SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Transformers 3 is a genuinely good alien invasion film along the lines of War of The Worlds and Battle: Los Angeles that is continually interrupted by the obscene presence of the Autobots. It's the film's running joke: that any poignancy is cut short by Optimus stepping into the frame in his trumped-up idiot uniform, or Bumblebee appearing to snatch a falling character from the air (a recurring image).

People have called Bay a nihilist, but his appreciation of 'the troops' seems genuine. He's just as genuinely distressed that they fall into line behind this Optimus figure.

Consider that Sam's search for Carly in Chicago is the same scenario as Cloverfield, and consider how that film ends by comparison. One thing people miss in Cloverfield is its fairly seamless transition from being a 9/11 film to an Iraq War film, and you get the same thing in Transformers 3. There's the imagery of the skyscrapers being toppled, sure, but the spectacular violence is mostly distraction, chaos designed to disrupt the existing order so that a 'fortress' can be built in its place.

Remember when all those advanced terrorist gunships engaged in a prolonged shock-and-awe bombing campaign? 9/11 was a lot of things, but it wasn't a colonization.

Hbomberguy posted:

Did the Decepticons accidentally make tiny human-sized guns?

Jonny Angel posted:

No it is not weird because Linkin Park are much better at making music than loving Imagine Dragons.

Darth TNT posted:

A cross over between the two (GIJoe/Transformers) in their current incarnations would be the loudest, most explodiest summer blockbuster movie ever. Only Michael Bay should be allowed to make such a movie.

The MSJ posted:

Here is a superior analysis of everything wrong with Frozen:

http://everythingwrongwithfrozen.tumblr.com/

edit:
Actual response to Cinema Sins stuff. This was actually published a month or so before Cinema Sins' Jurassic Park video.

Not A Bear posted:

Optimus came off as such a psychopath in this one, I can almost agree with why the creators want to put him down though. And the last I dunno, half hour was brutal, although it did almost reach a point where it became too much and I became almost detached and bored by the amount of explosions and robot smashing

Jay Dub posted:

I went into this one with Terry's reading of Optimus Prime as a psychotic fascist, but it was still extremely jarring to hear him say "Honor until the end," only to immediately stab Lockdown in the back and then cut his face in half. It's par for the series at this point, but still.

Also, props to the lady next to me who turned to me halfway through the film and yelled "OH MY GOD THAT'S FRICKIN' FRASIER!"

Milky Moor posted:

The thing I find interesting about the Transformers series is how, despite critics panning them without an ounce of thought or reflection* beyond the cultural zeitgeist that Michael Bay is a dumb manchild and despite the hardcore nerds hating them because they're not G1, these films still make ridiculous amounts of money and I can never find someone who shares these views. It's like the average movie-goer loves them. When I saw TF4 at midnight in Imax 3D, the theatre was packed. When I saw TF3 at opening night in Imax 3D, the theatre was packed.

*Watch how every reviewer keeps mentioning that the human-built robots are Decepticons.

CJSwiss posted:

Actually, the Megatron-as-revolutionary backstory comes from the Generation 1 UK comics and was adopted by the Aligned universe (the Prime TV show and War/Fall games) and the IDW comics where he started as a disgruntled miner.

The movie comics' backstory is that Megatron was the head of Cybertron's defense forces while Optimus was the head of the science division under Sentinel Prime. After Sentinel's forces unified the planet, Sentinel backed off and ruled in-name-only while Megatron and Optimus were the de facto dual rulers of Cybertron, with Optimus being groomed as Sentinel's successor since Sentinel knew that Optimus was descended from the Primes. Megatron was jealous of Optimus' lineage and starts to get more authoritarian, demanding to be called the Lord High Protector of Cybertron. The science division ends up unearthing a relic that The Fallen is trapped inside of (this was a plot point dropped from RotF - he's supposed to be stuck in it, having been sealed by the Primes, until Optimus dies, at which time he is able to be released from his imprisonment), who makes a psychic link with Megatron and convinces him that he'll gain power if he follows his orders. Cybertron then falls under invasion from aliens from the Eshems Nebula who want the Allspark and Megatron decides to launch an attack at the aliens' homeworld (Optimus thinks this is wrong and that they should just defend Cybertron instead of go on the attack, which seems really uncharacteristic after movies 2 - 4). The Cybertronians are victorious and Megatron grows paranoid that Optimus' loyalists are trying to undermine him so he claims total power and starts trying to wipe out his opponents, which leads to the civil war.

edit: That said, the likelihood that Michael Bay knows any of this or takes it into consideration is probably nonexistent because it was made up by IDW.

Gammatron 64 posted:

I didn't really want to see this at first, but a friend was like "hey, wanna see it?" and I gave in.

It wasn't nearly as bad as ROTF or DOTM, but it's still worse than the first movie. It would probably be the best if it wasn't so long and dragged on forever. I was engaged for the first hour or so, but soon I became bored to tears through most of it and keep looking at my watch waiting for those end credits to finally roll.

The human characters were infinitely more tolerable than Megan Fox, Shia LeBeouf and his obnoxious family. Marky Mark was... dare I say, even likable? The whole jailbait daughter thing kind of creeped me out, though. I also liked John Goodman as Bulkhound and Frasier Crane quitting his radio show so he can be an evil CIA agent.

Optimus Prime is more of a maniac has he ever has been and in fact, all the Autobots were enormous douchebags bordering on being villains to the point where I disliked Crosshairs. Lockdown was cool and I may have been secretly rooting for him. The Dinobots were also fun to watch for the 10 minutes of screen time they had. Also I really don't like the effects used when Galvatron and his crew transform. If they morph using nanomachines, how come they're still all limited to two forms? How come they're not infinite changers?

There was a lot of unintentional humor in this. There's one scene that has product placement that is so incredibly brazen I burst out laughing. A big Bud Light truck crashes and all the bottles are thrown everywhere. The camera focuses on the bottles for a second, then Marky Mark opens one up and takes a swig.

There's also a part where Mark Wahlberg has a gun sword and is on the ground and actually manages to parry Lockdown's blows and able to hold off a giant loving robot's blows. poo poo, I know the guy lifts and has arms the size of beer kegs but drat, that's some upper body strength. And just like Shia and crew, Mark and his gang are superhumans who can survive getting thrown from buildings and through exploding glass and rubble and poo poo and still be totally okay.

It was a bad movie, but this time around it was more laughably bad vs. "I want to claw my own eyes out" bad, so that's an enormous improvement.

The MSJ posted: