http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php
This is pretty hilarious. Although I enjoyed Transformers for what it was – the ultimate example of bloated Michael Bay excess. It’s like Scarface for Generation X, the biggest example of every comic book movie cliche inflated to epic proportions. And it’s not like it’s taking itself seriously the whole time, as it’s pretty light-hearted for such a loud trainwreck. I don’t think it’s gonna hold up on DVD, but for an obnoxious movie theatre experience, I doubt it’ll be topped.
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Wow. Just Wow. Our society is getting dumber and dumber.
This article is great. Absolute hilarity.
I still can’t understand thinking like this, “enjoyed Transformers for what it was”. Why must we dumb down our entertainment? Transformers 1, though not a beacon of screenwriting or acting, still had a coherent sensible plot. It wasn’t 2.5 hours of stupidity and explosions.
I don’t care how people wish to spend their $10 (or $15 in IMAX), and I’m definitely not a movie snob; but this movie is MST3K bad. I’m glad i just downloaded it and was able to skip around just to see if it was as bad as the reviewers claimed it was.
Ultimately, what bothers me the most is that with a budget that size, an excellent movie could’ve been made. Did we enjoy “Batman & Robin” for what it was, or would we not prefer if a director attempted to make “The Dark Knight”? That is the argument that I want the defenders of this movie to wiggle out of.
Yeah, this movie was ridiculous (but like Scott I enjoyed the shitstorm), but reading this made me further realize just how incomprehensible it was. Regarding the comments questioning how we can justify enjoying crap or stupidity, it all depends on your threshold of pain and patience. I can completely understand why someone would despise this film, and please note even I am not defending it as quality cinema. I’m just saying I was entertained for a night. I guess I just didn’t feel like being critical that night.
I haven’t seen the second one yet.
The first one I loved on my first viewing but my girlfriend gave me the DVD for Christmas (for some reason, I _never_ watch DVD’s), and my brother popped it in when he was over and I didn’t like it nearly as much the second time around.
It’s pretty much impossible to tell who’s who in the final fight scene and I kept losing track of who was alive and who’d been killed off. Plus Shia Lebeouf or whatever his name is somehow became really annoying even though he hadn’t bothered me much the first time.
I have a set of movie passes but I’m not sure if I want to even bother with this one.
I swear, this movie has gotten the most mixed reaction I have ever seen from any movie.
The fans — Best. Flick. EVER.
The critics — This is a STEAMING PILE of a movie that came about when Michael Bay wiped his ass with a sheet of paper, said “That’s the script”, and shot it as is. (Roger Ebert is SCREAMING about how bad this movie is … and after his throat surgery that’s actually impossible for him to do! AND YET HE’S DOING IT!)
And critics who are fans … well, take a look at this (major spoilers for the movie abound in this review):
http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/8875-tf2
I swear, I’ve never seen a guy tear down a movie so bad that he actually likes. (Though it’s a little difficult to tell; he does it in the style of his Bum Reviews, where the Bum automatically likes EVERY movie — except “Citizen Kane” — and he writes at the end what he really thought about it, but I took the “and I liked it, too!” at the end to be that, for this review.)
Transformers 2 is a movie where the plot does not matter. Its robots fighting. Its not really supposed to make sense because there’s no way to have it make sense. There’s absolutely no way to make alien robots fighting for control of the universe on Earth logical…it is by definition completely and totally illogical.
At least in superhero movies, there is some logic that relates back to the real world that keeps its grounded. You can’t do that with Transformers.
I don’t think anyone is saying it needs to be logical.
I think the majority of folks, me included, are saying that would it be so hard to have a coherent story without a ton of plot holes? That doesn’t even cover things like the giant balls, the pesci-robot, etc, etc.
Of course Robots fighting is illogical; but you can still make a good movie. My God, most people LIKED Transformers 1…I think that’s the major point here.
I liked the first movie, I loved the cartoons (all the seasons on DVD + the animated movie)…
This flick was dogshit.
I think it would have been a lot better if they cut about 30 minutes out. We went to the 10:55 showing and walked out of the theatre at 2 am. I enjoyed it, regardless, because I wasn’t expecting a 5 star affair.
This film ended for me when Jetfire farted.
I’ve only seen half of the first Transformers and none of the second one, but I HATED Scarface. The first two Godfather movies together are my favorite film of all time, The Sopranos is my favorite TV show (after The Wire), and Little Cesar, Public Enemy, Goodfellas, and The Departed are all totally the shit…but that movie is just a slap in the face to all of them.
I will admit “all I’ve got in this world are my word and my balls…” is pretty cool. And the dinner scene where Al says everyone needs him to be the bad guy. But other than that, garbage. With the bad dialogue and the shitty acting and the total devotion to action set pieces, it was like a Star Wars movie on the streets.
Oh and the cheesy 80’s musical score. That shit has ruined a ton of otherwise classic 80’s movies. Rain Man, for instance.
THANK YOU! I was a film major and actually argued for the Godfather as not only the greatest movie of all time but also the only perfect movie of all time (directing, cinematography, writing, acting, editing, musical score all works well). I had a professor disagree and suggest Citizen Kane but then I reminded him of the musical number in Kane.
But I just don’t get the appeal of Scarface. It’s interminably long, the characters have little development, the score is terrible, and worst of all it seemed to set a precedent for Pacino’s career following that. It’s like Pacino realized that he could ham it up, chew scenery, and step all over other actors lines because he was Al F’ing Pacino. *Spoiler for Godfather 2 ahead if you haven’t seen it* One of my favorite scenes in the Godfather 2 (and when I show people an example of great acting it’s this) is when Michael finds out that Kay had an abortion. At first he’s quiet, then he seems to quake with rage before exploding. *End spoiler* Pacino plays Michael so well because of how quiet and patient he is.
The reason people find Scarface so amusing is because of the “gangster” minorities that like that whole rag to riches story.
I love the characters in Scarface, they are all so incredibly over-the-top…its almost like a satire of the gangster genre.
And nothing tops the scene when Tony takes over and he looks at the big guy (forget his name) and says, “you want a job?” when the guy thinks he’s about the be killed. And the other guy says to him, “hey man you got a job!”
I’m surprised the big action movies don’t follow in the footsteps of X-Men and Spiderman by getting a character director to direct the film. Get someone who knows how to make a good film without all the props and action and, when combined with big budget special effects, you get the best of both worlds. X-Men and Spiderman were awesome actions films but also made sense (in the context of the movie) and had very good character development.
I was not particularly enamored of the first transformers movie. My larger issue with the movies is that they seem to have no concern for character, only interested in the larger set pieces that blow up.
I can forgive a bad plot, but what’s wrong with trying to give me engaging, interesting, 3 dimensional characters?
Sorry to double-post.
I think that the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) applies to these kinds of movies. Take your time, get a director with visual flair, get a story that focuses on the characters.
My biggest knock on Michael Bay is not that he makes big, loud action movies. Michael Mann has made big, loud action movies and I love Michael Mann.
The big action sequences should serve the characters: it should reveal something about them, put them in a situation that tests their character, etc. In the Bay movies I think that it’s the other way around, the characters are simply pieces to be moved in places for the big action sequences.
To be fair to Bay I think that he’s only as good as his leads. That’s why I find the Rock and the first Bad Boys so enjoyable. Also in Bay’s defense, he didn’t write the movies.
Bay may not have written the movies but as the director, the end-product is completely his doing. The script is only a blueprint for a movie and everything that results from it is the director’s interpretation.
Bad Boys is a good example. The first was more compact, flashy and witty as a Lethal Weapon-esque movie but then Bay looked to up the ante and we got the bloated mess of Bad Boys 2 (two Miami cops invading CUBA to rescue the female lead? REALLY?)
Same thing happened with Transformers. If you look at the concept, rabid fan-base and the logistics of translating an 80s cartoon to a big screen blockbuster, it’s not easy but in the first movie, they pulled off an enjoyable action romp so you have to give Bay credit for that. But once again, he contracted sequel-itis and took things too far.
Oh well. Bay has stated he’s leaving the franchise so maybe the next director can produce a better film.
I think it’s hilarious when people rip on Michael Bay. Like 99.999 percent of any of you could do better. Get over yourself, people
If given the same budget and license to work with? Yes, I could do better.
Just because we’re not directors, doesn’t mean we can’t critique his work. Isn’t that what paying customers do? Haven’t you ever ripped on a football or basketball player when they’re playing badly, even though you couldn’t dream to be as good as them?
When you criticise a wrestler for having a bad match or being a poor performer, I’m guessing you couldn’t do much better either. Doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to say it.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t critique his work, I’m saying that some people take it too far. When I see a wrestler doing shitty work, I don’t sign into message boards and write 4 paragraph posts dissecting it from start to finish.That’s just a waste of time. On top of that, I NEVER think that I could do better because I’m not a wrestler. You know.. I haven’t read an article where Michael Bay declared himself to be Stanley Kubrick. He isn’t the best director around, but he is far from the worst despite what Drmanhattanrulz@aol.com tells you or any other person talking shit while sitting in his mothers basement googling the cinema terms that he/she accuses Bay having a lack of. Obviously paying customers have a right to complain, but SOME people take it to far, for no real reason. You aren’t going to get the film remade to suit what YOU think they should have done.
Some people only bitch about a topic because other people are bitching about the same thing. One person says something about Michael Bay as a director and then all the fanboys come out of the woodwork and slam him too, because it’s the “cool” thing to do. So he has huge explosions in his movies.. who cares? Is any money coming out of YOUR pocket..except for ticket prices, to build and design those set pieces? No. Let’s not forget that this is ABOUT ALIEN ROBOTS FROM OUTER SPACE. It really shouldn’t matter. Hollywood doesn’t care about your or my nostalgia. It cares about money. Obviously the studio likes his work or he wouldn’t have been asked to do either one of them. Do those that bitch on the internet about him know more about the movie studios? I’d doubt it, but they’d like to think so.
In closing, leave him alone. You know what you are going to get with him, and if that doesn’t suit your fancy then maybe you should skip the movie regardless of any warm,fuzzy memories it brings up, because it isn’t worth getting into a tizzy over something you can’t change.
“In closing, leave him alone.”
I knew Ryan was really the crying Britney Spears fanchick.
To paraphrase Yahtzee “Michael Bay is a big boy now. He doesn’t need defending. Small time message board posters aren’t going to say anything that reduces him to tears and he cares even less about his fans.”
You are hilarious. No, really.
Oh stop you. *giggles*
“He isn’t the best director around, but he is far from the worst despite what Drmanhattanrulz@aol.com tells you or any other person talking shit while sitting in his mothers basement googling the cinema terms that he/she accuses Bay having a lack of.” Or I went to college for it, one of those two.
What bothers me about Bay is that he has a great visual sense. But explosions aren’t cover ups for good storytelling. It’s possible to make a good, engaging action movie.
I also hate the argument “Let’s not forget that this is ABOUT ALIEN ROBOTS FROM OUTER SPACE.” Batman’s about a dude who dresses up in a batsuit and fights crime, Iron Man is a guy in a suit of robot armor. It’s called suspension of disbelief.
Right.
Transformers 2 is better than Transformers 1. And again Shia LaBeouf proves he can act with what role he takes. He did good in Indiana Jones 4.
And Michael Bay knows that no matter what people say bad about him, they will still see his movies.
Me and my girlfriend both enjoyed the movie immensely. We’re also both fans of the original cartoon, which was hardly award-winning drama itself.
G1 fans tend to view the franchise as some holy relic, and the original cartoon through rose-coloured glasses, and any attempts at reinvention as blasphemy.
Get real. The franchise has existed for 25 years for one reason, and one reason only. To sell toys. I like Transformers, but I don’t defend it as some untouchable religion.
I grew up with G1, and own all the DVDs and stuff. But I understand that when you make a movie, concessions are made.
I liked the first movie a lot. I remember hearing people bitch about Optimus having no face-plate and flames. Eh, didn’t bug me.
My major complaints were they bring back Peter Cullen to play Optimus but didn’t use Frank Welker to play Megatron, or find someone that sounded somewhat similar to the late Christopher Collins to play Starscream.
Plus Megatron and Starscream looked too much alike when they were in their robot modes.
I liked some of the changes they made. I always thought it was silly to have Megatron, leader of the bad ass Decepticons, to turn into a tiny little handgun.
The second movie… you were right, it’s all about selling toys. But if that’s the case why make a movie so blatantly racist and un-childfriendly?
I like Transformers because it makes me feel like a kid again. Revenge of the Fallen just made me feel ashamed.