Transformers: Dark of the Moon Talk, banter, and possible spoilers

Must have been the theater. It was fine where I saw it. The use of the 3d wasn't very good though. Almost none of the scenes had the sense of depth that make it worth the extra money. And no I don't mean stuff flying out of the screen. I mean distant objects looking like they are actually distant. It felt like a lot of the movie was actually filmed in 2D and not converted.

On the other hand though I'm glad that the movie was filmed in 3D because it forced Bay to avoid his usual visual style of quick cuts and shaky-cam.

* I loved Carly/Rosie myself. She had far more chemistry with Sam/Shia than Megan/Miekayla ever did. Outside of her staring blankly during huge explosions all around her I really liked her performance. I also liked the nod to tie her to series by her being the brother of the british soldier from the NEST team in the second film who speaks a few lines. It makes sense why she and Sam would both be at the white house to get medals then since she was there on her brotehrs behalf. (guess he died during the final battle. Given how many soldiers got mowed down, it's not surprising heh.)



* Not be mean, but did you pay attention to when they explained the plans? They wanted to enslave us, which was a plot ripped straight out of G1, Ultimate Doom. They needed both our resources and us to fix their world as Carly asks that very question to Dylan.

As for Why Chicago, Likely was a central location on the world near by could be easily defended.(anything on the coast line could easily be bombed to pieces by carriers and battleships like in revenge of the fallen. There's none of those on the great lakes, and would take alot of time to get them there.) The control pillar probably needed be in the middle of the batch and on a tall enough structure to broadcast it's signal more effectively, like we do with our cell or radio towers. They needed somewhere to hold out while the rest of the pillars were spread out.

If you remember the episode City of steel, Megatron does something simliar to NY. All tall buildings would likely be plenty of materials to convert into a strong hold. I picture that was the next step in Sentinel's campaign.

*You're entitled to that opinion, but I personally think most of them looked pretty cool. Some unique, but definitely felt alien.

Which Bay is not to blame for all this. Bay is not an artist, an animator or the final say on what the bots look like. He just had a bunch of options to pick from, and the people who created the concept art and designs are far more to blame than Bay is for approving them. Hasbro had the final say on what made it into the line up since they were making the toys for the movie characters. They seem to have liked the movieverse designs as Transformers Prime has alot of simliar styled bots. A project which Bay had nothing to do with. So a Bay-less reboot or sequel does not mean designs will change suit accordingly. Place the blame on the people who actually made the designs not Bay.


He did some stuff before he went to the big junkyard in the sky. Blew up the autobots shuttle, killed a bunch of air planes. Had some exposition with Megatron. It was cool see the Classic Trinity united in africa together of Megatron, Starscreamer and Soundwave with lazerbeak in tow.

Megatron didn't die in Revenge of the Fallen. He died in the first film and the Third. They probably won't use the name Galvatron as they already said it would only confuse people who are casual fans. Otherwise they'd made the change in Revenge of the fallen when they revived him the first time. Galvatron is an inferior name anyways, Id prefer Megatron and Galvatron were never the same entity ever again. If they wanted to bring in Galvatron id prefer they made him a seperate character like the IDW comics did.


Possibly with a space bridge from Sentinel Prime, drilled his way there, or the same way he got it to Earth heh.

Mirage in the novel and Dino in the film.

Please no a 1000 times. Unicron is a plot device not a villain. He's too big to fight, and is a rather uninteresting villains since he's too dangerous to actually suceed at killing planets. I prefer villains the heroes can actually fight. I'd prefer never see any threads of the 86 film ever used in the live action films. Once was enough. Givne how little they had to do with Devastator, I don't picture them wanting have transformers that are planet sided. Unicron has been overused in all comics , and cartoons and needs ignored for awhile.

That ain't Mirage. Mirage is one of my favorites from the original toys/toons. Along with Shockwave (never got to have one of him, a friend did but never let anyone else play with it ). They can call it what they want, but that ain't him.

Hell no. I want Unicron dangnabit! Cybertron itself was massively cool from what we got to see of it and I wanna see a similarly awesome Unicron. The only things better than getting Unicron would be the Dinobots, Superion/Bruticus/Metroplex/etc, or them finding some of the Maximals and Predacons.

Well Mirage/Dino should probably be reversed with Movieverse Sideswipe.In the End I'm just happy we saw a Movievese Sideswipe. (And Damn he's good.)

You just named a whole ton of things that likely will never see the light of day heh. I like the Dinobots, and the combiners teams but none of those things translate well to live action. Combiners and City bots have massive scale issues. Something they've tried hard to do keep in order in the films. Not to mention the combiner teams have eb able to transform into a robot and somethnig that resembles a limb. Why for the basic toys the constructicons only turned into a robot and vechiles, and the toy of Devastator only turned into a combiner and vechiles like the film.

Unicron is lame. Even his name is lame; I mean look how close is name is to Unicorn. Unicorns don't strike fear nto hearts of their enemies. (besides the most interest man in the world.) Unicron was such a scale breaker, I don't think he'd ever go over well in a live action film. I mean whats the point of a planet sized bad guy? It's that just gross over kill.

Sideswipe is good, yes, but you shouldn't have Sideswipe without Sunstreaker. Had they flopped those characters around, it would've been better.

The destruction of Chicago gives a perfect excuse for the Autobots to rebuild with Metroplex or Omega Supreme. Creation of a new Autobot, along with helping the humans to rebuild. It wouldn't even have to transform into a mega-bot, just have the ability to transform from a city into a defensive base.

Go back to the original combiners. The Aerialbots, along with the Stunticons, Combaticons, Protectorbots, etc., all were good. That first "Devastator" could've been a Decepticon trial run for real combiners. Heck, the story could even be written that the new batch of Constructicons help with the rebuilding of Chicago, surreptiously of course, and do something with Metroplex's spark/code/whatever. The Autobots need to field their combiners to stop him.

You can only bash in Megatron's face so many times. They need to face ever increasing threats. Unicron's about the biggest threat there is. Hell, could even fix it such that what happened to Cybertron was only appearance/visual side effect of the bridge closing and not its actual physical destruction. Cybertron "wakes up" and becomes Unicron. Yes, I know it doesn't fit in the lore, but it would allow for Cybertron to somewhat be shown again.

While the movies haven't done everything I'd like either, Sideswipe was cool regardless. When they said the twins were going be in the film for Rotf those were first characters I thought of. I sure as heck wasn't expecting skids and mudflap over Sideswipe and sunstreaker. If they continue with the movies may be his brother will turn up.

Not likely. The movies aren't a direct translation of Transformers into the present(simliar how to GI Joe is for most part a fairly faithful take on the movie.), more of What if Transformers appeared in the real world. This would be too radical of an element to the movies for their MO. They try keep the basic elements of the real world grounded.

Combiners don't translate well if you pay any level of attention to scale.(most animated series don't. Animated and Prime both have motorcycle characters who are as large as their teammates.) Take Superion, all it's components are Jets and would be massive compared to all rest. Easily around 200 feet tall. (If Silverbolt had his G1 alt form of a concorde, then he'd be over 100 feet tall by himself.) While Menasor being a bunch of cars wouldn't be any bigger than say Demolisher in revenge of the fallen. Given most car bots are about 15 feet tall, and motormaster if he's just a semi like probably is 30 feet tall, possibly like 45 feet tall if we include his trailer like G1. We're looking at a 60 feet tall combiner at most.

Defensor and Bruticus's components all varied too much in size from each other. Groove was the a motorcycle who formed the leg of Defensor, while Blast off was freaking space shuttle and the arm of Bruticus. These would need some major overhauling to work.

Abominus and Computron was made of vehicles and creatures that didn't really exist, so is unknown for them. Predaking was massively out of scale with the actual animals that formed it, but given Scorpanok was a giant scorpion they could ignore that.

They'd likely have to change them so much fans wouldn't be happy with the final result to get them to work.

While I agree the next film can have a completely different villain to beat up besides Megatron...I don't agree eneds be a steadily larger and larger threat. Power creeping gets you into realms of stupid quickly if left unchecked. Plus I think we have tons of other characters who fall in between Unicron and Megatorn to fill out the gaps between them. Thunderwing, Jhiaxus, Liege Maximo, Galvatron(as a seperate being.) and others could easily show up first. If Unicron is ever brought to the movies. He needs be the very last film. (till a reboot anyways heh.)

The comics already mentioned something simliar on the movieverse of Unicron being cybertron.(alternate reality of course to movies.) Having Unicron/Primus be same entity just corrupted is an easy way introduce them in a manner that's organic the existing story. Ultimately I'd still have Unicron create an avatar of himself to beat up inside him so the heroes can actually fight him as well as have his true form appear. Still wouldn't really be wanting to see this happen, but there's always ways of translating things.

So this brings up a good question. Why the freaking hell was he in the movie more than Megatron? I don't want to see 'human lackey #1' more often than Megatron as if he was really the main villain.

Gah.

In my opinion no. A couple of the scenes were probably slightly better in 3D but not really all that much more impressive.

depends... there have been some reports that the 3D is blurry... but some say its fine so it might be because of the theatre or the movie or a combination...

There is also the fact that according to Spoony and another critic the best 3D in the movie where the asian dude picks up guns which lasts like 3 seconds so... i'd say no.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I'd say just watch it in 2D for that price difference. It's neat but nothing earth shattering.

I never had a problem with the humans, but I didn't have a problem with the twins either. I found them mildly amusing. Deep wang was overboard, but given he's a guy who's about to crack because he knows Decepticons could be watching his every move I'd cut him some slack. Some talking vulture was murdering people and spying him me, I'd probably be a bit of a wreck too.

Yeah which the Challenger irony also happened in 86. Just in this case you knew there was no possible way they were on it.

I'm sorry strongly disagree. How come I knew pretty much the name of every single Autobot and Decepticon (besides Shockwave , man he was the most name dropped Decepticon in the series besides Megatron in the first film heh. If you didn't know who Shockwave was you were asleep.) besides the unnamed minions. (whom were called the Dreads for highway battle. The 2 autobots at the base were Ironhide and Sideswipe whom been both introduced plenty between the 3 films. Though their names were said again here. Sam yells IRONHIDE!! right as they pull up and he rams the dreads at the same time.) Without having looked it all up before the movie. I tried not to get too much spoiled before hand, so I went in with as little info as anyone else who watched it.

The Bad guys all said their names while in Africa, and again at the party scene for Lazerbeak and Soundwave. They had a role call for the good guys during the beginning of the movie. The only Autobots that didn't get their names said was the wreckers. (Roadbuster was the green one, and the leader, Leadfoot was the red, and Topspin was the blue one.)

Not going happen, and just about every single comic book movie just as guilt of doing this as Transformers. Why are the autobots shown less over series than humans?..MONEY. For same reason Ironman spends majority of the film not in his armor and the whole fight with ironmonger was a whopping 7 mins. Why we see more Bruce Banner than the Hulk in the films. Why scenes on Oa in green lantern were brief and not the majority of the film. Why Thor spent so much time being human and less time being Thor. You make these assessments as if budgets are unlimited or something.

It's cheaper show humans and cars than millions of dollars robots.If you really wanted a bot heavy film you,d be better off making an animated one where costs the same to make anything appear on screen. Simliar to the TMNT reboot that was all CGI. As long as it's live action humans are going be the forefront.

And don't say well they're the title characters. Gremlins, Critters, and even ET took the back seat to humans. That's just live action films for you.

I wouldn't agree with this assessment at all. Prime holds back alot in the first film. He was very relucant to fight Megatron. he'd rather sacreficed himself than killed him. When Megatorn dies he has alot of regret as he tried reason with him. Prime just wanted to end the war, and thinks with the Allspark gone the Decepticons will leave Earth alone since he doesn't want our race to pay for the mistakes of his.

He's wrong as the Decepticons plans ultimately went deeper, and they don't seem to be getting the message to stay off of Earth, his new home. They don't as he begins pushing back as the Earth is a no flight zone. Megatron returns and asks Prime point blank if he's ok with letting his friend die for sake of their race, and of course Prime says, You'll never stop at one and he's right. He defends Sam's like a father protecting one of his own children as he fights with every fiber of his being. And DIES for his convictions. (Prime dies alot heh.)

He returns and comes back with little time to spare,then cleans house as the Earth was 2 seconds from being sunless. Given what he was up against, using all force he did was completely understandable. War is hell. He ultimately spares Megatron and Starscream(he's not really in the shape to chase them.)

In third film is betrayed by his mentor, and so much destruction is on his head. He initially tries to detain Sentinel as they both are holding back in DC. Optimus had to sneak into the city, and basically assassinate Sentinel because he lacked the forces to fight head on. Especially without the Earth's government backing him till then. So no it wasn't him being a jerk by letting Chi-town get trashed. (which living in the chicagoland area was surreal seeing it blown to bits.) At the end fo the fight Sentinel calls Prime soft, and what you think Optimus was going do to a job who just sliced off his arm and betrayed him? Blow him and his fellow conspirator away.

Optimus definitely is harder than he's ever been in these films than his typical showing, but the threat is equally fierce. That said Prime had his meanstreaks in even G1. In War dawn he says, "I'm your worst nightmare" as he begins blowing away a bunch of Decepticons. (a line lifted in ROTF by Megan Fox when she manhandles Wheelie.) In Heavy Metal war he tells all autobots to shove all Decepticons into a pit of lava.(they happen to live of course.) In the 86 film Prime says "Megatron must be stopped at any cost.", and processes to recycle every Decepticon that gets in his way. He was two seconds from sending Megatron to the scrapyard in the sky if Hotrod had listened to Kup and stayed out of it.

The intent of violence has always been part of the series. We just finnally get the consequences of them here. While I'd liked to seen a moment where Optimus did what he did in Endgame to Megatron in TF Animated, but this portrayal far more about realism and the effect of violence that the previous takes of the universe. It would have been out of place here, though was interesting to see both sides try avoid killing each other in this film at two different times.

At his core I don't feel optimus Prime that different from his G1 counter part, they re just same chaarcter in very different universes and how they'd react.

Bay left of his own accord. I don't think he did that bad of a job on this all and put a different focus on the series than most others would have. I think there's parts that work and parts that didn't. I personally would rather they continued on without rebooting because I am honestly sick of the rush to reboot everything lately. Ultimately Bay wasn't working alone on this project, and alot of the previous people will likely come back regardless who is directing it.

This wasn't X 3. Sure we'd down a few villains, but honestly there's no reason to not bring in some new ones as Megatron had enough spotlight. He was the sole big bad of the first film, and played a major role in the second. His part in the 3rd was smaller, but his character was explored for the most part.He really only had to paths, be somehow redeemed like the Novel which built up this angle alot more, or get fragged like the movie.

Given that we can see other elements of the Transformers universe besides the eternal wizzing contest of Megatron and Optimus Prime. (It's a comfort zone of the series, much as Professor X and Magneto are the go to characters for Xmen line ups. Batman always gets in a match up with the Joker.) if for sake of there's alot more interesting angles to be had that can be explored.

For example they bring in Ultra magnus, and have an Autobot commander who's been leading awhile without Prime and more loyal to Cybertron than Earth, we can see the dymanics clash between him and Prime. Especially if during course of the next films Cybertron becomes inhabitable. (they need really have something fix that loose end at some point.) What well Prime choose then, to stay on Earth or go home despite having potential attacks on Earth continue as they have.

I am confident there's plenty more to series to go beyond the comfort zone that we'd only get to see if there isn't an immediate reboot. Given how successful the movies have been I don't see hasbro too eager to stop the movies. I don't think they should as if comics rebooted every time they had a story that wasn't well received they'd never get anywhere. Retcon or ignore what you have to and go forward. I mean not like this IP has remotely the jacked up Continuity of the Xmen franchise. No reason they can't have the show go on with or without Bay.

I counted four:

1) Amok Time playing on the TV
2) "It looks like the starship Enterprise in here!"
3) "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
4) 'Bee calling Sam his friend. "My friend" comes from Spocks "you have been and always shall be my friend".

Ok, so...

** Megatron is supposed to meet up with Sentinel Prime on Earth. Sentinel seemingly leaves Cybertron before Megatron, but arrives on the moon in the 60's, while Megatron arrived on Earth some 10,000 years ago.

** Sentinel has agreed to help the Decepticons and as mentioned above was supposed to rendez-vous with Megatron on Earth. I guess he didn't want the other Autobots to know, so they had the Decepticons fire on the Ark as is blasted off from Cybertron. So, did the Decepticons get carried away and damage the ship in their battle-fury, or are they so incompetent that the only time they hit something is when they are trying not to?

** Optimus Prime, defender of humanity, seems ok with letting a few million humans die to let the government know that the Decepticons really are, you know, bad... Guess he doesn't like Chicago.

** Did Rudy Wells derive bionics from Cybertronian technology? Oscar Goldman was on one screen during the "conference call".

** The Matrix of Leadershp can resurrect fallen Autobots, but can't repair Bumblebee's vocal processor. Earth technology could probably do that.

** Ironhide is a vampire as evidenced by the fact that he is the only Cybertronian to crumble to dust when killed.

Despite disliking several elements (Deep Wang? Really?), I actually enjoyed the movie overall. It was what I expected-- a summer action flick with lots of explosions, fast cars and shooting.

I just wish they could base a movie on War for Cybertron or something.

My thoughts were the deal struck with Sentinel was the first of many plans Megatron had. Sentinel got shot down, and wasn't heard from again while Megatron was active.(he was frozen during the 60s so he had no chance to know that Sentinel's ship actually made it till he unthawed and had soem down time to access his resources between ROTF and DOTM.) So chances are that plan got pushed to the back burner till after all other plans with the Allspark and the Fallen went bust. Megatron probably was looking for a way use the space bridge technology, why he had the Decepticons capture the pillars, but nothing came thru till he rsaw Optimus could revive Sentinel with the Matrix of Leadership. Seeing the potential for this plan to be revisited he put it into motion.

Megatron likely did plan meet Sentinel but nothing either of them had envisioned went according to plan.Sentinel was shot down(only Megatron knew about the plan. Starscream ahd no clue till Megatron told him at the Lincoln memorial.), The Allspark was launched into space, and he was frozen.

So I dont take it as this film contradicts the others really. Other than Why heck 200 plus decepticons waited till now to attack earth when there was two major battles. I'd liked it better if the army that showed up was at some remote location in space awaiting orders that was space bridged in rather than just chilling on the moon. There's some minor conflicts in the story, but if you just take each movie as stand alone episode like G1 , then it's cool by itself.(like why didn't Jetfire or any of the seekers recover the Allspark if they were on Earth before the Hoover Dam was built.)

He had to fake his departure/death in order to fight against Megatron. He had resisted leaving the Earth's government might have attacked him. It likely took some time to get there from the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile the massive army of Decepticons set up shop there before he arrived. He had to use the element of surprise since the Autobots were vastly outnumbered.(why they retreated from DC earlier in the film.) Wasn't til the cons settled in and had divided up their troops was it a viable option to strike back, especially with the humans backing them again.

Fans pitched a fit over Mark Ryan's performance as Bumble bee in the first film. (admittedly he doesn't sound that great as Bee in the games. He's too burly of a voice.) So they just went back to the radio gimick, minimizing his lines he actually speaks himself. Mark Ryan is a great Voice actor(I loved him as Jetfire.), but he wasn't probably the right actor for Bee. They may be should looked up Dan Gilvezan to reprise his role as Bumble bee.

Heh an amusing assesment, but it's actually that he was killed by Cosmic Rust. A biological weapon from G1 and animated. (Animated Ironhide was covered in it as well.) You see this when Sentinel misses Bumble bee afterward killing Ironhide and the chemicals are eatting away the boxes he hits instead. They needed a way kill ironhide that the matrix couldn't just fix removing any effect Ironhide's death would have had.

Still doesn't really explain why Megs was there 10 centuries before Sentinel.



I just figured that the activation of the bridge reactivated the dormant Decepticons.


Oh, I understood all that, but I just have a hard time accepting that Optimus would let things go this way. He'd have found a third option.



Huh. Never heard that. While I thought the voice didn't really match 'Bee's childlike personality, I had no problem with it.



Didn't notice it having that effect on the boxes. That makes a bit more sense then.

Because Sentinel's ship just drifted thru space what momentum it had leaving orbit to a location while Megatron was moving as fast as he could. It took far longer get there at a much slower speed.

Optimus sometimes had make ugly decisions for greater good. This was one of those lose the battle win the war moments. I mean in the original series Rodimus blew up a planet to keep the Decepticons from having it in Fight or Flight heh. So there's way worse ways of handling it LOL. (Just be thankful Hotrod isn't trying save us.)

I forgot to count #2! Gaaaah

It was too obvious for you. :P

So yeah...there's no reboot in sight.

I thought a lot of his post made sense!