Humans aren't the problem, THE humans that were written into the movie are though. The only humans that didn't deserve a kick up the ass were the NEST guys. A big improvement on AOE though.. apart from the boyfriend.. he was a bit of a ****.

The thing they need to cut back on in regards to transformers are the souless White noise battle scenes (only TF1 got it right, the others had too many tinfoilcons). When it comes to one on one bot fights, chase scenes, and autobot and decepticon banter, gimme gimme gimme!

EDIT: Oh, and Dutch!

 

I agree with the both of you.

 

I said PROBABLY the majority; it was an estimation, not hardcore fact.

 

Personally, I don't think the films are that long; 2.5 hours is a perfect amount of time for a TF film, it's just that they waist too much time in the films.

 

I'm going to have to disagree. A roller coaster popcorn summer tent pole action film just doesn't need an epic run time. People are mostly there for the latest in cutting edge special effects and the sort of crazy over the top action only the biggest of the Hollywood films can pull off. The 118 minutes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a perfect example of that get in there have some fun and go home.

Anything over two hours really needs some heavy duty story telling and juggling a huge cast of characters with a lot of skill. It just seems hard to put story telling as a strong point to the Transformers films.

Although I will totally and completely agree with you that there is a lot that could be trimmed from the films that just waste time or pad out the run time. There are scenes that should have been moved to the DVD or Blu-Ray director's cut instead of the theatrical release.

 

Human screentime has never been the problem, IMO. It’s whether or not you like the humans. The military characters from one to three were quite fun guys who you wanted to stick around with. Then whenever it jumped to Sam you wanted to rip your eyes out. For an "Everyman", Sam was an incredibly unlikeable human being. I did prefer Whalberg's character to him.

So yeah, IMO, human screentime isn't the problem. It’s whether or not they're likeable characters to begin with.

 

Agreed  

 

The human characters are mostly raving lunatics. Like Autovolt 127 said, they act like weird cartoon characters and not like actual people. This is why I am actually coming to rank DOTM as the worst of the four films so far, because there isn't a single believable human character in the movie, except probably Epps and his crew. The robot stuff is good, by and large, but when you have this much human screen time in your film, it needs to hold up, too.

Totally agree, and we'll unfortunately never get that because Hasbro has to sell these guys as toys, and robots that turn into computers or game consoles or wristwatches make for, at best, a sub-line (see the first film's Real Gear line), and at worst, boring toys to play with. This was one of the things ROTF, with its kitchen scene, got right. And Ejector was a cool toy, but in toaster mode, he just sits there. He has no real playability. Plus, with no mass shifting, any robot that turns into a microwave or a television is going to be a small, sub-human-height robot, and that's not an imposing presence on screen and therefore unfit for a main heroic or villainous character. So they're stuck with civilian transportation disguises or military vehicles, because those are large and they make for fun toys.

 

I couldn't agree more. Lennox and Epps should have been the main human characters for the movies, not Sam. I know that we would have missed the "boy and his car" bit from the first movie, but that wore its welcome out. Perhaps the writers could have used the Witwicky motto of "no sacrifice, no victory" as foreshadowing for Sam's death in the first movie (dying to plunge the Allspark into Megatron's chest) and move the franchise on from there.

Cade was a pretty good character, though. I actually didn't mind Tessa, but the more I think about Shane, the more I dislike him. In my opinion, Cade was way too soft on him.

 

After watching Furious 7, I've come to the conclusion that the screenwriting isn't the problem with these movies. If you're a director, and you go into a film with the intention of delivering high-octane action scenes with a dash of story to hold it together, the least you could do is provide characters that the audience could relate to and/or like. In the first film, I liked Sam because he was funny and kind of the embodiment of every teenage nerd out there, and I also thought Maggie and Glen were cool characters (Lennox and crew didn't really do it for me since they kinda came off as just generic soldier guys like pretty much everybody in the first G.I. Joe movie) But at least a good portion of the human cast was likable in the first movie. With the second movie, eh, not so much. And I didn't give a crap about anybody by the time the third movie came around. The fourth movie sort of got me to like Mark Whalberg, but the decision to set the first third in rural Texas and the lack of any race outside of caucasian and Chinese really made me feel distanced from the film (especially the lack of minorities). At least you had Tyrese throughout the first three films, Anthony Anderson and Amaury Nolasco in the first, and Ramon Rodriguez in the second. I have a feeling that a good portion of you guys are gonna jump on me for bringing race into this, but this is just how I feel about the whole thing.

 

Shane was a piece of shit.

I find Lennox a dull character personally but that's because he's a I have a wife and daughter soldier archetype character. Epps was cool though.

 

I think what would've helped is if they had a better idea of how to handle the boy and his car story. The first movie should've ended with Sam dumping the chick in favor of having a friendship with Bee, to really drive home that Bumblebee was more than a car.

In the end, Bee was just the car Sam used to get the girl, in the first movie. Then in the sequels, he was little more than Sam's dog. He was never his own character, and always second to Sam, until AOE.

As for Sam in the sequels, Sam trying to find his place made for a decent story once, but unfortunately, they used it in both sequels. ROTF was about Sam wanting to be ordinary, but being pulled into the war, then DOTM flipped it around with Sam wanting to be an important part of the war, but getting forced to be ordinary.

One of the reasons I dislike DOTM is that it doesn't feel like a conclusion to the trilogy. It just feels like an unimportant part of it. A part of this is them seemly not knowing what to do with Sam, so they just did what they did with everything in the movie, recycle what they did in ROTF.

 

A wife and daughter that disappeared.

 

Ironhide1234: Sad but true.

Soundwaverulls: Now there's an idea: subvert the cliche token romance and have Sam remain loyal to his friend. It's a shame that things went the way they did.

I think part of the reason they used the same story twice is that RotF messed up and they wanted to try again. I wonder how it would have gone had the second movie been about Sam finding his place in the world and the third movie revolve around him trying to preserve what he's built by helping the Autobots through Simmons and the moon conspiracy. Hell, have him be engaged to or married to Mikaela (no need for Carly, just a recasting of the role), since a lot of folks are getting married younger and younger (or I'm just a late bloomer).

 

Not sure if joking or..  

 

To the same place Barricade went inbetween the first movie and DOTM.  

So yeah his whole characterization kind of felt meaningless in the long run. He was just there in the sequels.

 

Bad writing is the real problem, plain and simple.

That said it isn't about screen time. The Transformers get some of that, but most of it is there to showcase transformations and action scenes. They don't get anything in terms of character development. Every drop of that goes to the humans. And the more humans that are being developed, the less we know of or see the Transformers.

The error stems from the idea that viewers need to identify and 'like' a character in order for him/her to be featured. There's no way any of us can identify with a giant alien robot. It isn't possible. Instead of trying to cater to the lowest common denominator, and cropping the Transformers around that character, they should just focus on writing good characters and a good story. If it's well written, people will find something to like, even if they can't identify with it.

 

I agree with you, they screwed up the order with Sam's character how it should have progressed, it just makes him a whiny brat in DOTM.

Bingo. I don't see why I should relate to a character. I want to be entertained, if i like the character, that's how you relate to one, not having one traits that similar to me.