Exactly. And I blame Bay for not going further into the fact "the Cube is merely a vessel", emphasizing that the AllSpark itself is the sum of all Transformer knowledge and therefore a form of afterlife, and cutting out Jetfire's mention that the Matrix was created by the Cube - as mentioned in the novel.

That said, I thought the scene was wonderfully done - Michael York and Kevin Michael Richardson's voices, Jablonsky's music...

 

There are two ways one could understand this:

For the fans : Yes, it was the Matrix Sam went to. That explains how he appeared dead, and how he saw visions of the Primes.

For the general audience: A vision. The Primes showed before him, and told him of his destiny.

So there.

 

How can someone have a "vision" when they are dead?

 

I agree. An explanation for the general viewer would have been nice.
Also If they hadn't gone with the whole clouds and open sky look for the scene, I think less people would have interpreted it as being robot "Heaven".

I suppsoe that kinda works too.

Because he was only mostly dead.

 

As a fan of 18 who had no particular ties to either, and saw both movies in a vacuum, I still say the '86 movie had bots with more personality and characterization to them than the '07 one. Note "bots". I enjoyed the humans in TF07, and they had some okay characterization. But bots who weren't Prime or Bee got next to nothing.

 

This.

Who said he was dead? He was unconscious and unresponsive for a minute or so, but I don't think anyone ever said he was dead.

The kid was having strange visions of a lost Cybertronian language for the entire movie. I honestly don't feel they needed to explain why he was having another vision while he was still having all sorts of strange visions. I mean, when the last remaining Primes decided to fuse together around the Matrix to protect it, in doing so giving up their lives, those sparks had to go somewhere. And it just so happened that they put their sparks into the Matrix to better protect it.

 

I believe it was Lennox.

 

Lennox says alot of things

 

Yea, so Lennox is a doctor and he could tell right away....lol

 

Actually, there's a medic that tries to revive Sam next to Lennox..he even gives him the shock paddle treatment, then he shakes his head clearly inclining there's nothing more he can do and Sam is oficially dead.

I still don't get why people are making such a big deal out of this? If the Matrix and the Allspark both possess the sum of all Cybetronian knowledge, and even makes Prime communicate with his dead ancestors in some other continuities..then isn't the Matrix some sort of gateway to Transformers afterlife, and thus saying 'Sam was in robot heaven' and 'Sam was in the Matrix' are both correct?

 

Ahhh, Sam going into the Matrix, makes more sense - thanks for clarifying, it really escaped me. Yeah, maybe one of the ancient Prime should have said to Sam: "Sam, you are within the Matrix of Leadership. All our wisdom and knowledge are now contained within it. The Matrix could not be found, it must be earned.." or somethin like this. 

 

I absolutely agree with this. This is a nice fandom-sensitive explanation of what happened, but...honestly, even I saw this film once, took that scene at face value, and was left with the same "WTF!? Robot heaven!?" dumbstruck gaze.

To be absolutely honest, it's a hard scene to digest if you're a casual filmgoer. If you see this film with your friends, I'd strongly suggest against pausing the film at the robot heaven scene and whipping our your G1 DVDs to provide a parenthetical reference.  

 

Well, robot hell is located in New Jersey and humans battle the robot devil for a golden fiddle. I can totally see Robot Heaven being in Egypt.  

 

I wish the DVD had more features about explaining things like this, other than Devs balls.

 

There are instances (rare but real) where people have appeared dead all the way to the their autopsy - and then they wake up. So yeah, Sam was mostly dead, but not dead.

 

Well, the '86 movie had the benefit of having 2 seasons of cartoons leading up to it and another whole season following it to help you "care" about these characters.

Honestly, the only ones that got any sort of character build-up were Hot Rod, Daniel, Galvatron and for some reason Grimlock. Ultra Magnus did to a lesser extent. Springer, Arcee, Perceptor, Blaster, Jazz, Bumblebee, Cyclonus, Scourge...hell even Unicron... they were all just window dressing. Completely static characters until AFTER the movie.

As for the '07 movie, I would also say that we got a good look at who Ironhide was. Jazz, unfortunately, has gotten short shrift in every movie. I also think we got a perfectly good look at Starscream and IMHO Blackout.

 

You should try having a near death experience sometime. It's amazing what you see.

 

the way sam died and was talking to the primes was cool.

 

Pretty much all my friends did.

I guess they know how to use their imaginations. Crazy.  

 

Perfect.