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AlexReynard

Cybertron... has... MEADOWS.

As you can guess, this is about Transfarters 5: The Last Nerve. If you care about spoilers for this movie, you are wrong.

So.

I think this is actually my favorite one of all five. Not because it's any good. Ohhhhhhh my goodness no. But because by now I know the formula well enough that I can see the stupid coming and laugh derisively at it. Because I've figured it out. I know what these movies are now.

Lindsay "Nostalgia Chick" Ellis has been doing a really excellent analysis of the first four TF "movies". Highly worth watching; she uses them as a good bad example to explain aspects of filmmaking through. In the comments, I saw someone call the series "adolescent patriarchal power fantasies". But that didn't ring true to me. In responding, I realized that what they feel much more like is the amoral, chaotic stream-of-consciousness of a kid playing with action figures in a sandbox. This is PRE-adolescent. And it's not even really a power fantasy, because those usually revolve around being heroes. In this the good guys are the good guys because the movie says they are, and vice versa for the bad guys. There is no thought whatsoever given to strategy or continuity. Or consequences! The good guys usually cause whatever conflict happens through their own dumbness, but they're never called out for it, because that would require some understanding of right and wrong, and cause-and-effect. Instead it's just, grab whatever toys you have laying around and bang them together, making explosion noises and kicking chunks out of Mom's lawn.

These films are exactly the way they are on purpose. Consciously or not, Bay has created a new genre. It's not quite action, sci-fi, or fantasy, it's just STUFF HAPPENING LOUDLY. It's allegedly for kids, but contains all sorts of swearing, guns, tits and racism. Basically, these movies are made for Eric Cartman. Or rather, the Cartman deep inside of us. The ugly, bratty piece of shit lurking in our hearts that resents everything about being an adult. The part that feels stifled by civilized rules of behavior and just wants to be a loudmouth dumbass kid again, in an summer vacation free of responsibilities.

These movies are a defiant embrace of everything we are supposed to reject. Both in proper filmmaking and in adult sensibilities. They reject good taste, thought, social mores, even the concept of making sense. These movies are for the belligerently immature. They are film junkfood. More than that, they are the equivalent of throwing all the fatty, sugary garbage in the house into a bowl, then eating it till you're sick to get back at Mom for grounding you. A KFC bucket full of fries, ice cream and nacho cheese. And it doesn't even taste good, but you eat it anyway out of pure resentment. Kids do not understand that harming yourself is not an effective way to punish the system. People with the emotional maturity level of children do not understand this either. (Hence: Trump)

So yeah, all the incredibly sloppy filmmaking, continuity errors, grossly ill-fitting humor and overall nauseating rollercoasterness is deliberate. This is what America wants. And not just the human livestock who unironically consume it, but the we-think-we're smart hipsters who watch this garbage ironically to have something to mock. Newsflash: making fun of these films is like shooting fish in a barrel. No; fish nailed to the floor. And paying to see them opening weekend just incentivizes the studios to keep making more. REMEMBER HOW BAD BATMAN V. SUPERMAN WAS? GUESS WHOSE FAULT THAT WAS?

And no, before you point it out, I'm not exempting myself. I'm going to make fun of this dungpile too, as if that takes any more effort than kicking an elderly cripple down an escalator. At least I paid to see some shark movie instead and swapped theaters. And my motive for going wasn't just to make fun of it. Though, yeah, certainly part of the reason. My primary motive was because Sqweeks has a really cute design that reminds me of Johnny 5 and Batteries Not Included, and I wanted to know if he was a horrible stereotype-bot ala Skids and Mudflap. (Rest assured, good citizenry. Even though his only dialogue consists of "Aye chihuahua!", it's not overused, his voice isn't annoying, he doesn't hump any legs, and he even manages to be useful a coupla times. He's possibly the most likable character in this, next to John Goodmanbot. Whew. Now I can buy his toy without reservation.)

OKAY, SO ON TO THE MOVIE ITSELF.

-The Opening:
Fairly decent action scene, with knights on horseback and flying arrows and flaming catapult-balls. And then Merlin shows up drunk. Ha ha, you think I'm kidding.

-The Music
Almost immediately I noticed that consistency of tone is not going to happen in this film. Right away there are bits of "comedic" dialogue interspersed with people dying horribly (I think they might have killed at least one horse for real), and the music is so ill-fitting that I can't even. This becomes a pattern. Like, the music thinks that every single scene is somber and epic. Even ones where people are just standing around saying "funny" things. EVEN DURING A POLO MATCH. YES, YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT. THERE'S A FUCKING POLO MATCH IN THIS TRANSFORMERS MOVIE. AND IT'S SCORED LIKE MOTHERFUCKING INDEPENDENCE DAY.

-The Dialogue
I am pretty sure that most of this was ad-libbed. It feels like Bay just set up the scene and had everyone babble their way through. One take, and whatever came out of their mouths ended up onscreen. On the other hand, there are other lines that totally confirm my kid-playing-in-a-sandbox idea. People will outright state their motivations, or describe what's happening in front of them, in exactly the way little kids do when they're making their toys talk. "It's a big alien ship!!" Optimus gets some particularly tard-strength expository dialogue. Poor Peter Cullen.

-The Alternate History
This film thinks explorers and geologists are fucking idiots. By now there's been Transformers crap lying all over our planet (and the moon) forever, but this film adds even more city-sized spaceships 'n shit, just chilling out in the open where fucking anyone could stumble across it. I guess it must have been the Order of Witwickie that covered it all up; a secret society descended from Merlin, containing every smart person the audience has ever heard of. Which is weird because...

-The Laughably Blatant Anti-Intellectualism
Remember how I said these movies are a rejection of adulthood? You know how a lot of times in action flicks, the skeptic is portrayed as an asshole who's wrong about everything? This movie does that to a degree comparable to an atheist character in a Christian propaganda film. It has not one but TWO skeptics who speak entirely in strawman-ese, about how 'magic and fairies and hobgoblins are all bullshit'. One of them is the female lead, who later realizes that destiny 'n shit is totally real, so she gets a gold star. The other is an astrophysicist (played by Buster Bluth, to make sure you know he's a NERRRRRRRD) who wants to save the world with physics and math. So of course you know he's a big dumdum smartypants egghead and everything will go wrong for him. Don't you know that the only thing that can save the day is two attractive caucasian humans armed with a sword and a magic staff? (Almost forgot: THREE characters who are dumb because they're smart. There's a NASA employee who refuses to listen to Buster because he's speaking too technically. Christ, I almost forgot he existed.)

-The Filmmaking
Oh my fucking god, there are so many shots where it could not be more obvious that people talking to each other were filmed at completely different times in different locations. There are so many action scenes where they didn't even try to incorporate the robots; they just cut to them doing something and cut back to the humans. There are so many moments where people magically teleport across states and continents just because they have to be in that scene right then. There are so many parts that were clearly filmed for a different scene, but those got cut, so they reused the extra bits as lumpy, makeshift scene transitions. Similarly, there are so many lines said by offscreen characters, obviously added in post, trying to explain whatever confusing bullshit's going on at the moment. There's a bit where Wahlberg & Pals drive away from the Decepticons to a little rural South Dakota ghost town (WHY THE FUCK DOES HE DRIVE A TRUCK WHEN HIS FRIENDS ARE VEHICLES!?), and a TIE-fighter-shaped drone picks him up and takes him to what is clearly a different city, and then a little later he just jumps back. This film is more sloppily made than a staggering wino impregnating the world's loosest prostitute.

-The Writers
Why do I get the feeling that, whatever they wrote, Bay just went ahead and filmed whatever his dick told him to?

-The Big Stupid
There's always The Big Stupid in these movies. Moments so defiantly dumb you just marvel at them. Stuff like an iceberg sinking in G.I. Joe. Or in Dark Of The Moon, Cybertron entering Earth's atmosphere without it fucking up all the tides. Or in this film, where Cybertron enters Earth's atmosphere without it fucking up all the tides. NO I DID NOT MAKE A MISTAKE AND TYPE THAT TWICE. You heard right! Cybertron is somehow existent again! And it looks totally different than in the last movies! Maybe something happened at the end of DOTM that could explain this, but I do not remember and I'm too lazy to go look it up. What I do know is that they've already done this exact same plot before. Only instead of Sentinel Prime wanting to take all of the humans for slave labor, the fucking Blue Fairy wants to siphon the Earth's energy to rebuild Cybertron through 'life magic'. (How did Sentinel not know about this?) Oh, and Cybertron is covered in grass and dirt and rocks. THE FUCKING PLANET CYBERTRON, HOME TO AN ENTIRELY INORGANIC RACE, WHICH HAS BEEN FLOATING THROUGH THE VACUUM OF SPACE FOR MILLENNIA, IS COVERED IN GRASS AND DIRT AND ROCKS, WHICH DID NOT BURN UP WHEN IT PASSED THROUGH EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE. The human characters are running around in dirt like they're storming the beach on D-Day! DIRT!!! FROM SPACE!!!!!!! Hahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahha!!!!!!!!!1 (swallows an entire bottle of pills)

Oh, and Earth is Unicron. Earth has always been Unicron. The Transformers have always known that Earth is Unicron, but I guess they all forgot to mention it before now. Also geologists are doubly stupid for thinking that our planet is made of magma and rock, and not Transformer guts. Of course the film does absolutely nothing with Unicron (just like the Dinobots in the last one). Why? Because he's a SEQUEL HOOK, silly! And a berobed Asian lady shows up after the credits who knows how to kill him! Do you think they'll actually follow up on this in the next one? Hm? Do you think they actually did anything interesting with the Dinobots in THIS one, after making such a big deal introducing them in the last one? Do you think they even bothered to have all of them show up!?

-The Part Where A Series Of Powerful Supercars Show Up In The Street, Unlocked And Doors Open, So Hopkins & Bot-ler Can Drive Fast In Them
Was this... set up somehow? Did Cogman arrange this ahead of time? What!?

-Dat Airplane
Mmmmmm... pretty.

THE CHARACTERS

-Optimus Prime
Optimus go into space. Optimus meet Magic Blue Ladytron What Created Them Transformers. Naturally, she is evil, and brainwashes him to be Nemesis Prime (just like the ads all teased). Consequently he is gone for most of the movie. Then he shows up (They didn't even give him a black paintjob! Guyyyyss!!!) and tries to kill Bumblebee. Bumbleee snaps him out of it by magically talking, even though the film made sure to show that he needs a new voice box and cannot talk normally. I guess he does it by the power of heart. Also, despite being brainwashed by the equivalent of a God, Optimus stops being a badguy after about two minutes with the gentlest of prodding. As if they were actually going to wring any drama or emotion from the beloved leader of the Autobots being turned to the dark side. Fuck that! Our audience has the attention span of fruit flies!
Also, he's just like the ROTF Leader Class toy, because he won't stop saying "I AM OPTIMUS PRIME I AM OPTIMUS PRIME I AM OPTIMUS PRIME I AM OPTIMUS PRIME"

-Megatron
He's just alive again for some reason!

-Barricade
He's just alive again for some reason!

-Wheelie
He's just alive again for some reason!

-A Bunch Of Other Decepticons
The film actually goes full Suicide Squad, introducing this posse of Decepti-criminals that Megatron pulls out of robot jail for a hostage exchange. Their names are (try not to asphyxiate laughing) Mohawk, Dreadbot, Nitro Zeus, Berserker, and (bizarrely without any Combaticons), Onslaught. Most of them are killed in the next fucking scene.

-Hound
One of the few things this movie does right is not killing him off, even though it totally looks like Megatron does. (shrug)

-Drift & Crosshairs
They dragged Ken Watanabe and John DiMaggio into the recording booth for about two lines each.

-That scrappy Latino girl who's in all the ads
She does literally nothing useful. She is purely there for slimy, deceptive marketing reasons. Even though she and Sqkweeks are pals, they totally could have had just Squeewks by himself and nothing would be lost. Also, for claiming to be a hotshot Transformer mechanic, she fails in the one repair she does attempt (Oh wait no, my mistake, she does give Skreeks a beefy arm).

-Canopy
There's an orange robot shown in the trailer whose literal purpose is to have a big turtle shell on his back, and then die. This prompts a ridiculously Narm-y "You can't die!" speech from Useless Latino Girl. Also, after he dies she tells Cade twice that she has no more family left. Bitch, Sqweeeks is right there! He's followed you like a loyal puppy throughout the whole film! So what, he's not family? You coldhearted little puta!

-Cogman
Oh sweet hot fucking hell, how do I even describe Cogman? He's Anthony Hopkins' valet, and he is possibly the robot with the most screentime in the film. He is every effete British stereotype all at once, but is also crazy and prone to fits of violence. He's either competent, surly, loopy, or saying-hip-hop-things-in-a-British-white-guy-voice-because-that's-funny. Any of those, totally at random. Oddly I didn't hate him, mostly because I was just mesmerized by, "Who the fuck wrote this character!?" His design at least looks pretty cool.

-Anthony Hopkins
This is the new zenith of slumming. He is not even trying to be a character here. Honestly, it would have been even more fun if he was literally just Anthony Hopkins the actor here, because he's completely coasting on zero effort anyway. If his dialogue was actually scripted, and he wasn't just making up whatever insane thing popped into his head for his own bemusement, I will be surprised.

-Grimlock
He's literally a big dog. He eats an Indian's car. Despite being a humongous mighty warrior, all he ever does is inconvenience some Bad Government guys. Slug also shows up for one scene. My god, I think the Dinobots are in this one less than Age Of Extinction!! Plus there are baby Dinobots now for some reason! With no explanation how they got there! You'd think they exist purely to make toys of them, but so far no toys have been seen or even mentioned from Hasbro. (That seems to be a reocurring pattern with these films: I have no effing idea how they decide what characters to make toys of. They ignore some of the coolest designs, or characters with lots of screentime, and then do toys of the randomest shit. Is it all just some mind game, trying to fakeout the fans on what characters are actually gonna be important? Scorn is getting a Voyager toy and literally does not show up for a single frame! Berserker got a first-wave Deluxe and a One-Step, and he's literally only in the goddamn film for ten fucking seconds!!!)

-Cade Yaegher
Do you know what Michael Bay looks like? Then golly gee, you might notice that Mark Wahlberg's character is starting to resemble him quite a bit. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Especially given how he's The Chosen One, who gets a cool sword and rock-hard abs and effortlessly gets the girl and is basically Jesus.

-...Vivian, I think her name was?
I honestly thought this was Mikaela again, but English and with glasses. The actress is identical to Megan Fox. She is posh and British, and gets taken down a peg by the sassy American hunk. Also she is the only one who can wield the magic staff, and by the end of the film they're ripping off Rey from Star Wars fairly hard.

-Agent Simmons
He's in this too. John Turturro gave so few shits that he probably had them change the script so he could shoot all his scenes in one day outside his hotel. Perfectly understandable. Also, one of the three Wreckers from Dark Of The Moon is there in Cuba with him. Can't say who though, because he has Topspin's body and Leadfoot's head. WHY!?

-A Black Guy
He's scared of jail and being killed. That's his entire character. He is, amazingly, nowhere near as annoying as past films' "funny" sidekicks. And he avoids both jail and being killed, to my astonishment!

-Lennox and Morshower
They're still in these fucking films! Do they have literally nothing else to do? And oh how you'll cringe watching Glen Morshower have to keep a straight face while talking about giant murderous children's toys.

-Spike Witwicky
A photo of him makes a cameo. Making a goofy-ass face too. Possibly Bay attempting revenge for Shia wisely escaping his Dudebro Carnivale.

-Everyone in Hong Kong
Gets fucked. I guess saving it in the last film was kinda pointless!

-Quintessa
Because these films have a long, proud tradition of taking some name from existing Transformers lore and applying it to something that bears only a microscopic resemblance to the original concept. As if they made sure to play Telephone with the idea before writing the script. She doesn't even have five faces! (Also she dies in one hit like a candy-ass. ...Unless she's the bathrobe Asian? Maybe!? I don't fucking know.)

-Infernocus
He looks cool, then dies.

-Steelbane
He's fragile and falls apart. Just like his piece-of-shit toy!

-Twelve other Cybertronian knight-guys
They're basically idiots, wanting to murder Optimus in one moment, then taking orders from him the next because Marky Christ spared him with the Magic Robot Sword. Also they turn into a big cool dragon who is completely underused.

-Starscream
His head shows up! Wanna resurrect him too, movie? No? Why the hell not!? Tom Kenny is already in the voice cast!!!

-Bumblebee
He sort of gets stuff to do this time around! One of the few decent action scenes had him fly into pieces and then reassemble. Trailers completely spoil this though. And it;s never explained how, because decapitating any other Transformer kills them instantly. And it accomplishes nothing anyway! Literally nothing! Because he's trying to knock out a bunch of guys with guns, and then somehow they're all still there pointing guns afterwards! Also, it turns out he was on our side in WWII. There's a kinda cool/kinda ridiculous scene where he and Hot Rod kill some Nazis. This is the most interesting idea in the film, and since Bay is a huge cocksucker who deserves eye cancer, he only gives us about thirty seconds of it. Wankstain.

-Hot Rod
I was pleasantly surprised that, despite saddling him with a French accent for some reason, they didn't make him a bumbling coward. He's actually kinda competent, and has a gun that shoots slow-motion. Not kidding. Zero explanation of how he has it, or why no one else does, even though such a technology could completely change everything about everything. His face looks like they stole Boushh's helmet from Return Of The Jedi and stuck googly eyes on it.

-Daytrader
What an incredibly shitty name for this character. He's a jiggly trash truck, voiced by Steve Buscemi, who all the other characters seem to hate even though they depend on him for supplies.

-That Construction Crane Guy
They showed a crane in one scene. Then later it turned into a pretty cool robot. Somehow, I knew immediately that he would vanish instantly in the next scene without anyone ever even acknowledging he was there. And I was right! He joined the ranks of Jolt and Dino and that Cloverfield-lookin' thing from DOTM. Same for two senile WWI robots hanging around Hopkins' castle. Sure, why not have the poor CGI artists design even more painstakingly intricate characters that you do exactly JACK SHIT with!?

-The robot pocketwatch that killed Hitler
THE ROBOT POCKETWATCH. THAT KILLED HITLER. IS A THING IN THIS MOVIE.

IN CONCLUSION

I enjoyed watching this film, because it is so sloppy, so random, so goddamn unbelievably stupid, that it practically riffs itself. I got to feel smugly superior to the cinematic equivalent of a retard boy flailing to pull himself out of a rain puddle. If it wasn't for the digital FX guys once again being the real heroes by doing some solidly gorgeous effects, you could almost believe this is a brilliantly incisive parody. Beat for beat, it nails every single cliché the previous four shitshows have built up. There are literally no new ideas in this movie. It's just, "Collect the powerful thing" over again. More lame jokes with humans we don't care about. More poor or inconsistent characterization for the Transformers themselves, who are all portrayed as violent childlike idiots. More continuity errors. More Dutch angles. More shots that hide the robot's heads for some damn reason. More fetishizing the military. More making buffoons of people who rely on reason instead of blind faith in the Good Guys. But this time I was ready for it. This time I was giggling my ass off at how transparently stupid it all is, and how it demonstrates that we are a society regressing into infancy as fast as it possibly can. If Trump's election didn't prove that already, Transformers 5 sure as shit does. We're doomed, folks! May as well set up lawn chairs and get your popcorn ready, because Idiocracy is already a documentary.

Wheeeee! :D

(Also there's a bit where it feels like half an hour of everyone fucking around in submarines. I can't even why.)

EDIT: I have put my frustrations into art: http://imgur.com/gallery/i946wGT
Viewed: 116 times
Added: 6 years, 9 months ago
 
Norithics
6 years, 9 months ago
Dude.
What??
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Correct.
LoZeed
6 years, 9 months ago
These movies are far beyond any possible redemption, not they just exist for money's sake.
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Entirely true. But I've heard this one ain't making much money (and it'll have to, to recoup its $260,000,000 budget). Same for Ghostbusters and The Mummy. So maybe the bloated blockbuster era is dying.
LoZeed
6 years, 9 months ago
Hopefully people are getting tired of the same hand fulls of nonsense. Those movies are the film equivalent of jingling glitter covered keys while yelling.
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Oh yeah, Power Rangers bombed too! Good. When a pal told me it had a joke about Billy putting crayons up his ass, I almost started setting things on fire.
LoZeed
6 years, 9 months ago
But to be fair Power Rangers was always corny, I just feel that the movie wasn't the right kind of corny as it often took itself seriously in situations that were too goofy.
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
The big thing was, it was never mean-spirited funny. The movie sounds like it was full of that. It had contempt for its source and did not even try to understand the themes that made it memorable.
LoZeed
6 years, 9 months ago
Exactly, through I don't fully know the changes between Super Sentai and Power Rangers I pretty sure they gummed up the works trying to be yet another bayfilm.
MrZero
6 years, 9 months ago
I want to like the Michael Bay Transformers movies, I occasionally even want to defend it, but only for it's connection to the original TF cartoon that I saw and loved. And yes, that cartoon had some questionable choices, some bad episodes. I thought it was something that would be taken in stride by the TF series- perhaps they could get better as they went along? And they did- but only through attrition of characters so that it wasn't like a collection of flash cards paced with explosions.
I had my hands against my head at least twice while reading this review. It's horrifying that both Alex's deconstruction of this is so accurate, and that the Idiocracy Levels are so high. Not just here, but this isn't the first review I've read, this just seems the one willing, most wanting to, openly state Why You Screwed Up.
Despite it all, I still cling to misplaced hope. Because: If the TF movies aren't really good, imagine how successful they'd be if they really were good pieces of moviemaking film? And there's so many disappointments. Quintessa isn't a Quint. Optimus getting corrupted could have been his version of the Galvatron-Unicron changeover from the (animated )TF movie. etc, etc.
At this point my brain just wants to curl into a ball and weep a little. It's not a good feeling to have brain matter have feelings. It's clear that you can pull a random film student out of school and he'll make a better TF film than Bay. I would like to see the parallel reality where Alex Reynard gets to make a TF film, but I'm sure that he'd bring in the female autobots and at least one tentacle monster. He might even make it funny. The point is that Alex is right and everything is horrible.
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
>And yes, that cartoon had some questionable choices

I seem to remember a part where Seaspray fucked a mermaid. Or something.

>like a collection of flash cards paced with explosions.

I like that comparison. :)

>It's clear that you can pull a random film student out of school and he'll make a better TF film than Bay.

Bay managed to be, not good, but successful, for quite a while. I think there was a lot of underlying resentment of quality/responsibility/maturity floating around, and his movies hit a mark. And goddamn, he knows how to make exactly the kind of movies he wants. So we can't even say they're bad, because that's part of what he's intentionally trying to do. We can however, say that they are bad for you.

>I would like to see the parallel reality where Alex Reynard gets to make a TF film, but I'm sure that he'd bring in the female autobots and at least one tentacle monster. He might even make it funny.

I played around with the idea back when the first one came out. Legend Of The Ultraformer, I think I called it. It was kind of a subtle G1 vs Bay-aesthetic idea, with Megatron creating this amorphous alien tentacle horror, and all the Transformers having to team up before it killed absolutely everything. (And then in the post-credits scene, its last bit of living remains would fuse with a fallen Decepticon and become Sixshot.)

>The point is that Alex is right and everything is horrible.

You know, I wouldn't mind a world where I was wrong and everything was great. :)
SenGrisane
6 years, 9 months ago
The films are for the Eric Cartman in us.

Love this line ^^
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Danke. I'm kinda proud of it, because it really nails down that this stuff isn't just juvenile, it's mean-spirited as well.
ZephonTsol
6 years, 9 months ago
As we discussed tonight, as much pain as it was to watch this horrific trainwreck of a wankfest, it's giving me hope for how badly it performs. Right now, it's not doing so well at the box office. It's under-performing expectations (they expected its first two days to be in the $70 million range and it only pulled $15 million so far) and while it may do well overseas in China...y'know, despite Hong Kong getting wiped clean off the face of the Earth this time...it's going to need to double or triple its budget to compensate for the ludicrous amount of marketing that's been done.

And it just won't, I don't think. At best, I think it'll break even.

But given the other terrible movies I've seen in the last year or so (Ghostbusters: Femme Fuckups Edition and Power Rangers But Shittier), I'm hopeful because they under-performed too. And for different reasons no less! GB bombed due to its awful cast and direction and story, Power Rangers bombed due to it being made using themes that have nothing to do at ALL with what PR stands for.

And this movie accomplished BOTH AT ONCE.

I think people are getting wiser, really. We're starting to see how bad it can be and thanks to social media being an almost instant source of reviews from people we take seriously, we can get the lowdown before we buy in to it. People avoided those other two movies and good for them! They both were planned to have 8 bajillion sequels and now they won't because studio execs saw how shitty they turned out.

Not surprising because people are getting wise to what it feels like to be shat on...and we don't much like it, do we?
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Going with my metaphor, you can only eat so much junk food before you start to feel really nauseous. Even the people who crave it are stating to feel sick and bloated and numb to it.
Rakaziel
6 years, 9 months ago
I do understand the appeal of big dumb action movies - but I prefer the stuff from the 80s and early 90s - it has a certain charm.
But most Michael Bay movies are artless, overwrought and needlessly mean. The CG is good, but the presentation does not pay it any respect, same for any sense of tact or pacing.
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Charm. That is a quality that a LOT of things are lacking anymore. All the heroes are flippiant snarkers, all the plots are trying to be NEW and DIFFERENT instead of appealing, the pacing is frantic, the visuals are numbingly overdone... I miss films that felt cozy.
KintoMythostian
6 years, 9 months ago
Thank you. I am morbidly curious about these movies and simultaneously have no desire to waste time/money actually watching them. I feel like I know everything I wanted to know now.

I saw the first two or three (they kind of blur together) (when they came to the cheap $2 theater) and then gave up.
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Thank you. I am morbidly curious about these movies and simultaneously have no desire to waste time/money actually watching them.

It has never been easier to pirate a movie. Just sayin'. ;)

>I saw the first two or three (they kind of blur together) (when they came to the cheap $2 theater) and then gave up.

I watch them because, as a TF fan, I'm kinda duty bound. Just like my friend Zephon, as a lifelong Power Rangers fan, felt compelled to see for himself the horror that the 2017 movie did to his beloved franchise.
Stumpycoon
6 years, 9 months ago
My main question about the Transformers movies now are 1) "everything that happens in Transformer history happens on Earth, why is it not the first place they go to check out anything?"  It must be like Tattooeen in Star Wars...if in doubt, go check there.  

And also most of the movies make no sense since plots and items in the other movies would solve them better.  Just off the top of my head:

Why does Megatron try to kill prime in the first movie but needs his ability to resurrect transformers for the third?  Why try to kill the sun in the second movie when the plan was to use humans to rebuild cybertron in the third?  Why try to kill the humans in the second when you want to use organic-to-metal bombs on them in the fourth?  Why try to get the all-spark in the first movie when transformers have "make organics into cybertron metal" bombs and could just harvest the humans all along?  Why wait until the third movie (and after trying to kill prime) to get prime to find the crashed autobot ship on the moon and resurrect the guy Megatron wanted to meet all along?  Why did Megatron want to have a secret meeting with an autobot traitor on earth...while there were autobots in camelot the whole time?  If people in the fifth movie can hack and reprogram transformers why don't the decepticons just do that to autobots, no need to destroy the species in the first place.  There are crap-loads of decepticons in the third movie, so why so desperate to find the all-spark in the first movie or create new transformers in the second and fourth movies?
 


ZephonTsol
6 years, 9 months ago
All of these are good questions.

Michael Bay never pays attention to good questions asked of his glorification bombs.

Sorry. They really are good questions though...
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
All of those questions have the same answer: Bay did not care enough to remember what happens movie to movie, beyond the same bare recollection of someone who's seen the films only once. It's literally just, he films whatever he wants to film and then justifies it with the barest shreds of explanation later. Zeph reminded me of a phrase Bay says he lives by: "Shoot for the edit." As in, point the camera at stuff and fix whatever's wrong in post-production. Be sloppy, don't give a fuck, just goof off like an asshole and force SFX artists and voice actors to prop up the limping result afterwards. Michael Bay is a fucking tumor.
CanisRufus
6 years, 9 months ago
I was a big Transformers fan growing up, the G1 cartoon and the UK comics. I went to see the first movie because the marketing honestly sounded like they were trying to make something decent.

And then..... "Yay, Ratchet, Ironhide and Jazz, three of my favourite cha... wait.. THAT's them?"

One of the biggest disappointments for me, as well as the crappy scripts, stupid plots etc is... If you're going to use the character name.... why not use the actual character? Sure I was expecting a redesign, but, I was expecting the character's personalities, motivations, etc to be recognisable.  

In the bay movies there are only one or two characters who I'd even know who they were if someone didn't say their name. Though admittedly, after the first one I didn't go to the cinema to see them, I have watched 2 and 3 when they were on TV and I didn't have to pay for them. That's when I witnessed what they did to my favourite Decepticons... Shockwave and Soundwave...

It's sad really, while it too has it's flaws, I think the Transformers Prime cartoon series shows how it COULD have been done if Bay had been arsed enough to put some thought and effort in. New designs are still recognisable? Check. Most revamped characters have recognisable relation to their former versions? Check. Coherent plot (By cartoon standards)? Check. Funny moments and lines that are actually funny? Check.  

Not perfect, but they really showcase what could have been done with the Bay movies if they'd cared.



... At least when Megatron spacebridged Cybertron to Earth in the G1 cartoon it made a mess of Earth's tides, weather & tectonic activity! *shakes his fist vaguely at the air*
Stumpycoon
6 years, 9 months ago
Shockwave was in one of the movies?
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Third one, Dark Of The Moon. He was teased as the Big Bad and ended up just a worm herder.

At least we got a really, really good toy out of it: https://static.seibertron.com/images/toys/files/147/r_s...
Stumpycoon
6 years, 9 months ago
That brings up another question, what happened to all the decepticons at the end of movie-3?  There were thousands and they had conquered the city and had a few dozen burrowing giant worm war machines.  Did they just wander off when their leader got casually spanked?
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
I guess so!

I can imagine them getting the message that basically all the leaders are dead, and they're like: https://i.giphy.com/media/jUwpNzg9IcyrK/giphy.gif
CanisRufus
6 years, 9 months ago
Shockwave was definitely one of the better looking of the Bayformers (Ok, that's not saying much... but in all the various continuities there's rarely been a bad Shockwave design), it's just such a shame they didn't actually do anything with him. It just further illustrates the lack of giving a crap about the history of the franchise. The role could have been filled by any random nameless background mook but they stuck the name and design elements of a popular, and often highly plot significant and influential, character on it to pretend they actually knew what they were doing and were trying to do something with the history and characters.    
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
>One of the biggest disappointments for me, as well as the crappy scripts, stupid plots etc is... If you're going to use the character name.... why not use the actual character? Sure I was expecting a redesign, but, I was expecting the character's personalities, motivations, etc to be recognisable.  

AGREED. That is one of many reasons why I cannot fathom why people think the first one was pretty good. It wasn't. The robot designs have never looked worse. They looked so bad, and so unconnected to the characters, that even Bay was willing to ease up. Thank god someone on the staff saw Josh Nizzi's fanart of Long Haul and it led to him becoming lead character designer. They kept the 'spiky Terminator' aesthetic, but they at least look kinda like themselves. (Until Bay rips their name off and calls them someone else. My friend has a theory that Hot Rod in this was meant to be Cliffjumper, and that makes so much more sense.)

But yeah, just seeing how fucking ugly all the Transformers were in Transformers, and how Bay gave no shits about keeping their character, and essentially shot the whole thing like a disaster movie, I knew there was nothing good here. Bay did not care about this franchise; he cared only about what he wanted to make.
asuraludu
6 years, 9 months ago
Earth is Unicron
Well it will never have full majesty without Orson Wells.

-Quintessa
My only wonder..... Does she have porn yet?

-Spike Witwicky
Can you imagine the conversation with his agent:
"Hey, LeBroooo. Bay called.... yeah yeah I know.  Fuck him and 'the funky bunch'  Listen they want to use your image in the new movie. I was thinkin they could... "Just Do It.... Eh...ehhhh....?  Look Look Lebouf.... This check can buy a lot of burgers, and pay off a few lawsuits.  I'mjustsayin......Ah thats my guy!  I'll sign the contract."



AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
>My only wonder..... Does she have porn yet?

To my surprise, I ain't found none.

Found this though: http://blueike.deviantart.com/art/TF5-Growing-Pains-Co...

>Can you imagine the conversation with his agent:

Possibly more like:
"They want you in the film."
"Holy God, no!! Send me to a concentration camp instead!"
"No, just your likeness in a photograph."
[massive sigh of relief] "Sure, okay, fine, sure."
asuraludu
6 years, 9 months ago
It must be bad when a robot alien squid woman has no porn.  Just for the tentacles alone should stir a few loins.
ZephonTsol
6 years, 9 months ago
On a side note, I've noticed that nearly nobody in the comments has yet to either notice or comment on the fact that in this movie, it's established that Hitler did not commit suicide, but rather was killed by a Decepticon pocketwatch.

Weird.
CanisRufus
6 years, 9 months ago
I think it's general expected of Bayformers now that the plot will be weird and stupid and so weird and stupid plot points pass without comment :P
AlexReynard
6 years, 9 months ago
Denial. When faced with overwhelming, Cthulhu-like absurdity, the brain simply slides away and pretends it never happened.
Blackraven2
6 years, 9 months ago
Man and everyone hates ME for liking Alien 4 resurrection.

It was comedy, damnit!
sigmaweapon
6 years, 7 months ago
I wrote a Rick and Morty fanfic where they visit a universe that was created by an event of quantum-uncertainty inside Michael Bay's brain. It was awesome.
AlexReynard
6 years, 7 months ago
How in the world did they survive?
sigmaweapon
6 years, 7 months ago
Well, during a high-speed chase, Rick drove through a windowpane carried by construction workers, then through a fruit stand, and then through a stack of wooden crates carrying chickens. All on purpose because the laws of physics in that universe dictate that anyone who does that becomes immune to bullets.
AlexReynard
6 years, 7 months ago
That's brilliant. I kind of want to read this now.
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