol Someone's either new to the fandom or never read the 80s comics. Comic Optimus always had the Matrix (although it was called the Creation Matrix and looked and functioned differently). You also forget that they started working on the movie before Season 2 was completed.

Wouldnt they have had the rest of season 2 planned out? You cant just bust in and start making new episodes.

No. Cartoons in the 80s generally didn't have a connecting storyline. They were typically episodic like Transformers was. Which means quite simply that each episode (other then two parters) were self contained stories. And usually they were vehicles to advertise some of the new toys. There's also the fact that they also employed freelance writers in addition to their normal writing staff. Given that they were also set to do a feature length animated movie this explains the use of freelance writers. They were given what's called the Series Bible, that lists the characters and what they've done and how it relates to the canon. New characters are an unknown factor as their personalities generally weren't set in stone until they were officially written.

Hell even their designs weren't set in stone. If you watch the trailers for the Transformers movie you see Ultra Magnus has his Diaclone color scheme, as they really did almost use it and decided to use it as a placeholder. This is also the reason why the G1 Galvatron toy looks very little like his animated counter part including the color scheme. The toy was made from concept art that wasn't finalized. It's how he appears in the comic books, but not the cartoon. The same is true for Megatron's comic book appearances. He's colored like the original concept for Megatron who's only animated appearance in those colors are very early commercials for the toyline.

Here's another fun fact about the toys that ties into the movie. Due to the secrecy involved in the animated movie when the Japanese designers were making the toy prototypes they made Hot Rod's toy 3 times the size that it ended up being. Which would put it at about Voyager to Ultra Class. The reasoning was they really liked Hot Rod. Hasbro had to break secrecy to tell them that Rodimus Prime (I'm assuming they used codenames for the toys) would be the upgraded version of Hot Rod and the new leader and therefore Hot Rod couldn't be bigger then Rodimus Prime.

Miscommunication between Hasbro and Takara that neglected to mention the fact that Rodimus Prime was supposed to be the new Autobot leader and the upgrade of Hot Rod led to Takara creating the original prototype for the G1 Hot Rod toy in three times the final size, about as tall as Beast Machines Nightscream. When Hasbro corrected Takara about those details, Takara's designers were disappointed because they had to make Rodimus Prime's toy larger than Hot Rod's.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Hot_Rod_%28G1%29/toys#Trivia

I think it all boils down to this: some people want to see a decent, well-thought-out story, something to surprise and delight and spark the imagination. Something that makes them care and feel and think.

Others, perhaps less demanding, don't really care about the story. For them the plot is merely something to hang the explosions on; the script just an excuse to get from Action Set Piece A to Action Set Piece B with the minimum of fuss.

However, what people fail to realise is this - the two points of view above are NOT mutually exclusive. Movies such as Terminator 2 and Starship Troopers have proven that it is possible to mesh thought-provoking drama with action and adventure and yet still be accessible to everyone and be a box office success.

Friends, we shouldn't be settling for just one or the other - it doesn't have to be a straight choice between quality and mass-appeal. Considering how much these films cost to make, it's a crying shame that Bay is unable to set the bar higher.

Okay, so some want straight adventure and others want a bit more depth... why can't we have both? Let's have our cake, and let's eat it, too!

PS: The 'jettison some weight' line in the 86 movie has been derided quite a bit, rather unjustifiably in my view.

Obviously, there's no weight in space, everything's weightless and floaty (ordinarily), so it stands to reason that Astrotrain is creating some kind of artificial gravity field in his hold, to stop the Decepticons from floating about. From this we can infer that, the fewer Decepticons in his hold, the less energy Astrotrain has to expend in giving them weight.

With Megatron and company thrown overboard, Astrotrain is then able to divert energy from his gravity generators to his engines. QED.

I find it ironic that people will go to such lengths to excuse the errors in G1, but won't except the simple answers to the "plotholes" in RotF.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:I find it ironic that people will go to such lengths to excuse the errors in G1, but won't except the simple answers to the "plotholes" in RotF.

Not ironic at all - I think we can all agree that there are errors in G1, tonnes of them. From glaring animation mistakes to bad dialogue to silly and childish plots. I don't think anyone here will deny that.

The point is that the Michael Bay films, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and backed by some of the best talent in Hollywood, should be held to a higher standard than a mere Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

I get that you like the film, and that you're willing to overlook and rationalise its supposed mis-steps. Obviously you're in the majority, because the film was hugely successful. And I fully respect your opinion, though I disagree with it.

But there are others of us who would've liked something more than just a mindless run-around with good special effects.

I think the best analogy of ROTF is with a McDonald's burger: when you're spending a lot of money like Bay did, there's no reason why he couldn't have come up with a brilliant three-course meal or a juicy steak. But instead he served up a Mig Mac and fries - popular, simple, easy to digest and loved by the masses, but neither suitable nor satisfying for those of us with more developed tastes.

starfish wrote:The point is that the Michael Bay films, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and backed by some of the best talent in Hollywood, should be held to a higher standard than a mere Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

Money does not equal quality.

Paris Hilton is worth a fair penny, and she's a worthless, talentless, vapid, monster waste of human resources.

Just wanna make that clear. It's human beings who govern quality, not money.

Scatterlung wrote:

starfish wrote:The point is that the Michael Bay films, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and backed by some of the best talent in Hollywood, should be held to a higher standard than a mere Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

Money does not equal quality.

Paris Hilton is worth a fair penny, and she's a worthless, talentless, vapid, monster waste of human resources.

Just wanna make that clear. It's human beings who govern quality, not money.

Yep, Paris Hilton has a lot of money, and she uses it to buy what she believes to be high-quality stuff. She spent masses of money on a mansion, she spends masses of money on parties.

But one thing she doesn't want to do is waste money. She doesn't pay millions of pounds for a canoe - she gets VALUE for her money and buys a top-of the range yacht.

Unlike Michael Bay, who spends hundreds of millions on a movie... and gets a script that wouldn't look out of place on Cartoon Network.

Anyway (changing the subject slightly), how is Paris Hilton a waste of resources? Surely by spending lots of money, she's continuously pumping lots of cash into a flagging global economy. When she buys a mansion, she's effectively paying the wages of many hundreds of labourers, carpenters, builders, etc. When she hosts a party, she's pumping money into the champagne industry. And more importantly, given her massive wealth and spending habits, she pays a lot more in taxes than most people, taxes that are currently being utilised by the US government to help fund aid relief in Haiti. So yeah, Paris Hilton... big waste of resources there!

starfish wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:I find it ironic that people will go to such lengths to excuse the errors in G1, but won't except the simple answers to the "plotholes" in RotF.

Not ironic at all - I think we can all agree that there are errors in G1, tonnes of them. From glaring animation mistakes to bad dialogue to silly and childish plots. I don't think anyone here will deny that.

The point is that the Michael Bay films, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and backed by some of the best talent in Hollywood, should be held to a higher standard than a mere Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

I get that you like the film, and that you're willing to overlook and rationalise its supposed mis-steps. Obviously you're in the majority, because the film was hugely successful. And I fully respect your opinion, though I disagree with it.

But there are others of us who would've liked something more than just a mindless run-around with good special effects.

I think the best analogy of ROTF is with a McDonald's burger: when you're spending a lot of money like Bay did, there's no reason why he couldn't have come up with a brilliant three-course meal or a juicy steak. But instead he served up a Mig Mac and fries - popular, simple, easy to digest and loved by the masses, but neither suitable nor satisfying for those of us with more developed tastes.

I liked the quality of the film, it had some great shot choices and the most realistic CG I have ever seen. As many of you know, I dont give 2 shits about a plot, just put autobots on one side, decepticons on the other and have them blow **** up. But in ROTF, three of my favorite scenes are just of robots and or people talking. When Optimus is talking to Galloway, I loved that part, even though its just talking, The graveyard scene is another great "talking" scene, it had good camera positions for a dialogue scene, they even through some forshadowing in there (Optimus+Sam in graveyard= death. I have a thread on this site about that), and when Megatron, Starscream, and the Fallen were talking on the Nimisis. That is the scene that sold me on the movie! I was so excited to see a full blown CG scene with the robots talking. And it had the best action scenes EFFOR. I was completely satisfied with ROTF (although I could have done without Simmon's ass, and dogs f*king), but I would have liked to have seen Optimus be killed in the end and TF3 be about his resurection and the matrix. But other than that, I understood the plot, I loved the action and just a great movie, and for me, is only compared to Avatar in greatest movie ever.

starfish wrote:

Scatterlung wrote:

starfish wrote:The point is that the Michael Bay films, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and backed by some of the best talent in Hollywood, should be held to a higher standard than a mere Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

Money does not equal quality.

Paris Hilton is worth a fair penny, and she's a worthless, talentless, vapid, monster waste of human resources.

Just wanna make that clear. It's human beings who govern quality, not money.

Yep, Paris Hilton has a lot of money, and she uses it to buy what she believes to be high-quality stuff. She spent masses of money on a mansion, she spends masses of money on parties.

But one thing she doesn't want to do is waste money. She doesn't pay millions of pounds for a canoe - she gets VALUE for her money and buys a top-of the range yacht.

Unlike Michael Bay, who spends hundreds of millions on a movie... and gets a script that wouldn't look out of place on Cartoon Network.

Anyway (changing the subject slightly), how is Paris Hilton a waste of resources? Surely by spending lots of money, she's continuously pumping lots of cash into a flagging global economy. When she buys a mansion, she's effectively paying the wages of many hundreds of labourers, carpenters, builders, etc. When she hosts a party, she's pumping money into the champagne industry. And more importantly, given her massive wealth and spending habits, she pays a lot more in taxes than most people, taxes that are currently being utilised by the US government to help fund aid relief in Haiti. So yeah, Paris Hilton... big waste of resources there!

Think for a minute of Humanity as not an institution for the perpetuation of a greed-fuelling monetary system, and instead as a species.

All the mansions and money in the world wouldn't stop poor ol' Miss Hilton getting her head flattened with a sledge hammer. This isn't about the quality of what she buys or what she does with her money, its what the money says about her.

You're saying that money = quality. But quality isn't defined by money, ever. Trainers are made for a few pennies by children in some third-world country, and then sold for ridiculous prices in the West, because they are automatically brilliant trainers upon import? No, because someone said they would sell for that much and somehow, were right.

Money does not define quality. Gold and diamonds sell for high prices because they are good quality materials? No. They're just rare. And then it is human beings who say what is rare is valuable. The actual materials themselves have been virtually useless in human history, with gold making a marginal appearance in electronics in recent years.

Value and worth is not applied by the sum of the materials within an item, just by the amount that a human being pins on it. An item may be of high quality, as indicated by its price, but it is down to human opinion whether they are worth buying, rendering the price of it completely moot.

The fact that Transformers has a lot of money put into it means nothing. Megan Fox is, to the harshest critic, utterly talentless, yet she made a truck load of money out of these films. A sign of quality? Couldn't possibly be. The only reason the film grossed so much is because people like giant fighting robots, awesome CGI, and Megan Fox's boobs. Maybe she is a "high quality" female, a human commodity, but you have to ask yourself whether or not you yourself wish to make qualitative judgements based on something's monetary value, or your own opinion.

Batman and Robin made a lot of money too. And so did every Nic Cage movie ever. Nickleback are millionaires. Making money doesn't mean what you made is good. It just means a lot of idiots and people with low expectations helped something mediocre or awful make a shitload.

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:Batman and Robin made a lot of money too. And so did every Nic Cage movie ever. Nickleback are millionaires. Making money doesn't mean what you made is good. It just means a lot of idiots and people with low expectations helped something mediocre or awful make a shitload.

This is something I see a lot from people who didn't like the movie. Childish insults. Finding something entertaining doesn't make anyone an idiot, grow up.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:Batman and Robin made a lot of money too. And so did every Nic Cage movie ever. Nickleback are millionaires. Making money doesn't mean what you made is good. It just means a lot of idiots and people with low expectations helped something mediocre or awful make a shitload.

This is something I see a lot from people who didn't like the movie. Childish insults. Finding something entertaining doesn't make anyone an idiot, grow up.

Finding something idiotic does not make anyone childish.

Scatterlung wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:Batman and Robin made a lot of money too. And so did every Nic Cage movie ever. Nickleback are millionaires. Making money doesn't mean what you made is good. It just means a lot of idiots and people with low expectations helped something mediocre or awful make a shitload.

This is something I see a lot from people who didn't like the movie. Childish insults. Finding something entertaining doesn't make anyone an idiot, grow up.

Finding something idiotic does not make anyone childish.

No, but insults do.

Night Raid wrote:

Scatterlung wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:Batman and Robin made a lot of money too. And so did every Nic Cage movie ever. Nickleback are millionaires. Making money doesn't mean what you made is good. It just means a lot of idiots and people with low expectations helped something mediocre or awful make a shitload.

This is something I see a lot from people who didn't like the movie. Childish insults. Finding something entertaining doesn't make anyone an idiot, grow up.

Finding something idiotic does not make anyone childish.

No, but insults do.

Why is everyone so **** sensitive on the internet? Do you really care what some stranger you'll never meet thinks about you? A better question is why should you care what someone else thinks?

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:

Night Raid wrote:

Scatterlung wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:Batman and Robin made a lot of money too. And so did every Nic Cage movie ever. Nickleback are millionaires. Making money doesn't mean what you made is good. It just means a lot of idiots and people with low expectations helped something mediocre or awful make a shitload.

This is something I see a lot from people who didn't like the movie. Childish insults. Finding something entertaining doesn't make anyone an idiot, grow up.

Finding something idiotic does not make anyone childish.

No, but insults do.

Why is everyone so **** sensitive on the internet? Do you really care what some stranger you'll never meet thinks about you? A better question is why should you care what someone else thinks?

Apparently people do. And apparently people think the comfort of complete anonymity is a license to drop all courtesy and be a complete *bleep*hole. That's why flame wars occur, I think. The fact that insults are starting to show up, in my opinion, is an indication that this argument, which is what this discussion has turned into, has gone as far as it can. All possible points have been made. Would this be a proper time to request a lock on this thread?

No one's really anonymous here. At the end of the day if I say something here I'm going to hear about it. Not you or someone else, but me. Because I'm the only one named Loki God of Mischief. And flame wars happen either when several people are stubborn and refuse to concede that the other party has a legitimate argument or when someone's just trolling and trying to piss someone off. You can request whatever you want, but I don't really think the thread needs to be locked. But then again I'm not a Mod.

Scatterlung wrote:All the mansions and money in the world wouldn't stop poor ol' Miss Hilton getting her head flattened with a sledge hammer. This isn't about the quality of what she buys or what she does with her money, its what the money says about her.

You're saying that money = quality. But quality isn't defined by money, ever. Trainers are made for a few pennies by children in some third-world country, and then sold for ridiculous prices in the West, because they are automatically brilliant trainers upon import? No, because someone said they would sell for that much and somehow, were right.

Money does not define quality. Gold and diamonds sell for high prices because they are good quality materials? No. They're just rare. And then it is human beings who say what is rare is valuable. The actual materials themselves have been virtually useless in human history, with gold making a marginal appearance in electronics in recent years.

Value and worth is not applied by the sum of the materials within an item, just by the amount that a human being pins on it. An item may be of high quality, as indicated by its price, but it is down to human opinion whether they are worth buying, rendering the price of it completely moot.

The fact that Transformers has a lot of money put into it means nothing. Megan Fox is, to the harshest critic, utterly talentless, yet she made a truck load of money out of these films. A sign of quality? Couldn't possibly be. The only reason the film grossed so much is because people like giant fighting robots, awesome CGI, and Megan Fox's boobs. Maybe she is a "high quality" female, a human commodity, but you have to ask yourself whether or not you yourself wish to make qualitative judgements based on something's monetary value, or your own opinion.

To be honest, I don't really get what your point is - essentially (if I've read your posts correctly) the crux your argument is this: why pay for a Classics Skywarp when you can get a Starscream of identical quality for far less cash?

But that's completely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. I was just saying that it's grossly unfair to compare the quality of ROTF with the quality of the 1986 animated movie. True, the fact that Bay had much more in the way of resources available to him doesn't necessarily equate to a good film (take Pearl Harbour as a case in point), but there are plenty of other reasons why the comparison is unfair - the 86 Movie was specifically aimed at children, whereas ROTF was going for an older, more discerning audience (hence Bay's use of risqué language and 'adult' humour). Bay hired many, many skilled animators, actors and technical staff at their top of their game. The CGI is amazingly excellent. The sound design has been almost universally praised. That such craftsmanship was wasted on such a dismal plot smacks to me of an incredible wasted opportunity.

However, I realise I've been really negative towards the film in my earlier posts, so I'm now going to accentuate some of the positives.

Firstly, Megan Fox. I'm sorry, but she simply does not deserve all the terrible criticism that's been levelled at her. Put simply, the character as written is pretty one-dimensional, and given nothing to do other than pout. Even the best actor in the world would struggle with the material that Fox was given - it's quite simply a terrible, terrible part as written. Personally, I think she does quite well under the circumstances.

Secondly, someone upthread moaned at the prominence given to human characters in a film that's supposed to be about Transformers. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I think the balance is exactly right. The problem with CGI robots is that, no matter how good the animation and the voice artist, Transformers simply cannot emote particularly well. As a poster said above, the best scenes in all the films were those involving the human beings, because it's the human beings who provide all the emotion. I felt nothing for Jazz's death at the end of the first movie, simply because the filmmakers were unable to demonstrate Prime's grief at all well. But when Mikaela thinks that Sam's dead, it's a whole different ball game. Say what you will about the plot holes, but without humans as the central characters, the film would be emotionless and sterile.

So yeah, there were bits of the film I liked. On a technical level, it's a tour-de-force. The actors give as good as they possibly can. It sustains the interest - it's certainly not a dull film.

Which just makes it all the more galling for me that the film fails in just one crucial area - the plot.

starfish wrote:

Scatterlung wrote:All the mansions and money in the world wouldn't stop poor ol' Miss Hilton getting her head flattened with a sledge hammer. This isn't about the quality of what she buys or what she does with her money, its what the money says about her.

You're saying that money = quality. But quality isn't defined by money, ever. Trainers are made for a few pennies by children in some third-world country, and then sold for ridiculous prices in the West, because they are automatically brilliant trainers upon import? No, because someone said they would sell for that much and somehow, were right.

Money does not define quality. Gold and diamonds sell for high prices because they are good quality materials? No. They're just rare. And then it is human beings who say what is rare is valuable. The actual materials themselves have been virtually useless in human history, with gold making a marginal appearance in electronics in recent years.

Value and worth is not applied by the sum of the materials within an item, just by the amount that a human being pins on it. An item may be of high quality, as indicated by its price, but it is down to human opinion whether they are worth buying, rendering the price of it completely moot.

The fact that Transformers has a lot of money put into it means nothing. Megan Fox is, to the harshest critic, utterly talentless, yet she made a truck load of money out of these films. A sign of quality? Couldn't possibly be. The only reason the film grossed so much is because people like giant fighting robots, awesome CGI, and Megan Fox's boobs. Maybe she is a "high quality" female, a human commodity, but you have to ask yourself whether or not you yourself wish to make qualitative judgements based on something's monetary value, or your own opinion.

To be honest, I don't really get what your point is - essentially (if I've read your posts correctly) the crux your argument is this: why pay for a Classics Skywarp when you can get a Starscream of identical quality for far less cash?

But that's completely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. I was just saying that it's grossly unfair to compare the quality of ROTF with the quality of the 1986 animated movie. True, the fact that Bay had much more in the way of resources available to him doesn't necessarily equate to a good film (take Pearl Harbour as a case in point), but there are plenty of other reasons why the comparison is unfair - the 86 Movie was specifically aimed at children, whereas ROTF was going for an older, more discerning audience (hence Bay's use of risqué language and 'adult' humour). Bay hired many, many skilled animators, actors and technical staff at their top of their game. The CGI is amazingly excellent. The sound design has been almost universally praised. That such craftsmanship was wasted on such a dismal plot smacks to me of an incredible wasted opportunity.

However, I realise I've been really negative towards the film in my earlier posts, so I'm now going to accentuate some of the positives.

Firstly, Megan Fox. I'm sorry, but she simply does not deserve all the terrible criticism that's been levelled at her. Put simply, the character as written is pretty one-dimensional, and given nothing to do other than pout. Even the best actor in the world would struggle with the material that Fox was given - it's quite simply a terrible, terrible part as written. Personally, I think she does quite well under the circumstances.

Secondly, someone upthread moaned at the prominence given to human characters in a film that's supposed to be about Transformers. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I think the balance is exactly right. The problem with CGI robots is that, no matter how good the animation and the voice artist, Transformers simply cannot emote particularly well. As a poster said above, the best scenes in all the films were those involving the human beings, because it's the human beings who provide all the emotion. I felt nothing for Jazz's death at the end of the first movie, simply because the filmmakers were unable to demonstrate Prime's grief at all well. But when Mikaela thinks that Sam's dead, it's a whole different ball game. Say what you will about the plot holes, but without humans as the central characters, the film would be emotionless and sterile.

So yeah, there were bits of the film I liked. On a technical level, it's a tour-de-force. The actors give as good as they possibly can. It sustains the interest - it's certainly not a dull film.

Which just makes it all the more galling for me that the film fails in just one crucial area - the plot.

My only point is that you shouldn't really base quality on monetary value. I don't have much interest in the main topic of this thread anymore.

Scatterlung wrote:My only point is that you shouldn't really base quality on monetary value.

As proven by Michael Bay?

starfish wrote:

Scatterlung wrote:My only point is that you shouldn't really base quality on monetary value.

As proven by Michael Bay?

Starfish has a point, Scatterlung. Based on the actions of every celebrity I have ever seen or heard of over the course of my 27-and-a-half years of life, I'd have to say basing quality on monetary value is how the world seems to work nowadays.