****ing GREAT

I am speechless.,, writing more later ! so many impressions.... This one tops it all... IMO it's so darn close stacking up to TFTM '86 if not it matches it !

I was going to start a topic about what I thought about it... but, seeing as Sureshot was first, so did I decide to post what I thought of the movie here.

It was a good movie, and some of my friends thought it was a little bit good. There was some good action in the second half of the movie, which had a slow pace inbetween. But the problem with this movie like the rest was as allways the attention that the humans got, givng the Transformers just a litte screen time. Not enough to learn about all of them.
And I did expect more of the final battle. I really wanted to see Optimus and Megatron work together to bring their common enemy down, instead of Optimus ripping his nemesis's head off after being saved by him. Besides, Megatron was in a better condition to fight than Optimus there, making it a bit illogical that Prime whould be able to kill Megatron this easily.

But, it's still not a bad movie, but I expected more of it.

Oh hey, Barricade makes a cameo too.

For once I thought the focus on the humans fighting worked very well. You don't get to know all the robots - it's like that in every movie with many charaters. You wouldn't even recognize that many in TFTM ´86 if we didn't have the series.

Megatron was looking for a peace agreement, but Optimus really took Megatron off guard - easy kill... just like Megatron took Sentinel by a surprise attack. Optimus killed all... hoping for final peace now Cybertron got turned into a black hole....
If anything survives, Spielberg has an excellent spinoff for turning destroyed Cybertron into Unicron and Megatron could get rebuild as Galvatron... thus the battle continues


Also... I loved the fact Wheelie was back !. Just sad Ironhide died.


I think the movie is the best of the bunch. Darker, harder, more violent and even Terminator like scenes with human skulls etc. Humor was in there... but it really was toned down... a lot !
I had expected less of it but got much more than anticipated.
My father and littlebrother were very impressed and rated it the best of the bunch... but still you need to know the two previous movies to really get full value out of the 3rd installment.

Oh lastly... that girl playing Carly.... she SUCKED ! what Megan Fox did for acting was not impressive.... but at least she had more emotional expressions and no stone face... This girl is just statically posing for the camera and 0 acting.

Yeah, you got a point on that you won't be able to know all the characters in a whole movie. But it felt like the rest of the robots (especially Dino (strange name on a Transformer) and Shockwave) could have been more involved in the movie. Though they were still in it enough to get a piece of shine and give some kind of a good impression.

But I guess it has to do with the syndrome of wanting to see more of some characters.

Yeah, poor Ironhide. Especially as his badassery was shown together with Sideswipe.

Something that I can clearly agree with you and my friends watching it (one of them really thought Dino was cool), so did some of the actors suck. Especially the one playing Carly. And compared to Megan Fox, so wasn't Carly interesting at all.

Agreed indeed !. As for Dino and his name, since he was/is a Ferrari it may have some kind of connection to the car model Ferrari Dino ?... I'm not sure, but that was what I though at first - eventhough his alt mode is a Ferrari 458 Italia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dino_(automobile)


And again ... Bumblebee delivered a serious sting - Ohhh Soundwave !

I also thought the film was great. I already had relatively high expectations of the movie, and had given it a preliminary rating of 3.2 after having read the summaries/spoilers and the comic book adaptation (even though the latter was incomplete and actually a bit confusing. But I had expected that.). But after having seen the actual thing once (I might give it a second viewing eventually) I have decided to raise my rating to 3.4 for a scifi action movie, and 3.8 for a Transformers movie. I gave the first movie a solid 4 on a scale from 1 to 5, so this one is quite close. (I gave Revenge of the Help-Help-I've-Fallen-And-I-Can't-Get-Up a solid 0 on the same scale, by the way).

I thought that perhaps the first 15-20 minutes after the initial flashback were a bit shaky, but after that the movie got going, and managed to keep itself rather streamlined. Even though it was surprisingly long, 2 hours and 34 minutes, the last 2 hours never felt dragged out or slow. And unlike Revenge of the Best Forgotten which consisted of six very loosely related (and quite contrived) consecutive plots, this movie held together rather well. It actually had two different storylines/casts, but they ran parallel to each other and touched every now and then until they were finally intertwined in the last third or so of the movie.

The two parallel storylines/casts was one thing that I liked about this movie - it gave everyone something to do (well, with one or a few exceptions, further below), and none of the returning characters felt out of place.

The other thing I liked about the movie - and this detail surprised me quite a bit, because I wasn't aware of it in advance - was the heavy focus on the humans in the film. I actually prefer it that way; I think humans are absolitely essential to the Transformers stories since it's only by seeing the robots side-by-side with the humans that you can appreciate their power and how deadly they are. But this time the Transformers were more or less relegated to supporting character status for the most part. Not that I'm complaining; it's just that I was surprised to see it. I can imagine that there will be a lot of fanboys that will think the film sucks because of the heavy focus on the humans.

If there's one regret/complaint that I have about this film, it is that one character was diminished so much that he was barely even a supporting character. I am of course talking about Megatron, who had way too little to do in this film, and what little he did (especially towards the end) actually felt a bit contrived - as if he was just a loose thread that the writer realized that "I have to get him in on the action somehow. But how?"

But other than that I have no complaints. I enjoyed seeing the many character deaths, and I enjoyed seeing the humans stand for some of them - the human/Decepticon duels made the threat seem quite real, quite lethal. Sam's second kill (the biggest one) in particular was really great. I felt like cheering for that death.

I agree with that... his screentime and influence was quite little - still I'd love to hear more about that treaty he made with the traitor Sentinel Prime. It's funny in ROTF one evil bot became good and now in DOTM it's vice versa

I was also so impressed with the visuals they made for showing Bumblebee's feelings... the exposed pupils worked so great and convincing to me.

WOW!

Some quick, random thoughts before going to bed:

For me, this was easily the best movie of the three. Some minor gripes, but overall, this was a fantastic movie.

I think that both Megatron and Shockwave got too little screen time. WAY too little.

I really enjoyed Nimoy's performance, and the Star Trek references (especially the blatant one towards the end of the movie) were phenomenal.

I also noticed lots of little G1 references, apart from the big one (Ultimate Doom anyone? ), like in the beginning of the movie when Laserbeak was a copying machine, and when the guy pressed the buttons, it played the G1 theme. Great stuff!

Having Laserbeak talk worked really well, and it was quite surprising.

I also like the way they've interwoven the story with actual history. I always love stuff like that.

3D was really good, and I got the wear my cinemask that I got for the Hall of Fame at BotCon

I will have more to say after some sleep and digesting of the movie

That bit I have to disagree with. The bits that were in 3D didn't do much for the film, and 35-40% of the "3D effects" weren't even actual 3D - they were just regular 2D layers at different depths. It looked quite amateurish at times actually, as if you were looking at an animated popup book.

I went to see the movie yesteray also. All in all not bad. Better than ROTF which in the end wasn't that bad either, if you look past a few bits. The story clearly loaned bits from "The Ultimate Doom" and "Megatron's Master Plan". I would've hoped that the final battles had been more epic. Now they were kinda meh. Leonard Nimoy did a great job as Sentinel Prime. John Malkovich succeeded, in being John Malkovich. They really should've found a real actress for Carly's role.

I liked it alot, it has as the other 2 movies some scenes that they could have skipped but overall it is a good movie that will probably appeal to the ginat mass of ppl and kids. I thought like the gf that you dont get any evil sense from Patrick Demsys character, and Sams boss when hes kudeling with BB is just weird. Small scenes like that is what I would have wanted out.

But as I said the movie is still great and the cgi is AWESOME. The humans work well this time as SS pointed out.

and yes LB for the ######ing win

It's so stupid that I didn't recognize the total obvious sooner but the big "worm like creature", which I originally thought was an offspring idea of the movie Tremors (big underground worm), is clearly a spin off from the trans-organic Dweller from "The Dweller in the Depths" episode .

Where in the theater were you seated? The 3D experience varies a lot depending on if you sit close to the screen or far away, in the center or off to the side. It also depends on your eyes, as some people go from being unable to see 3D at all, all the way up to being overly sensitive to it. 75% of the movie is in actual 3D; 60% shot with 3D cameras, and 15% digital 3D. The remaining 25% is conversion shots. I thought the 3D was expertly applied; not too much, not too little

I have to agree on that. I admit I've only seen 2 movies in 3D... TF3 and Avatar and I think 3D worked a lot better in TF3. We also sat near dead center to the screen on the 2nd last row just in perfect height
However there was a preview of Cars 2 in 3D and it looked AMAZING ! I might go watch that just for the 3D effect

Out towards the side. We didn't really have a choice since we got two of the last ten tickets, after my friend managed to get the original tickets refunded when the train problems prevented me from making it to the intended showing (see my recount on Facebook).
Yes, I understand that, but I had no problems with the 3D effects in Avatar where the effects worked great, and I don't think either the location or the eyesight should be able to cause the "3D effects" to be rendered as multiple 2D layers. Which was the case in about 35-40% of the shots here.

But if the position in the theatre does indeed matter as you claim, then I see the current 3D fad as a scam -- either the technology should not be used with the current cinemas at all, or the cinemas should not be allowed to fill every seat in the theatre. When I pay for a ticket to a 3D movie, my ability to see the film should not depend on whether I'm lucky enough to sit in the right place or not.

I loved this movie!! Awesome, just pure awesome!

Even though it was a good movie, I think my expectations were abit high so I felt kinda disappointed afterwards. But a second viewing will surely get me to appriciate it more. I'm gonna throw out some minor thoughts about different things in the movie.

When Megatron told Starscream about his and Sentinels plan both me and my brother got the impression that the plan was already set in motion back at Cybertron, that they planned to use the space bridge to steal some other planets resources to rebuild Cybertron. But then why would decepticon ships stop the arc from leaving? The deal must ahve been made on earth but then, why didn't we get to see it?
Also this must have happened before the All-Spark was sent away by Optimus, but if the All-Spark still was on Cybertron then why would they need to steal energy from other places? If it were after the All-Spark was sent away then Megatron wouldn't have known anything about it since he followed the All-Spark.

And man how long mustn't the Arc have drifted through space? It was thousands of years ago that the All-Spark and Megatron crashed on earth and as speculated the Arc must have left before that.. Poor Sentinel

I really like Soundwave, he, Ravage and Lazerbeak were really true to their infiltration agenda. I assume that it was he who found the arc in hte 60's and started to collect the pillars and probably discovered that both Megatron and the All-Spark was on earth. So he sent after the other Decepticons while ha started to create his network of humans. Easily the best con in this movie.

Is it just me or shouldn't Starscream or Shockwave have questioned Megatrons plan to cooperate with an autobot? Instead of sucking up to Megs, I think that Starscream at first should have questioned it early in the movie. Perhaps when the deal was made and then again during the final battle he should have mocked Megs for being Sentinels pet which would have led to a fight, killing Starscream and injuring Megs which would have explained why he was just sitting around when Carly found him. But still, if a human were to kill Starscream I'm glad that it was Sam( and with a little help of Lennox).

If Shockwave were to be this bad-ass killing robot, how come he actually didn't kill anyone? He could at least have wrecked a wrecker or something. Still he looked super Awesome and it works for him to be quiet but he could have gotten some line.

And poor poor Megatron, I feel bad for him! First the Fallens puppet and then Sentinels.. Still he kicked some serious ass in ROTF but here it was nothing. Still the scene in the desert was quite nice, seeing him and the others wait in hiding. Also the scene when he took a seat in Washington was nice. But having him be tossed around by Sentinel without so much as planning for revenge and later on just sitting in an alley waiting? Come on.. He deserves so much more! At least having him perhaps explaining to Shockwave or Soundwave about how he will remove Sentinel once his part is played out or having him whoop Starscream or even in his injured state fighting of some autobots with ease would have been nice. Wouldn't have taken that much time either.

And even though it was Bay's last movie, shouldn't at least one of the four major decepticon leaders above have survived? Now we basically need a reboot if there are to be anymore movies.

Some negativity up there but as I said, I still think it was a good movie. It was nice seeing Bee, Sideswipe and Dino hanging out as much as they did. Seems like a nice team. Ironhide and Sideswipe showed some nice warriorskills against the Dreads.
Both Cullen and Nimoy did some great VA.
I'll take a glad Carly before a bitchy Mikela every day! It was easy to relate to Sams problems, in the last movie he wanted to go to school instead of working with the Autobots and now that he was ready to do it he couldn't. And after everything he has done to be forced down to the mailroom, I feel for the guy! Some nice scenes between him and Bee as well. Nice seeing a human and an autobot as best friends.
It was also nice not to have focus around the All-Spark or the Fallen or the sun-harvester, nothing of that magnitude but instead just a piece of technology and some betrayal. That the technology eventually could bring Cybertron here well it still didn't feel that mystical like in the previous movies. Sentinel was quite nice, not just the VA, he really wanted to do what was best for his planet and keep his race alive. But still not evil to the core, not a Fallen 2.0 but somewhere in between.
It was also nice with all the homages to the G1 show! Good job!

hmm, the text feels a bit rambling so I'll stop and make a short +/- list to sum it up. I'll spoiler it as well jsut for the sake of it.


+ As always Optimus
+ Bee, Sideswipe and Dino
+ Sam, Sam & Work, Sam & Carly, Sam & Bee, Sam & Optimus.. I could go on but you get it, I liked the Sam storyline.
+ Soundwave & Lazerbeak
+ The 3D was nice, not to excessive but just enough
+ Sentinel

- Megatron
- Somewhat confusing timeline after the three movies
- Shockwave was cool but underused
- Optimus used the word kill, or something similar, a bit to much.
- That it might be the last one?

I'm mixed about the movie. In the first act of the film I was totally getting into the scenes involving the Transformers- but was annoyed by the constant switching back and forth to Sam. The fact is I just didn't give a crap about what was going on with Sams life. It wasn't until the end I actually cared about the character. Once he became involved with the actual Transformers I didn't mind him nearly as much.

And I have to say I found the character of Jerry to be up there with Leo and the Twins as the most annoying character I have seen in a Transformer related piece of media.

The one scene of the movie that brought a GIANT smile to my face was probably the one with the Decepticons African base. I loved the classic Megatron/Starscream banter. But was very disappointed when they never had a proper scene like that again

My biggest complaint besides Sams personal life taking up the first act of the movie probably just how easily some of the 'Elite' Decepticons were killed in the final battle. It just seems to me that other than Starscream all the core Decepticon cast were dispatched fairly easily. As a major Megatron fanatic it really annoyed me Megatron and Optimus didn't get a proper final battle.

I loved the amount of human casualty caused by the Decepticons though. To me that finally established the Decepticons as a true threat to Human civilization with no one to combat them.

And good god- Ironhide. Just...Ironhide.

But overall I think it was a pretty good popcorn flick. I think its easily the best of the film series. I would only recommend it to other TFans or people who don't mind filler in their action films.

WOW! Indeed. Fantastic film! Great 3D experience and yes the movie was better the second time around.
Especially when watching it with other tf-nerds. :-) The first time I saw it I thought some scenes were rushed and some characters didn't get enough screen time etc. The second time around those scenes didn't seem that rushed and so on... so in my case I think it's a matter of high expectations and the thrill of it all that made the first screening what it was. :-D
I will definitely see one more time this summer. So many great moments to enjoy again and again

Admittedly the movie wasn't good (well none of them) if you look at plot, believability, intelligent reflections, general acting etc. -it's a typical Bay film where you leave your brains at the door.
So as a movie with deep complex plot wanting to give the viewers some afterthought it totally fails ! but for wanting big kickass robots with fast action and lost of explosions etc to keep you entertained from beginning to the end - at that point it excels and is still highly enjoyable !.

BTW I LOVED the little sequence where we saw it in First Person View ! just like in Doom (the movie) and in general FPS games.... I want MORE of that

I chose to see the film in 2D for simply that reason that I wasn't willing to endure 2 and a half hours wearing the most uncomfortable goggles that I've ever worn. I saw Thor in 3D and came to a conclusion that no 3D is so mind-blowing that I will put those goggles on again. I'll rather wait for goggles-less 3D.

The same thing can be said about any Indiana Jones, Star Wars and James Bond movie. I ignore all criticism that attempt to put the films down on such merits - they're entertaining, action-packed and awe-inspiring, that's the only thing that matters with this type of film.

Exactly...and that's the main reason why I mostly disregard film reviews, since it's a matter of what you're expecting from the film... something reviewers for some whatever reason tend to totally ignore. It's like expecting American History X to be a comedy and then giving it a bad note for failing at that.

Just came back from it and I can't say I'm dissapointed, I said a year ago I wasn't gonna have any expectations other than it being better than ROTF.

I have a history of liking certain movies and being bombarded with criticisms until I finally accept that it sucks (Examples: Spider-Man 3, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the Star Wars prequels and ROTF, it took me a Razzie award to be dissapointed), so I am not particularly good at movies but this one I am most certain captures the enjoyment the first movie delivered. I never fealt bored and was constantly interested, every scene with the transformers was a spectacle, combine that with some dramatic music and action that kept my eyes and mouth open in amazement. But as I said, I went with no expectations so if there are any flaws or dissapointments I didn't notice I will accept them, but I will not deny that I was entertained!

Now I hope the movieverse is over for a few reasons. All this whining from nostalgia fans will hopefully go away and there will be only us hardcore fans again. The ending didn't have much (or any) loose ends so there's nothing left and we can probably look at this as trilogy with an ugly middle. Some people think there will be a reboot sometime with another director and I'm okay with that, but now I wish Transformers to be how it was before and NTFA could go back to the old blue design .

Ehm, you know you can change the NTFA skin down in the lower left corner ?

"it's the one where Spock goes crazy" might be one of the best lines in the movie.. At least afterwards

I have to agree, after the second viewing everything seemed much better.

Although, Still a bit annoyed by the double message around Sentinel-Megatron and The Arc. It doesn't seem that well written.
Also, in the second viewing I appriciated Megatrons role more but still, he should have had a somewhat bigger impact.

Yes but I'm talking more about the whole site like the index and all the other pages. Not just the forums.

The movie was pretty cool. I was expecting the so-called humor to be more downtoned then it was, still it was maybe a little less of it then in the previous one.
Some of those comedic bits really breaks the spell on me and takes me out of the movie.
Though I must confess I laughed when Sams boss walked in on Sam and his co-worker after the co-worker dropped his pants.
Some of the human scenes is so outdrawn into the absurd and the human characters act so weird sometimes.
Sam was great in his scenes with Bumblebee though.

When it was focused on the Transformers it was awesome though.
Too bad it was like Decepticon genocide though, the Decepticons are running out of classic leader type characters, if the movies will continue without rebooting that is.

I wish Jolt, Mudflap and Skids would be in it and the surviving bike-sister. Not a fan of Mudflap and Skids and even though the second movie was a mess I would like for them not to pretend it didn't happen! Those characters could have been in the background and have a line or two and it would have been fine.

So Megatrons Masterplan and The Ultimate Doom eh? Maybe they will redo Carnage in C-minor or a Decepticon raider in king Arthurs court in the next movie

I hope 3D dies again, don't care for it. If I want to go on a rollercoaster there is always the amusement park. Well, that is what I think, I am sure lots of people enjoy 3D but for me 2D is equally fine and you don't have to wear any annoying glasses that makes it all dark.

Overall, really cool robot action! You got to see more of the whole robots in action during those scenes too, instead of shaky close-ups and that was much appriciated!

Guess I shall throw my hat into this. As far as the three goes this was probably the best, but just like it´s brethren it has it´s flaws. If you ignore some of the logical continuity errors the story works well. If you dont ignore them it will lead to questions and a feeling that the producers painted themselves into a corner and just decided to ignore some things. But if you do the first it the story works fairly well. It seemed to borrow ideas from the old G1 cartoon, especially two multi- parters from season one and two comes to mind.

Overall the story is much darker and deals with things rarely seen in Transformers, namely what would happen if the Decepticons won (almost). Seeing humans killed (almost vaporized even) is a sight rarely seen in any Transformers fiction (the Terminator franchise could learn a thing or two). It also deals with how the humans must relay on themselves to fight of the Decepticons far more than previous outings.

One problem I had with ROTF is that the pacing was a bit off and I cant help but feel that this one does the same. In the first hour everything is set in place and the players are positioned accordingly. The problem with this is that there is very little action to be had. It´s still interesting and build suspense but it comes at a prize when the second hour rolls in (or maybe out). ROTF gave me a sense of sensory overload with it´s excellent but longwinded action scenes. When they been in Egypt for a while I almost got bored of all the explosions in the desert and started hoping that the movie would end soon. DOTM does the same thing and towards the end I was wishing for someone, anyone to get to that damn tower and do something so the movie could end. The first movie did a much better job at pacing itself and placing it´s action scenes in such away that they never felt too much. But the action scenes are wonderful and the big draw of this film.

Say what you will about Michael Bay (and people do) but he knows how to make a film look pretty, even if it often has an artificial feel about it. At the same time I am glad that not all films look like Bay´s, but in small doses the look and style of his photography is a treat.

As far as the characters and actors go it was a mixed bag. Shia Lebeuf is as unbarable in large doses as always. Who does he sleep with to be in so many big movies? Regardless, he must be one heck of a lover considering his resume.

Rosie Huntington- Whitely replaces Megan Fox (who is never mentioned at all) and I saw very little difference. She is pretty and there to look as such. She is a weaker actress than Megan Fox (yep, she is that bad) but she has a warmth about her that Megan Fox lacked. She just doesnt do much in the film besides being pretty and getting kidnapped.

Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are back as Lennox and Epps but it feels as if they are only there because someone forgot to remove them from the second one. Granted, with humans having to face Decepticons on their own they have a purpose but they just dont get much to do besides shooting at Decepticons. What happened to Lennox wife and child from the first film? That would be more interesting to know than Sam and his new piece of eye- candy.

John Turturro is back as Simmons, another character that has no use at all. He is less annoying than his previous outings, but he is only there because he is John Turturro and nothing else. Julie White and Kevin Dunn are also back as Sam´s parents but their presence is reduced and although I like them it´s probably for the best.

New to the franchise are John Malkovich and Patrick Dempesy. I suspect Malkovich is only there so they could have the name of a credible actor on the cast. It´s a waste since all he does is chew scenery worse that John Turturro (not a bad feat). Patrick Dempsey is the only character on the human side that works but there should have been more of him. His motives for his actions could have been more fleshed out, overall he is the only human character that I would have liked to see more off.

On the robot side we get quality over quantity. The army of unknown robots that where ROTF have been replaced with a more balanced cast of bots. The new draw is of course Sentinel Prime voiced by Leonard Nimoy (complete with a few Star Trek references). He does a great job in making Sentinel seem rounded and real. His motives, although never explained in any depth are easy to understand and sympathize with. The effect he has on Optimus only further enhances the character.

Speaking of Optimus I think the live action Prime will go down in history as Psycho Prime. He was a bit mellow in the first one, said "###### Rambo" as he sliced Decepticons in the second one and in the third one he could just say "Heeere´s Johnny" as he takes his axe, blades, guns and Wolverine- styled knuckledusters and crushes Decepticons. If G1 Prime could be accused of dragging out the war due to his pacifism this Prime can be accused of the same thing but with the complete opposite of pacifism. Still, watching Optimus smash Decepticons is a highlight for any Prime- fanboy. The fact that he does show a flawed and vulnerable side in his relationship with Sentinel Prime gives the character depth, athough in stark contrast to what happens in the end. As always Peter Cullen is excellent as Prime, even if his age is showing (Psycho Papa Prime).

The rest of the Autobots just seem to show up when the action starts. Bumblebee is the same as always for the most part but I do like the scene where he must face his mortality. Poor old Ironhide is just blown to the side (literally) and one would think that it would mean more to the Autobots, especially Optimus but sadly no. It´s quickly swept under the rug as the story moves on. A big missed opportunity if you ask me.

The Decepticons are outstaged by Sentinel Prime and even if it starts of well with Megatrons scene in Africa not much else happens. Megatron felt powerful and dangerous in the first one but was downplayed in the second. In this one they do give him more room but the path Megatron should have walked was saved for the very end when Carly has a heart to heart with old Megs and forces all the character development the entire movie should have had for Megatron in a few lines. It falls very flat as does the rest of Megatron who doesnt get to have his big climatic battle with Optimus as an equal in this one either. Psycho Prime indeed. Poor megs wont even get betrayed by Starscream which along no epic Prime vs Megtron battle are two of the biggest flaws in the live action franchise.

The rest of the Decepticons are just there. Even Shockwave just appears, he is very cool but could have done more (and what was up with those cybertronian worms of his?). Overall, it´s a really good movie and well worth seeing. It´s darker, more exciting and the silly humor is reduced greatly (thank you). But as the live action franchise comes to a close I cant help but feel that as a fan I never got the live action movie I wanted. But hey, that´s what reboots are for.

I think it was pretty awesome.

The story was very good, though the movie didn't present it with a best possible way. I think the main difference between DOTM and previous ones (for me) is that when I watch/watched Transformers and ROTF I loved them, especially ROTF, just because of the good things that those movies had. Scenes like forest battle made me ingore all those annoying things. After watching those movies I'm quite "blown away", because the good stuff really impress me and Jablonsky's music is fantastic. DOTM works better as a movie. It's far from perfect, but there isn't so much (if there's anything at all) that annoy me. Yes, DOTM has it's flaws, but I didn't feel like I have to facepalm. It was good movie that had some awesome scenes and scenes not so awesome, but ok still.

After DOTM I had a bit strange feeling. It's not bad thing... it was kinda wistful feeling. The end of the road for Transformers-movies by Michael Bay. Bay did great work bringing Transformers into big screen and now, after two movies, DOTM is finally what I hoped from Bayformers. Like I said, it's not perfect, but very good and some scenes are extremely awesome. And though the first one and ROTF are enjoyable movies as well, DOTM is the one that represents Transformers the way I love Transformers stories, so thumbs up for the atmosphere, themes and story of DOTM.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
+They used Sideswipe and Ironhide nicely, though they didn't get massive screentime.
+Set-up between Optimus Prime & Sentinel Prime
+The atmosphere is very strong. Overall this is much more rich movie in every way when compared to previous ones.
+DOTM looks, sounds and feels AWESOME.
+Plot. Finally very good...
-...but the movie doesn't tell the story perfectly
-Some scenes could have been a bit more clear, but again, you can't spot everything from a movie of this scale when you watch it first time.
-Autobots talking about leaving Earth, Ironhide's destiny, Sentinel Prime and their future is missed opportunity.
-The final battle in Chicago looks cool, but autobots should have had a bit more screentime...
-Overall, sometimes the balance between humans and transformers tilts too much for humans.

And couple of notes:
-I think that the possible reason why Optimus killed Sentinel was the so called "justified revenge" which is quite typical thing for american writers. I think that the ending should have been a bit more longer. Aubotos should have talked a bit more about fallen ones and Optimus should have told a bit more about their future, or something. But well, it's hard to say these negative things because the movie really feels GOOD, not "at least decent movie with some great scenes but with big flaws like previous ones". Though I loved them too.
-There are suprisingly much "mature" themes and some good lines.
-Is there some certain reason why Ferrari is Dino, not Mirage and the Einstein-bot is Que, not Wheeljack..? I kinda like that they didn't use so easily translatable names, but Dino and Que are quite exotic names for transformers.

As a movie, I'd say DOTM is 3/5 for me.
As a Transformers-movie it's at least 3½ or 4/5.

Could have been much better, but great movie still and Bay didn't leave a bad taste. He deserves more credit than he gets.

Dont know about Que but Dino was the name of Enzo Ferrari´s son, could be a nod to that.

And Que is of course a James Bond reference. Especially when he threw his special invented weapons to Sam, Epps and the guys. In the credits he was at least listed as Que/Wheeljack.

Ok, thanks to both of you! So those names are just references/tributes.

I have just returned from Colosseum Kino in Oslo where I have finally seen Dark Of The Moon in 3D (one of the final showings before the final Harry Potter chapter takes over the spotlight). And I'm sad to say I was disappointed with Dark Of The Moon. Better than ROTF, yes (not hard), but the plot was a mess. The deaths seemed to have no impact, some familiar faces just showed up for some brief screentime, only to be blown to smithereens (oh, it's hard to be a Decepticon ), and again like with the previous movies you get no real connection with the characters, be it humans or robots. I was looking at my watch already an hour before the movie ended, because I was discontent with the plot progression. I know this is an all-out action movie, but I really expected more depth. There was no sense of tension, no real build-up, just a lot of (probably fan-pleasing) bang, crash and wallop with short talky bits in between.

On a more positive note, I actually found Rosie's character Carly to be both likeable and charming, but she hardly got pushed. For a model-turned-actress she did a good job, in my opinion. And you can't fault the posh English accent .

Agree with almost everything you say. Things didn't matter. Robots dying, humans dying, Chicago getting destroyed - it felt too trivial. Another thing I noticed, that I really didn't like, was that they skipped locations way too sudden. Near the end, Bumblebee was fighting and rescuing Sam, then suddenly he was captured by the Cons.
The girl was cute, but like the last, she had only one expression - and I lost interest in here after a short while.

Shia did ok for the first time in any movie he's been in - that's saying he was less annoying than before.

Shockwave was bad ass, like expected, and one of the few positive things about the movie. But when all is said and done, these three movies have been a massive disappointment for a G1 comic fan - and probably for most TF fans. Yes, they have sold tickets, but that just shows how hungry we were for robot action, no matter how it was presented.

But he too was a blank slate, a 'Con just suddenly showing up to serve under Megatron. He seemed to be a relatively important character, but there was no background information on him, for example what did he do back on Cybertron? Optimus knew who he was, but for some reason some screen writer forgot to fill us in on some interesting (and possibly juicy) tidbits on Shockwave's past. And this is something I find it hard to forgive; the writer's must give us a reason to develop an interest in the chacters, or everything will end up having no soul.

I really enjoyed the movie for what it is. The people who don't like it seem to have trouble understanding what the movie is and isn't. They want the movie(s) to be something they are not. They are not heavy, plot-driven, logical movies and can never be regarded as such, because then, yes, you will be disappointed.

It's like saying that Casablanca is a shitty movie because it's not a comedy, or that Gone With the Wind has really bad CGI in it...

These are popcorn flicks, summer blockbusters, big action movies, and as such, they are insanely successful! It's a quick fix for anyone who likes lots of actions, explosions, and special effects. If you see them as such, you will be pleased.

Right now, Dark of the Moon has made almost $650 000 000, more than three times its budget, in less than two weeks. It's the highest grossing movie this year so far. It is the highest movie ever that opens for the Independence Day weekend, it's the second biggest movie ever to open on a Wednesday, it's the fifth fastest growing movie ever, it's the third most popular movie to open in the month of July, it's the second biggest worldwide opening, etc. etc. etc. etc. It keeps breaking record after record after record.

53.5% of the people who have seen it rate it at an A, and 22.3% at B, on a scale from A to F, while the percentage of people rating it from D to F are 15.1%

They must be doing something right...

Not the most logical choice of movies for comparison, but okay... . Regardless, questions tend to pop up during a movie and if left unanswered, they will diminish the experience.


Hey, I loved Bay's "Armageddon" and "The Rock". So much so I even bought the region 1 Criterion Collection editions on DVD. Most Bay movies have this visual flair that allows you to repress any attempt of a deeper plot. But Transformers have a rich history and there should be easy to find something that ties together characters (Autobots & Decepticons) and a stronger story. On the basis of being a blockbuster I do not fault "Dark Of The Moon", as it caters to just about everyone, not just the fanboys (and fangirls). But it's the lasting impression that counts. And here "Dark Of The Moon" falls short.


Definitely. The numbers speak for themselves. But earnings rarely say anything about the quality of the movie. To me this was the equivalent of Brett Ratner's "X-Men: The Last Stand". So I'm expecting a reboot of the Transformers movie franchise in very much the same way as "X-Men: First Class" . The question is: Who's ready to take over from Bay? Can we get Furman to write the screenplay? And where do they go with the toy line? Can they finally ditch the monstrous movie designs and go back to more normal-looking bots and cons? Or is the hideous movie designs now the new norm, "forever" destined to haunt the possible future movie franchise?

There is a perfectly normal things that every movie has to be, so they could work: The story, character development, pacing, and redemption of things. TF3 does not contain any of these. About the pacing: After the only shock-twist, we move over to the mother, who shows us a book cover where there is a picture of (apple)vagina, and she tells how the girls love the boys, with a big penis. Seriously, wtf?!
Yes I like women, breasts and sex, but the wtf, after all, this is the Transformers movie. Or at least should be. Bay shows us his own sexual fantasies through the whole movie.
And not to mention those of your "lots of action and special-effect" -things. During the first hour and a half we did not even get to see "lots of action" only comedy. Just "Leboof and co doing silly things". One and a half hours. An action film. Jesus. Bay really can do anything these days...

Not every movie has to be Oscar material, but "robots smashing stuff" is no excuse to drop the ball when it comes to basic story telling and elements like dialogue, pacing and character development.

The entire film is crystallized in a very well on Shockwave: A character comes out of nowhere, nothing is explained. None. He has a pet, sandworm, stolen from Frank Herbert's Dune. Does not explain anything. Shockwave says one word and then disappears. Appears at the end again, do not do anything and finaly die. And all supposed to praise how bad-ass character he was and how happy I was that I got to see him on live-action film. I say bullshit.


Transformers 3 should be an action film, but the first ONE AND A HALF HOURS, we see only the mentally retarded (level of the) humor, main actresses panties, and fat Chinese men with gay-jokes. Jesus. One and a half hours of idle time is not used ANY WAY in story or character development. Not to mention... anything about the..wellll... Transformers. Its only stuppid and bad humour.
And that if anything is a mark of really, really bad movie.



And what's the point? You will not receive any of the money. Bay and Spielberg will receive them. Easy money from the film, which does not even try anything, in any level. Success of the film does not mean that it would be good. Success only tells that many people went to see it.

No, I shouldn't have to take a bad movie, just because it was meant to be bad. There are good movies in this genre, there's even truly great movies in this genre.

I'm probably a bigger Marvel Comics fan than I'm a TF fan, and both Iron Man and Thor was as good as they could have been. Can you really say the same about TF? They're basically the same genre, not plot driven and certainly not logical.

I don't mean to be negative, because I really have a relaxed attitude towards the TF movies. went into the theater expecting nothing, and that's what I got. I can go home and read the G1 comics and post my minibots around on Metroplex to get my Transformers fix. But I understand perfectly well what the TF movies are: Not nearly as good as they should have been.

The movies are what they are.

If Hasbro wanted them to be anything else, they would have insisted on another director, but they are very pleased with Michael Bay. VERY pleased. In fact, they are so pleased with him, they put him in the Transformers Hall of Fame!

There will always be people who love the movies, like the movies, dislike them, and people with vast amounts of butthurt and nerd rage over some popcorn flicks...

Regardless of whether you like the movies or not, Transformers as a brand have never been more popular than they are now, and we owe that to Michael Bay and the hundreds of people who worked on the movies with him.

You may not like him, the way he does things, his sense of humour, or his style of movie making, but the least you can do is to respect the man for the life he blew back into Transformers.

And remember that it's impossible to create something that everyone likes. Just because you don't like the movie, doesn't mean that it's actually bad, or that others think, or should think that it's bad. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and you need to respect that as well without starting a pie-throwing contest.

Seems to be discussion on the quality of DOTM, something that is impossible to pass judgement on. Afterall, you cant make an objective conclusion on a subjective (and highly individual) experience. But I was wondering something. Did anyone find DOTM to be boring?

The reason for my question is that I share many of the critizisms regarding DOTM but it never bored me. As a matter of fact none of the live action films (including ROTF) bored me. I can think of many films that where slaughtered by critics, I agreed on most of the critizism but they still never bored me.

The third and fourth Pirates of the Carribean where nowhere near as good as the first two but they where still entertaining. Same goes for (to name but a few) several Bond films, most Star Trek films, Robocop 2 and 3, Terminator 3 and 4, Matrix 2 and 3 and all (yes all) of the Predator movies. I can even say that the Star Wars prequels who really are shite never really bored me.

So yeah, I can agree that DOTM (and the rest of the live action films) where kinda crap in many ways. But where they boring?

I didn't find them boring the first time I saw them, but I saw the second movie twice, and got a bit bored. And like was mentioned before, it took a good while before the action started in the new one.

The new Star Wars movies are are extremely boring in some parts. At times you can see the actors just walking slowly and talking. And the scenes with Padme and Anakin are ridiculous. Not even the fight scenes are interesting. The battle between Obi Wan and Vader in ANH is a slow but intense battle, never boring at all. The same two battle in ROTS and it's just 30 minutes of lava and jumping - boring. But I guess this too is subjective, and I run the risk of getting called a movie snob that should watch a different genre.

Now I am curious how the 3D was. I find it a bit annoying, since I like to wear my normal glasses at the theater. I lucked out and caught a "2D" showing of DOTM, but I'd still like to check out the 3D version some day in the near future.

I guess most movies can be boring if you see them too often. I have decided that Raiders of the lost ark is the best movie I have seen (in case someone asks) but I cant see it more than, maybe once a year. Otherwise it gets boring. I guess my point is that I am not sure that a movie such as DOTM attracts the same parts of the brain as, say 2001: A space odessy does. I think it attracts the same parts that a rollercoaster does. It´s a spectacle to behold, fun while it lasts but wont leave a lasting impression and as far as I know no one has critized a rollercoaster for it´s poor abilities in doing Shakespeare.

If you seek good acting movies can offer that, but so can theatre and radio. If you want a good story you can read a book. But if you want a spectacle that show your eyes images that you never seen before then only a movie (or a tv- show/videogame) can do that. Transformers have done that really well (as did the Star Wars prequels) and I find that entertaining, despite it´s many flaws.



The 3D adds to the "rollercoaster- spectacle" of the film and is, in my opinion the best 3D I have seen since Avatar (another movie that was a bit shite but not boring). A tip though, I saw Avatar with my girlfriend in the VIP lounge at Bergakungen here in Göteborg. They served wine and 3D and alcohol led to an "embarrasing incident" for my lady.

The 3D is only stereoscopic images, yes, like a 3D Viewmaster? I'm using glasses (I'm nearsighted) and I had no problems using the 3D glasses over my ordinary glasses, but the 3D didn't really feel that immersive. Though I had opted to sit in the back of the movie theatre (in the middle) and this could explain why the 3D experience felt only so-so. Thank God they had some of the ordinary 3D glasses left, because the ones I got first was a Harry Potter model (3D "horn-rimmed" glasses). No one was going to catch a glimpse of me at a Transformers showing with Harry Potter spectacles, hell no .

I've seen Band Of Brothers the full series at least 6 times and it never bores me. I'm giving The Pacific a 2nd reviewing and I'm pretty sure more will come. More Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg thanks !.

When it comes down to it all... if you didn't like TransFormers 2007 movie then you surely won't like 2009 or 2011 - end of story !

Oooh by the way... Don't make TransFormers movies in the next 10-20years... while movie may have rebooted the franchise and giving $$$ to Hasbro, then navigating through the worlds TF forums to hear Bayformers whining is just ear wreching. Hasn't done internal fandom much good.

EDIT: Flaming, trolling, and spamming is not tolerated here.

/BigPete

You need to stop. Right now. You have been warned about this behaviour before, and you have just earned yourself another warning.

For the last time: WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU HATE THE MOVIES AND MICHAEL BAY. STOP TRYING TO RIDICULE THE PEOPLE WHO DO LIKE THE MOVIES AND BAY.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Even you. But when you go around spreading the same propaganda that got your warn level risen before, and simply refusing to accept that others have different opinions than you... Wow. Bad move.

From now on, stay out of ALL of the movie discussions on this forum, both for your own sake and for the sake of other members. If you can't discuss things like a rational adult, then keep your trap shut.

SPOILER WARNING text contains some major spoilers



Well...today I went to see this movie with my friend even though at first at had decided otherwise. Efter reading many reviews and user comments about this movie it made me feel that it could be more like ROTF part2. I was partially wrong but unfortunately this movie is just slightly better that ROTF. The first ten minutes are ok and quite exciting and then...


Ok, from where should I begin. About human characters and the first half of the movie. Most scenes with Carly and Laboof just doesn't work or are not even neccesary for the movie. They are just awkward and none of the is funny (much like scenes with Sam and his parents). You maybe thought that scenes with Padme and Anakin from Episodes 2 and 3 were cheesy and clumsy. Well these DOTM scenes are like finest Swiss cheese then. Overall, most human characters were just waste of screentime and what a hell did John Malcovich do in the movie. He just had some crazy ass, mentally unstable character who vanished from the movie. Well not that any other character was any more sane. And how about ex-agent Simmons? He just got rich (how BTW?) and wasn't even working for the government anymore, but suddenly he was all over there giving orders and messing things up with his german(?) sidekick, who was...well I don't know who or what the frak he was supposed to be. They actually let those guys into a secret government base? Everything went actually fine when they showed autobots, but then they just had to show us Sam doing silly things and hassling with different not so likable characters. But hey, I quess that the Michael Bay humor. I just don't get it. It's not funny. Most human characters were just pointless and silly.

Now all that could be just fine if we would talk about movie such Dumb and Dumber part x, but in this case all that makes the movie really noncoherent. Because somewhere after the first half of the movie, it actually changes it's tone. Finally the Decepticon invasion begins and we will see crying people, dead and dying people and the whole chicago is just a warzone. Suddenly everything turns rather dramatic and grim. It just doesn't work. At first you are watching The Three Stooges and then it's all Shindlers list. It's like watching two different movies.

But movie got cool robots, huh. Yes and No. I don't really like the actual design of those bayformers save some ok-looking characters. Soundwave was not that bad, but those decepticlones were more like those tentacle crabs from Crysis games. Megatron actually looked better in this movie than in previous ones, but still had stupid facial appearance, as most movie robots. Wreckers...well nascars with gatling and machineguns kinda look and sound gnarly but other than that they were a bit insignificant. All in all CGI looked good but that didn't really suprise me.
Only good thing was, that transformers actually had more conversations and lines, but there were still just too little interaction between them, unless you count fighting and killing each oher being that. Most characters were still just kind of a extras and still quite hollow. I mean for example; I wasn't moved by the execution of Ironhide. Why should I? In the movies he was just another giant robot. He just wasn't really someone I could relate or anything. Perhaps this is the reason why I didn't find Prime executing Megatron such a big deal. Movie Megatron was just an a-hole and that's it. Prime killed him. End of story. Thats what very often happens to bad guys in the movies. They die. Well what about their...umm deeper motives and all? What motives? I haven't read any DOTM books, comics or played DOTM console games. Maybe those will give more dept to all those characters but I think the Movie alone should do that. You can't expect someone to first read all kinds of books and comics before he or she can fully enjoy the movie. Megatron was just a greedy and evil rpbot (and stupid too). I mean come on. He just decided to kill sentinel prime because some whining fleshbag lured him to do so. She was some stinky autobot-lover...Now really...Megatron, that's just silly. That's all I can say about movieverse Mega. He was just a evil robot, who got blasted.

Some of the action sequences were better than in ROTF, but there was some really weird cuts. Like the decepticons invasion just suddenly started. The screen went black for a few seconds and then decepticons were already bombing chicago. What's with that?
Movie was also way too long. I actually was bored at some points and eventually even that fighting became booring. I had seen that and it just kept going ang going and going zzzzzzzzzzzzz....

I'm not sure if Michael Bay is a douchebag for I don't really know him (yeah, he could still do less flag waving and stuff). And he is hardly Hitler for as far as I know, Hitler escaped to the moon. All I know is that he is not my favourite directors and this movie didn't make me to change my feelings about that. Maybe he could be a great stunt coordinator etc. but a director...well IMO; No. He just seems to like too much showing legs, tits, asses, big explosions, car chases and CGI action. I mean, who cares about characters with dept and personality, interesting plot etc. Ok, I do.
And for those who suggest that I could try to do it better movie I can only say; I don't have to. I'm not trying to be a movie director. Haven't even claimed that. MB is, and he is expecting us to pay some money to see his movies. I paid and I rant. That's fair considering that neither MB or Spielberg is going to give me back my money I just spent

But if you liked the movie, fine. I didn't. Well not that much anyways. Wasn't as bad as ROTF, but not as "good" as the first one.

BTW: I can almost believe that gigantic robots with feelings and emotions might exist, but no way I going to believe that only relatively handsome, goofy and workless guy with crazy pets and crazy stories would be dating a nice supermodel. Not in this universe