The Energon Pub

Okay so I found this article on yahoo about tf2 and thought you guys might like it.

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/smg-tra ... tions.html

some of the plotholes are answerable, some I hadn't noticed, some are funny.

Well... Go crazy. Posting from iPhone so I'm being brief.

Seems pretty nitpicky and unfunny, but maybe that's just me.

Edit: Except for when the decepticons ascended from the abyss. That bugged me both times I saw it.

You and me both about that abyss thing. I don't know if I'll say it was nitpicky more than other people. But he did bring out some good points, like about the allspark fragment.

Better than half of those questions were answered within the film if anyone was paying attention. Granted that is a difficult thing to do when the whole thing is flying at you at MACH speed but since I have 10 and 12 year old boys I suppose I have an advantage when it comes to division of attention and catching details. Keeps the kids from trying to sneak fast lines of B.S. past me.
Now as for the other half of the list, most of those I won't even dignify with a response.
I'm with Ramune, that seemed nitpicky and unfunny. Why the reviewer wasted our time with that I'm not sure.
Scratch that, I know why. I had a moment of arrogance I must appologize for. I have to think like a non-TransFan for a sec.
The points from a non-Fan view, I suppose, were valid but I still think the reviewer was overthinking it too much and in the grand scheme of things it served primarily to kill a fans buzz more than anything else.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention Star_ling. At the very least it got me to stop and think of stuff from a different perspective for a minute.
...Not that I intend to answer any of the plothole points, but at least I stopped and thought about them.

Star_ling wrote:You and me both about that abyss thing. I don't know if I'll say it was nitpicky more than other people. But he did bring out some good points, like about the allspark fragment.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think what went down with the other fragment was ever revealed to Sam. Even so, I doubt the Autobots would sacrifice one of their own to bring Optimus or Jazz back to life.

You know I,m not sure if they revealed what they did with the other fragment but I'm pretty sure he figured it out when Megatron attacked him. Plus I think they would have been forgiven for reviving Optimus if it meant saving billions of lives.

I had no problem following the movie, at all.

I will now address every complaint this nitpicky writer has.

1) That one bugged me, too.

2) Megatron wasn't as damaged as Optimus and he still needed spare parts to be fixed.

3) I'm guessing that all of the Transformers give off huge amounts of energy and radiation, since Simmons said Frenzy's two-year-old, deactivated head was still radioactive. And they might not have used sonars; those ships were assigned to guard the Decepticon remains, surely they had specialized equipment.

4) He turns into a microscope. Not to mention that even his eyes probably have zoom limitations. The lenses can't hurt!

5) Pretender's have been around for a while, so they concept of Transformers disguised as humans isn't new. Also, she might have had some super-advanced suspension system or something to avoid crushing Sam. And I'm pretty sure Sam mentioned Alice being heavy while making up excuses for Mikaela in the library.

6) Optimus was most likely based off of the original Primes. In the first movie, Maggie suggested that the Transformers were DNA-based machines, so there could be some kind of DNA recombination involved in making hatchlings. And perhaps Optimus was hatched before the Primes sacrificed themselves, but was so young that he had yet to earn to title of Prime. And as for Megatron killing Optimus, that was a lucky hit when Optimus was distracted and probably not in peak mental condition.

7) Lazy editing?

8) Since when are movies required to make geographical sense in areas most audiences aren't familiar with? As for the railgun thing, the writer obviously has no idea how awesome railguns are.

9) Only the Nostalgia Critic called it Robot Heaven. It was most likely a dream sequence caused by the Matrix when he temporarily died.

10) Here goes nothing. In order:

• Who cares?
• Maybe his mom was onto something in the first film. :P
• He's comic relief. He doesn't have to accomplish anything!
• He could have been in stasis. Or commanding the Decepticons on Cybertron. Or something. Maybe the comics addressed this, I have yet to read them.
• Soundwave hacked it and could probably pick up additional transmissions.
• The writers thought it was funny.
• The writers thought this was funny, too.
• The Constructicons who form Devastator don't transform, so they could share alt modes while having different robot modes (if any).
• Wow, was he paying attention? They have new guns, railguns, and air strikes that seemed pretty damn effective to me. Not to mention that the government's plan was not to fight the Decepticons alone, but rather to make them follow the Autobots away from Earth.
• Ancient people worshiped everything they found mysterious.
• Size shifting. Or maybe the Fallen's magic makes it grow.
• Her pants are white. Sand is off-white. She wasn't directly involved in the fights. Need I go on?

Ramune wrote:Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think what went down with the other fragment was ever revealed to Sam. Even so, I doubt the Autobots would sacrifice one of their own to bring Optimus or Jazz back to life.

Exactly! It took more than just the fragment to bring Megatron back to life.

You know what else was really unrealistic? How those cars transformed into robots. [/sarcasm] How does one watch a movie about transforming robots complain so much about realism?

[quote="Omega-1] You know what else was really unrealistic? How those cars transformed into robots. [/sarcasm] How does one watch a movie about transforming robots complain so much about realism?[/quote]

Best line ever!!!

Alot of these Are easy to answer but the one thing that stands out in my mind is why bumblebees voice isn't fixed because they definatley fixed it at the end of the first.

And also if this hasn't been answered already but Sam needed the matrix of leadership to revive optimus because he's a descendant of the prime and megatron just need the alspark shard because he is not.

They didn'ty actually fix his voice though - he just managed a few words

When Bumblebee spoke at the end of TF1, it was at the end of the battle, there was no time for it to be repaired. Thats why Sam is suprprised to hear him talk. He can spoeak, but finds it hard i think

Still, i can't belive they hadn't fixed it in 2 years

Its because there are alot of Film school students out there on the internet these days who look at things with a more critical eye. Theyre not as impressed just because Charachter x got screen time or things went boom and like to be able to understand who, what, where, when and why when it comes to a scene.

Unfortunately alot of the problems in the movie can be put down to sheer Lazyness (Smithsonian to Arizona jump) and immaturity (half of the humour) on the part of the Writing/Direction which is why it gets picked up on by these kinda people.

I've got some.

1. If the Nest base is in India, and all the Autobots are there, how was Prime and BB able to arrange their date with Sam in America?

2. How did Mikaela make it to her flight when airport security would have surely locked her up for being a terrorist with a bomb-thing in her toolbox?

3. Who lays the Egg Sacks we see in the Nemesis wreckage?

Ugh. I know I'm supposed to 'check my brain at the door', but that doesn't mean a little continuity or closure would be asking too much, it is their job, after all... You know, to write a coherent story? That is why they get paid the big bucks.

2. How did Mikaela make it to her flight when airport security would have surely locked her up for being a terrorist with a bomb-thing in her toolbox?


It was a joke thing they had going, the plane attendant said like are you brining anything explosive or dangerous on board and mikela was like noo or somthing like that. so it was just a joke and also its just a movie!

I saw this article on yahoo yesterday too:/

At this point it seems like bashing ROTF has become the cool thing to do around the internet.

Wow this guy must be really smart to find all those discrpencies

SoundWave88 wrote:2. How did Mikaela make it to her flight when airport security would have surely locked her up for being a terrorist with a bomb-thing in her toolbox?
!

I didn't get that either, i mean, i wouldn't feel safe at an airport where they didn't ask to see inside a box that was opening by itself and was also making odd noises!

The only one plot hole that bothered me was the Allspark bit being in his shirt the whole time and he never noticed it before. He would have been turning everyhing into bots so he would have noticed.

Serpent O - R wrote:I've got some.

1. If the Nest base is in India, and all the Autobots are there, how was Prime and BB able to arrange their date with Sam in America?

2. How did Mikaela make it to her flight when airport security would have surely locked her up for being a terrorist with a bomb-thing in her toolbox?

3. Who lays the Egg Sacks we see in the Nemesis wreckage?

Ugh. I know I'm supposed to 'check my brain at the door', but that doesn't mean a little continuity or closure would be asking too much, it is their job, after all... You know, to write a coherent story? That is why they get paid the big bucks.

The biggest mistake they made with this movie was in not tying together all the information from the novels and instead wasting time with seemingly unnecessary scenes just so it would have greater "general audience" appeal. It helped in the box Office sales but also hurt them as far as continuity goes. That having been said, let me take a shot at some answers to your questions which were covered in the RotF Movie novelization and the RotF and TF1 prequel novels "The Veiled Threat" and "Ghosts of Yesterday".

1) Nest has multiple bases worldwide with the Diego Garcia installation in the Indian Ocean being the largest and most Secure.
Prime and Lennox share the role of Nest Field Commanders/Leaders. All facilites have airfields capable of handling Military Cargo Planes so catching a flight to the mainland of Wherever is not a problem for a Commander, especially one who has to coordinate with his teams in other parts of the world.

2) Mikaela had explained her occupation and the need for "specialized tools" for her job to the security guy in the novel. The way in which the book handled it was far more plausible than the rushed movie version. She also threatened Wheelie harshly if he did anything to give them away just like in the film .

3) The Protoform Chambers in the Nemesis are something along the lines of long term storage. They are like the batch chambers on Cybertron but set up in more of a "hive-like" layout to conserve space making them look like they are laid insect eggs rather than created by whichever as yet to be explained process conjured for the movie-verse. the Nemesis itself, rather than being the bad-ass battleship of G1 legend is actually an armed transport vessel designed to run with a skeleton crew that gets rotated through "Stasis" cycles to conserve energy, with the majority of the ships compliment being either in full stasis or protoforms that have yet to be "indoctrinated".

That totally made me sound like a TF egg-head, didnt it? Oh well. It's worth it if it clears up any confusion.

Oh, one other tid-bit. Simmons being a little touchy about Frenzy doesn't really have to do with radiation. That's just the fastest excuse to get someone to keep their hands off. Ressurecting Frenzy to the point where he can get answers out of him has been a pet project for Simmons since about a year prior to the events of RotF. It had not gone well for him.

Hope some of this helped.

The Allspark thing drives me nuts in both movies. In the first Transformers, We clearly see Frenzy land on the Allspark and grow a new body. About a half hour later, Sam and Bumblebee have the Allspark, and Bumblebee gets his legs blown off. He picks up the allspark...yet doensn't grow a new magical set of legs. Eventually Jazz gets ripped in half, and Sam shoves the allspark into Megatron's chest, destroying him, and theres a piece left and prime puts it in his compartment. We're led to believe at the time the Pieces didn't mean ****, they were just broken. But now with ROTF out, we find out oh wait they possess the power off the allspark, and can bring machines to life, as well as repair TF's... so why didn't they fix Jazz than?

The guy has a point on Prime too. Why can't Sam's piece of the allspark bring him back to life? I seriously just choose not to think about this stuff too much because it does ruin your view of the movies. As for the Rest of the plotholes most of that seems like pure slop.

Cormaster628 wrote:The guy has a point on Prime too. Why can't Sam's piece of the allspark bring him back to life? I seriously just choose not to think about this stuff too much because it does ruin your view of the movies. As for the Rest of the plotholes most of that seems like pure slop.

Frenzy was quite a bit smaller than everything else.

On this second part, do you not remember that they killed another decepticon to revive Megatron? The autobots would never do something like that.

This is just a loose theory, but Sam's small piece of the Allspark may have been pretty much spent by the time they got around to the idea of reviving Prime with the Allspark power in the Matrix. The thing had already brought to life and armed every appliance in the Witwicky kitchen, transferred the bulk of its energies/experiences into Sams brain AND been used as a divining rod/jump start for Jetfire, who is no small Transformer. Considering how tiny that sliver was in comparison to the chunk the 'Cons stole I think it was good and toast after Jetfire.

As for the other possibilities like reviving Jazz with the larger piece, I think that falls under the classification of responsible use. Just because you can do something with unlimited power, that doesn't mean you should. Jazz was a soldier, he knew the risks and he fought valiantly but it's just a sad reality that in war people die and that message would have been lost if Prime had "cheated" and brought Jazz back. The emotional impact would have been dulled and I think it was necessary to have that in the film. Same general idea with 'Bees legs. The things worth having, worth fighting for, are not won without sacrifice and they aren't gained through short-cuts. Nothing worthwhile ever is.

7. Sam, Mikaela, and Simmons (John Turturro) go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. to find Jetfire. Then they walk out the back onto a wide open field with old planes and mountains in the distance. When did the National Mall start to look so much like to Tucson, AZ (where they really filmed that scene)?

One thing that some of these reviewers forget/don't know/neglect is that the Udvar-Hazy Annex, where the scene in question takes place, isn't in Washington, DC. It's practically next door to Dulles International Airport, which is located 26 miles west of DC, in Virginia - nowhere near the National Mall. I've been there, and there is a considerable amount of open space out there.

Still doesn't look anything like the Boneyard.

Cormaster628 wrote:The guy has a point on Prime too. Why can't Sam's piece of the allspark bring him back to life? I seriously just choose not to think about this stuff too much because it does ruin your view of the movies. As for the Rest of the plotholes most of that seems like pure slop.

Everything that the allspark has "revived" or "created" so far has been either a Decepticon, or evil. When Simmons put the mobile in that chamber, and channeled the cubes energy into it it became an evil little robot. All of the appliances were evil and tried to kill everyone. Makes sense that they didn't use it on Prime to me...

Jesterhead wrote:Everything that the allspark has "revived" or "created" so far has been either a Decepticon, or evil. When Simmons put the mobile in that chamber, and channeled the cubes energy into it it became an evil little robot. All of the appliances were evil and tried to kill everyone. Makes sense that they didn't use it on Prime to me...

Awsome point. I applaud someone who can make my brain slam on the brakes that fast and go "Whoa!"
Everytime the energy animated something seemingly at random, like the kitchen bots or Dispensor or the Escalade it was in unfocused waves or surges. Even the Nokia hell-bot was made from raw energy siphoned off the cube. Frenzy was alive for his regeneration and there was nowhere else for the energy to go but inside Megatron when he was revived so the remains of his consciousness, once reignited, could help guide his resurrection. All the other instances were formerly non-sentient devices hit with unguided energy. Could it be possible that the "newborns" weren't Decepticons, just base level creatures acting off of pure primal instinct and raw emotions? Like a wild dog or some feral cat. Not evil just not civilized.
I'm just trying to play "devils advocate" here...