Ok so now the verdict is out. DOTM is out. General audience loved it, G1 fans are divided over it and the critics hate it. What factors in your opinion prevented it from... ah you read the title.

My opinions:
-The production team (script writers) did not think 3 movies ahead when they made the first one.
-Editing problem. How did scene A get to scene B?
-The tie ups with companies. For example, Ferrari for sure insisted on using the name Dino instead of Mirage.
-Inconsistencies like portraying Megs to be way much stronger than Prime in the first movie then in ROTF Prime can take on Megs and 2 other decepticons. Then on DOTM he kills Megs in 5 seconds.
-The dead then getting resurrected again storyline. I mean people really were asking "why can't they use the shard or the matrix to revive everyone who died?".
-Way too much human involvement. In the first movie Blackout was really invincible against human weapons in Qatar but in DOTM Shockwave was getting hurt by M4 guns by Epps and his mercs not unless they upgraded the ammos for the said weapons.
-Unexplained disappearances of some characters during crucial scenes.
-The awesome but always short battle scenes with major decepticons like soundwave or shockwave getting pawned easily.
-Autobots rarely getting killed in action except for Jazz and Prime (resurrected).
-Prime becoming too powerful against decepticons during the course of the movie.
-Re-using of scenes especially in ROTF.
-Bot to bot interaction was really minimal therefore no characterization.

Any other thoughts?

 

As far as DOTM cutting the twins really hurt the storyline.

Say what?

Because in those scenes lie humanity going against the Autobots before it all went to hell.

"You may lose faith in us but never in yourselves. From now on the fight will be on your own."

That statement lost its impact. Bay should never have to give in to critics.

 

The fact that ROTF focused WAY too much on the humans and especially the love relationship between Mikayla and Sam, when in DOTM it's a whole new chick that by all rights should be far out of Sam's game?

 

I think anyone looking for problems with these films will find them, and people who are just looking to enjoy them will do just that. I'm a diehard G1 fan, but I let go of my need to see everything follow G1 a long time ago. I've grown since then, there's no reason these characters can't have grown as well.

To some of your points:

I believe Kurtzman and Orci were envisioning at least two films when they started writing, so they could have in fact envisioned three. We may never know what DotM would have looked like in their hands, but I think Ehren Kruger did a decent job of adding the bookends.

Optimus getting stronger than Megs makes sense for two reasons. Megatron died, so there's no reason to believe he ever got back up to full strength, and then Optimus gets the Matrix, which also explains his easy victory over the Fallen. The Fallen wasn't hiding from the remaining Primes because he wanted a vacation...they were a serious threat to him.

Resurrected Transformers happen regularly in nearly every TF continuity, and both the shard and Matrix likely had their limits.

There's really no way to bring the Autobot/Decepticon war to Earth and not involve the dominant lifeform here. You'd have to go out of your way to avoid the human reaction, and if you're going to go through that trouble, why bring them here at all? And wouldn't it make sense for the humans to get better at fighting Decepticons over time? Especially when they have Autobots working with them toward that end?

If you thought major characters died easily in these films, rewatch the TF animated movie. Most of the major Autobots went down within the first 15-20 minutes. War involves a lot of death, especially when you don't have the AllSpark sitting around anymore to just recreate whole bodies and sparks.

Ironhide would disagree with you. As would Wheeljack (Q), Jetfire, and possibly Wheelie, Brains, and Chromia.

And I'd say DotM did a pretty good deal of characterization between Optimus, Megatron and Sentinel Prime. Bumblebee and Laserbeak as well.

The movies weren't perfect, few are, especially adaptations of comics/toys, and you do have some good points about the editing issues, re-use of TF animation models, and the naming problems, but I still can't say those make this a bad trilogy.

Hell, the even best trilogy (arguably) Star Wars (IV, V, VI) still to this day has its fair share of arguing over perceived mistakes and missteps. LotR has the same issue. TF isn't any different.

I'm just glad we got a live action trilogy out of these characters.

 

Only factor for me was the second film. If not for the misuse of Devastator(balls would have been fine if they weren't pointed out by simmons), long drawn out middle and horrible use of the Fallen the movie would have been good. I think it would have made even more money than it did. And people wouldn't be so skeptical about the third.

 

Agreed! Plus it would've made a bigger impact on the Autobots ranks, giving the viewer a feeling of despair after THREE of them had just been killed, not just one. It would've also raised Sentinel Prime's bad ass status even higher and established him as a major, major threat.
I think that with the Twins being edited out, the Autobots got home subplot went with them too. Just a feeling.

 

Self-righteous critics.

 

So all relationships should be based on looks?  

I think if they tried to make a good story instead of filling it in with stupid humor then the films would have been 10 times what they are now.

 

Agreed with you 100%. I started this thread not to look for mistakes but what hindered the movies to be the best. I enjoyed the 3 movies completely but I wanted the feeling that after each movie ends I would not be thinking "I wish they could've done it better". But again, I completely agree with you.

 

Four words: Bay, Orci, Kurtzman & Kruger. Despite how many people were involved with these movies behind the scenes, awful writing mixed with manic directing & sloppy editing is all you can really blame it on. Producers just put up the money, studios just put up the budget & distribution, and the actors, artists, animators & composers just do what they're told by the director. Even the Bay defenders can't deny that at the end of the day, everything good AND bad falls on his and the writer's plates. The scripts, the dialogue, the plots, the screenplays, the moods, the camera angles, the shooting styles, the editing... no matter how you swing it, it all comes back to them. Especially in this case where Bay has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure everyone knows exactly how much control he demanded to have over these movies when he finally agreed to do them. He wants all the credit but none of the blame. But at the same time, I do sort of feel bad for the guy at times since he takes a LOT of shit that should actually be directed squarely at the writers since they're the ones that actually came up with virtually all of this. They don't get slammed even 1/10 as much as they rightfully should.

 

I also think that Bay wasn't really given a free rein over the movies. I'm sure if he is he wouldn't have done some of there:

-inserting Jolt in ROTF. I'm sure Chevrolet forced him to include the Volt for marketing purposes.
-releasing the movie adaptation and comics way before the showing date. Kinda spoils the movie. Also big plots are different in the books compared to the movies.
-the naming of Dino and Que.
-editing out important stuff like the death of the twins in DOTM.

 

This. These things sound more like studio intervention than anything.

 

Fair enough, but realistically the last minute inclusion of Jolt and the movie adaptation comic books really have no weight at all in helping make or break these movies. I mean, ROTF wasn't better or worse because an extra Autobot was thrown into the background, and likely 99% of the general movie going audience never read (let alone even knew/cared about) the adaptation comics.

As for the naming of Dino & Que, my money is on Bay for that one considering his stubbornness to keep Brawl as Devastator in the first movie despite all the outcry or the fact that Hasbro themselves marketed the character as Brawl. And as for the editing - we know full well who had his fingers in that pie. He dictated how they did it for movies 1 & 2, so there's realistically no chance in hell he sat back and let someone else do it for his big "masterpiece" grande finale.

 

Factors that prevented the TF movies from becoming the best trilogy ever?

Kurtzman and Orci

 

I'd just say Kurtzman & Orci, because Kruger did alright with DotM in my book. It felt like Kurtzman & Orci left the franchise way too easily. I'm not convinced they were all that invested in it, which is sad given that they spent two films and various comics shaping this story.

 

I wanted to only say Kurtzman & Orci as well since those two clowns started this whole mess, but unfortunately Kruger was apart of ROTF before eventually taking things solo for DOTM. But to his credit, he definitely gave it more of a fighting chance despite how many plot holes he also created and/or left. I'd like to know what he would have done with the entire trilogy if it was in his hands though.

 

I'd love to know as well, and I had plenty of doubts about him handling DotM himself. I'm glad he proved most of them wrong.

One particular question I'm dying to know from him is whether it was his intention to bring Hot Rod into the mix and if so what stopped him. I recall an early script or two related to Kruger mentioning him, but nothing came of it.

 

After seeing what Kruger did with DOTM I think he would have been a better choice from the start.

 

I can see where both you and the OP are coming from, and I can agree with you both on some things.
However comparing Bayformers to The Star Wars trilogy of the LOTR trilogy. is a bit unfair.
Yes, SW and LOTR are still heavily debated over, and they both have their share of issues, but I think both of those trils are good examples of good story telling, where Bayformers storytellings are confusing, and shallow clusterfucks, imo.
Bayformers just never got their point across well enough.

 

I work for a publishing house in Greece where we make books for kids / adults to learn the English language. We start writing the books with a lot of attention and patient pace, but we're always, ALWAYS running out of time in the end, and we are forced to make things a lot faster near the end of the deadline, skipping slow, careful editing in order to do hasty, half-read corrections.

I think that's the problem with DOTM. Think about it. All Transformers which appear in the beginning of the movie have decent screen time and respectable emphasis. Megatron in Africa, Prime and Ratchet to the moon, laserbeak's assassinations, the battle against the Dreads ...

But when the movie reaches its latter half, everything becomes more hasty, more attention-lacking, less characterization, less of everything. More explosions, more flash, but less substance. Personally, I think the movie starts to go ape-s**t as far as character emphasis goes, when Sentinel Prime betrays the Autobots.

I think the film crew had a lot, lot more things to offer in the film, but they run out of time and crammed up everything in the end.