Why TF1 was better.

In a word? Spectacle.

In TF1, every transformation was pretty much a 'Holy Crap!' moment. The robots were always larger than life, and they felt important. For once, I applauded the use of slow motion, such as in the Optimus/Bonecrusher tangle, or Ironhide doing the double jump; it allowed me to go "Holy shit! These are freakin' giant robots!".

In ROTF, the robots are just... there. The first 'magical' transformation, occurs in the dark, with a black robot, so it just looks like a mess of parts. For the rest of the movie, for us, and the characters, the robots are just taken for granted. Demolisher is meant to feel big, but he doesn't, because he just seems to be running away. The use of Blackout in the opening scene of the first movie worked because it again highlighted that these were giant robots coming to kill us all.

In the end, I was left simply not caring that there was a big robot deathmatch going on. Certainly none of the actors seem to have been directed so as to give a crap, they all just accepted it as part of the proceedings. Point in case, Leo. He was always terrified, yes. But not by giant robots. There was never a 'OH MY GOD! IT'S A FREAKIN' ROBOT!' moment, it was just "Ah! They're trying to kill me!". Also, look at the casts' reaction to being kidnapped by Decepticons. They're not scared that they've been abducted by GIANT, MOTHER 'EFFING ROBOTS, they're scared of Sam falling out of a car, and Shia's "We got off on the wrong foot" speech just removes any tension from the scene.

So, to sum up, in ROTF, the movie franchise lost its heart and energy.

In my opinion TF1, although far from classy, had much more flow. Stuff seemed to go more fluid. The plot wasn't so good and the jokes were bad, but not half as bad as in ROTF to me.

People saying 'the plot doesn't matter' are only half right to me. While I agree that Transformers isn't exactly high culture, and that the general plot is pretty average, it's clear that they couldn't AT LEAST keep the same level that was present in the first movie. One thing I have said to people is 'I'm fine with Transformers having a bad plot, but there HAS to be a minimum'. For me, ROTF was way below the minimum level in that part, no matter how AWESOME the fighting was.

I think ROTF suffers from the same things alot of sequels have: the people making the film themselves do not understand what made the first movie good, and instead, are just randomly upscaling things to make a 'better' movie.

It was the same with The Pirates Of The Carribean and The Matrix sequels, just to name a few.

In this case, bigger explosions, more robots, more outrageous humor.

The only part I can agree with is the more robots part..it's Transformers after all, so it's good that, with a bigger budget, there is more time to do them justice. Not that I mind the human parts, if done right.

But I've never seen a movie in which the hate and the love were so strongly divided, so there's alot of people that liked it. Good for them!

Agreed. The heart and soul of a movie is the plot. What motivates the characters, why do they feel that way? Explosions are fine but not for explosions sake.
This latest movie has left me so dissapointed that I am having a real hard time getting up the will to see it in IMAX as I promised the kids we would.
How was it that Animated had a healthy balance of explosions and character building and maturity in 20 minutes and Fallen couldn't muster a single "Gee I really care about that character" in its 2 1/2 hours?
I believe "sequelitis"could be nipped in the bud if the writters AND director would realize that the reason we liked the first movie so much was that it introduced us to a very unique set of creatures who had their own foibles and fears, but found common cause in the protection of that which is good and right. Even to the point of self-sacrifice. That catches an audiences imagination. All else is decoration on the cake.
If I was a great deal younger, I think I'd cry.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much all it had going for it.

Which is great, but it's a gimmick in a movie, it's not enough to make the movie great. The story, direction, etc do though. (too bad there was no story, and the direction was terrible. Shaky cam ftmfl.)

But it's okay that the robots are just... there. We knew by the end of the film that the Autobots were taking up permanent residence on Earth, Prime was telling more to come down, and Starscream ran off (then, presumably to Cybertron. Now, we know it was to The Fallen.) as a coward. We don't really need to go back through the *GASP* "OMG! Giant fuckin' robots are everywhere! Who'da 'magined dat?!" stuff. It was great in the first movie because of the wow factor. Now that the wow factor has long since died out, there's really no reason to continue using that as a crutch to get the film moving again. I liked that we continued with the story as is, in progress. Just like a TV season you've waited all summer for.

Why would the people involved, care at this point, or even be shocked? Seriously, once you've seen Optimus, Megatron and company duke it out, and you know it's par for the course from here on out, it's kinda taken away the "OMG WOW!" factor. I don't see it as them not caring (as evidenced by Sam's panic during the forest fight), I see it as them being immune to the shock of the violent matches at this point. Desensitized, basically. And Sam trying to sweet talk Megatron was not only funny, but it was smart, and brave. Funny because he's talking to a giant alien wanting to kill him, and Sam's schmoozing. (How is that not funny?) The one liners and quips like he had during that scene, show's Sam's intelligent, quick witted, and self sufficient. Brave, because it takes balls to try and talk down your 3+ story captor who wants to crush you like a bug and squeeze the information out of your brain, literally. I thought the scene was entertaining, well done, and didn't have any less tension than it needed. Because as soon as Sam was done being a smart ass, Scalpel's trying to bore into his skull and the tension climbs right back up.

No, not even close. ROTF took the wow factor of the first movie and used it to lay the groundwork. ROTF then built upon that groundwork into a very successful moneymaking machine, and rightfully so. The Autobots are clearly the underdogs in their fight against the Decepticons, yet good always wins against evil ("a feel good" kinda thing), the Autobots had a lot of heart, especially Bumblebee and the twins. And even Wheelie. As for losing it's energy, not even close. ROTF came at you like a nuclear powered freight train with guns blazing, and kept going straight through to the credits.

TF07 has one positive thing going for it: The wow factor. Remove that, and you have an absolutely terrible film.

1.) I don't give a damn about Sam's story anymore, because it's boring. (Sadly, I like the Witwickys, they were the only saving grace for that segment of the film. I still couldn't give two shits about his story though.)

2.) The TFs had a lot of heart, especially Optimus and Bumblebee, but that only goes so far without the wow factor, and it quickly would've become cartoonish, silly, and foolishly saturday morning cartoon sentimental. When your whole audience ends up going "Awwww" in a Full House moment in a movie about giant deadly robots killing the shit out of one another, it just kinda ruins the whole experience. And that's what you'd have if the wow factor had gone.

3.) The jumping back and forth between Sam's story, the military, the hackers, the Autobots, the Decepticons, and back, was just silliness. The film was all over the place and felt like a mess.

4.) The pacing was terrible. It just drags and drags, and drags.


1.1.) This time, Sam's story wasn't deep, but it didn't need to be. It was the light hearted comic relief, and it worked. Aside from the brownie scene running a bit too long, it was genuinely funny, and his parents are quite literally one of the best pieces of the film.

2.2.) Optimus had less heart, which still bothers me, but his general "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" ideal remains intact. Bumblebee and the twins, however, really shined here. Bumblebee is a wonderful character in this film and when he tells Sam he'll remain by his side through all of it, it tugs on your heart strings and you feel that "*sigh* That's the TFs I remember. All is good."

3.3.) A lot of jump cuts in this film, and the first time you watch the film, it's a bit much to follow because there's just so much jam packed into it, however, the second viewing shows you it's handled better, and you can follow the flow of it quite well. Like I said, the movie comes at you like a freight train, this time you can hop on and enjoy the ride. Bay certainly learned to cut it better, and he used next to no shaky cam. A total plus.

4.4.) The meet and greet with Leo went on a bit too long, but it was saved by Sam's parents and made it watchable. (They couldn't even save it in the first film.) Beyond that, and one or two slightly draggy moments, the rest of the film was nicely fast paced. You got right into the story, only had a few stop lights along the way, and got to the end of your trip in an acceptable time frame, and enjoyed it along the way.

ROTF is definitely the better of the two films. It's not perfect by any means, but TF07 doesn't even come close. And one of the big problems? TF07 has been called "Transformers in name only", well compared to ROTF, they're right. This was pure TF, and it was awesome.

Good post AnimatedFan.

I especially agree with you over point 3, the jumpy cuts. I felt that especially during the final battle (last 40 odd minutes) the jumping between soliders on a bright battlefield to the interior of the AWACS craft or a command bunker, for some gormless military type to say "Yes" or "received" or "Roger that", and then cut back to the bright desert 3 seconds later was quite jarring. I thought maybe from an editting point of view the audience could have considered it implicit that the military had received and assented after the third time this cutting to and from the battlefield was made.

AnimatedFan.

You say what's the point in spectacle now that we have established the basics...

What's the point in having a massive CGI explosion fest, if there's no spectacle?

The story? Hardly. Incoherent trash.

The characters? Shia plays Shia. Optimus is physco. Megan Fox is eye-candy. We have these characters thrown at us like we already know them. For the humans and Bumblebee? Okay, they handle them well. The Autobots and Decepticons, however... Wow. What a mess. The suck-up, sniveling Starscream comes almost completely out of left field, especially from the competent second-in-command thing he had going in TF1.

So, even if TF1 only had spectacle going for it, at least it had SOMETHING going for it. You could accept all the ridiculous plot contrivances because of the spectacle. Because ROTF loses it, you find yourself realising how godawful the story is.

And it would be a stretch to say the editing in this film is better. Scene cuts range from serviceable at best, to utterly confusing at worst (I'm looking at you Megatron suddenly being in space).

I would deconstruct your post more thouroughly, but currently, I have limited time.

Also, nice, whoever rated it. YOU'RE COOL.

i can agree, the first one was better in that way, what with the whole sense of wonder and mystery and spectacle. but the action in ROTF was 10 times better.

Xbox Live: Mr Poho

I think the problem here is TF1 looks great by comparison to TF2.

TF1 was no gem either it just didnt create a plot hole a minute and since it didnt attempt to be constantly funny with Bay's brand of IM COOL humor it succeeds because the focus is more on the "isnt this cool" factor of TRANSFORMING ROBOTS.

TF1 was a movie created by people who knew very little about the franchise.

TF2 was a movie created by people who knew very little about the franchise and didnt care since they were such a major success after the first. Lots of bad judgement was used in this film with very little time in comparison and no one could tell the director he was wrong since he was such an obvious success. LOL

The problem is and I believe whole heartedly that the studio holds the success of the film to Michael Bay and a 1/3 of the success to the franchise and ilm.

Is there anyone here who would not have gone to see Transfomers the move 2007 regardless of who is directing long as ILM did the cgi? My opinion is that Transformers is far more popular than anyone truly understands as it is an entrenched pop culture phenomenon. It spans generations and while its popularity is not consistant in all tv series its overall popularity has been. All you need to make a transformers movie is transformers and one of the many great back stories to make you care about the characters and both movies fail to deliver on replicating any of 20 + years of great stories and instead pull something out of its ass that while new is completely amateurish for any standard and makes the brand look rediculous.

And I just found it boring, because I just didn't care that giant robots were fighting. Okay... maybe the forest scene was cool.

But the rest of the fights were relegated to shots of soldiers shooting at the camera, with explosions and the occasional Autobot, and Decepticons shooting at the camera.

First time watching, I hated the TF1 action sequence, but repeated viewings have really made it enjoyable for me, now that I can actually follow it.

I actualy liked TF1 less than ROTF, simply because it was more of a monster-movie-with-robots than Transformers at times, except for Bumblebee none of 'em were treated as characters, they were the mystery, the cloverfield, the godzilla but never the characters.