Dark of the Moon Michael Bay has killed Transformers for me

[Marvin]

Also, Optimus Prime never went through any characterization really. Transformers Animated and Beast Machines did a pretty good job of maturing and changing the characters, but you have tons of fans who complain about Optimus acting too young or being too much of a hippy. The Optimus Prime people remember from G1 was a pretty flat and standard character. I'm not saying that Transformers couldn't be improved by creating more dynamic characters, far from it, but I think the other side of that coin is as Hotwire says "No movie adaptation is going to please everyone".

I remember back when the first Bayformers came out one of the complaints was that Optimus got impatient with Spike while he was trying to find the allspark. That he was "Naggy Daddy" Prime, and somehow this violated the characters even though he'd shown impatience before in both the comic and cartoon. People had such an idealic view of him though it was considered out of character.

Technically that was nothing but giving the stoic character a flaw, albeit a slightly exaggerated one(toy commercial).

Giving the material depth is what we praise about the "good" adaptations these days.

I agree that there is no way to please everyone. What most forget is that this is an art form (critic's try to have us forget that). If I paid the greatest painter in the world the entire fortune of the world to make a piece of art that everyone loved it wouldn't work out. That's art and that's film.

However, everyone knowing he's the greatest living painter, they would no doubt start the nut hugging and the rest of the people would follow suit in order to fit in, and what we would have then is again, modern hollywood.

 

[nogap87]

I will grant the Bay-Haters this: the cartoon rarely had humor that could be construed as raunchy. About the closest thing was Optimus using the word 'boobies' in G1 (and it wasn't in a sexual sense, though still awkward as heck) and Rattrap talking about strip clubs.

Don't forget this infamous scene

Peter Cullen's groan was....odd.

 

[CEREBRAL....]

The amount of cash the series made and its popularity emphasizes the opposite

^^ i don't think the amoutn of cash this series made is a great measuring stick for quality. I'm not looking for the exact replica of the G1 series, but a respect for the source material...anything can be serious, comical or dramatic...its' all in the pen/mind of the artist...creativity

 

[roach]

^^ i don't think the amoutn of cash this series made is a great measuring stick for quality. I'm not looking for the exact replica of the G1 series, but a respect for the source material...anything can be serious, comical or dramatic...its' all in the pen/mind of the artist...creativity

the amount of cash a movie makes is NOT a measuring stick of its quality...however when studios are looking at movie projects are they gonna reboot a series that a few fans are whining about but made over 1.5 billion world wide. As much as we like to think studios are in the business to put out quality product...you cant deny 1.5 Billion.
That amount of money means people like what Bay is doing. Thats how Paramount figures out if people liked the movie. Box Office.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

^^ i don't think the amoutn of cash this series made is a great measuring stick for quality. I'm not looking for the exact replica of the G1 series, but a respect for the source material...anything can be serious, comical or dramatic...its' all in the pen/mind of the artist...creativity

As I think many have pointed out "a respect for the source material", that being a silly, 22 minute toy commercial, produced exactly the movie you're railing against. In order to do a "serious" adaptation of Transformers you'd end up with a product that looked incredibly unlike G1, and perhaps unlike the lion's share of Transformers fiction.

 

[CEREBRAL....]

As I think many have pointed out "a respect for the source material", that being a silly, 22 minute toy commercial, produced exactly the movie you're railing against. In order to do a "serious" adaptation of Transformers you'd end up with a product that looked incredibly unlike G1, and perhaps unlike the lion's share of Transformers fiction.

Then apparently you and everyone else need to open your mind more, and stop using that "bland" excuse. It never matters where you get the idea from, there's enough of the "source material" meaning "the mythology" to make a good quailty movie..see those words "quality"...not meaning it has to be oscar worthy.

and there's this thing called comic books that wrote great TF stories..and since when can you not get a quality movie out of two sides battling in a war. The last time i checked....TFs was about robots battling each other. *shrugs shoulders*.

 

[roach]

in what universe are people who accept Bay's version are closeminded and people who dont are openminded?

 

[CEREBRAL....]

in what universe are people who accept Bay's version are closeminded and people who dont are openminded?

please point me out where I labled any or everyone who likes Bay's verison closed minded? I said if you view this as just a "silly toy line" which could not squeeze any quality out of it , then you need to open your mind and that excuse is "bland"


again you can turn anything into quality...I mean they are making a movie out of a nursey rhyme..."little red riding hood" and that seems pretty serious...well dramatic. But i should think because it's just a nursey rhyme they will fall short of it being actually a good movie?


I mean ole the horrible concept of a little girl going to her grandmother's house and gets met by a wolve..how silly! (sarcasm-in terms of the movie)

 

[roach]

please point me out where I labled any or everyone who likes Bay's verison closed minded? I said if you view this as just a "silly toy line" which could not squeeze any quality out of it , then you need to open your mind and that excuse is "bland"


again you can turn anything into quality...I mean they are making a movie out of a nursey rhyme..."little red riding hood" and that seems pretty serious...well dramatic. But i should think because it's just a nursey rhyme they will fall short of it being actually a good movie?


I mean ole the horrible concept of a little girl going to her grandmother's house and gets met by a wolve..how silly! (sarcasm-in terms of the movie)

Red Riding Hood looks a bit too twilight-y for my tastes


I for one dont consider the Transformer films non quality films. they entertained me and that was really what I was looking for in the movies...much like the comics and cartoons. I liked both movies and did find the twins to be a bit too much. However I think a lot of the hate directed at this movie isnt because of the "dick and fart jokes" but because Michael Bay is directing the movie. Nowadays the director is as important as the actors. Ive seen the trailer for Devil so many times...where the audience is so excited for this film until M. Night's name flashes...then I hear boos and groans.

 

[sto_vo_kor_2000]

I cringe when people think it could produce something the likes of The Dark Knight. It can't.

I think it could, but that wouldnt be a great fit either.

Wow! This thread is too much. I still can't believe that Michael Bay is catching all the flack for everything wrong with the movies, even though the things he's done were almost all done in the cartoons.

Thats part of the problem.

We were hoping for a director that could capitalize the few good things done in G1 and then grow on it.

Not just repeat the same mistakes.

 

[CEREBRAL....]

Red Riding Hood looks a bit too twilight-y for my tastes


but because Michael Bay is directing the movie. Nowadays the director is as important as the actors. Ive seen the trailer for Devil so many times...where the audience is so excited for this film until M. Night's name flashes...then I hear boos and groans.

^^ I understand what you are saying, i don't have any hate for M.Bay..i dont like the direction he took TF in at all, but i dont have any hate for him. And i hope TF 3 is good.

and if Red Riding hood was rate R i would see it but it does start Amanda Seyfried.. i dont know why, but i got a thing for that girl!

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

My point exactly, more or less. I think you could elevate the concept, but the changes you'd have to tolerate would leave us with a movie farther away from G1 than even this one. The Dark Knight is evidence of this. However the trauma Bruce deals with from his parents murder feels a lot more believeable to me then a group of super powerful aliens taking on the guise of Vokswagon Beatles in order to pillage our resources.

Actually it's the military vehicles who want to pillage the Earth's resources and the Volkswagon Beetle who wants to protect the Earth. And the way Bruce deals with his parents murder is pretty silly: he dresses up like a flying rodent and fights armed criminals without weapons. In reality a dude like that would get shot in the face about 5 minutes into it.

 

[sto_vo_kor_2000]

Actually it's the military vehicles who want to pillage the Earth's resources and the Volkswagon Beetle who wants to protect the Earth.

That right there would have to be changed even if they attemped a G1 mirror film.

Volkswagen wont allow the Beetle to be used in a war film.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

The amount of cash the series made and its popularity emphasizes the opposite

It doesn't emphasize the opposite.

The Star Wars prequels, the shallow and empty Star Wars movies, made 2.8 billion worldwide adjusted.

The Star Wars Original Trilogy, the heartfelt Star Wars with great story telling made 5.3 billion worldwide adjusted. Almost twice as much with fewer overseas markets.

A heartfelt TF movie with great storytelling could make evn more money than Bayformers and people wouldn't get tired of the franchise as quick.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

That right there would have to be changed even if they attemped a G1 mirror film.

Volkswagen wont allow the Beetle to be used in a war film.

They could've picked another eco friendly car, one that fits Bumblebee's meek characteristics.

 

[sto_vo_kor_2000]

They could've picked another eco friendly car, one that fits Bumblebee's meek characteristics.

Which, I think, would hurt the character and the film.

Bays choice for BB is one of the few things I thought was done right.

It made BB an easy to like character for the most part.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

Actually it's the military vehicles who want to pillage the Earth's resources and the Volkswagon Beetle who wants to protect the Earth. And the way Bruce deals with his parents murder is pretty silly: he dresses up like a flying rodent and fights armed criminals without weapons. In reality a dude like that would get shot in the face about 5 minutes into it.

It's treated that way in Batman for the most part. No one acts as though Bruce Wayne is a sane man, the leap of faith in Batman tends to be believing his effectiveness, but most fictions tend to question his...ahem...sanity.

 

[roach]

It doesn't emphasize the opposite.

The Star Wars prequels, the shallow and empty Star Wars movies, made 2.8 billion worldwide adjusted.

The Star Wars Original Trilogy, the heartfelt Star Wars with great story telling made 5.3 billion worldwide adjusted. Almost twice as much with fewer overseas markets.

A heartfelt TF movie with great storytelling could make evn more money than Bayformers and people wouldn't get tired of the franchise as quick.

to be honest the only ones I hear complaining about the Bay transformer series are the hard core fans

and who is tired of the series???
You know how much buzz that superbowl trailer caused?

 

[nogap87]

I would have liked to see BB as a Mini-Cooper but since this version doesn't talk, a muscle car is a better choice.

 

[roach]

its cheaper on the production to use one car company for the cars...plus they gave them a crap load of wrecked cars to blow up

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

I still don't understand how Bay didn't respect "The Mythos"

- The Allspark was a running theme through nearly all the cartoons.
- The Fallen is a Dreamwave comic character, and a rare one at that
- The Matrix was a large part of the second
- Jetfire was a former Decepticon who turned Autobot (G1 cartoon)
- Cybertron was included
- Sentinel Prime, a vague, usually unseen precusor to Optimus Prime is in the third installment
- They merchandised several tie-in comic books that expanded upon what was shown in the movies

If anything these movies have been overbloated with mythos. Nearly the first two seasons of Transformers, and the first season of Beast Wars were largely devoid of mythos and they are not subject to these kinds of criticisms. Seems to me like Bay's gone above and beyond into fusing in mythos elements.

 

[nogap87]

its cheaper on the production to use one car company for the cars...plus they gave them a crap load of wrecked cars to blow up

I know it's cheaper. Just not a fan of the brands. I liked how they made Optimus from an old raggedy Peterbilt

 

[Marvin]

again you can turn anything into quality...I mean they are making a movie out of a nursey rhyme..."little red riding hood" and that seems pretty serious...well dramatic. But i should think because it's just a nursey rhyme they will fall short of it being actually a good movie?

I mean ole the horrible concept of a little girl going to her grandmother's house and gets met by a wolve..how silly! (sarcasm-in terms of the movie)

If there were fan boys for the original nursery rhyme, I'm sure they b@#ch and moan about all the changes too. On top of that they would hate the teen angst imbued into the concept in order to connect to the new target audience and say things like, the original wasn't about teen angst it was about ...

and thus the dilemma that is adapting source material that is > decade old.

We were hoping for a director that could capitalize the few good things done in G1 and then grow on it.

Not just repeat the same mistakes.

Transformers isn't the brand it was in the 80's. That 80's movie is a joke by today's standards animation or otherwise.. If that exact movie was remade today it would be pretty much be ignored. That's why beast wars worked so well, it took the old and improved upon it. But even that got old.

The new films do anything but repeat the problems of the past(which seems to be the problem with fans). It has capitalized on enough of the product and infused it with new things(working designs, military operations, teen romance) that my friends that would call me a geek for knowing what the word transformers meant a few years ago, can't wait for the "cool new transformers film"
mission accomplished.
it could be better but mission accomplished.

Of course the problem if it being a silly movie can never be escaped. Those comic books are hardly Shakespeare
My gf hated that I was dragging her to the first movie, till she seen it, than she said, that's not what I was expecting..she was expecting a everything she fears about geek genre movies I assume.
same thing happened with star trek.

They could've picked another eco friendly car, one that fits Bumblebee's meek characteristics.

The new series TFprime, has bee as a muscle car and the character still shines through.
that just seems like a fanboy qualm.

it's a superficial problem, much like teh puffy suit.

 

[Marvin]

It's treated that way in Batman for the most part. No one acts as though Bruce Wayne is a sane man, the leap of faith in Batman tends to be believing his effectiveness, but most fictions tend to question his...ahem...sanity.

The new batfilms hardly treat bruce wayne as either insane or as effective as he's portrayed in the contemporary source material. It actually irritates me to no end but I see to much of that fanboy hate towards TF that I stop myself from turning into them.

But honestly, watching the nolan batman is like watching sherlock holmes without a brilliant sherlock holmes but rather a moderately driven man with some friends to help him along (all but every step of) the way (lucious fox needs to go asap). Or an Iron Man without a brilliant Tony stark but rather a guy who has his suit built by his company and villains that make his films look good.

to be honest the only ones I hear complaining about the Bay transformer series are the hard core fans

and who is tired of the series???
You know how much buzz that superbowl trailer caused?

To be fair, not all the buzz was positive, but yes even the bad buzz is coming from people who will be seeing it for the most part.

Honestly the second movie was "so bad" that it made this new series into an internet meme...
You would have to be a moron or a dense fan boy or a hater or all three in some cases to think they would make a third film that could possibly be "that bad" and I'm not even talking about all the legitimate production woes or flawed writers that have been nullified. It just won't happen, especially with all the insider buzz.

 

[roach]

i havent heard anything bad about the superbowl spot that was legitamite