Revenge of the Fallen. Anyone like it?

Discussion in 'Transformers Movie Discussion' started by urrutiap, May 21, 2020.

  1. urrutiap

    urrutiap Banned

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    Its the first sequel to the first Micheal Bay movie.

    Im watching Revenge of the Fallen tonight for the 2nd or third time.

    I still think the Fallen look way too much like the Bionicle robots
     
  2. TheSoundwave

    TheSoundwave Bounty Hunter

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    I feel like Revenge of the Fallen is starting to have the same effect as the Star Wars Prequels. At one point a lot of people considered it downright awful. To the point that many said it was among the worst movies ever. Now people (especially fans) are beginning to rethink it, and appreciate the good aspects. And like the Star Wars Prequels, I'd argue it was always somewhere in between. Not the worst thing ever, but also not technically great.

    I like a lot of ideas in it. To me it feels funner and more out-of-the-box than 1 or 3. I like the uniqueness in the designs and the emphasis on adventure. If the '07 movie is comparable to a grounded G1 Season 1 episode (like the opening 3-part arc), ROTF is comparable to one of the weird Season 2 episodes (like Sea-Change or something). I mainly don't like the potty humor and the overly drawn-out stuff at Sam's college. With another re-write or two, it probably could have been a lot better.

    Out of all the movies, ROTF is probably the most nostalgic for me. And I didn't even see it in its entirety until two years ago. But I have fond memories of the toys and of that era. I have fond memories of driving to a nearby city on the release date of the toys, and buying Demolishor and Rampage. I was all over the ROTF stuff...and the Hunt for the Decepticons subline. The movieverse was still kind of new and still forming its identity. ROTF may have been the last really big marketing push the brand saw (DOTM was a huge step down, at least around where I live). ROTF was truly a cultural phenomenon.
     
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  3. Galvatron1998

    Galvatron1998 Maximal

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    While I still don't find it to be a good movie by any means, the hype surrounding the film leading up to the release was insane. It is probably the film I view with the most nostalgia, arguably more than the first movie. One of my favorite childhood moments was coming home to find a kitchen table full of RotF figures that my dad had bought on the morning the toys hit shelves. Even though I'm not a fan of most of the humor in the movie, the tone is closer to that of the first film, which I prefer to the later three installments. The film also had a lot of cool concepts, my favorite of which is Soundwave as a satellite in space monitoring activities. The toyline was good and featured several good designs.
     
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  4. Daedelus

    Daedelus Know sacrifice, know victory

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    ROTF remains one of my favorite movies out of the franchise. Sure, its messy and awkward, I hate the human sub-plots and drama, but the spectacle was there. The opening Shanghai scene, the iconic forest battle, Devastator, Jetpower Optimus etc. The moments leading up to and after these with the Autobots and Decepticons are honestly the only memorable things but they are worth it to me.

    Only DOTM comes close to approaching its spectacle, but drags until the third act and both factions seem to have far less screen time in relation to their human counterparts.
     
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  5. hthrun

    hthrun Show accuracy's overrated

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    I like it better than TLK and Bumblebee, but I liked DotM, AoE, and the first movie quite a bit more.
     
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  6. Noideaforaname

    Noideaforaname Pico, let's go up to Zuma

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    RotF is simultaniously the best and worst one. It's got the Forest Fight, Jetfire, Megaton's revival, Devastator combining, Optimus' entrance.... but it's also has, well, everything else.
     
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  7. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    Its a very unrefined film, as evidenced by its rather shoddy plot and the nature of its production during the writer's strike. In terms of the actual content involving the Transformers its one of the best since, really, it's when Megatron actually succeeds at anything, in this case killing Prime.

    Unfortunately, it needed way longer in the incubator and it just didn't get it.

    Even then, it's still the third best Bay film behind TF2007 and DOTM. Everything else is a burning trash fire of suckage.
     
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  8. AutobotAvalanche

    AutobotAvalanche Number One in Boogieland

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    I maintain that it's the best sequel out of any of them, it follows up on plot threads from 2007 and actually remembers what happened in the first movie.

    I also get that the movie designs are polarizing, particularly ROTF's, but I accept them for what they are and this movie has a lot of genuinely creative ones. Not just in the sense of "it's not an ugly design, it's just brave", stuff like Scavenger, Reedman, Alice, the Arcees, etc. are genuinely creative designs that showcase what you can do when the characters are alien robots. 10 years on I am excitedly collecting the SS Constructicons because they're so cool.

    The movie itself is meh, as some others have said I think the air around it is remembered more fondly; from the hype of a bigger, better sequel to the really great toyline that kicked off a whole, but short, era of excellent movie toys.
     
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  9. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    Oh man, if there was one thing ROTF should be remembered for above all else, it was the jaw-droppingly excellent toyline. Sure, there were stinkers, it wasn't perfect...but my god many of those figures still hold up well over a decade later. That line defined what Scouts (eventually the "Legends" class we have today) were capable of and the NEST Extension was full of many home run figures like Bludgeon and Brawn. And then it led into the 2010 HFTD/Yellow Box line where we got things like the Seaspray/Breacher one-two punch.

    Man those were good times.
     
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  10. AutobotAvalanche

    AutobotAvalanche Number One in Boogieland

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    Exactly, I'm mostly a toy guy so the toys of an era are inextricably linked with the media. DOTM is a lot better than ROTF as a movie, but ROTF has a much more fond, nostalgic glow in my mind because of how awesome the toys were and how completely drab DOTM's toys were in comparison (Skyhammer is probably the only worthwhile toy from the entire thing).

    FWIW that might be an interesting axis to look at things from across the whole franchise. ROTF and AOE both have big, bombastic action scenes but I prefer ROTF's almost solely because I know there are awesome toys associated with that action.
     
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  11. zark225

    zark225 Talon Productions on YouTube

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    I absolutely love ROTF, flaws and all. There are easy aspects to rip apart; the editing, some acting, humor, etc. But despite all of that, ROTF is one of my favorite movies. It's just a lot of fun and has some incredible spectacle, not to mention some of the best CGI out there. It also contains the best action scene out of all of the Bay movies, the forest battle, so it has that going for it too. I'd dare say it has some good, maybe even great, and memorable characters and moments. Jetfire is awesome and Megatron and Starscream's interactions are great. The Fallen is cool even though he is a massive let down in the end.

    The designs in this movie are also AMAZING and contain some of the best in the entire franchise, again in my opinion. ROTF Megs is my favorite Megatron design ever, and the Constructicons are so unique and cool, and Sideswipe is great. Of course this aspect is debatable but I think the designs are great and really shine in this film as something truly unique and alien.

    I think where I really like this film is the potential. Out of all 5 Bay films this one had the most potential of them all in my opinion. It sucks that it was rushed and had the writers strike going against it. With some refinement, I see a truly great film in there, but I suppose you could also say that bout any of the Bay films.

    This was the movie/era of the franchise that I was really looking forward to and made me live in the franchise that I hold near and dear. I started collecting and paying attention towards the tail end of 2007, so the first film got me into everything, along with the figures, and Animated didn't really do it for me, but the figures and Universe 2.0 kept me going while a lot of the rumors and leaks were coming out about this one. That was a fun time. Seeing the leaked plot details and designs, toy stuff coming out and I distinctly remember everyone's amazement at the ROTF Leader Prime.

    ROTF, both the film and the time in the franchise and fandom, was a really special time for me. I love the movie despite acknowledging that it isn't a particularly good movie, but it's better than given credit for. Having said that though even my critical eye can't get in the way of my enjoyment of this one. This time also kind of helped me because, at the end of my 8th grade year, a bunch of classmates found out about my YouTube channel, where I did reviews and stop-motions, and mocked me in class and even tried to pull them up on a projector when the teacher left the classroom briefly just to mock me. Jokes on them though, that night, this was a Friday, on the street date or a day before for the figures I went to Walmart and found the first wave of Toys and got ROTF Leader Prime and Megatron and Deluxe Soundwave. the bullying continued for a while, but that first day was a doozy and the ROTF figures really helped.

    Gotta give a shoutout to the awesome marketing for this one too. The trailers were fantastic and still gives me chills when I rewatch them to this day.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2020
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  12. Nikkal101

    Nikkal101 Well-Known Member

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    I really liked the movie. I thought it would have been much better if they toned down screentime for skids/mudflap and Leo scenes and dedicated a little more on other Autobots.

    Most importantly, I would have liked the movie to have ended with the Decepticons winning by the 2nd movie... Fallen and all. Maybe the autobots only manage to just destroy the harvester to prevent Earths doom and leave it on a cliffhanger...
     
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  13. urrutiap

    urrutiap Banned

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    While i was watching the first Bay Transformers movie days ago, i noticed that the human holograms for Barricade and the Decepticon helicopter they had the same mustached hologram
     
  14. Gordon_4

    Gordon_4 The Big Engine

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    It was the same person, he was one of the senior military officers caught up in the extras dragnet who turned out to have a decent glare on him.
     
  15. mn_128875

    mn_128875 Well-Known Member

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    Bad movie but it had some great moments but still better than aoe and TLK
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2020
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  16. popcorn

    popcorn Well-Known Member

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    Oh man that movie was so bad. Sure it had some good action scenes but it's like putting vanilla icing on a shit sundae. Still tastes like crap.
     
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  17. Nathanoraptor

    Nathanoraptor Well-Known Member

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    My view on ROTF is it's one of those "couple of rewrites away from being good" movies. It needed more time to be done and it didn't get it - I'm confident we could have gotten a movie as good as TF2007 if it had had more time. The finished film is shoddy as hell and the script feels like a first draft - although given it was written in three weeks, this isn't surprising.

    A couple of good rewrites to trim some of the excess stuff from the plot and explain some of the contrivances. For example, a Decepticon says the Fallen is coming... why should we care? There's no record of Cybertronian history after the destruction of the Allspark, so there's no sense of ominousness that the characters feel. Adding the idea that the Fallen is some figure from Cybertronian myth would really work. In another one, the Decepticons sent Alice to spy on Sam... before they even knew he was going to be important (one could argue their original target was Leo and his buddies, but that seems like a stretch). As such, she feels like a character introduced to a) complicate the Sam/Mikalea thing and b) put in a bit of Transformers mythology the writers liked. A rewrite could have removed her entirely and just have Sideways be the creepy professor's car (he seems like the kind of slimy arsehole who'd drive an Audi R8).

    However, the main problem I have with the film stems from two particular characters; I think you know who they are...

    Yup, I'm talking about Skids and Mudflap - the dumb joke robots.

    Now, I don't believe that the characters are racist - according to the voice actors, the intent was to characterise them as poser street punks. The characters were then rewritten - and I think, to an extent, redesigned - to fit the new portrayal; something which Bay and the writers later admitted was not the best decision. However, this makes the characters come off as half-formed, with scenes dwelling more on their failures, and their unintentionally coming off as caricatures. The fact that they take screentime from the previously established (and well-received) characters Ironhide and Ratchet, as well as highly-anticipated "legacy characters" Arcee and Sideswipe doesn't really endear them any further.

    Now, they fill their role as dumb joke robots - but having the dumb joke robots be among the most prominent ones in the film was not a good decision.
     
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  18. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    I will go to bat for DOTM in saying that it had some excellent figures in the HA Basics line. Sandstorm is a lot of fun and if nothing else it had some unique alt. modes like Icepick/Snowmobile. Also Murderbee simply because of how hilariously unintentionally evil looking it is.

    I thought he was just the guy they had deliver the Blackout helicopter prop to the SOCCENT Base set and Bay like the look of him so much they cast him as the Decepticon Holodriver after sticking a mustache on him. I recall he had to make alternate arrangements for a wedding as a result.
     
  19. Swoop Dogg

    Swoop Dogg Hi Yukio!

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    I recently rewatched all of the Transformers movies during this coronavirus mess. Of all the movies, I was dreading watching ROTF the most. However, I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked it this time around. I mean it still has its flaws (mainly the crappy plot) but ROTF does have some truly great moments - like the Shanghai opening scene and the forest battle. Plus, I really like Jetfire. The writer strike really hurt this movie. It's too bad.
     
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  20. fu2kimus

    fu2kimus Well-Known Member

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    In hindsight this movie should have been postponed a year. However I did, and do still like it, it packs an awful lot into its run time(too much perhaps) and as others have said it features the best action scenes in the franchise. It’s also beautifully shot, if you enjoy this style of action I think the visuals make up for the problems of plot.

    Looking back to how I felt about it at the time, I knew the movie had its problems. I still went to see it 7 times. Watching that movie with an audience in an IMAX cinema is still some of my greatest experiences as a movie fan. This movie is like the prettiest girl in school, there’s not a lot of substance behind the style, but you still want to spend time with her.
     
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