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I'm sorry, if you couldn't follow the simple plot or action of Transformers.....
And I'm sorry if you could.
What a bizarre badge of honor you've concocted... "I totally understood that poorly written, overdirected mess!"
Good for you, dude... Good. For. You.
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You're sorry I could understand the easy-to-follow, paint-by-numbers plot?
Congratulations, Bondo321... your total lack of a sense of irony has foiled my attempts at teasing you.
Before you and all the other Best Buy customers you've spoken with go start a think tank to cut through all the clever subtext Michael Bay has carefully woven into his latest masterpiece, I want to be clear, since this seems to be quite the big deal with you... I most certainly DID understand the "plot" of the movie in question (I mean, what there was to BE understood).
My previous statements to the contrary were really just backhanded criticisms of said plot being poorly conceived and directed.
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Posted: |
Jul 13, 2007 - 3:58 PM
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By: |
Jon A. Bell
(Member)
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Just say you didn't like it and move on. You don't have to say the rest of us who did enjoy it are stupid, 20-something year olds who like movies that 'rock' or are 'cool.' That's a cop out.
I never specifically said that, and you're putting words in my mouth.
I was commenting on the idea that the majority of the audience (young people) who admitted to loving the film are not going to say that they "didn't understand" the ending -- they'll pretend that it made perfect sense, even though the movie's very climax relies on a repeated plot point being simply ignored in favor of a "solution" that makes no sense whatsoever, given the information presented in the film.
This last point isn't debatable, or a matter of opinion, or "understanding" -- it's a simple fact. The movie's own internal storytelling rules simply get thrown out during the actual climax, which is beyond idiotic; it's insulting. Anyone who knows anything about basic storytelling should recognize a stupid deus ex machina ending, which is the ultimate "cop-out." (Although if they'd actually called the cube the "Deus Ex Machina," I would've probably laughed at the ending.)
(And hey, Bondo321 -- WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP ON GOOGLE -- do you know what "deus ex machina" means, and where the term came from?)
I'm tired of people making excuses for this lousy movie by saying, "hey, you just didn't understand it," or, "well, it wasn't supposed to be realistic!" If a director and screenwriter are so dumb, or arrogant, to believe that they can simply violate their own storytelling rules because they think the audience will somehow overlook it in the middle of wall-to-wall explosions, then they need to get different jobs.
To reiterate, I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the film a lot (more than I thought I would), but the ending of the film was one of the biggest middle-finger insults to an audience member's intelligence that I've seen in a long time. THAT is why the film pissed me off so much -- not because the whole thing sucked, but because it was two-thirds of something pretty damn cool, ruined by the final third which was openly contemptuous of its audience.
-- Jon
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Posted: |
Jul 14, 2007 - 1:58 PM
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By: |
Jon A. Bell
(Member)
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Fair enough. You backed up your point, so I respect that.
And yes, I took latin back in high school, so I know what "deus ex machina" means. 
Bondo, I didn't mean that question to sound as snarky and rude as it did, and for that, I apologize.
I guess my biggest reaction to "Transformers" was amazement -- that the majority of the movie entertained me far more than I thought it would, and then the ending failed so utterly to deliver (IMO) on the first two-thirds of the film.
The main reason I saw the film was to see ILM's effects (I'm a CG graphics artist; I've done a bit of film work, but I mostly do TV stuff today.) And the effects were spectacular.
Weirdly enough, one of the absolute niftiest shots (to me) was something at the end of the film -- the shot of the helicopters dropping the robot into the ocean, flanked by the Navy ships. That felt both realistic and really science-fiction-y, and I said, "Wow, that's cool!"
(And yeah, at age 46, I will say "hey, that rocked!" or, "hey, that sucked!" -- and hope I don't embarrass the kids around me too much.)
;-)
-- Jon
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I just saw the film about an hour ago -- thank you, Jon Bell, for articulating so much of what bothered me about the movie -- besides of course the score, which seemed like the most generic Media Ventures s**t imaginable.
Off-topic, but if anyone wants to see a film with a genuinely fresh and effective score, see "Joshua," scored by Nico Muhly; even the Dave Matthews song at the end is really good.
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The film benefited also from a light and comedic tone, especially in the first and second act (the sequence with the robots in Shia LaBoeuf's backyard was entertaing and well-executed).
endquote]
See, that was one of the scenes that drove me crazy. I know that scrupulous reality isn't to be expected in a film about giant alien robots, but the fact that the parents somehow could hear neither the thundering footsteps of the enormous robots in their back yard nor their booming mechanical voices made the scene fail for me -- though the shot of all the robots trying to hide was fairly amusing.
Michael Bay has developed impressively as a technical director; if someday he actually developed some sense of humor or humanity he might actually become a good filmmaker (and I don't mean "humor" like old women giving the finger or overweight people consuming a plate of donuts -- any idiot can put that kind of crap on the screen, as Bay has proved).
And if anyone's wondering what Nick Glennie-Smith's been up to lately, he conducted both Jablonsky's score for Transformers (someone actually conducted that?) and Christophe Beck's score for License to Wed (which has even less genuine humor than Transformers, though two moments made me laugh).
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Posted: |
Jul 16, 2007 - 11:57 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I saw this film a couple of days ago, and while I would have to agree with some of the flaws that have been pointed out earlier (both narrative and otherwise), I really didn't mind them too much. This was silly, brainless stuff and sometimes you need this amongst all the Tarkovsky and Bergman. If they retained ONE thing from the 80's cartoon, though (which I followed periodically as a kid), it was the childish humour and over-the-top, hilarious dialogue. For example, Megatron's "I AM MEGATRON!" mirrors He-Man's "I AM HE-MAN!" and "I'VE GOT THE POWER!" from another 80's cartoon, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. And Optimus Prime delivered more pompous "we've gotta save this planet!" speeches than Alexander in Oliver Stone's film by the same name. The effects were really good, though, retaining the metallic feel that TERMINATOR 3 did so well.
All in all, I was quite entertained, although some of the cheese was utterly transparent and although I was not in the target audience.
As far as Jablonsky's score is concerned, I really liked it. Certainly the best I've heard of him and perfectly molded in the MV-style action modus I love so much. The previously-mentioned link to THE ROCK is obvious (as that score basically DEFINED this sound in the first place), but it didn't have the same melodic finesse and in-your-face "hooks" as Zimmer's contemporary classic.
NP: "Power of Love" (Huey Lewis & The News)
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I had a chance to see Transformers and Spiderman 3 in the same weekend.
Transformers is a fun film although frustrating at the same time.
What was fun:
- big robots doing battle on a freeway
- big robots speaking in an urban vernacular
- Shia Lebouf's performance albeit a little cliche'd
- the fact that Bay didn't use slow-motion for every important shot
What was frustrating:
- Bay still cannot combine solid editing with good camera work. All of the impressive set-pieces are marred by shakey camera to the point where all of the CGI was wasted because the damn director could just keep his camera still for more than 24 frames.
- like Scott pointed out, even the most fantastic story MUST have an element of realism so the viewer can make some kind of association. There were more plot holes and continuity flaws than edits in this film.
- pacing was all over the place. Some real parallel action would have helped (I can imagine how well John McTiernen would have done with this picture had he been at the helm)
The Score
I actually liked parts of it. The Deceptacon's theme or motif (perhaps more appropriately Megatron's motive) is pretty ominous. It's simple; just a minor third repeating interval in triple meter, but it did embellish the dialogue sequences well.
I also liked the Optimus Prime theme where Jablonsky moves up chromatically to the dominant chord. Sort of Elfmanesque.
********************
Conclusion- I would have much preferred Spielberg to have filmed this as it would have had a stronge aire of realism matched with an amazing John Williams score, perhaps a cross between War of the Worlds and CLose Encounters (or perhaps E.T., you never know how Johnny would interpret it).
But Bay does seem to be growing a bit as a director. I just wish he'd get his composers JUST ONCE to pass on the overly patriotic big anthemic chords for once. And Jablonsky seems to have adopted Zimmer's Batman Begins tone with the emphasis on minor thirds.
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