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rocknloadOkay. So. It wasn't nearly as bad as, say, Wolverine. But that leaves a lot of room for it to be really bad! However, there are ... bright spots among the ... oh, hell, it's bad. It's so bad. I love most of the canon it adds to the franchise itself and I still fucking love the human cast but it's awful and here is why—
- Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are barely in this thing. Optimus is dead for most of it, and Bumblebee is there, but he's not really ... there. Like he's in the background not doing anything at all. In fact, barely any Autobots do anything at all, except for two incredibly annoying new characters with names I never even learned. Edit: also they are racist. I forgot to mention that. It'd have been so much better better if they weren't even there and everything plot-related that they did went to Bumblebee.
- Without the Autobots we spend our robot time instead listening to the Decepticons have silly, boring discussions about their epic evil plots. They aren't very interesting because the Decepticons, sadly, pretty silly and boring. This is what happens when you expand a weak storyline—you show everyone how very weak it is. Why do the Decepticons hate us? Oh, right, they hate humanity. Er, why? Because humanity sucks! Seriously guys the Autobot's apparently historical devotion to protecting specific humans and humanity in general is about a thousand times more interesting than the bad guys wanting to crush us because we're "maggots." And also Prime's refusal to give us advanced weapons, even to protect ourselves? INTERESTING. Never comes up again. Damnit.
- Making Megatron the Fallen's bitch is possibly the worst decision these people made while pretending to plot this thing. God. He had no fangs. He wasn't even slightly scary. IT'S MEGATRON and I don't think he did a goddamn thing. At all! And he wasn't scary. I can't believe it, man, but he wasn't.
- But! Replacing Megatron in the slot of "totally fucking ruthless and terrifying" wasn't the Fallen. It was Optimus. That was either really awesome or really terrible and I'm not sure which, yet. "Give me your face!" Shit, son, are we sure that guy's on our side? And he's going to stay that way? They took Prime's take-no-prisoners strategy and took it to a whole new level, and while this made sense considering what was going on and what happened to him, I don't know if we're supposed to be afraid of the big guy. And he's scary.
- The plot's bogged down by totally unnecessary side plots and characters, and I saw that as someone who loved the first one a lot. Sam's roommate? Why were you in this movie? Simmons? What the hell did you accomplish in this thing?
- I'm really giving the movie a lot of credit, here. I keep talking about the "plot" like it had one. Ahaha! I had no idea what was going on for most of the time.
- As is probably apparent, the robots really left me cold. Especially all the new ones, and like I said, we barely saw the old ones.
- The toilet humor got so old. I thought it'd end and it just never did. I'm not even a snob or a prude when it comes to most of that stuff but there was just too much. In fact, there wasn't really much funny in the movie.
- Did it have a soundtrack? I didn't even notice. Fail, man.
- There was really no crowing moment of awesome.
- Way too much time watching the move the military pieces around. What, are we watching an action movie, or an incredibly dull dull game of Risk?
Like I said, though, I liked most of the canon it introduced, I just think the presentation was godawful—which means this is totally Michael Bay's fault, by the way, all of it—and I'm not going to ignore it or anything because for one I want to write about a bunch of shit that happened, man.
- Sam's mental breakdown. He's still crazy, man. He didn't get better or anything, I'm pretty sure! I hope he didn't. He's going to be seeing things and stuttering and being some kind of idiot genius for the rest of his life.
- Sam and Bumblebee's relationship. I bet some people will not like it, because they spend some of the time sort of fighting and Sam's intentionally trying to distance himself for a lot of the rest of it, but Bumblebee doesn't seem to hold it against him (much) and it's freaking obvious how much Sam depends on that robot. He like, throws himself at Bumblebee when he sees him right after Optimus dies. And whenever stuff goes wrong his first thought is BUMBLEBEE HELP. And then yeah he sort of sucks when he then turns around and goes BUMBLEBEE BACK IN THE GARAGE >/, but he was freaked out and it's pretty obvious that Sam no longer has that worshipful reverence for Bumblebee mixed in with the friendship that he had in the first movie, but that's pretty natural after knowing him for a couple years. They're friends.
- Jesus Christ Mikaela is fucking amazing.
- And Lennox. And Epps. The three of them should go into business together and fight crime. Jesus Christ Lennox threw that man out of an airplane—which is thoroughly in character, considering how he was going to shoot Simmons in the first movie.
- They are so off the charts awesome that Sam can't really keep up. Sam is a special sort of hero. He needs so much help. Anyone who knows me through any fandom at all is probably pretty aware of the fact that I adore Sam Witwicky, so much, and this has not changed. Even if he died and went to robot heaven! Which, by the way, was so incredibly stupid that I was actually laughing in the theater. I still love him. He can be a tool and I still love him.
- His life sucks so hard. Seriously, his life is fucking awful, and the awesomeness of knowing a bunch of good robots doesn't really make up for the bad robots crawling around in his brain. His life will probably continue to suck, worse and worse, getting more and more violent, until the Decepticons finally get lucky and kill him. I really can't see a logical end to this character the way his character has been established. I mean, I know they won't ever kill him in the movies but a happily ever after for this kid makes no sense at all.
- And I know a lot of people hate Shia LaBeouf, but he plays Sam really well. One of the reviews I read called him a "better actor than the material" and that's absolutely true. And even when he's being a tool he makes Sam incredibly endearing and you can see why Mikaela, Bumblebee, Lennox, and everyone else were each freaking out in their own special way when he was dead.
- No real drama there, either, though. We all knew he was coming back, right?
- God, robot heaven. Oh, right, this is the list for the good stuff, right?
- ... Jesus Christ Mikaela was fucking amazing.
- I was wrong about all the new robots being underused or lame. Jetfire, that was the old guy's name, right? He was interesting, endearing, and cool. He also died in a way that was totally fucking horrifying, but hey, we can't have everything, right? It was actually the only robot death that made me cringe at all—'cause c'mon, we all knew Optimus was coming back, too, right?
Expect me to possibly change my mind upon reviewings, because I am probably going to see it again. I didn't hate it, it was just really badly done, mostly it was badly directed? How can I like and hate something at the same time? I have no idea. But I have no qualms at all about laying almost everything that sucked right at the feet of that wicked, wicked man—Michael Bay. He clearly had no idea what the strengths were in the first movie and he played up a lot of the wrong things while leaving out a bunch of the stuff that worked, and ... augh, here is hoping for a better Transformers 3.
Edit: Oh, and Avatar looks hilariously terrible. Like, it'll be good to see it. For laughing. My brother and sister apparently had no idea about the M. Night Shyamalan thing because when they realized what they were watching, they stared at the screen in blank unseeing horror and Bryce said, "... What a twist?"
And I'm sorry to my fandom buddies, I don't know if you guys will agree with me or not about how bad this movie was, but I still like Transformers! I just ... need some good fic or something to soothe away a lot of what I just saw. I might also be less irritated when I wake up tomorrow, I am very tired.
- Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are barely in this thing. Optimus is dead for most of it, and Bumblebee is there, but he's not really ... there. Like he's in the background not doing anything at all. In fact, barely any Autobots do anything at all, except for two incredibly annoying new characters with names I never even learned. Edit: also they are racist. I forgot to mention that. It'd have been so much better better if they weren't even there and everything plot-related that they did went to Bumblebee.
- Without the Autobots we spend our robot time instead listening to the Decepticons have silly, boring discussions about their epic evil plots. They aren't very interesting because the Decepticons, sadly, pretty silly and boring. This is what happens when you expand a weak storyline—you show everyone how very weak it is. Why do the Decepticons hate us? Oh, right, they hate humanity. Er, why? Because humanity sucks! Seriously guys the Autobot's apparently historical devotion to protecting specific humans and humanity in general is about a thousand times more interesting than the bad guys wanting to crush us because we're "maggots." And also Prime's refusal to give us advanced weapons, even to protect ourselves? INTERESTING. Never comes up again. Damnit.
- Making Megatron the Fallen's bitch is possibly the worst decision these people made while pretending to plot this thing. God. He had no fangs. He wasn't even slightly scary. IT'S MEGATRON and I don't think he did a goddamn thing. At all! And he wasn't scary. I can't believe it, man, but he wasn't.
- But! Replacing Megatron in the slot of "totally fucking ruthless and terrifying" wasn't the Fallen. It was Optimus. That was either really awesome or really terrible and I'm not sure which, yet. "Give me your face!" Shit, son, are we sure that guy's on our side? And he's going to stay that way? They took Prime's take-no-prisoners strategy and took it to a whole new level, and while this made sense considering what was going on and what happened to him, I don't know if we're supposed to be afraid of the big guy. And he's scary.
- The plot's bogged down by totally unnecessary side plots and characters, and I saw that as someone who loved the first one a lot. Sam's roommate? Why were you in this movie? Simmons? What the hell did you accomplish in this thing?
- I'm really giving the movie a lot of credit, here. I keep talking about the "plot" like it had one. Ahaha! I had no idea what was going on for most of the time.
- As is probably apparent, the robots really left me cold. Especially all the new ones, and like I said, we barely saw the old ones.
- The toilet humor got so old. I thought it'd end and it just never did. I'm not even a snob or a prude when it comes to most of that stuff but there was just too much. In fact, there wasn't really much funny in the movie.
- Did it have a soundtrack? I didn't even notice. Fail, man.
- There was really no crowing moment of awesome.
- Way too much time watching the move the military pieces around. What, are we watching an action movie, or an incredibly dull dull game of Risk?
Like I said, though, I liked most of the canon it introduced, I just think the presentation was godawful—which means this is totally Michael Bay's fault, by the way, all of it—and I'm not going to ignore it or anything because for one I want to write about a bunch of shit that happened, man.
- Sam's mental breakdown. He's still crazy, man. He didn't get better or anything, I'm pretty sure! I hope he didn't. He's going to be seeing things and stuttering and being some kind of idiot genius for the rest of his life.
- Sam and Bumblebee's relationship. I bet some people will not like it, because they spend some of the time sort of fighting and Sam's intentionally trying to distance himself for a lot of the rest of it, but Bumblebee doesn't seem to hold it against him (much) and it's freaking obvious how much Sam depends on that robot. He like, throws himself at Bumblebee when he sees him right after Optimus dies. And whenever stuff goes wrong his first thought is BUMBLEBEE HELP. And then yeah he sort of sucks when he then turns around and goes BUMBLEBEE BACK IN THE GARAGE >/, but he was freaked out and it's pretty obvious that Sam no longer has that worshipful reverence for Bumblebee mixed in with the friendship that he had in the first movie, but that's pretty natural after knowing him for a couple years. They're friends.
- Jesus Christ Mikaela is fucking amazing.
- And Lennox. And Epps. The three of them should go into business together and fight crime. Jesus Christ Lennox threw that man out of an airplane—which is thoroughly in character, considering how he was going to shoot Simmons in the first movie.
- They are so off the charts awesome that Sam can't really keep up. Sam is a special sort of hero. He needs so much help. Anyone who knows me through any fandom at all is probably pretty aware of the fact that I adore Sam Witwicky, so much, and this has not changed. Even if he died and went to robot heaven! Which, by the way, was so incredibly stupid that I was actually laughing in the theater. I still love him. He can be a tool and I still love him.
- His life sucks so hard. Seriously, his life is fucking awful, and the awesomeness of knowing a bunch of good robots doesn't really make up for the bad robots crawling around in his brain. His life will probably continue to suck, worse and worse, getting more and more violent, until the Decepticons finally get lucky and kill him. I really can't see a logical end to this character the way his character has been established. I mean, I know they won't ever kill him in the movies but a happily ever after for this kid makes no sense at all.
- And I know a lot of people hate Shia LaBeouf, but he plays Sam really well. One of the reviews I read called him a "better actor than the material" and that's absolutely true. And even when he's being a tool he makes Sam incredibly endearing and you can see why Mikaela, Bumblebee, Lennox, and everyone else were each freaking out in their own special way when he was dead.
- No real drama there, either, though. We all knew he was coming back, right?
- God, robot heaven. Oh, right, this is the list for the good stuff, right?
- ... Jesus Christ Mikaela was fucking amazing.
- I was wrong about all the new robots being underused or lame. Jetfire, that was the old guy's name, right? He was interesting, endearing, and cool. He also died in a way that was totally fucking horrifying, but hey, we can't have everything, right? It was actually the only robot death that made me cringe at all—'cause c'mon, we all knew Optimus was coming back, too, right?
Expect me to possibly change my mind upon reviewings, because I am probably going to see it again. I didn't hate it, it was just really badly done, mostly it was badly directed? How can I like and hate something at the same time? I have no idea. But I have no qualms at all about laying almost everything that sucked right at the feet of that wicked, wicked man—Michael Bay. He clearly had no idea what the strengths were in the first movie and he played up a lot of the wrong things while leaving out a bunch of the stuff that worked, and ... augh, here is hoping for a better Transformers 3.
Edit: Oh, and Avatar looks hilariously terrible. Like, it'll be good to see it. For laughing. My brother and sister apparently had no idea about the M. Night Shyamalan thing because when they realized what they were watching, they stared at the screen in blank unseeing horror and Bryce said, "... What a twist?"
And I'm sorry to my fandom buddies, I don't know if you guys will agree with me or not about how bad this movie was, but I still like Transformers! I just ... need some good fic or something to soothe away a lot of what I just saw. I might also be less irritated when I wake up tomorrow, I am very tired.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:14 pm (UTC)WHO ELSE WILL BREAK MILITARY RULES RIGHT AND FREAKING LEFT, MAN. I think it's pretty obvious that the NEST dudes have a different commander than the US government thinks, though they're probably pretty aware of that, now! I wonder if they will keep their jobs.
EXCELLENT
Then who will make another one?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:22 pm (UTC)THEY HAD BETTER!
...I don't trust any directors enough. And Michael Bay WAS good for the first movie, he was just. Doing something this time. Did you notice all the LET US CIRCLE AROUND AND AROUND THE SUBJECT OF THE SHOT camera stuff? What was that all about.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:31 pm (UTC)PRESIDENT OBAMA DOESN'T LIKE THE AUTOBOTS AND THE NEST GUYS ANSWER ONLY TO OPTIMUS PRIME, THIS HAS GOT TO CAUSE SOME PROBLEMS.
His directing was terrible. It just was. He's a terrible director so this isn't particularly surprising honestly, maybe he just got lucky with the first one? I think the actors and voice actors pretty much pulled this out of being completely godawful.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:42 pm (UTC)SURELY HE WILL COME AROUND. HE AND OPTIMUS PRIME CAN CHAT, I AM SURE THAT THEY WOULD GET ALONG.
... D:
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:44 pm (UTC)WHO COULD NOT LIKE OPTIMUS PRIME MAN
Also why do Sam's parents hate Bumblebee I just now remembered that.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:05 pm (UTC)I really want to think more about what Sam said to him, about how the dignity of an Autobot demanded more than being attached to a human and living in his garage. It's... hm. An interesting thought!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:08 pm (UTC)Sam was also trying to get rid of him. In a kind sort of way. Though he definitely meant it, too! That was also before Sam met those obnoxious twins, maybe he now realizes that being an Autobot does not guarantee you any honor and dignity at all. Thanks, movie, thanks.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:14 pm (UTC)Something terrible should've totally happened to Bumblebee. Not only would it have made the ending actually interesting, Sam could then have realized what he was actually saying when he told Bee to go back to Optimus. STOP HANGING OUT WITH ME, DON'T YOU HAVE A WAR TO FIGHT?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:20 pm (UTC)CLEARLY THE AUTOBOTS LET BEE STAY WITH SAM BECAUSE THEY ANTICIPATED ALL THIS, OTHERWISE IT MAKES NO SENSE. Maybe all the braintrauma started out when he first touched the cube and the shard just woke it up.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:25 pm (UTC)Also I just realized that the fic I half-wrote that was supposed to take place after the first movie? Was not contradicted by this new movie at all. HOW WEIRD. Mostly because they totally ignored Barricade. I guess he's still wandering around, being a cop car and a jerk.
WE HAVE TO DO WHAT WE CAN. WE CANNOT FILL THEM ALL IN BUT WE CAN TRY, DAMNIT.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:29 pm (UTC)YOU SHOULD FINISH THAT FIC AND WRITE MORE FIC. IT WILL HELP WITH THE PLOT HOLES.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:32 pm (UTC)I HAD THE FIRST PART ALL WRITTEN AND READY TO BE POSTED AND SHIT. IT IS SITTING HERE NOW. STARING AT ME. SADLY. But I wrote it a long time ago so it's possible that it actually sucked, hn.
... And I've, uh, started another one, too. I have a problem with this sort of thing.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:39 pm (UTC)