Official RoTF discussion thread **PART 1 /Reviews go here** [ SPOILERS ]

[westy]

Skids and Mudflap should have been removed from the film entirely, or at least made more intelligent than how they showed on-screen. terrible choice of dialogue exchange and not appropriate for Transformers.

disagree, they were great the way they were.

[Darth Spader]

this is not "trolling" so dont take it that way.

:wtf:

i just saw ROTF 1st showing. needless to say i was rather excited to see this and had my ticket a week in advance. the 1st offering was epic, and i expected another great robot crushing adventure. that said....it pains me to do this...

i have to question this movie...i really do. the plot is almost non existant...we see almost no transforming...scenes change without warning or reason, and the humor is crude and sometimes mystifiyng. instead of following a flow as did the 1st, this one hops and skips without mean or reason. instead of using a measured dose of slapstick humor, we are offered a spattering of crude bathroom humor. steel balls??? really??? come on...

aside from the obvious questions and complaints,
(why cant bumble bee talk, wasent devestaor a tank in the 1st one.. the gov made it clear about the robots in the 1st, now its a big secret and conspiricy....) i have to question the T3 esque "termin-atrix" wannabe....the pair of jar jar binks rip offs... the humping dogs...the leg humping mini robot... the constant testicle jokes, or parachute farts....the list goes on. granted the special effects, and robot battle sequences just kicked ass, and i loved seeing optimus and bumble bee get a chance to show thier stuff....but what happened to the others? they were almost non existant! i liked the few moments between megatron and star scream....very well done... but for some reason it seemd like starscream went from basic paint to tatoos without reason, and just halfway through the film. the whole relationship with the fallen and megatron seemed almost darth vader / emporer, and i realaly dont understand the point of having the twins. all they did was make crude racist or sexist remarks, and otherwise get in the way.

i would not be opposed to a simple edit and re release of the film. loose the twins, the humping dogs and the steel balls....and ill forget any of this happened. the rest of the film is awsome, but the aformentioned bad is simply to distracting to make this movie enjoyable.

[Scorpion1978]

Disappointing,

Just watched the movie:

*SPOILERS*

-The Action was great but too much humans in the action, not much Transformer on Transformer action.
The forrest scene must be the best, the pyramids comes second, Shanghai not that great.

-The Story: So many things lack explanation or logic, in the first movie Megatron kicked Prime's butt which was cool giving the movie some dark feeling. Now all of the sudden Prime is too strong that he takes on Megatron, Starscream and Grindor!!

Jetfire was a joke, and after so many years out of the sudden he discovers the Decipticons are all about destruction and decides to join the Autobots without any convincing. And his old fart image was not good.

Why introduce so many new Transformers with little or no screen time? Soundwave is only seen in space in alt mode.
Jolt, Acree and Sideswipe barely have a combined minute of footage. And too many Decipticons that we don't even know their names!!
If all the Transformers died in this movie other than Prime and Bee nobody would give a rats ass.

The Twins weren't funny, and Wheelie humping Meg's leg not funny at all.

The Doctor talking in a german accent!!!

Sam solving a riddle that no Transformer could!!!

Bee not talking again after he spoke in the end of the first movie!!!

[Mr Majestic]

Awesome movie! Well done Mr Bay, ILM and the cast & crew.

Good:
Prime was bad ass! - the intro and all his fight scene's were epic.
The forest fight scene - 3 against 1 robot death match.
Devastator was awesome on the Imax scene.
Good story line.
Lots of eye candy and funny moments.


Bad:
Soundwave's voice.....WTF! he didn't sound anything like the original Soundwave!
Devastators time onscreen was too short and he died to easily.
the dog humping, robot humping Megans leg thing was stupid.
Simmons in his underwear....WTF?
Multiple plot discrepancies and characters in multiple places at once.
Use of stock footage from TF1

[darthrage]

I'll be completely honest.

I'm quite mixed on it. But I'll give my full opinion on it after I viewed it with a better seat in 14 hours from now (its 4:30am and I've been bouncing between forums discussing it). I'll also catch it on IMAX this weekend.

But the one thing that pops in my mind that is a total positive is:

Soundwave was done correctly. Kudos to the writers for that.

I loved Soundwave's role

-communications officer
-loyal to megs
-emotionless voice
-awesome head/face appearance
-spy
-unleashing ravage

I'm glad he did not join the Egypt battle because he would've been killed in that without a proper fight.

[darthrage]

Use of stock footage from TF1

Can you point out which ones? I actually thought I saw stock footage from TF1 as well but can't remember which.

[Satan's Camaro]

Overall I thought the film was good. I loved the fight scenes. I didn't think the story was bad, I just thought it took a long time for all the characters to come together for the final battle.
Barricade was probably killed by NEST between the first and second films.
I think the robots that make up Devastator are different to the other ones seeen in the final battle.
I thought Wheelie was good.
However, I though Jetfire and Soundwave were wasted slightly and Jolt, Acree, Sideways, Sideswipe, Scorponok and Ratchet were hardly used at all.
Bumblebee still couldn't talk but I think that was so they could still make jokes through the radio. He could have talked a bit though.
It was confusing how Blackout and Bonecrusher were back though.
It would have been nice to have the robots talk more and to get a bit more of their characters so maybe a few less robots would have been better.

Having said that I bet it's hard to make a film like this and I thought it was enjoyable 75% of the time. I am looking forward to Transformers 3 and whatever Bay does next.

Thank you Bay for another good film.

[Satan's Camaro]

I also liked the Twins at first but then they began to grate a bit by the end of the film.

[SamWitwicky]

My only problems would be soundwaves voice. Too much robots. Bumblebee was nonexistant. Was jolt in the movie? I saw him once. Sam in autobot heaven was kind of cheesy too. Otherwise I like it as much or even better than the first film

[Johnd818]

This film was exactly what I hoped it would be. Beginning to end, non stop Transformer action. It's funny to read some of these opinions from others on this board. We have complaints about humans being in the movie...a movie that takes place on Earth. Complaints about "crude" bahavoir, from people who likely loved movies like Jackass, Wedding Crashers, and Hangover. To me though, it was a very good movie. Complaints about not having names to all robots, as if they're supposed to stop in the middle of a fight and introduce themselves. Besides, didn't you watch the old cartoons? How many times were their robots that were never introduced, just stood in the background, then vanished for a few episodes and came back with no explanation? Same fans of those cartoons complain about not knowing names of a couple Transformers.

I didn't go expecting an oscar worthy storyline with dramatic character development. Don't need to know the history of Jolt, Sideswipe, or others that some complain about not having much screen time. Don't care if Jolt won a ticket to earth from a poker game, fell in love with Arcee only for her to let him go in the ocean after promising no to. In fact, I felt they had enough screen time. The lack of lines or dialouge doesn't mean lack of screen time. If anything it leaves more possibilities for a third film.

I would agree the Arcee thing was annoying. Three bikes, three robots, one name and personality? I did like the fact that Devastator seemed to be just one giant Transformer. Some complained he was climbing the pyramid while Longhaul, Mixmaster, and others were fighting. To me it's quite simple, no explanation needed in the movie. All Transformers turn into something. Devastator just happened to transform into several construction vehicles. The others were their own robots. Not too hard to grasp.

I'll also admit the Twiins weren't as funny as I'd hoped they'd be. Wheelie, however, was hilarious. I felt as if Sam really grew up in this film. Prime showed a lot of what I loved about him as a kid. And Jetfire was surprisingly good. I loved that character as a kid, and the thought of him being some junky old fart didn't sit well with me until I saw the movie.

Lots of complaints that the movie jumps around a lot, was hard to follow, etc. I don't share that opinion whatsoever. To me it was quite easy to follow and understand, and my TF experience is limited to the 80's cartoon and the first movie. Never read a TF book or comic, yet I was able to follow it with ease. Like I said, the film was exactly what I had hoped it would be. The only "complaint" I would have was there were some scenes were the twins looked a little cartoony. Still not enough to deter me from watching and enjoying this movie again.

[Johnd818]

My only problems would be soundwaves voice. Too much robots. Bumblebee was nonexistant. Was jolt in the movie? I saw him once. Sam in autobot heaven was kind of cheesy too. Otherwise I like it as much or even better than the first film

Yeah I was kind of hoping for that old 80's cartoon voice. But it didn't bother me when I didn't hear it. After all, this isn't the old 80's cartoon. Still would have been really cool to hear that old vocoder voice.

As for Jolt, I saw him several times. On the road when they split into two teams. At the landing strip with the others at Prime's side. Fighting in the desert. "Jump starting" a certain character. They even call him by name.

[Satan's Camaro]

I didn't go expecting an oscar worthy storyline with dramatic character development. Don't need to know the history of Jolt, Sideswipe, or others that some complain about not having much screen time. Don't care if Jolt won a ticket to earth from a poker game, fell in love with Arcee only for her to let him go in the ocean after promising no to. In fact, I felt they had enough screen time. The lack of lines or dialouge doesn't mean lack of screen time. If anything it leaves more possibilities for a third film.

I agree with you that that's not what I went for and I loved the film. I've seen it twice so far and I'll definitely get it on DVD. I also agree with you that it wasn't hard to follow. I don't necessarily want to know their history but I just thought it would be good to have them talk to each other and get a sense of their personalities.
In the first film we got to know all the personalities of the Autobots and some of the Decepticons but the new robots didn't really have personailites apart from the Twins and Jetfire to an extent.

[primusnine]

Just saw it. Loved it. But can agree with most of the comments. Still, best movie of the year!!!

[Jammed9000]

Can you point out which ones? I actually thought I saw stock footage from TF1 as well but can't remember which.

This is what I was dissapointed with the most, overusing footage from the first. I can remember most from ROTF since it's in the first: The scout plane shot at the Scorponok battle in the first was toward the end in ROTF. When the 4 Autobots were arriving in the first there is an establishing shot, it is used again but as Decepticons coming to Paris. Another shot of the Protoforms flying past camera with bits coming off is used as some Decepticons in ROTF.

[xXRavenXx]

I'lll put it to you guys like this: Did you want to see giant robots kicking ass? Did you want to see a massive scale robot destruction derby? If so then you got it. If you wanted to see a script written with such percision as to rival The Departed... then you went to the wrong movie and probably shouldn't be here anyway. Easily my favorite Bay film for bang for the buck since Armageddeon. And I LOVED Armageddeon.
Best ovie experience I've had since he Dark Knight, and that too I saw at Midnight. Also when a local theater has 3 Midnight showings, adds a 12:03 at 9pm,a 12:04 at 10:30, and two more shows after 11:30 and they all sell out with people comming out with huge smiles on their faces; that is a great sign. We all got what we wanted.
First film people complained too many humans not enough robots. Now it's too much action needs more story. Truthfully, I think we are all happy as an ant at a picnic.
Big booms, big fun, big robots, big laughs, BIG! And I loved it. So say what you will, just remember though: This is a film based on a cartoon that (even though I loved) really did suck. And Michael Bay has made a toy line into (most likely) the all time biggest block buster film. Kudos! I'll see it again. And probably again, and maybe one more time after that. Everything a good movie should be.


Side Note: When the forest scene is over one guy has a different verbal reaction other than (sigh)... His was "F***, Not again!"

Oh, and Shadow, where was this bad @$$ wait til after the credits thing you talked about...?

[sideswipe2005]

This is what I was dissapointed with the most, overusing footage from the first. I can remember most from ROTF since it's in the first: The scout plane shot at the Scorponok battle in the first was toward the end in ROTF. When the 4 Autobots were arriving in the first there is an establishing shot, it is used again but as Decepticons coming to Paris. Another shot of the Protoforms flying past camera with bits coming off is used as some Decepticons in ROTF.

I saw that also... But I can understand Mike reusing the footage from the first as it saves on cost and he can add more things in the second. If i was in his shoes, I would do the same. Love the name of the ship BAYOS !

The other thing that i thought could have been better was the use of ratchet when prime was badly injured...no attempt was made by Ratchet when Prime was returned back to base. For a medic he should;ve checked something

[Jammed9000]

THE THINGS THAT DID WORK:

John Turturro had a good run in the movie. He had a lot to do and he made it work great.

Alice the Pretender was surprisingly well done. As soon as I heard there was a human looking Decepticon I thought "I hope its fake rumors" but she worked...in a really Terminator-ish way.

The action is just what I wanted: ROBOTS KICKING ASS. All the battles were great. I especially loved all the slo-mo head cracking...N I C E!
Forest fight was the best.

THE THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK:

MASSIVE plotholes with the Constructicons. There was TWO LongHauls!

Devastator didn't actually fight!?! And he didn't do much for plot either, just scratching the top of the pyramid....WTF?!? The trailer team shouldn't have used Devastator as a main marketing tool.

They changed Starscream's voice from the first! He was the coolest sounding in the first and with only two lines! Now he sounds like something from a cheap anime cartoon form the 80s.(Wink Wink)

The franchise is called "TRANSFORMERS". Why was there a severe lack of actual transformations? Yeah, you see Ironhide's, Jetfire's, Sideswipe's, and Optimus a bit and not to mention all the little things like the little balls making a mirror-bot but where was the detail? A good example from the first would be when Bonecrusher and Optimus transform on the highway. That was amazingly real. There was none of that realism coming through in the actual transformations atleast.

I liked all the humour but way too much humping and ballsack jokes.

What was with that robot heaven crap? Did the Primes come into his head and ressurect him? Is that what Jesus saw when he died?

The trailers gave away that the Fallen could teleport, that's all well and good but why can Jetfire? Is he a Prime? He can't be since the Fallen said there was only one left: Optimus.

"Revenge"!?! What the sh!t was the Fallen getting revenge for? Didn't he want to save their race? I seriously thought that he would be dead and Megatron's mission was to ressurect him(well it sorta was) but he is an old dude in a chair that doesn't do skwat.

[5 Star General]

so ummm HOW WAS THE IMAX VERSION?----HOW WAS THE IMAX VERSION?...WAS IT EASY ON THE EYES---forest battle?..any blurs at fast action scenes or is it crystal clear?---did pple go "ooooo" when optimus connect to megatron's face?

i'll be seeing it til saturday

[Johnny LaPhlegm]

I'lll put it to you guys like this: Did you want to see giant robots kicking ass? Did you want to see a massive scale robot destruction derby? If so then you got it. If you wanted to see a script written with such percision as to rival The Departed... then you went to the wrong movie and probably shouldn't be here anyway.

I hate comments like this. Everyone is so quick to write off any possibility for a compelling story because it's a summer popcorn action Bay toy flick; whatever. No I didn't expect the Departed, but I expected something interesting that made sense. I don't blame Bay, but I do blame Orci and Kurtzman. Trek was great imo, so clearly they could write something better. Imagine if the Car-Car Binks twins were Sideswipe and Sunstreaker and they were actually kick-ass characters, not lame comic relief. Farting parachutes, humping robots, Devastator balls? Why is the back of the Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. magically a huge field? Why do they use an unexplained "spacebridge" to teleport to Egypt, then hike to their destination on foot in a race against time? Why does Bumblebee not open his door for Sam in a life or death situation? Why can the Allspark kill Megatron in TF1 but resurrect him in TF2? On and on. Someone needed to proofread the script.

[5 Star General]

The trailers gave away that the Fallen could teleport, that's all well and good but why can Jetfire? Is he a Prime? He can't be since the Fallen said there was only one left: Optimus. .

Jetfire was a seeker--i i think-and he can only open "worm holes" to beat space and time to find suns/energy sources---

[5 Star General]

Why can the Allspark kill Megatron in TF1 but resurrect him in TF2? On and on. Someone needed to proofread the script.

son did u watch TF1---go ask iron hide

"...the cube is raw power, it can destroy you both..."

your TV--plug it in a 120v outlet,, ur TV works fine--plug it into a 10000v outlet--what happens?

imagine the little splinter at a 120v splinter

[5 Star General]

This is what I was dissapointed with the most, overusing footage from the first. I can remember most from ROTF since it's in the first: The scout plane shot at the Scorponok battle in the first was toward the end in ROTF. When the 4 Autobots were arriving in the first there is an establishing shot, it is used again but as Decepticons coming to Paris. Another shot of the Protoforms flying past camera with bits coming off is used as some Decepticons in ROTF.

they could not have use it from another angle cause the military said so----for the protoforms---eehhh they could have use like a 3rd person view--and the switched it up...

oh for the military said so comment--im just guessing

[5 Star General]

One thing that really stood out to me as a huge mistake.

Was it just me or were the constructicons two places at once?

Specifically, I could have swore Devastator was on the pyramid while Longhaul, Rampage and Mixmaster were fighting the Autobots.

NOOO NOOO NOOOOO-----the constructicons copied Agent smith from the matrix reloaded copying himself ability thing----:lol:lol:deadhorse1: jus kidding

[Koi]

There are lots of things that i like about ROTF. And one thing disappointed me so hard - transformers are so weak, they died so easly . Small group of human soldiers with human technologies destroyed them like puppets. There is no sense of real danger about them.

I like the movie. Thank you.

[First Gen]

I think, and this is just MY opinion, that anyone who blames Michael for the "missed points" of the film are ridiculous. The fault of the plot, the character models and how the movie played out rests solely on the writers.

I think M Bay did an amazing job of taking the script he was given and trying to make you feel as though it was complete without it really being so. The action pace reminded me of Bad Boys 2 and I like that the actors really pushed to make the bad script work.

Kudos Michael, I can tell you worked your ass off trying to make this film the best it could be. Hope you get a better script to work with in the third installment.