I mean "won" as in he's tired me out. His points are, for the most part, just as valid as ours. If I really tried, I could continue this debate, but he's pushing me to the very limit, and I'm just to exhausted/lazy to continue. His logic has won the battle, but not the war.  

I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next time!

 

Whoops, I missed this gem! Is this a first on the internet?  

I guess the question is, do you enjoy the visual effects for no other reason than them being visual effects... or do you enjoy what the visual effects are depicting? I think that it CAN be 2 different categories. On the one hand, I enjoyed the visual effects because I enjoyed the amount of realistic detail in the appearance of these giant alien machines onscreen. On the other hand, I didn't enjoy the robot designs all the time, because I found them too outlandish or removed from the characters they were supposed to represent. I didn't always enjoy the robot fights because A) there really weren't enough of them, and B) often they were "shot" and edited in such a way as to make the action incoherent. Just showing "ACTION"... things moving chaotically onscreen... is not an "action scene" to me. For that, you need choreography, pacing, emphasis, emotional involvement, etc.. otherwise it's just visual noise.

So there's point for the effects, but points against for the robots fighting, I guess.

Hm. First off, thanks for the kind words. This is about the most civil adversarial discourse about the Bay movies I've ever seen!  

Secondly, relating to your comments, let me use a personal example. I enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat movie... on the basis of it's pounding techno soundtrack, reasonably well-executed fights and utter lack of pretension about being an adaptation of a video game that's essentially just a mindless series of fights. However, I would never deny that it's an awful, awful movie... creatively bankrupt, poorly acted, unclever and sloppily made.

Just because I managed to find some guilty amusement in that film, I will not defend it. It's garbage. I look at Bayformers as being the same thing... I don't blame people for enjoying it, but it's still garbage. And moreover, it's really really high profile, super expensive garbage, that really should have been better than it was... so it feels like that much more of a slap in the face to me.

Exactly... Star Trek gets an amazing amount of praise, despite being a film absolutely riddled with bad writing and poor creative decisions. But I guess what separates it from ROTF is that the bad parts are just somehow a little less obnoxious, and the good parts are just strong enough to keep us from dwelling on the dumb stuff. Also, as has been pointed out, the cast and characters are much more engaging, which helps a lot.

zmog

 

You say that like there's something wrong with it. I don't really see any irony, you're being engaged in a rather level headed and sensible discussion and I think that one part of your post is the most poignant and relevant thing in here. Certainly far more eloquent than my own "Hey it's fine to like trash, just admit that it's trash".

People liking the/any movie is more than great, what gets my goat is people saying "best film ever", "amazing movie" etc. I don't understand how any of this could possibly ring true with anyone who has watched any decent amount of cinema (breadth as well as depth here, hello Mr. Ebert!). Admittedly I don't know the ages of everyone here, so I can't go right ahead and tar such comments with the same brush every time, but, like you said so very well; it would be nice if people really could reflect on things in a more rational and reasoned manner than just seeing a negative/positive post and switching the nerd rage to absoloute maximum.

Favourite does not mean quality by any stretch of the imagination.

 

I rather like quirky little cameo characters because as you point out they can add color to a film.

I think where the boat was missed this time was that they put the quirky little characters in the wrong place. In the first movie they put them in the squad before they encountered the Transformers and that worked because it was characters getting killed by Scorpie even if they were not fleshed out characters.

A few quirky little characters in NEST really could have hammered home the point that it was an international force and not just an arm of the US military. Perhaps a quirky little character from the Chinese Army in NEST would have explained how they were able to operate in China with the Chinese just stepping aside.

Although it couldn't hurt to dial back the odd of the odd characters just a bit. I think they still need to be something people can relate to as a way of spicing up the cast.

 

Epps, Figgy, and Lennox from the first film kind of embodied this- Figgy more than the other two, since they had a structured plot.

Yes, it's certainly nice to hear more than just "Best/Worst movie ever!", and comparisons with other movies are nice because it shows depth with the one who is referencing them- and I'm not saying that comparing RoTF with Star Trek is a bad thing, I'm just saying that saying they are very similar types of movies is not a good thing- that isn't helping the comparison between the two, its likening one to the other so you can say they should have had similar results but one failed because of x, y, and z. I acknowledge the fact that Orci and Kurtzman wrote both but their creative vision only went so far, I'm sure both directors as well as the other powers that be had their say in adding and taking things away.

 

No, I just meant it was sort of funny for me to preach about people being too defensive about their indulgences, even while I gripe about how Transformers isn't rightfully being used as a vehicle for serious speculative fiction and social commentary. Maybe if it were, that would justify it having such a large place in my life.  

But I think we're on the same page here absolutely. In fact I think "It's fine to like trash, just admit that it's trash" is probably almost verbatim something I've said at least once before in this forum... maybe this thread even! Less eloquent maybe, but concise and effective nonetheless.  

Right on!

Agreed on both counts. Less college antics, more serious attention to the serious business of hunting down alien robot insurgents. I mean, seriously... it's Transformers, not Animal House.

zmog

 

At the same time, don't forget that there is a fair share of negative comments that merely say "this movie sucks", as well...

Attention, TFW2005 members, our debates have now moved to a new time-slot! Don't forget to turn to "Film Critic Bias" for more back-and-forth fun, this time, on racism- at least, for a little bit. Returning characters include Smog, myself, and perhaps some other players, as well(Ash from Carolina, maybe?)! Also, watch Smog own a thick-headed supporter for attempting to end an argument by throwing foul words!  

 

I would agree that StarTrek was a better movie than either TF1 or TF2 - for one very important reason.

StarTrek stands on its own. The plot has enough depth, the story is explained in enough detail and the characters are given enough characterisation for the movie to stand on its own. With TF1 and TF2 certain plot elements only fall into place if you read the supporting canon (the novels and comics). A movie should never assume people will do this - especially one that is over 2 1/2 hours long.

I like TF1 and TF2 - but they could have been done a lot better. Just having the vehicles converse more would have made additional characterisation possible with little additional cost. To me the problem lies with the writing (especially in TF2).

 

Seems like so many films now end up with the commit "this movie sucks" or "this movie rocks". It's like too many people have lost the ability to articulate why they enjoyed a movie or why they didn't enjoy a movie.

Then again "this movie rocked" or "this movie sucked" are still better than the insane statements of "best movie ever" or "worst movie ever" any time a new mega budget film gets released. Either people don't watch enough movies or they have insanely short memories since most movies have a mix of merits and flaws with only a select few standing out for having no merit or for being nearly flawless.

 

this post is win

 

That's because it never matters.

 

  We do have too many threads on this at the moment, don't we? They're bleeding together in my head.

I hardly owned him. Just chastised him lightly.  

zmog

 

Or...people are willing to lower their standards for convenience.

Or for spectacle.

Is that really so impossible?

You do know that the (Blank) Movie series consistently makes money, right? I doubt anyone could convincingly argue any of those are good or even honestly very funny. But they're marketed, and they're accessible and sometimes, that seems to be all that's required for people to flock to see them.

Not that I'm saying all mass-media entertainment has to be deeply intellectual or whatever, but it's really screaming headlong the other direction.

Good example, just this Saturday, I went to a movie theatre and saw an opera streamed live from the Met. Tales of Hoffman, fun stuff. I was one of maybe 5 people under 40 in that theatre.

Honestly, that stuff was popular entertainment and, to a great degree, still is. But you will never get the vast majority of American media consumers to so much as try it because, as SMOG has noted, we currently seem to be pushing an anti-intellectual bias so hard in our media products.

There we go. Basically, candy is good, but you need your veggies, too. The same goes for intellectual stimulation if one wants a well-balanced intellect and a little self-reflection. Our culture is currently very often not eating its veggies where mass-media is concerned.

Now don't take this as anything more than what it is, but there is a reason totalitarian regimes control artistic output.

Socialist realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The funny thing is, US culture is doing this on its own, with no real goal in mind aside from making money. It's funny, in Brave New World, the government actually did not ban any sort of media product. The population self-regulated its own lack of intellectual curiosity.

See, everyone can like crap if they want. There's crap I like. But I know it's crap and don't get defensive about it as though it wasn't crap. I like kaiju films. Maybe 3-4 of them, ever, have had any real depth beyond huge monsters in awesome fights. I unapologetically like them, but I am under no delusions that they have any redeeming qualities beyond cheap amusement.

Heck, to jig to the side, look at Iron Man. Action, explosions, armoured suits, wise-cracking, but there was certainly a little more depth there, wasn't there? The movie actually touched on a larger issue regarding conscience, the choices one makes and the responsibility one takes for them. But it was painless. Tony got to see what sort of person he was, take a stand and accept what he had done, and we still got to see awesome fights and cars being thrown around.

It's the inability of many to admit that something they may like isn't honestly very good that seems to be an issue. It's as though some people are ashamed to admit it, because they may not honestly like anything that isn't.

Maybe it's that many of us who see RotF as not very good have enough of a range of things we like that we can easily admit some of what we like has depth, emotional content, and complexity, while other things are explosions, tits, or fast things - so we feel no need to be defensive about it. Just a thought.

- Coeloptera

 

I think you've cut to the heart of it right there.  

Ha! I actually have the 1950's film version of Tales of Hoffman by Powell & Pressburger sitting on my TV right now! Haven't watched it yet though...  

We're creepily synchronized, dude... I threw Social Realism out there a few posts back in this thread, and nobody touched it. Of course it looks like I was incorrectly describing it as "social" realism instead of "socialist" realism... though they are connected concepts. Ahem  

Plus the writing in general was consistent, smart, detailed, realistic... kept the story together without getting scatterbrained or caught up in spectacle for spectacle's sake. It's convenient that Iron Man was such a success recently, because it's a great example to bring up in these kinds of discussions. It doesn't really try to be anything more than what it is... a smart comic book action movie. It just accomlishes this with great panache and little compromise.

zmog

 

It seems that every movie brought up in this thread is loads better than RoTF and is a great example to compare with RoTF because of that. I'd say that Iron Man was a fantastic movie, yes. The action was extremely subpar- we saw like, two cars thrown around in that movie. Two cars and a bus.

I'm not saying the standard gets lowered for spectacle, though James Cameron's Avatar seems to be a great example for that- I think every human being on the planet understands the concept of weighing what they liked and disliked about the movie- the CGI in RoTF was brilliant but critics overall gave it bad reviews because of its bad pacing, racial discrimination and terrible humor- I saw it and enjoyed it for the CGI and the Transformers as characters, not for the latter reasons- the Transformers as characters worked well because they did strike a nostalgia chord in me, Megatron and Starscream, Optimus Prime, etc- my standards were not low. But saying that the majority of people in this country are prone to "turning their brain off" for the sake of enjoying a movie puts little-to-no faith in the human race (which is okay if you're a pessimist) and shows that you're missing the point of the statement- sometimes the spectacle is so extreme that one simply has to roll their eyes and keep watching, because sometimes, that's how it is. Don't tell me that only idiots go to see action movies expecting the hero to come out on top, that's a ridiculous statement. And yet, people were outraged when Sam ended up being alive- and after Mikaela told him she loved him, more or less! But wait, hasn't that happened in such revolutionary movies as the Matrix, which was a sci-fi action movie?

I agree, for the most part, with a lot of the opinions going back and forth in this thread, and I must say that I think half of Revenge of the Fallen deserves the bashing, but at the same time I'm upset with the amount of negativity and the statements that address a general amount of people- if there was a overwhelming positive response to Revenge of the Fallen then the majority of what you are stating would be true, but critics and the public did not react well to it, at all. It still raked in money because it was a summer movie, the CGI was fantastic, and the reputation that the first movie had set up allowed the second to grab more people's attention. Even then, I think there's a great degree of negativity towards the plot and design of the movie, when large amounts of time were put into both, and one of the main reasons the Transformers movie franchise has made so much money is the CGI design- so I don't really think any discussion about the success of the movie or where it failed should ever go to the inner workings of a modern American's thought process and general statements about the mental capacity of moviegoers- it should focus primarily on the movie itself. If you'd like to discuss this sort of thing, I'd really recommend creating a topic in the Movie Discussion forum, because that seems to be where the discussion has evolved.

And now, I will receive several posts on why I'm wrong- but hey, it's a forum, so I'm entitled to my opinion just as much as the people who think I'm wrong are, as well. So I think its about time I stopped looking in these threads, because I suppose I'll only get inspired to write silly posts like this. And, looking back on this post, it is pretty silly, but sometimes I just gotta say what's on my mind.

 

I love ROTF. I loved the Star Trek franchise since The Next Generation. I refuse to see the reboot. My friends that have seen it say it's a good movie but not a Star Trek movie.

 

Just watched Ironman again and that movie is still really good. Ironman is a great example of the writers and producers respecting the original comicbook characters and projecting them on screen in a way that diehard fans and newcomers are pleased!

I also saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn again. Haven't seen it in about 15+ years. I miss films like this. Good Story, fleshed out characters with depth, and Special FX sequences tossed in as added bonuses that were not meant to be the main attraction.

"The best stories exploit what is identifiably human..."

It's what makes stories "classic"...The passions of a vengeful villain...The struggles of a starship captain coming to terms with his own age...A bachelor who has everything but no one to share it with...

We can identify and relate with these characters and it's what makes us enjoy stories from our past, present and future. Not only that, but writers, directors, producers, and actors have to breathe life into these characters and make them tangible with weight and substance.

I just wish TF ROTF could have put more "human" elements into the Transformers themselves. Heck, I wish they could have put more human elements in the HUMANS too! The characters seem so wooden and lifeless. No substance.

(And it sucks because I still like TF ROTF, I just wish some things could have been changed. More character development por favor)

 

I'm totally late, but meh. I'll address this point, since it stuck with me the most...

Issue here being that Sam, Mikaela, Ex-Agent Simmons, etc. DID get their characters shown'n'grown in that amount of time. So, it is indeed possible to do so. The point has been excellently made; TF's are not allowed to have these things in the Bayverse. They are neat little "that's cuz yer a pussy!" *CLINK!* caricatures that help to progress the personalities of the only real characters in the movie--the humans. Because, as stated, they are the only ones we could possibly relate to (see: Wall-E).

Having stated this, I actually enjoyed both movies thoroughly. Probably helped by the fact that I'm a huge fan of both (though Star Trek had rather died off on me a couple of years back). I definitely enjoyed ROTF much more than the first movie--perhaps because I knew what I was getting into with this one versus the last one.

I suppose there's proof to be had that nostalgia isn't always enough. I was disappointed in TF:1, as big a fan as I am. And I can tell you that I might not have been so interested in this last Trek film if it hadn't been for the storytelling. (one goes one way, one goes the other) and while it had its share of holes, I certainly wish the level of story in Trek was present in ROTF. Luckily, watching Optimus Prime go apeshit against three other Bots is an awesome sight to watch. And while he didn't quite make it out of his first 3:1 bout, he definitely survived his second. And he got a souvenir to mount on his base wall too.  

 

Escapism can be a good thing in films. There are times when people just want to get away from everything for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, which might explain why theaters still do well in an era of Hi Def TVs and Blu-Ray players. Sometimes people just want to be away from it all and in a different world.

It seems lately though we are stuck with a great divide if you want any substance with your escapism. If you want substance then you have to find some smaller film because it's almost like Hollywood is afraid to put in real substance to it's big budget films. Not to be mean but it's like they dumb movies down because they are afraid that someone might not get it and these films must appeal to everyone they can get.

Just seems like the wow now is in special effects and there is no wow factor any more to the stories.

A fairly good diet means you can still have that burger or candy once in a while but if you ate just candy or just burgers you wouldn't be very healthy. Films based just on visuals are a bit like that. They aren't bad for you here and there, but when movies become just visuals and no other substance to them I kind of wonder what they does to us over time. The brain is such a wonderful organ that I don't understand why Hollywood lately is only interested in stimulating just one part of our brain when you could just combine great visuals, story, and acting into a feast for the mind.

 

I, for one, cannot help but wonder what producers and directors think of their audience when I see this so often.

It doesn't seem flattering, does it? I might almost go so far as to use the word "contemptuous" that the lowest common denominator seems to be set extremely low. There's a reason the scenes in Idiocracy were good satire. Remember their best-selling movie? There's a little kernel of truth there.

Viewers Are Morons - Television Tropes & Idioms

It's obvious viewers don't seem to mind a little more depth. I mean, Iron Man made some not inconsiderable bank after all. Lord of the Rings raked it in like mad.

So why the reluctance still? More food for thought, neh?

- Coeloptera