I always get seats at the back, no matter what I'm watching. Personal preference.

 

i couldnt get used to it in the rock until i saw it on video (thats old for dvd to all you youngens) but that might have been because i was right at the front looking up!

 

OK, continuing where I left off... 3. part of my comments. But first....



SPOILERS ahoy... !!!!





I do mean it...!




-Small things, cameos, etc:

-The VW bug next to BB in the car shop. Nice touch.  

-Perhaps the only thing taken from the Marvel Comic G1 universe - Megatron calling Sam a 'fleshling'. It's a word I'd like the Cons to use every time.

-Barricade interrogating Sam. Him harassing Sam in car mode, then scaring him with his 'alien probe' headlights, then transforming... he's really good at playing 'bad cop'. Too bad he didn't do much afterwards.

-Movie and cartoon quotes by the dozen, mostly said by Cullen. Famous "Autobots - transform and roll out!"... "One shall stand, one shall fall", "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings", etc. Only us fanboys get this, and I'm sure this is from a leaflet Hasbro gave to the scriptwriters, but still, they made me feel antsy.  

-Megatron's arm on a chain was pretty much a revised version of his energy ball and chains...  

-Cybertron... Not only did it look great, with huge cracks, war-torn, but it introduced a new idea that I don't know why wasn't used before in cartoon or comics - transforming buildings. Those big spiky towers, changing shapes, turning... very nice idea. At first I thought they'd transform into the Con insignia.

-Speaking of which... insignias were sadly, hardly used. Bot insignia was on BB's steering wheel and helmet, that's all. None of the others worn it on obvious places. And frankly I think the only time I saw a Con insignia was on Barricade's door.

-Battle damage. Was done excellently on BB and Prime. Paint wear, rust, dirt... take a look at Prime when he's on the underside of the bridge with the kids on his shoulders. Great scene anyway.

-While most of the TFs had weird hands, they weren't shown as much, and Prime's fingers were very much like that of MP Prime (only metallic), and worked pretty much like in the cartoons/comics. My personal opinion, but all the TFs should have hands like him (especially Megs). BB had only four fingers, I don't know why.

-The old transformation sound was used three times, as I can recall. First when Blackout transforms, then I think when BB transforms the first time, and third time during the last battles.

-Transformations - good and bad.: They start out great, realistic (like the bots standing up by helping with their arms, etc), and you can see what goes where, what panels open up, etc. Good examples are Blackout transforming or BB transforming the first time.
Then... they split into bazillion tiny panels. I'm not kidding. Huge slabs of metal that aren't showing any signs of being composed of more parts, just in a flash splitting and rearranging into other places. The heads too seem to be composed of more parts... They don't look realistic. There isn't any visible machinery under the panels that's moving them. They just fly to their places... it's very spectacular, but not the realistic thing Bay wanted to achieve.
Plus, except for Prime and Blackout's first transformation, everyone transforms in split-seconds, like a Battlecharger or Jumpstarter. I'm going to go pause/play/pause on the DVD to follow how it's done...
And... there is a lot of cheating on the transformation. Bay's argument about windows on chest is lost completely, as the car's driver space, seats, etc, all magically disappear. Glass windows, for example, completely vanish on every bot, except for Prime and SS's cockpit (Prime's are even cracked by the end, nice battle damage). Prime transforms completely differently then the Leader class toy - his grill goes somewhere on his torso, not on his feet...

-The movement - Some Bots, like Jazz or Frenzy, move almost insect-like, climbing on stuff that'd be impossible due to their weight... But most of them, like Prime or Megs, move pretty much like big humanoids would. So I have not many complaints here.

-The morphing guns... Some of my friends argued that pulling a gun out of a hidden compartement a la Robocop would mean there'd be an empty space on its place so morphing is better. Still, it didn't feel real. Some of the TFs had built-in guns, like Blackout or Brawl, but for example, there is no way on Cybertron Ironhide's BFGs could dissappear into his arms like that.

-The Bots did a lot of shifting and 'partial' transformations, panels moving up on the arms during combat, etc. It was a nice touch.

-When Blackout attacks and one of the soldiers takes his pic (a very good scene), he later says there was some sort of an "invisible force field" around it, and true enough, they couldn't really hurt Blackout with human weapons at first. Then later, this is all forgotten, and the TFs main weakness are the super-heated Sabot rounds, as those can penetrate their armor. This felt... weak. As if they'd be made of materials found on earth... I'm guessing the force-field remark was left in by accident from the first script.

That's what comes to my mind right now. Will talk later about the humans and the humor, two subjects I'm not really looking forward to talk about...

 

Is it true about the "one shall stand, one shall fall" quote ??
If it is i might physically wet myself on Wednesday !!

 

Yes Prime says that.  

 

     
That has made my day !!!

 

Yeah...but its off-panel...you will know what I mean.

By the way, I think I saw Optimus removing his gun or some sort of weapon from his back...its just after Megs' used transformed his hands into the fusion cannon gimmick.

 

I sit at the 2nd roll from the back which that cost the higher ticket rate since I known that It is an action flick but still I dizzy in some fast moving.

 

Yes I saw that too, I never once saw the Transforming arm gimmick present on the toy.

Ironhide's weapons do not disappear into his arms, his guns are always stuck there. It is only his barrels that extend and retract.

I'm guessing Sabot rounds were just one of the things developed when Sector seven reversed engineered technology off Megatron. They probably learnt what could penetrate Cybertronian armour and refitted their entire arsenal with such weapons. They probably let some of the Sabot rounds tech spread in the Military so that in the eventual case of an alien invasion, at least the Army will have the necessary weapons

 

SPOILERS TOO! BE WARNED!

The NO MASS SHIFTING Bullsh@#$!? How about the All Spark? I just thought they should be consistent enough when they say they are going to approach it as real as possible. Yes a lot of cheating on the robots transformations and how come they look battle damage in robot mode but looked like fresh whenever they transform in car/alternate mode?

Anyway I won't spoil that much. Its a good movie but not great in my opinion and the only thing that saved this movie is really Petter Cullen voicing Optimus Prime and yes, the lips still annoys me.

 

The allspark is the all-powerful life giving force for all transformers. If a transformer were to mass shift, it would be the cybertronian equivalent of playing God, and I can only imagine it carries the same stigma there that it does here.

as for battle damage carrying over into vehicle mode, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe they reroute all emergency repair systems to maintaining the disguise.

 

Good point about the playing God with regards to shape-shifting but the AllSpark isn't "God" to the TFs right? It seems that it was more of a mysterious tool that both TF factions want. The Autobots to "restore" Cyberton and the Decepticons to build an army.

Op Prime - yeah, I guess Hasbro had to push for the toy designs before the proper movie designs of the TFs were confirmed. For example, the "Cyber Stomper" Optimus and various promotional pixs of him showed that he had a left gun-arm like G1 Shockwave.

 

No the allspark is pretty much energy so it can change shape as much as it wants. Its not metal or anything its energy that hardens and softens up when its changing shape.

 

I've always believed the Allspark to be a multi-dimensional object. It appears as a cube in three dimensions but its actual geometry is actually far more complex than what we as 3D (or 4D as some mught argue) beings can comprehend. When it becomes smaller, it folds itself in higher dimensions allowing it to reduce in size in 3D space.

 

I just saw the movie yesterday it was awesome! But why JAZZ?????????????? Kill ratchet. But the action was kinda hard to follow and some scenes looked really fake like when scorponok is attacking the town he looks fake.

 

After watching the movie twice, I spotted something weird...

During the scene where the Bots are 'hiding' around Sam's house, I wondered how come Bumblebee is all rusted and dirty, when he just scanned and reconfigured into the 2008 Camaro... then it hit me - they used the old 1970 Camaro model's robot mode for that scene!!! I guess the scene where he reconfigures was moved back in the script.

One more thing - when Starscream leaves Earth in the last scene of the movie, he too reconfigures into some other type of aircraft.

 

Yeah, I blame the difficulty on Michael Bay's shaky camera technique! LOL! It takes repeated viewings to actually finally piece the action togather! XD

 

It was only during the second viewing that I noticed that Jazz indeed used his battle mask... other then him, only BB and Prime used this feature - I wonder why none of the toys have this action.

 

Dude, it took me 4 viewings (thanks to buddies who offered me the tickets) before I could see and appreciate some of the effects! XD

 

Action was defintiely hard to follow, but still OH so gratifying! A LOT of character to fit into a 2.5 hour movie (right?), but Bay actually frikkin pulled it off!! I want this movie to knock the crap out of Spiderman 1's opening week, think it will?