Other than a few slightly loud 20 somethings, my theater experience was fine.

Really, and here is my old man moment, I thought the audio was too loud. All the voice levels were just piercing loud and hurt my ears.

Highlight for my fiance was the dancing scene, the 2005 intro, and spike's shit remark.

One thing I never noticed was that in the very first Autobot intro when Lazerbeak is flying past the factory part, it's the dinobots on the assembly floor.

Very fun experience, but I prefer watching it at home. 32 year habit.

Edit didn't know about the Stan Bush segment, wish I had stayed for that now.

 

Had such a blast last night! The only slight negatives I can speak to are that the film was not nearly as sharp as it is on blu-ray on a 4K tv, it was also somehow cropped in too close, cutting off a lot of character's heads at the top of the screen, and the theater had a weird smell, but other than that I grinned from ear to ear the whole time. I've seen it a million times and my 5yo son's seen it a few, too, but he was still glued to it. Just kept thinking about how great life is, memories flooding back from seeing it in the theater with my mom 32 years ago, and now looking in the seat next to me is my son whom I love more than anything. Such a privilege getting to share the experience with him. Hope it turns out to be as great a memory for him as it was for me! I let him bring my second copies of MP Hot Rod and MP Bumblebee in the car, too, which I think only enhanced his experience  

The audience was great, too. It wasn't in the biggest theater, it was one of the smaller ones in the back, but if it wasn't sold out it was very nearly full. Tons of laughs from the audience which made it more fun and engaging overall (except for all the laughter during Prime's death scene - wth?), and mostly guys my age, a lot of them with their kids, though there were a few wives/moms in there and some college age guys.

Gotta say, the Bumblebee featurette and the extended scene were a big and welcome surprise! After the last two Bay flicks I had no love left for the live action TF movies, but I've done a complete 180! Looks absolutely incredible and plan on bringing the whole family when it's out. Looks like it'll be a bit of a tearjerker for my wife and maybe my kids, too. The scene they showed was Charlie in her garage meeting Bumblebee for the first time and they absolutely nailed the emotions. Hope they keep Travis Knight involved with all future TF flicks!

Me and my best buddy here right after the show (can't see it very well, but he's wearing an Optimus shirt). The Bumblebee display was really impressive!

 

Dean ML, yeah I agree with your assessment as well. I was a little disappointed on how grainy it looked in certain scenes. Not to mention the cropping. I could barely see Wheeljack's corpse on mines. That's when I began noticing as well.

 

Yeah, I plan on watching it in full frame at home this week to make up for it  

 

I gotta say, I had more fun watching this than I did TLK.

This is my first time seeing the whole thing in several years. And I actually really enjoyed the Battle of Autobot City for all the chaos and action. My favorite was definitely Grimlock for being a big, dumb king of the bozos. I still love that he begs for Kup to continue his war stories, as do the other Dinobots.

Hearing Leonard Nimoy actually warmed my heart, R.I.P. you old Vulcan. Seeing Brawn, Prowl, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Wheeljack go down still sucked. And Starscream’s death was surprisingly haunting after all these years - a “playtime’s over” kind of deal. It’s still wild to think they killed such staple characters.

Wreck-Gar was still incomprehensible   and oh man Wheelie was annoying as shit, no wonder I don’t remember him, because good lord anybody would repress their memories of the little shit.

The movie has a lot of cool visuals and little things that I’d actually like to see homages to in future Transformers media, certainly more than I’d like to hear “one shall stand”, “darkest hour”, “I still function”, etc etc for the millionth time. “No cliches, Galvatron”, as John Barber put it. Although this one guy next to me was rather obnoxiously boasting to his girlfriend or whoever that the movies ran those quotes into the ground, when in reality it was Aligned fiction like Prime and the High Moon Games. He also claimed that he doesn’t need TF Wiki, he just knows a lot of Transformers. Suuuuure.

Anyway, the only big downside was that they didn’t turn off the house lights all the way, which was distracting. The annoying guy next to me, I heard him say “I’m going to go ask for it to be fixed”, but after he came back, nothing happened. Aw well. It was still cool to see this spectacle on the big screen for the first time.

 

Second one, trick question?!?
;p

 

Yeah I dont think they played the restored version, the Megatron Reformatting certainly didnt look as sharp as the restoration version.

 

Had a loud group near me at my showing, which really made me wish for the ‘card up for loud table’ flagging system that chains like the Alamo Drafthouse have, but other than that, had a great time. My theater didn’t seem as packed as some people are reporting, but it did get moved to a bigger one from the original theater, and there was plenty of fun crowd reactions during the big scenes. I’ve wanted to see this thing on the big screen for years, so this was a treat. It also made me realize that I have way too much of the script memorized.

 

My son and I had so much fun last night!
He was riveted the whole time. I thought he may fall asleep but he didn’t even yawn one time (may have also been the whole bag of skittles we were munching on...)

I have to agree with some of people’s points, some parts were grainy af and blurry even (fishing scene). But man oh man, feeling goosebumps every time “Dare” would punch in to accentuate some scenes was so awesome.

No poster at my theatre, but that’s ok. Not a fan of the Blu-ray art work.

Something I’ve never notice (probably one of many I’m sure) was after Megatron gets reformatted and says, ”Decepticons, to Earth!”, i never notice that he’s standing front and center outside of the space ship. So bad ass!
It’s so small that my little tvs growing up and my 40” at home never allowed me to see that clearly.

One other thing that I’ve noticed but never discussed with anyone, are some of the animation continuity errors. Like Shrapnel showing up on the planet of junk. Isn’t he a Sweep already?
Also, how is Sunstreaker both on Earth and on his way piloting the autobot spaceship to Earth with Optimus? Lol

Great times!

 

Hey Dean, how cool was that bumblebee cardboard promo! Did the eyes move around too?

 

Glad to hear you and your boy had an awesome time, brother! That blurry fishing scene is accurate to the original, crazy enough. It was a messed up effects shot where the blur was obviously supposed to be applied to their reflection in the water, but instead it was accidentally reversed! Clear reflection, the rest of the scene is out of focus haha.

All the continuity errors you mentioned are due to the movie being rewritten up to the last minute. Things were constantly changing even as it was being animated. Iirc, Megatron and the other Decepticons were originally going to be alive at Starscream's coronation, with Megatron being badly beaten and on the brink of death. At least we can try to rationalize the error by writing them off as Insecticon clones and generic jet bros (as seen all over s1).   No idea how to rationalize the Sunstreaker glitch, though!

I think the only new details I really caught were the shot of Shockwave in his tower from Ironhide's monitor and how nuts some of the dancing was in the Junk scene - Daniel was really getting down!

 

They didn't move - were they supposed to? It was definitely impressive, though! Most pumped I've been for a live action TF flick since the first one! My poor son got confused and thought we were actually going to see the Bumblebee movie last night haha poor guy. He still loved the real deal, though!

 

Seeing pics with your kids is really amazing guys! parenting done right!

Sadly, mine is not even 3 yet, and it's all about Paw Patrol now.


Audience was great, we got a nice little poster. Agreed that watching it at home on ones 4K TV is a much better experience as far as sound, and most importantly, image quality.

But as someone that was never able to watch this in the theater, and that was introduced to the film back in the 90's (lived in South America at the time) this was a trip!

Made me even more excited for V3 Prime. But you know what? Even MORE SO for a newly designed MP Rodimus and a MP Galvatron. I fell in love with that cannon mode all over again!!!!!

 

@Robotmonkeys
I have an answer!! I was thinking about this last night while watching it. This movie is all about getting the audience to feel something. Whether that’s feeling pumped up by the music, sad for death scenes, nostalgic, feeling wonder at the fantasy elements of it all, or now the feeling of seeing your kids enjoy something you did at their same age, or whatever- this movie wants to get an emotional reaction out of anyone watching.

That’s why the movie always breaks down when you try to apply logic to it.

How come, after 2 seasons of the toon, everyone’s lasers are now lethal?

How come Optimus died from a few blaster wounds, but they can save Magnus after he’s completely blown up?

How does planet Quintessa even exist?

So many things in this movie either don’t make sense when examined, or require fan theories or some other additional material not in the movie to explain it. But the more you try to explain it, the further it takes you away from the feelings its trying to instill in you.

And while it *can* all be explained, it does feel rather pointless, when all it wants to do is entertain in a crazy science-fantasy setting.

 

Just saw your pic, @Robotmonkeys - great shot! Man, that display looks great with the eyes lit! Hopefully the theater we went to will make sure theirs is working as it should soon enough! I actually wish I could've gotten a better look at it. Had to hurry as everyone was wanting to take their picture in front of it, it was that cool!

 

Oh, so many questions and plot holes.


Was Wheeljack collateral damage somehow? How does he die?

Where the FUCK is Snarl when he was needed against Devy? he's clearly seen later, but for what? 2 seconds?

Aerialbots? Hello?

I simply stopped trying to figure it out. Toei animation was simply like: fuck it. Let's make all these guys fit inside Astrotrain.

 

See my post above!!

 

Answer to every plot hole...cause toys.

Though I did have to laugh that Arcee was so concerned about Kup and HR getting back to the base, but zero shits were given about the Season 1/2 bots also outside.

 

Ahhh. That's crazy, I didn't know that. Again, I'm glad, they preserved these imperfections.

*sob* why wasn't this in 4k! You guys are killing me. Lol. I do work in video production/post production and spend lots of time and $$$ on getting things to look super clear and crisp for your highres monitors, so I get it. But fuck all that. They made the right choice keeping it gritty as hell and st8 up 80s.

 

Nice info on the coronation scene! Where did you learn this BTW? I'd love to read up about it some more!

Also, do you know who was next to Ironhide on monitor duty at the beginning? I think it was Gears but by the time I looked at him the scene changed.