Revenge of the Fallen Is it pointless to hope for a better script than the first movie?

Well na it ain't a joke, I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of the Transformers world. But that doesn't mean I don't know about movies, and that's all that matters in this case.
 
The problem some people have with Bay ultimately(and I'm guessing) is that in the genre of making fun,'traditional' summer blockbusters he's the most successful in this day and age and yet as movie fans I can imagine that some compare him to the past directors who once ruled that season with films that were meant to be nothing more than fun (Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis before his love of technology ran away with him etc) and find him lacking.

Those filmmakers at their best gave us films that weren't exactly meant to be deep yet we got CHARACTERS (not stereotypes) we, the audience, could give a damn about. The original script for PEARL HARBOUR, as an example, was said to be much better than what ended up onscreen because Bay wanted it to be more action-oriented.

Imagine the Michael Bay versions of JAWS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, BACK TO THE FUTURE, TERMINATOR 2etc and, to an extent, even though I don't think TF has ever really had material worthy of non-fanboys taking it seriously, I do see why his style (memorably spoofed in TEAM AMERICA) grates on some.

Next week we could possibly see not one but two genre based summer blockbusters (THE DARK KNIGHT, WALL-E) nominated for the top prize. I've no problem with a director who doesn't have the lofty intentions a Chris Nolan or Andrew Stanton had but I suppose at times it does put things into perspective.
 
Yea that's pretty much how I feel.

Transformers doesn't need to be a lofty, deeply meaningful film, of course not. But it wouldn't hurt to make the characters believable and not just stupid stereotypes.
 
Yea that's pretty much how I feel.

Transformers doesn't need to be a lofty, deeply meaningful film, of course not. But it wouldn't hurt to make the characters believable and not just stupid stereotypes.
the funny reality is that it looks like people love it hehehehe :hehe:
 
Well I wouldn't say that. Ask anyone what they like about Transformers, I guarantee the majority would say "Ahh man, we got transforming robots beating the crap out of each other!!" I doubt anyone would say anything about any of the humans. Apart from Megan Fox obviously. ;)
 
Yea that's pretty much how I feel.

Transformers doesn't need to be a lofty, deeply meaningful film, of course not. But it wouldn't hurt to make the characters believable and not just stupid stereotypes.

Yeah, the thing is some of the films I mentioned above didn't 'dumb down' their characters for the sake of what they thought a general audience would accept.

For example contrast the love interests/women of some of these aformentioned films and others of summers gone by (Brody's wife in JAWS, Leia in STAR WARS, Margot Kidder's Lois Lane, Karen Allen in RAIDERS, the original and best Sarah Connor in T1/2) or even now on occasion(Maggie G in TDK) and put them beside the glamour models/borderline porn-star lookalikes in Bay's work and there on one crucial level you can see why 'fun' divested of any sense of character reality (the importance of people the WHOLE audience can relate to or project themselves upon) just seems genuinely hollow.

It's not neccesarily a better script people should be hoping/wishing for. It's a successful director/storyteller who doesn't think in cliche when constructing 'meaningless' films.
 
Well I wouldn't say that. Ask anyone what they like about Transformers, I guarantee the majority would say "Ahh man, we got transforming robots beating the crap out of each other!!" I doubt anyone would say anything about any of the humans. Apart from Megan Fox obviously. ;)
the whole theater was full which doesnt where i live. everyone was laughing their ass.
i think a lot of people watched TF for the robots but they got a lot of comedy that they liked.
its like IM on steroids IMO.
 
:whatever: x 1000

Right, I'll stop offering my opinion in the face of some barely-coherent pseudo-criticism from Michael Bay fans. That'll be the day.

FYI,I am pretty much not a fan of Bay even though I enjoyed Transformers and The Rock. Nothing is wrong with the fact of you are just offering your opinion,at times it is the content that makes it up that is the problem IMO.
 
the whole theater was full which doesnt where i live. everyone was laughing their ass.
i think a lot of people watched TF for the robots but they got a lot of comedy that they liked.
its like IM on steroids IMO.

I didn't find it funny atall really. Apart from the scene where Anthony Andersons house got raided. I laughed at some other parts, but for all the wrong reasons.

And IM's characterizations and writing was about, errr, a trillion times better than Transformers.
 
I didn't find it funny atall really. Apart from the scene where Anthony Andersons house got raided. I laughed at some other parts, but for all the wrong reasons.

And IM's characterizations and writing was about, errr, a trillion times better than Transformers.

Hence my point when superficially similar movies, to this day, have better characters and not just stereotypical cartoons Bay's abilities as a storyteller/arbiter of taste become more suspect.
 
You know what would make for a better script if megatron turned into a gun.
 
Which is irrelevant to my point.

Bay tried to add a "tear jerker" and a "teen love story" to that film, not to mention the love for a father and his child and tried to make them a center peace of the film....

And he failed.

he tried to add a teen love story? dads will be dads when it comes to their little girls huh

it's called summer time, what better for the summer audience to relate to..

not sure where you get the he tried to add tho?


He would have failed if he tried that too.
he would have failed if he tried to treat the material seriously...but instead he succeeded in making one of the biggest funnest blockbusters

...ahem again just like something about mary fails in telling a good deep love story but succeeds in...etc



Agreed....and he and the movie failed because he tried to "move" people with the plight of the characters.

The father that cared to much for his daughter, the NASA administrator who always wanted to be the pilot, The true love that may never be, the other father who never knew his son,

All of these concept and characterizations were an attempt to "move" the viewer, to make the viewer identify with the characters and they all failed.

About the only part that rang true was how the Government almost messed everything up.

again
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a/armageddon-script-screenplay.html

bay take this **** and makes it entertaining

it's all there on paper
1."Bay tried to add a "tear jerker" and a "teen love story""
2."The father that cared to much for his daughter"
3."administrator who always wanted to be the pilot"
4."the other father who never"
5. etc

and unless anyone has seen bay's WGA membership card...(he doesn't have one)

it's time the truth is finally accepted
everything "you" hate is there before bay even pick up a camera

all he does is make it look golden aka...annoying:whatever:

Bruckheimer wants to make a film, he wants it to be told a certain way, and he wants it to make this much money

...
then again Pirates was such a gem of story telling...maybe it is just bay.

it's called a Producer


True enough and I dont know if many other directors could have made a better film useing that script but the concept of love and war may be out dated but its not a failed concept.

I do find myself agreeing with you there

At the very least an other director may have called for a re-wrire and we may have gotten a better film.

may have being the operative word
and with JB producing..I would have loved to see them try.

Gone with the Wind (1939) It was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and won eight including Best Picture, Best Actress (Vivian Leigh), and Best Screenplay (Sidney Howard).Not to mention it featured two of the most memorable characters in movie history. Casablanca (1942) The film won three Academy Awards including Best Picture.

The Best Years of our lives (1946) won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), and Best Screenplay (Robert Sherwood)
From Here to Eternity (1953)Won eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann) and Supporting Oscars for Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed
Dr. Zhivago (1965) Won five Oscars including Best Screenplay and Best Music.

And More recently The English Patient (1996)Winner of nine Academy Awards including Best Picture

None are exactly my kind of films thou

you and alot of other summer movie season patrons

I've seen most of those and one, unlike say Platoon and Pravite Ryan, and Appoc Now and Lock Stock and others

those are more like the note book, the war is the after thought, the "love" is the draw

secondly, all of those you just mentioned were based on books or plays or whatnot that had so much acclaim the directors would have to be genius's of messing thing up, to mess them up.

honestly I think two of those stories won Pulitzer's, I think gone with the wind the book is a nobel peace prize winner...English patient is the classic book...etc

now go read the pearl harbour script...
(that bay wrote)

people talk of story telling this and that...it kinda starts with a story
and bay never has that on his side.
unlike Lean and Kubrick who always ran to the best novels to literally translate.

Bays made 6 fun movies



The script may have raised questions about the human condition and had substance but the directors job is to make that ring true on film....to make it seem real to the view threw the preformance of the actors.
not if it's not there in the script
then actors can perform till the cows come home...

And Bay failed in that sence.He was more concerned with the action and product placement then he was in creating an atmosphere of realizem and the effect of that world on the characters, and in retrospect, our possible futures.

actually the atmosphere was visually amazing, the realism did fail tho, especially with the giant R sequence

and "The Island" failed in that department where other films like "Logan's Run" and "Fahrenheit 451" [ which shared the concept theme] did not fail.

Even the film that "The Island" stole its premise from did a far better job at being thought provoking....""Parts: The Clonus Horror".

Children of Men also did a great job of showing the plight of the human condition if things dont change.

again comparing a good script or books in these cases, to the summer scripts bay shoots is arguing my case for me

Even the 5 Planet of the Apes did a far better job of conveying the general idea that "look at what our society has created".

There were even a few Twilight Zone and Outer limit's episodes that did a far better job with the general concept in question then Bay did.

The Island just doesn't measure up.....at least not in my opinion.
mine either but it does for other people

it was his first movie away from JB and it had substance through and through
it wasn't about buddy cops and crystal meth
it was about humans growing life to replace their body parts like car parts
and the general concept then of what is a life of value...the clones show us with their experiences

i personally don't fancy the film but, for the hypocrites here who praise the original G1 saturday morning toy commercial for it's "substance" the Island is a diamond in the rough
and thus they veto'd their power to say anything negative about it.



We'll see....after the movie is released.
Anyone who starts talking about GIjoe not being as good as Saving Private Ryan story and depth wise really needs to take a chill pill

even Devin F of chud fame has openly admitted that he doesn't want that film to be more then it is...he wants it to be a fun brain cruise

the kids that allowed for it to be made into a film deserve as much





And thats where I wouldnt go as far in saying.

To begin with the robot designs were lacking in the same areas that the Dino designs fulfilled.[BTW this was also Bays fault]

You looked at the Dino's in J.Park and felt that you may have just seen what they really looked like.On the other hand, Bay took a lot of creative chances with the designs he chose and truth be told it hurt the way some of the characters were viewed [no pun intended]

that's where you and alot of fan boys are getting it wrong
if you really look at optimus(or anyone (apart from megatron)) mathematically it's all there (being a maya student, i know all about how these programs glitch)

it's all there, it's even been stated that the truck design had to be changed to make up for the mass

even when it's drawn it makes sense in ways the blockies don't
http://fc21.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/198/3/4/transformers_Movie__Bumblebee_by_Eldelgado.jpg

that beautiful final shot of Optimus on near the tree during magic hour really let the audience take in the fact that all the sprockets and horns, windshield wipers and windows, there all there

sure because unlike the cartoon it's all there it makes for a busy design but the reward is an audience that has no doubts about what their seeing

the originals look funky(blocky) because they were designed for animation
this is designed for (computer animation) real life.

secondly the fact that the audience witness the cars unfolding adds to the illusion

the same way we didn't doubt Jurassic Park(not sure why), the director has planted enough seeds to actually pull robots in disguise off...it pisses the fans off but at some point they'll open their eyes and see that that's what they were really watching as kids

not some 40ft robot that does 4 back flips makes a 56k modem sound and he's a gun

even the sound design pisses fans off cause it's not that stupid modem sound..

if the designs were more in liking to the original
no matter how well it would be rendered, it wouldn't matter...it would look like really nice cgi

20060120-transformers_test.jpg


anyone that wants to hate on the claw feet, need to look at the way the original BB's feet worked, my god
remember that scene with the girl and the feet coming out of her pool?
realism takes sacrifices.

Lastly bay's powerhouse photography just brought it all together
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oWpNcFNTmng/Rl8ce_ZjV6I/AAAAAAAAATE/8VUBTYgtkbE/s1600-h/TFW2005TV529-0026.jpg

transformers-movie.jpg


the designs really made this movie and thats the one thing that's the biggest shame off all
cause some dude at ILM really hit the nail on the head with his ideas and work and it's **** on every day.

You really didnt walk out of the TF film an say.... "boy the TF's looked like I always imagined they would look".

Besides that there were a lot of visual flaws in TF that just werent as apparent in JP.

Even the "Bumblebee "leaking" on the agent scene had an apparent flaw.

When Bumble bee let his cap hit the agent in the head the agent rubbed the wrong part of his head afterward.

I can name a few more visual flaws but I dont want to make this a CGI debate.

pointing out the mistakes wouldn't get us anywhere
i mean technically Raptors have feathers...

it's not just wonderfully cgi creatures, it's the functional transforming that really sells it.

Transformers-Movie-Optimus-Prime.jpg


it's late and have stuff to do for school, hopefully there aren't too many mistakes in all of this

peace
 
I didn't call him a failure of drama, i simply said he is a good action director, nothing more. So he shouldn't pretend to be more than that. All his films are the same "Woohoo go America!!! We are so awesome!! We are the ones who will save the world!! bad ass!!! woohoo!!"

After a while, that does get quite annoying you know?

It's the summer season
ask yourself if in any of the batman movies nolan("the god":whatever:) has given us, have you heard a line you would that seemed beneath the material(of the film)

cheesy love lines too(very bayish if you ask me)


But this isn't supposed to be a spoof is it? It's supposed to be a fun action flick yea, but the lines shouldn't be soooo bad that it makes me cringe and feel embarrassed for the actor.

not sure i can personally remember any being that bad but i'll give you that

During TF shia's has megan in the car at her house and he says something so cheesy that they almost break the fourth dimension...
(you're more then meets the eye or something like that)

the fact that it was a joke actually lets you see how low the film could have gone, but instead it just takes a moment to remind everyone how weak the source material actually was/is

i would say kudos to bay for that, but hey , he didn't write it

I fail to see how bringing frickin Power Rangers into this can be used as a defense :whatever:

cause if you watch it you notice that the one brilliant tech person in that particular series, is a hot hot lady:cwink:
but it's ok, it's a kids show:o

moreover
what exactly is wrong with "bay"(...the writer:cwink:) making a girl, the girl as smart as she is?

sexism anyone...

it's the one(apart from pearl harbour) where the women aren't just nice pieces of meat
and we look down on it

(insert TF smiley)


I'm not too familier with G.I Joe but I know the characters in that have interesting and non stereotypical traits. I've seen too many bad ass black soldiers and stereotypically religious hispanic soldiers or people to last me a life time thanks.

Stereotypes are archetypes for kids lol
besides, apart from the hispanic religious guy, no one else was anywhere near a stereotype when it comes to the military guy.

ie
chinese guy knowing karate?
Jewish soldier talking about whole sale...

secondly is something wrong with the stereotype in question?
it's not like he had converse and flannal..

even the geek (anderson)
i'm not sure what was so racially offensive about him?
lives with his grandma?
that was actually more about G1 fans lol:hehe:(had to)



Errr what's G1?

Errrr... no mate, it is not.

G1 is pretty much the original toy line

and yes...TF is the CGI event...of course unitil Cameron returns
 

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