You mean denial that these movies ever happened to the extent you've lost caring  

 

This! All of this! This is how I feel about the current three movies... Fortunately it means things should get better, right?

 

My personal opinion?

First movie is great. It's got its fair share of stupid moments, sure, but it reminded me much of Cloverfield-that odd little flick you had low expectations for, but turned out to be much better than you thought.

The sequels are where shit got depressing. ROTF tried to do too much, and didn't have the directors, writers, and producers with the necessary talent to pull it off. No offense to the people who worked hard to make ROTF-it's just that pulling off what ROTF tried requires a level of skill few possess. Had they just scraped the excess and strengthened the script, we'd have gotten a much better film.

Thankfully we did-DOTM is a pretty good flick, even putting aside pacing issues. I like that it actually told a story that-*gasp*-UTILIZED THE TRANSFORMERS AS CHARACTERS! Seriously, the stuff between Optimus and Sentinel, Sentinel and Megatron...it may not have been Oscar stuff, but considering the most development robots got before were racial caricatures, it's nice to see a story that relies on their human personality flaws to continue.

Truth is, though, it's probably the best we're gonna get. It'd be great to have a space-opera drama Transformers film with little humans, but at the rate we're going, that won't happen even if the public wants it.

Another thing-I hate that we have to wait two years for the films to come out. Not that it's too long-it's too short. When a sequel comes out two years after the first, you know what I think? I think it was rushed into production before the public loses interest in the brand. You know why we were much more accepting of the long wait times between the Christopher Nolan Batman films? Because we knew that you can't rush great films. We knew Christopher Nolan and crew were using that time to craft and perfect the three excellent films we got. You could argue that the Transformers films aren't that, and I'd agree. But what if they were? What if a director with a passionate vision and respect for the franchise took helm and made an excellent movie? Would you be okay with having to wait almost 4 years for the next film in the series? I know I would-because after four years, if they've done it right, it should be pretty damn good.

 

The name of the third is DARK OF THE MOON, not DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. Also, while I agree with your statement about Shockwave, he had two lines. Not that much of a problem, but just wanted to let you know.

 

I've enjoyed all three movies, personally. I love them. I love the designs mostly. I prefer the complexity found in the cinematic Transformers and Prime compared to the blocky, simplistic designs of G1, FOC, WFC, etc. They actually look and feel like aliens.

The first movie was amazing. The characters were actually developed quite well for the first film. There was actual humor among the Cybertronians themselves that weren't associated with sexual innuendo jokes or "balls" (ala Devastator). The Decepticons, for once, actually posed a threat and were presented as the lean, mean battle machines they are, being completely hard-hearted, battle-tested, masters of camouflage, ambush and sneak attack and had a chance to win some battles (I literally just quoted Ironhide from Transformers: The Ride; it's a perfect description). The Autobots (mainly Optimus) were actually noble to me, because in the later films, some of them got extremely out of hand with the way they kill. I still love Starscream's assault on the air force and seeing Megatron as a jet, being the badass he is. It was great!

Revenge of the Fallen was good in many ways, to me. I honestly don't think it deserves the amount of hatred it gets. For a film that went into production without a script and was conceived during the WGA Writer's Strike, it was -- average, to say the least. I liked the excessive inclusion of things from Transformers lore as well: Pretenders, the original 13 Primes, the Matrix of Leadership, combiners, space bridges, the Nemesis Warship, Minicons, Insecticons, and Seekers. The film started off as a promising sequel, but near the beginning of the third act, the movie went downhill. The Twins were atrocious and Optimus Prime was quite -- vicious -- in terms of executions. This movie just suffers from too many characters I believe. Also, Arcee's death is a serious no-no for me. I was looking forward to her doing more badass things in the future and throughout the film. And Jolt! He's so amazing and didn't get to do ANYTHING except transport Jetfire's parts onto Prime at the end. I can see those whips in action right now.

Dark of the Moon was great -- actually, slightly above great -- to me. I liked the twists the film offered as well; Sentinel betraying the Autobots and Ironhide's death was something I never saw coming. Being the most dark of the trilogy, it had its fair moments of emotion, too. The Wreckers, Mirage, and Wheeljack were all awesome, as well as the Dreads, Shockwave and the Driller. Basically, all of the new characters kicked ass! Sideswipe actually developed as a character, too. I was super glad to see that. I just really wanted to see Optimus and Shockwave have an expanded fight scene like Sentinel and Prime did in the actual film. Something similar to the Burger King commercial (yes, I know they used Sentinel's movements and put Shockwave in his place). I liked Carly's character, but still wished the Mikaela Banes character returned. I seriously feel like I am the only one who liked Megan Fox's acting and role, that isn't due to her sexual appeal.

The movies have all been grand for me and the entire theater whenever I go see them. People always walk out of the theater pleased and satisfied, although I do find myself having to tell folks which character was which whenever I overhear specific conversations about certain Transformers. The only three things I would do to them is change the humor, sneak some lines for the Transformers in, and have at least one line devoted to telling the audience who a specific character is (e.g. Sideswipe's line to Mirage when he transformed and began to blast at the Dreads). Some really badass lines can be snuck in and don't necessarily require the Transformers to be in their robot modes. I always would like to see more from the Decepticon point-of-view (I'm a 'Con whore, so, yeah), but I'm always satisfied by the briefings they have in each film.

It just really agitates me when people talk bad about the films, but what can you do? Let them have their opinions while you revel in the awesomeness by yourself. This is why I always say screw the haters and Bayformers for the win. I eagerly await the arrival of Transformers: Age of Extinction.

 

I don't know, I come and go with the film franchise as a whole now. The first one is still pretty good for what it was. Limits in budget, the necessity of humans to get that mainstream audience, etc, etc. It was pretty much what I thought it would be, and I had a blast with it. It holds up reasonably well, but some of the "humor" amongst the humans now is just cringeworthy.

The second one, aside from a few cool shots, is just a fucking turd from start to finish.

The third one made up some ground, tried to be incredibly epic, but still missed out on some key moments in the narrative that could've fleshed it out even more.

I think a lot of people, when they get past the love for the characters themselves, see that these movies are very poorly written.

 

Honestly, I just try to appreciate the films for what they are, despite their flaws.

While each of the movies range in quality, some of the things I 'do" like about the movie series are:

The Character designs and concepts.
The music.
The literature. (Comics and books)
Some of the games are kinda fun, and some of the figures that are made are quite cool.

Its sort of a mixed bag. In the end, as a fan and supporter of the franchise, I just try to appreciate the films for what they are, no their not perfect, but at least their something.

 

Apathy with a good bit of despair that things will never get better.

Really starting to feel franchised out on Hollywood. If films have somewhere interesting to go or there is something important to explore about a character then fine keep going with a film series until all the interesting stories have been told.

But it really feels like there is too much making films to milk a franchise rather than we've got somewhere good left to go. I loved the original Star Wars films but I'm kind of apathetic about the next films because I feel like Disney wants to cash in on the name rather than something interesting needs to be told in the Star Wars universe on the big screen. I kind of liked the first film in the Star Trek not-reboot, but the second film seemed to have no purpose beyond lets slap something together to cash in on that first success. Even Batman felt like it really didn't have a good place to go after the Dark Knight so I'd rather have had a reboot rather than going this isn't as good as the second film.

I know reboot is a dirty word to some people, but if there isn't somewhere good to go and you just have to use it or loose it on a name then just start fresh. James Bond had ran out of places to go so the reboot gave the franchise somewhere new and interesting to go instead of going hey remember how cool it was when we could use the Cold War as a backdrop for these films?

 

Themes:
Expect themes to become more prominent during the last three films - especially along the lines of focusing more around what children might be interested in such as 'Dinosaurs' with the Dinobots in TF4.

Shows:
Rescue Bots will limp on for a while probably getting to a third and possibly fourth series - though expect these to be spaced out occurring around the time of the movies. Also expect them to focus on the above mentioned themes also - featuring the Dinobots.

As for newer shows - expect them to be starting to focus more on the above mentioned themes as well - we'll easily see thing start to decline with level of writing varying massively. Expect more simplistic storylines.

Toyline:
Expect the Toyline over the course of the movies to split into two distinct groups - the 'movie toys' which are much more simplistic to target the younger audience and the 'generation toys' which are more along the lines of normal complexity levels targeted at teenagers/adults

Films:
Age Of Extinction and the other two films in the second trilogy will likely introduce Unicron as its big-bad. At six films the series will have spanned around 12 years and will need a complete reboot to target the new audience as audiences from the first movie will likely be out the target age range by this point.

Reboot:
I get the feeling that we'll see TF4 (2014) TF5 (2016) and TF6 (2018) then likely an attempted mass reboot of Transformers by Hasbro - which will be returning to Cybertron - In order to force the story away from Earth to focus on 'selling the toys'

This reboot - whatever it may be - would have massive effects on the current Transformers universe we know and likely would make all the past events meaningless in order to attempt to target a new audience.

New Cast:
Just like with the animated movie - a reboot needs a new cast to target the audience. Optimus Prime will likely be replaced by a new Autobot leader in a similar way to when Hot Rod took over in the original animated movie - this new leader will likely be aimed more at the demographic of the era. Optimus of course will return after a while to work alongside this new leader.



------
Either way Transformers seems set for a decline that I doubt it will recover from.

 

One of the things that bugs me most about the Transformers films is that people that don't know anything about the franchise watch them just because they're more action movies but they're NOT TRANSFORMERS. In my mind they give Transformers a bad name because they misrepresent the franchise. People watch the films and don't like them enough to watch the cartoons, or play the games next. When I meet new people, I usually ask what movies they like. Here's the average Transformers conversation I have:

Me: So, do you like Transformers?
Friend: [Shrug] Sure, I've seen it a while back, its cool.
Me: Which version do you like, G1, Prime, The games?
Friend: Um...(huh?)... I've only seen the movies.
Me: Oh. [Dissapointed] Who's your favorite character?
Friend: Shia LaBeouf I guess.
Me: [Annoyed, but trying to be nice] I meant robot character.
Friend: I don't actually remember any of their names, or personalities...
Me: (Duh, they barely had any)
Friend: ...But probably the main one or the yellow guy.
Me: Yellow guy? Oh, you mean Bumblebee! He's the best, but he has so much more character In Transformers Prime, you have to watch it!
Friend: Transformers Prime? Oh yeah, I've vaguely heard of it, it's for younger children, I don't watch it, my 5 year old brother does though, then has nightmares for a month because of all the Transformer blood, zombies, and killing in it. But it's a little kid show, definitely not for teenagers.
Me: Okaaay...how about G1?
Friend: Never even heard of it.
Me: (Watch the source material first dude.)
...Awkward silence...
Me: Do you like Star Trek?
Friend: Oh yeah, the 2009 film was great, wasn't it! Especially when Kirk drives a car off a cliff, and Spock acts all out of character!
Me: (Oh brother, here we go again.) Well this has been nice, but I should be leaving now.
Friend: Me too, I really need to get back my Duck Dynasty, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight, I can't believe I haven't watched them in a full two hours.
Me: Bye!
Friend: Bye, maybe I'll be able to talk to you about Transmorphers again tomorrow, if I'm not too busy playing Mindcraft or Modern Gorefare: Call of Doody for the 800th time.

Okay, maybe this was a bit exaggerated, but do you get my meaning?
(Ps, no offense to anyone who likes the shows, movies, or games I mentioned, I was just trying to pick pop-culture fads that I consider overrated.)

 

Ask your friend "how was Spock out of character?" because I really want to know.

 

Great action movies, not what I grew up with but it sells and makes money for the franchise and gets more toys made even if they don't come out sometimes.

I think those raped the childhood and other gus need to get a time machine to the 80's go and stay there.

I love G1 but a G1 movie would be goofy.

 

1st movie- my favorite of the lot. Lots of good build up. Some great payoff. It was just a fun movie all around.

2nd movie- a train wreck, but I found that it's great when you're having a shitty day. What's the plot? Everything blows up, that's what. Cars blow up, buildings blow up, robots, Sam, the desert, pyramids, Mojo the dog, the college, books- basically if you see it on-screen, it's gonna blow up at some point. And on those shitty days, that's all the plot I need.

3rd movie- better than 2 but still falls short of 1.

In short, it's a mixed bag. Each movie has lots of great moments & overall I enjoyed them. But man if you don't get a whole pile of bad to go along with the good.

 

Looks like what I expected. Actually, outside of critics who grade everything on an Oscar worthy scale, the movies probably are more well regarded among die hards than general viewers. We're the most critical but at the same time most forgiving. Like others have commented, I have come to like the films alot more with time. I think in the beginning maybe I expected something that I didn't get (and was probably unreasonable to expect). Now with time I've come to appreciate them for just what they are and I've grown attached to these characters. Also doesn't hurt I'm an OP collector primarily and find his movie representation to be the pinnacle of all his designs......although this new Prime has me worried

 

Outside of the fandom I kind of wonder if the films aren't just seen as disposable entertainment.

Just so much competition out there that it really takes something to be sort of film people remember much about years later. With Marvel having all it's films connected together people tend to remember things because something from say Thor 2 could be important by Avengers 2. Or Dark Knight set a new standard for film villains that people still talk about. Outside of Transformers fans the only times I hear Transformers is when there is a trailer out for a Transformers film and talk for a few weeks after the film. Even as something to bash people don't have time to bash Transformers because Lone Ranger is the cool thing to bash right now.

I think the movie toys tell us something as well. Sure the first movie line sold like gang busters. But by the time you get to Dark of the Moon figures have to be moved to the Asian market because US retailers just don't feel like they can move enough figures to order beyond the waves being sold at the same time as the movie tickets. Without the movie in theaters to sell the toys it seems movie Transformers just are in big demand. Hasbro can sell a toy based on the now ancient G1 characters, but it seems like there is much way to move movie characters in non-movie years.

 

I voted didn't really like them, too much bad outweighing the good.

As I've stated before in the film forum, I love the first film and feel it was a very solid, fun introduction movie that set the sequels up very nicely.

The ball was just dropped with the sequels. ROTF was a mess. DOTM was more of the same, only "darker" and more final - no fixing anything after it.

I do enjoy watching ROTF now and again in spite of its flaws - it still has an adventurous feel that's fun. But I can't call it a good a film. DOTM I'll never watch all the way through again - there's no fun to be had in it.

 

I feel...





nothing

 

...Dracula from Van Hellsing?

 

The movies brought the fiction some cool ideas. Barricade and Blackout are iconic movie characters within the fandom, and I for one want to see them appearing in other universes with more frequency. Would love to see those two get the same treatment Lugnut did in the RTS line. They also had possibly the best version of Sentinel Prime ever.

I hate the movieverse designs, and the stories were mostly awful. But the fandom needs to be more appreciative of what it has done for the brand. Much like the Beast Era, TF may owe its current success to the movies. They helped rejuvenate the brand and bring in new worldwide attention, which has brought in new fans, many of whom have since acquainted themselves with other parts of the franchise.

Don't have to like the movies, but respect the things they have done for the brand as a whole.