Official RoTF discussion thread **PART 2 /Reviews go here** [ SPOILERS ]

[darthrage]

"I'm gonna pop a cap in yo' ass~!!"



Just "comedy"? Or lazy racial stereotypes that everyone would rather ignore than talk about...?

how is that racism?

That just the way kids talk with their urban street slang

I don't care that you heard it from a movie where the main characters are AFrican American. This apparently what some youth say to each other. And that is where that came from?

These are young teenaged Autobots

My teenaged cousins who are in their late teens and early 20s speak in slang and in internet lingo all the time. This is no different from saying words like "PWN3D" or "Noob" or "have your ass handed back to you". Its all just urban slang.

Asian and white kids say pop a cap in yo ass just as much as black kids do so what is your point??

[carlpickard]

how is that racism?

Need I list the reasons? Okay then!

- They look simian, with wide faces and huge ears
- The gold bucktooth
- The pseudo-modern day rap-age jive ('bitch-ass', 'punk' etc)
- They appear to be stoned all the time
- They are illiterate
- Writers Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci admit to being offended upon seeing them

Need more?

[Darth Stitch]

This is such a:deadhorse1:
The Twins' line about reading doesn't come off as "WE CAN'T READ" to me. They're highly advanced SENTIENT robots, for the love of Primus. Of COURSE they can read! They just don't LIKE to do it. You can learn reading in school but ain't nothin' gonna make you wanna read if you don't feel like it. And y'all like playing with the English language and adopt weird and funny accents because you're foreign and you're just fooling around and you have absolutely NO IDEA that some people might take offense, why shucks, that's understandable. If you have a sense of humor, it sounds funny coming out of a foreigner.

Just maybe.... THAT was the point of the Twins talking jive? Because they're ALIEN and they're mischievous and silly and they're trying out things on this new world they're on and they thought this might suit them?

Sigh.

[nelson]

"MWAH, MWAH, MWAH!!!!"

Dry your eyes... And open them while you're at it. This is the most racist movie to ever come out of Hollywood.

Shame on you Michael Bay.

Bye, bye.

[martinwellbourne]

Just maybe.... THAT was the point of the Twins talking jive? Because they're ALIEN and they're mischievous and silly and they're trying out things on this new world they're on and they thought this might suit them?

Thats a bit of a stretch...........

I've been reading the boards for a while and just decided to post for the first time. I've got to say I was rather offended by the racial stereotyping in this movie. It was just so...for lack of a better word...pathetic. I really wanted to love this movie like I loved the first, but it was a total mess, absolutely all over the place. I know the writers strike didn't help, and that Bay himself spent that time setting up action sequences, and the writers then 'joined the dots' between them. Clearly this is not a good way to make a movie.

[lightning]

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Trailbreaker]

I've got to say I was rather offended by the racial stereotyping in this movie.

What movie did you see?

[nelson]

Just to unnerve him now that he's banned....

Need I list the reasons? Okay then!

- They look simian, with wide faces and huge ears

So they have big ears, have you looked at Optimus's ears. They're dumbo-large.

- The gold bucktooth

So gold buck tooth equals being black? Millions of people of all races have at least one gold tooth.

- The pseudo-modern day rap-age jive ('bitch-ass', 'punk' etc)

I guess he's never been to a mall and heard White, Asian and Hispanic kids talking like that. I guess he never heard Eminem and Vanilla Ice.

- They appear to be stoned all the time

So being stoned equals black. You ARE delusional.

- They are illiterate

Being illiterate equates to being black? Who's the racist one now?

Just incse you didn't bother to hear the movie, only the Primes could read the ancient language. So that means, BB, Ironhide, RC, and the rest of the gang would be able to read it.

Writers Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci admit to being offended upon seeing them

They were not.

Need more?

No we just had enough of you.

[martinwellbourne]

I think you're really missing the point of that post nelson...... The fact is that the characters of Skins and Mudflap played off a negative, ethnic stereotype which 99% of viewers will associate with the black community. You can argue all you like but that is a simple fact.

And Kurtzman and Orci were offended by the twins. Kurtzman stated that he "wasn't thrilled" when he saw them, and Orci said he felt the same, adding "I'm not easily offended, but when I saw it, I thought, 'Someone’s gonna write about that.'" How right he was.

[Trailbreaker]

If the twins were a stereotype of anything, it would have to be the entire human race itself.

btw Nelson, your sig is an epic win.

[Michael Do]

ok so is jetfire maybe still alive? when he sacrifice himself, he ripped his spark off of his body but anyone notice the spark still undamaged?

[nelson]

I think you're really missing the point of that post nelson...... The fact is that the characters of Skins and Mudflap played off a negative, ethnic stereotype which 99% of viewers will associate with the black community. You can argue all you like but that is a simple fact.

Show me data to back your facts.

Anyone can be offended by anything they didn't like. There are only a few people that got offended by this and most of them are just trying any and which way to get at the success of this movie. Had it tanked this wouldn't even be an issue.

I've had losers emailing me saying that BumbleBee was stereotyped as Asian because he's yellow, does martial arts, protects Sam and is quiet (passive and docile). See what happens when you read to much into something?

People will invent anything just to be hateful at the success of the film.

It's sad that this was started by an idiot at chud who wrote an article pretending to be offended so that his site could get more traffic.

[taybrian1]

ok so is jetfire maybe still alive? when he sacrifice himself, he ripped his spark off of his body but anyone notice the spark still undamaged?

I doubt it. It may be like a human heart. Those suckers can keep beating after they get pulled out, but they'll stop sometime. I think a spark might work in the same respect.

[redqueenar]

ok so is jetfire maybe still alive? when he sacrifice himself, he ripped his spark off of his body but anyone notice the spark still undamaged?

I *love* this idea. I feel the same way about Arcee being only partially destroyed since not all the bikes were destroyed. One thing we still HAVEN'T seen is how Transformers heal! We seriously need to have to sit down with Ratchet to hear all about how that works...

[taybrian1]

I *love* this idea. I feel the same way about Arcee being only partially destroyed since not all the bikes were destroyed. One thing we still HAVEN'T seen is how Transformers heal! We seriously need to have to sit down with Ratchet to hear all about how that works...

I'd love to sit in on that discussion!

[Sillypuddy]

Thats a bit of a stretch...........

I've been reading the boards for a while and just decided to post for the first time. I've got to say I was rather offended by the racial stereotyping in this movie. It was just so...for lack of a better word...pathetic. I really wanted to love this movie like I loved the first, but it was a total mess, absolutely all over the place. I know the writers strike didn't help, and that Bay himself spent that time setting up action sequences, and the writers then 'joined the dots' between them. Clearly this is not a good way to make a movie.

as opposed to what????? lets take a few examples to see if ROTF is just so bad.....

1)The Hangover.... hrrmmmm lets see.....yeah...ok how about the gay asian...yeah...there was a stereotype....how about Heather Grahams character....she was a red neck stripper...another stereotype....Mike Epps played a drug pusher....hey...another stereotype.....guess what??? I thought the movie was hilarious!!!!

2)The Fast and The Furious..... apprearantly, all latino women wear hot pants and only hang out with guys with modified hondas...same same goes for asian girls too in most of these films....funny... didn't hear any screaming about stereotyping.....

3)Transformers (2007).....I don't remember anybody complaining about Jazz and his obvious african american personality...he swore and used slang.....

4)Saving Private Ryan.... lets see.....there is the Jewish guy...the Italian guy....the religous zealot who was a marksman...nobody complained about them....

what is the difference??? does being a war drama as opposed to a sci-fi/action movie make it ok to have personality distinctions..

5)Short Circuit-- Johnny Five talked in so many different stereotypical ways there are too many to count.....


Skids and Mudflap are comic relief for the movie....I wonder what people would say if they were portayed as gay robots...or pacifists....or god help us....robots that just talked like robots w/out any personality at all...

Its everybody's right not to like a character or a movie or a depiction....everybody has an opinion, but to call the twins a bad racial stereoype is flat out ridiculous.....

[martinwellbourne]

People will invent anything just to be hateful at the success of the film.

Again, that's a huge sweeping statement, and not grounded in fact. The 'seige mentality' on these boards is ludicrous at times, and this has been especially the case since the racism furore. I'm not interested in 'hating' Michael Bay, but found the depiction of certain characters in this movie to be reductive and offensive in the extreme.

I hadn't read the CHUD article but did just now - did you mean the "Little Black Sambots?" one by Devin Faraci? Why do you assume that he was "pretending to be offended"?

A quick Google "News" search for 'transformers racism' throws up 4,903 articles from newspapers and magazines. It's not a small issue.

[darthrage]

Need I list the reasons? Okay then!

- They look simian, with wide faces and huge ears
- The gold bucktooth
- The pseudo-modern day rap-age jive ('bitch-ass', 'punk' etc)
- They appear to be stoned all the time
- They are illiterate
- Writers Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci admit to being offended upon seeing them

Need more?

You really need to get out more often. Because you are quite clueless.

[nelson]

[QUOTE=martinwellbourne;97089]Again, that's a huge sweeping statement, and not grounded in fact. [quote]

Not as stupid and ludicrous as calling two ROBOTS black.

Why do you assume that he was "pretending to be offended"?

I've known him for a while.

A quick Google "News" search for 'transformers racism' throws up 4,903 articles from newspapers and magazines. It's not a small issue.

Get real. 4,900 plus out of billions and billions of posts and opinions out in the internetz? It's not even a atomic-sized issue.

If I search "Is Obama Muslim" I get 23.5 million pages and articles. That doesn't mean that he is a Muslim and that those who think it's a valid issue deserve to be paid attention to.

[redqueenar]

Okay, I hate getting into this crap. I don't really want to talk about this anymore but... but... am I the only person ON THIS ENTIRE STUPID PLANET to have been gleefully calling Skids Yoda-Bot for the past three months? It's green! It has pointy ears! It was designed by ILM! HEL-LO?

[martinwellbourne]

[QUOTE=nelson;97094]

I've known him for a while.

Oh really? Personally?

Also - Do you now accept that Kurtzman and Orci had a problem with the Twins?

[nelson]

Oh really? Personally?

I've known of him.

Also - Do you now accept that Kurtzman and Orci had a problem with the Twins?

No. They didn't seem offended with Jazz, why start now.

I just though they had to do what they had to do and pass the buck on to Bay.

[Ed Fuego]

You know, as much as it has irritated to read these arguments about the twins being racist, I have to admit it's been on my mind over the last couple days. Not because I think the were racist in any way, but rather because I've been trying to figure out why people would see them as racist. And I just don't get it.

And I started thinking about some of the lines that they had in the movie, some of their behaviors, and I began to try and figure out who that I've met act like them. And then I figured it out: teenage boys. When I was 13, and my brother was 10, we used to push each other, fight/wrestle each other, and call each other pussies every chance we got. We would sneak around our house or yard trying to be ninjas. We acted like Skids and Mudflaps!

The twins aren't racist depictions of African-Americans; they're depictions of two kid brothers. Maybe the people who are arguing this racism idea never had a kid brother, or maybe they forgot what it was like to be a kid, but once you put it in that context, the lines, the behaviors make perfect sense. In addition, it plays into the idea of it being a movie for kids, as Bay stated. Because when you're a kid (and even when you're not), calling someone a pussy, acting stupid, and behaving in an immature way are perfecting normal. Hell, I got together with some of my college buddies two weeks ago and that's pretty much all we did all weekend. And all of us are 30 years old and three of us are doctors!

It seems like so many people who, unlike me, were HUGE fans of the original cartoon and the idea of Transformers, and wanted to see the Transformers on the big screen with modern cgi and the like. Well think about this; when they became fans of the cartoon, they were probably about 10 years old. If they had seen this movie then they would be laughing their asses off at all the "dumb" jokes. But not that they're adults, they can't believe that somebody would find these jokes funny. They're outraged. What they don't realize is that kids, the kids that this movie was made for, think the movie is awesome. Maybe if they tried just a little harder to remember what it was like to be a kid, they would too.

Ed Fuego

[alexsm]

A quick Google "News" search for 'transformers racism' throws up 4,903 articles from newspapers and magazines. It's not a small issue.

hey, here you are lyning, google news finds 132.

[nelson]

One thing that surprises me is the people that make these false and delusional accusations say that these robots were portrayed black.

Really? How do blacks behave? Are we to believe these people that all black people speak like Tupac, DMX and Jay-Z? Are gansta-thug a race?

It's as stupid, moronic and absurd as claiming that Optimus Prime is white because he speaks properly.