[SPOILERS] Movie #2 reactions; film now out!

Post by **Clay** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:24 pm

Different character. Bay just liked him.

linky

Springer85 · Post by **Springer85** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:30 pm

I really liked this movie. Maybe a little too many robots and Bumblebee and Prime go a little too Grimlock like crazy on their opponents, but all in all I really liked it.

The Battle between the Decepticons and Prime in the forest, while he was trying to protect Sam really made me feel like that 6 year old kid again that cried when he saw Transformers: The Movie (1986)

Post by **Clay** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:24 pm

I'm going to a 12:02am showing tonight! Whee, I'm excited!

Springer85 · Post by **Springer85** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:59 pm

By the way, a question for the people that have already seen it; are all three motorcycles referred to as Arcee? I thought they were, but I could be wrong.

borg72 · Post by **borg72** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 6:29 am

Springer85 wrote:By the way, a question for the people that have already seen it; are all three motorcycles referred to as Arcee? I thought they were, but I could be wrong.

yes (short answer)

yes, but IDW could still fudge the issue if they really wanted to (long answer)

Tramp · Post by **Tramp** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 8:10 am

Springer85 wrote:By the way, a question for the people that have already seen it; are all three motorcycles referred to as Arcee? I thought they were, but I could be wrong.

Yes and no. They shared the same voice actress and holo-riders and worked as a unit, and the only one specifically addressed was Arcee, though the toys at least give them individual names—the blue one is Chromia, the reddish pink one is Arcee and the violet one is currently unnamed (there's a lot of speculation that she might be named Elita-1, though the fact that Arcee's toy bio lists herself, and not the violet bike, as the leader of the trio, puts that a little in doubt).

EDIT. ANyway, I just got back from the midnight premier and loved every minute of it. The chemistry between the various characters was spot on. The characteizations of the various Autobots, the dynamics between Starscream and Megatron, the bickering between the twins, it was just great stuff. The Fallen was just plain Evil. Great movie all around.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:11 pm

Yeh, the Arcee issue is monumentally vague. Only the one name is ever thrown about, but it's anybody's guess as to whether it's referring to one of them specifically or the three as a unit. Yay for clarity! Then again they don't even bother naming Sideswipe at all.

borg72 · Post by **borg72** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:30 pm

Halfshell wrote:Yeh, the Arcee issue is monumentally vague. Only the one name is ever thrown about, but it's anybody's guess as to whether it's referring to one of them specifically or the three as a unit. Yay for clarity! Then again they don't even bother naming Sideswipe at all.

they do, once, right before/as he first transforms. partially drowned out by soundtack/score. whats the audio version of 'blink-and-miss-it'?

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 3:25 pm

Fair enough. Not all the robot dialogue was perfectly clear - I still have no clue what any of Mixmaster's lines were.

One other thing I noticed second time out - good thing Skids and Mudflap ended up scanning the cars the way round they did, considering the license plate on the green one said Skids anyway.

numbat · Post by **numbat** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:21 pm

Halfshell wrote:Fair enough. Not all the robot dialogue was perfectly clear - I still have no clue what any of Mixmaster's lines were.

One other thing I noticed second time out - good thing Skids and Mudflap ended up scanning the cars the way round they did, considering the license plate on the green one said Skids anyway.

That is a relief!

Post by **Clay** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:29 pm

Right, I have seen this now.

Felt like an episode more than a sequel, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Seemed like a self-contained story rather a direct-continuation-even-though-we-never-planned-on-it-and-oh-lets-make-it-a-trilogy like the Matrix movies.

Skids and Mudflap: they are ninjas. I love them.
Ravage and Soundwave: perfectly done. Poor kitty! WHY HAS NO ONE MENTIONED THAT RAVAGE HAS A HAIRBALL. THAT IS FUNNY.
Devastator came off as an initially scary-but-ultimately-completely-ineffectual oaf. In short, just like he's always been!

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I didn't have the gut "I wanna go again! I wanna go again!" roller coaster reaction to it that I did with the first one. I will say that there were far fewer, if any, lines of dialogue that actually made me cringe, such as, "There's only one hacker in the world that can break this code."

Didn't like Fallen's intro scene with Megatron and Starscream with him sitting on a throne or something. Came off as too cartoonishly supervillainous. If he had laughed maniacally while he was at it he'd have broken the film.

I am left with the question, "Do evil cyclopean robot space kitties have nine lives?"

numbat · Post by **numbat** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:42 pm

Clay wrote:I am left with the question, "Do evil cyclopean robot space kitties have nine lives?"

I bloody well hope-so!

(Of course, death has not been a handicap to Blackout or Bonecrusher anyway... Megatron seems to take it a bit harder, but, heck, he's still in there!)

And yeah - I totally agree - this feels like a live-action G1 story-arc!

Dragon Warrior Steve · Wed Jun 24, 2009 5:38 pm

Believe it or not, I've already seen this movie 1.5 times. Had bad luck at the midnight premiere when the film crapped out halfway through the movie. I made sure I saw the first screening today.

What else is there to say? This movie was awesome. The action was fabulous, and I'll glady say that Prime vs. Megatron, Starscream, and Grindor was one of my all time favorite fights in a movie.

Speaking of Starscream, thank the lord they did his character justice this time. He was the sniveling coward that we all know and love.

I was disappointed by the fact that the Decepticons were a bunch of clones. It felt like the majority of Decepticons were Constructicons. Doesn't bother me that much though.

I was also glad to hear Frank Welker back as Soundwave, and Tom Kenny was awesome as Wheelie and Skids.

That's all I can fathom for now.

another tf fan · Post by **another tf fan** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:00 pm

I loved ROTF.

The effects, the battles, the robots, the humans, the hardware, the comedy.

Everything...

the critical reviews are so wrong... (well maybe they are right, but for all the wrong reasons...) the movie was better than the first in every way I wanted.

Stuff I loved:

Every new scene of the first movie robots
Soundwave
Ravage
The Fallen
Starscream and Megatron's little tiff on the roof-top.
The doctor.
Leo was good and funny
Simmons was way cooler in this movie
Devestator

wolfbolt86 · Post by **wolfbolt86** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:51 pm

Just got back from seeing it. Loved it.

The only problem that I have was that Tom Kenny sounded like he was using his Spongbob voice for both Wheelie and Skids.

Besides the two ARCs Prime and Jetfire, did any other Autobots get scraped?

fantomdranzerx · Post by **fantomdranzerx** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:05 am

If I gave the film a letter grade, I'd give it a B-.

The Good in the Film:
-All the flashbacks. It's nice seeing the history of the Cybertronian race, even if it's just limited to their involvement with Earth.
-Human actors were okay. Shia LaBeouf was good, and I'm glad that his broken hand didn't change much from the plot, other than a bandage on his arm.
-The Pretender was amazing, though some TF-Illiterate viewers might see it as a rip-off of Terminator.
-Soundwave was awesome. Ravage and his little drones were good, too.
-Optimus as always. Peter Cullen's voice is just perfect for him.
-Megatron and Starscream. Their bickering was good. Starscream's last line speaks a lot about his character, in my honest opinion. It's also interesting to see Megatron as an underling for The Fallen; a nice change from what we've seen in previous stories.
-Jetfire was nice. After seeing 'Up,' it's nice to see another funny old man, this time one that's a giant robot.
-Prime's upgrade in the end was cool.
-The Fallen. A bit two dimensional, yes, but he was still interesting and threatening.
-The Decepticon's spaceship. Very creepy with all the unborn Cybertronians in it.

The Bad:
-Mudflap and Skids. To me, they're to Transformers what Jar Jar Binks is to the Star Wars franchise. Enough said.
-Not enough lines/character development from the minor 'bots.
-Soundwave didn't do anything aside from hacking the network.
-Too much fighting.
-Too many confusing camera shots.
-Optimus's final fight with The Falen felt kind of rushed.

Overall, it was an okay film. I'll gladly buy it on DVD.

Brimstone · Post by **Brimstone** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:30 am

I'm still torn on this movie. I think I'm leaning towards not liking it. Which is weird, because it delivered on everything I was wanting more of from the first movie. More Decepticon dialogue (though it all went to Megs and SS). More TFs. More background on the TF race (and terminology...Energon, Matrix, etc.)

But...I don't know...I really don't like some things in the story. The biggest thing being the obvious bullshit cop-out of Devestator. The ending really blew. Here's what I feel like happened: The movie had an ending, and ILM had been working on that for a year...then as the production team start editing the movie together, they realize they don't like the ending, or they want to re-write it for some reason. Unfortunately, ILM has already done way too much work on Devestator and the Constructicons fighting as robots (Long Haul, Mixmaster, Scrapper, Rampage), so they can't reanimate the ending to match what the director/writers/etc. want to do now without costing another 50 mil and delaying the movie by a year, so now we're stuck with Long Haul and Mixmaster (for sure...we absoultely know that it is the same Decepticons on the boat that repair Megs, that show up and combine into Devestator, and that fight the Autobots in the village). Either that, or there are two of each them, identical down to the coloration, decorations, and even the same damn hood ornament (which, I'll admit, I liked Mixmasters hood ornament).

And holy crap, in a multi-million dollar movie, recoloring Rampage to red from yellow while still in bulldozer mode was the worst was the worst special effect I've ever seen. I've seen people on here and other websites do a better job with photoshop. Horribly tacky.

Oh...and Devestators balls. Enough said.

Utter disappointment. I loved the first one so much, maybe I just expected too much.

There...I feel better.

wyze2099 · Post by **wyze2099** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:18 am

I'm bothered beyond words by the fact that the Constructicons that had formed Devastator were busy fighting the Autobots and humans while Devastator was busy climbing the pyramid. I cannot make that okay in my head, because it's such an epic fail of the combiner concept: once the component 'bots have formed the gestalt, they can't go solo!

I'm also wishing the newer Autobots besides Skids and Mudflap were able to get more development. If Sideswipe and Arcee had been completely absent from the movie, almost nothing would have changed. Granted, the Twins got so much screentime because they were with Sam & co., but still. I wouldn't have minded seeing the Arcees in the Twins' place. And speaking of the Arcee, there was nothing wrong with her (unused) design from the first movie. I have the toy, and it's awesome. Now she's a trio of unicycle bots? Ugh.

Despite all that, I still enjoyed the movie. My date enjoyed it even more, as she got a kick out of the funny parts. I didn't as much, because all the humor seemed so juvenile that I was looking for something marginally highbrow (and heck, there was highbrow humor in the G1 cartoon and even in Animated), but I still laughed my butt off in several places. And the action was severely improved here as opposed to the previous movie. Optimus' fighting style was amazing to watch, especially in the forest battle.

So I'd have to rate it higher than the first movie, which for me was a 3/5. This one was a 3.5/5.

Tramp · Post by **Tramp** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:22 am

Well, there's actually two different sets of Constructicons in the movie. One group becomes Devastator, the other group fights individually. According to Hasbro and the writers at BotCon, Devastator is made up of however many Constructicons are available at any given moment.

fantomdranzerx · Post by **fantomdranzerx** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:23 am

I figured those other Constructicons could have been the other Decepticons that arrived and just scanned the same vehicles. Makes you wonder what would happen if they all combined...

TFARCHIVE FORUMS

[SPOILERS] Movie #2 reactions; film now out!

Did you like it?