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07-06-2009, 12:47 PM | #31 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: New Castle, Delaware
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I love how the attitude on this thread is that, because a movie employs fantastical/sci-fi elements, it doesn't need to make ANY sense, have any continuity, the characters don't need motivations, the dialogue doesn't have to make ANY sense...
I mean, that's just silly. Nobody's asking for a Transformers movie to be On the Waterfront. Nobody's asking for a Transformers movie to be Othello for pete's sake. The action was fine, but in the movie, things happen only to set up the next action scene. Lame.
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07-06-2009, 01:04 PM | #32 |
FOXHOUNDER
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Location: Alabama
Posts: 1,493
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Quote:
I love how the attitude on this thread is that, because a movie employs fantastical/sci-fi elements, it doesn't need to make ANY sense, have any continuity, the characters don't need motivations, the dialogue doesn't have to make ANY sense...
I mean, that's just silly. Nobody's asking for a Transformers movie to be On the Waterfront. Nobody's asking for a Transformers movie to be Othello for pete's sake. The action was fine, but in the movie, things happen only to set up the next action scene. Lame. and as I thought the action was great that is fine with me. on a ROC note if it was just as good as ROTF normally I would be happy but im a bigger Joe fan than TF so needs to be a little better to please me. not going to forgive the batman armor though even if it was perfect. |
07-06-2009, 01:08 PM | #33 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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Quote:
I think there might be a misconception that enjoyment of the film (or in my case, select portions of the film) is tantamount to forgiving it of its flaws. It's not. It just means I was able to extract enjoyment from a movie of elevated technical but questionable critical and artistic merit. |
07-07-2009, 02:40 PM | #34 |
Mad Scientist at Large
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 14,793
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I've gotten so sick of the "check your brain at the door" bullshit that has been used as an excuse for mediocre entertainment. I'm sorry, but if you look at a list of the 100 greatest movies of all time, you'll find most, if not all, are movies that, regardless of premiss, stop and make you think about something. If you want proof then look at the original Planet of the Apes, with its allagories of racial prejudice, man's road to self-destruction, and searching for hope in the bleakest of circumstances. Compare that to Tim Burton's remake. Who here has even seen the remake since they first watched it? And you want a great excuse to make a mindless action movie, you'd think super-heroes would be a perfect spot, but look more closely. Iron Man had a man who lived only for his own vice come face to face with the negative consequences of his actions, and make a decision to use his power for a greater good, and his adversary, his opposite, who embodies spreading war for his own greed. The Incredible Hulk, the story about a man desperately trying to rid himself of a monster. The Hulk has always been an allegory to to blind rage hidden in everyone, but at the end we see a glimps that the true answer may not be to destroy or banish the monster, but embrace it as a part of one's self, and tame it. In both Marvel heroes cases, we could have just had guys with armor and superpowers unleashing destruction, but in both cases that little extra bit of effort made for something that isn't just fun to watch the first time you see it. George Lucas said it best. There are movies you f**k, and movies you fall in love with. You're average summer blockbuster is like loveless sex. It's fun but ultimately unfulfilling. When you fall in love with a movie it endures, and stays with you. |
07-07-2009, 03:09 PM | #35 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: PA
Posts: 903
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Quote:
I love how the attitude on this thread is that, because a movie employs fantastical/sci-fi elements, it doesn't need to make ANY sense, have any continuity, the characters don't need motivations, the dialogue doesn't have to make ANY sense...
I mean, that's just silly. Nobody's asking for a Transformers movie to be On the Waterfront. Nobody's asking for a Transformers movie to be Othello for pete's sake. The action was fine, but in the movie, things happen only to set up the next action scene. Lame. I'm not looking for cinematic genius, but I would like some things to make sense. Saying that nothing has to make sense in sci-fi because it's sci-fi is kind of a glib oversimplification of why somethings have to be taken with a grain of salt and why something need to be forgiven or glossed over in sci-fi movies, like movies about time travel and futuristic technologies and such. But just because certain things have to be forgiven - like the fact that giant transforming alien robots exits - doesn't mean I don't want some sense in there as well. To say it doesn't need sense is like allowing Megatron to rebuild himself without the Allspark, Optimus Prime to start a rap-version of "Follow The Yellow Brick Road" during the final battle, John Turturro's character to spontaneously combust and then let the ashes reform into James Gandolfini, and Sam to secretly be Rodimus Prime stuck in human probably because an ancient human wizard named Merlin didn't like cars in Camelot. I'm willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to certain things on that list, but there are many more things just don't make sense. When it comes to geography, well we can just fudge that. That's no big deal. Accents and minstrels? I can overlook that as well. But certain logical choices? For example - the shards. One is with Mikaela, one is guarded heavily at a naval base. The Decepticons know about them, but rather than help Wheelie out, they send Ravage and the minicons to take on the base and it's human guards. That's next - why humans? We know if anyone goes after this thing it will be a giant transforming robot. Why not guard it with a giant transforming robot? Also, human soldiers teaming with giant transforming robots to hunt other giant transforming robots and kill them. Didn't we kind of establish in the first movie that giving humans a bunch of machine guns won't do crap against giant transforming robots? Also, if we have a team of giant transforming robots as good guys, why send humans at all? To get killed? To bring back to the states in coffins with flags on them? Let the giant transforming robots do the work. They're going to anyway. Why seduce Sam? They sent a couple Descepticons to kidnap his parents. Why not do the same? Because of Bumblebee? Fine. Send more than one Decepticon. Wheelie knew exactly why the Decepticons were after the shards of the Allspark. And Sam saw that Megatron came back to life. So when they all have a little pow-wow with Wheelie, why does he have them go after Jetfire and have them use the spark to revive him, rather than use the spark on Optimus? Wheelie knew it would work. He was trying to get it for Megatron. Why did the remaining Primes build a tomb out of their body rather than take on the Fallen themselves? Also, why did they hide the Matrix ON EARTH, the one planet they were trying to protect. They're space farers - why not hide it in another galaxy? It took the Fallen thousands of years to find it on Earth (and in fact, he didn't, Sam did). Think of how long it would have taken him if it was on Mars. Of course then we wouldn't have need for a final confrontation - but this whole deus ex machina way of writing is just terrible. I liked the first movie and I liked this one for the most part. I wasn't expecting much, just giant transforming robots from outer space kicking the ever-living crap out of eachother. So for the most part I found them enjoyable and definitely checked my brain at the door. But when my brain and I met up after the movie, there were just things that neither of us could ignore. I liked it, will definitely buy it on Blu-Ray, and like the toys as well, but I see the flaws, I am critical of the film, and to utterly dismiss the need for logic just because it's sci-fi and based on a seemingly impossible premise is a little one-dimensional. |
07-07-2009, 03:16 PM | #36 |
JOES BEFORE HOES
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Westland, MI
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Hardly. The movie was a glaring mess of contradictions and stupidity. This article only scratches the surface. None of the motivations or decision-making makes even the slightest bit of sense, ever; decisions are made or motivations are assigned in order to serve the needs of setting up the next action scene. Not even the slightest nod is made towards continuity; characters disappear and reappear in order to show up at what Michael Bay thought would be a dramatically appropriate moment. That movie was nonsense.
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07-07-2009, 03:56 PM | #37 |
Warrant Officer
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 222
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I'm going to second the notion that the article was just being nitpicky. Transformers isn't supposed to be shakespeare and it's not supposed to make you take a good hard look at some real world issue. It's an escapist film. It's supposed to let you sit back and relax for a couple hours and just enjoy the entertainment, which it did for me.
Plot holes, sure it's got some. Almost every epic adventure movie does. And I think it's silly that someone pointed out that everything was set up just to motivate the next action scene. The basically put this in an accusitory tone, when that's what it's supposed to be doing. You know, I bet if the person that wrote that article were to go back and watch the movie again and actually took the time to do what they were supposed to do and just relaxed and enjoyed the film, they'd discover that half of those questions which are posed in that article actually have answers. It's just funny that the article starts off with the author's willingness to suspend disbelief, but then only goes on to demonstrate that this suspension only applies to the setting up of the premise of the film as a whole and not to the component parts that are essential to film making, and further more, the making of a film sequal. Who cares what The Fallen was doing while Megatron was frozen for years at the begining of the first film. We don't want to know, it'd spoil the whole set up for a second. And for Zefram, you brought up the notion of the top 100 films of all time, but do you really think this film is trying to get onto that list, or is it trying to be one of the top 100 biggest bow offices of all time. Compairing to the films on that list would be a far better match. |
07-07-2009, 04:06 PM | #38 |
Banned
Join Date: May 2008
Location: New Joesey
Posts: 2,931
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When it comes to a movie about alien robots that transform into earthly vehicles, animals and objects to "blend in" I can accept lots of plotholes and maintain suspension of disbelief.
Kind of like the Military having a one-man-army Commando/Ninja, that operates outside all the parameters of usual protocol, that happened to belong to a Ninja Clan run by a Master, who was killed by an assassin/human chameleon, who was hired by the leader of an enemy terrorist group, whose brother killed said commando's family in a drunken driving car accident. Oh yeah, and he escaped death via helicopter explosion, which had no effect on anything but his face and vocal chords. You get my point LOL. |
07-07-2009, 04:11 PM | #39 |
Mad Scientist at Large
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 14,793
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Quote:
And for Zefram, you brought up the notion of the top 100 films of all time, but do you really think this film is trying to get onto that list, or is it trying to be one of the top 100 biggest bow offices of all time. Compairing to the films on that list would be a far better match.
Someone mentioned how great it is to finally have a movie with giant robots beating each-other up, but any anime fan will ask you where the hell you've been for the last 25yrs. |
07-07-2009, 04:15 PM | #40 |
Banned
Join Date: May 2008
Location: New Joesey
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My question is, why can't we have humongous robot battles and NOT have our intelligence insulted? Anime's been doing this since the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Votoms, Macross (aka Robotech), Gunbuster, and Evangelion too have used a rather ridiculous premise to deliver insightful stories. Only recently did Gainax deconstruct their very own deconstuction with Gurren Lagan, but even in that mass of insanity, they manage to be consistant within their own universe (a universe literally fueled by awesome I might add) and have a lot of genuinely emotional moments coupled with brilliant characterization.
Someone mentioned how great it is to finally have a movie with giant robots beating each-other up, but any anime fan will ask you where the hell you've been for the last 25yrs. I'd personally prefer a story that made me think, but I feel it's better to have this version of TF rather than no TF at all. |
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