Blu-ray Review HTF Blu-ray Review: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (1 Viewer)

[PatWahlquist]

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (Blu-ray)

Studio: Paramount Home Video
Rated: PG-13 (intense scenes of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material and brief drug material)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
HD Encoding: 1080p
HD Video Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Audio: English 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio; Spanish, French 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese; English SDH+
Time: 149 minutes
Disc Format: 2 SS/DL BD’s
Case Style: Keep case
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 20, 2009

So as not to break the precedent set with my review of the first Transformers picture, I’m going to keep my editorial comments to a minimum. Usually when I do reviews I spend some time going over the story, comment on the themes then critique the rest. This being Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as directed by Michael Bay, I’m only going to say the following:

The good and bad robots are still at it. There is a near-mythical artifact that, if recovered by the bad robots, could signal the end of the world as we know it. How, while only being a mere six minutes longer than the first picture, does this one feel 40 minutes too long. Robots fight while humans try to use their big brains to solve this mess, and Megan Fox is still pretty hot.

Sometimes brevity is the best idea!

Movie: **/*****


Video:
Note: I’m watching this title using a Marantz VP 11-S1 DLP projector, which has a native resolution of 1080p. I am using a Sony Playstation 3 Blu-Ray player while a Denon 3808CI does the switching and pass through of the video signal. I am utilizing the HDMI capabilities of each piece of equipment.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is encoded in the MPEG-4 AVC codec at 1080p with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Bay maintains a near exact look with this picture as he did the first, and similarly, this disc looks much the same as the first. The image is bright and punchy showing a boosted contrast level making the picture look hot, which is a trademark to Bay’s pictures. This picture, however, brings the heat even more with numerous shots set against sun drenched backdrops to cast a beautiful golden glow on everything. Colors are warm and rich and even though there is higher contrast levels, the colors still maintain accuracy. Black levels are exceptional showing great depth and detail in even the darkest of scenes. They maintain good delineation between the light and dark parts of the picture and I did not notice any black or color bleeds. Flesh tones are accurate for the most part, but the actors are always at the mercy of the numerous colors in the shot, radiating from computer monitors, environmental effects or robot’s rushing by. Sharpness and detail are excellent and I just wish things would slow down sometimes so I could take in the image a bit better (or just use the slo-mo button). I suggest you take some time to do some pausing and frame by frame examination of the robots (or Fox!) just to see the level of detail and work put into them. Video noise is very minor and some film grain is noticed; edge enhancement is not noticed nor was there any print dirt. Not surprising, this is reference material.

Video: *****/*****


Audio:
The 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack was attained by the HDMI connection of the PS3 to the Denon 3808CI.

This 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio track brings the rain and, not to sound too repetitive, is true reference material from the moment the logos and movie begins. I don’t recall hearing a more active soundtrack probably since the first movie and disc. Here all 5.1 channels are used almost equally. There were a couple points in the movie where I noticed the fronts were barely engaged and the two surround channels were doing all of the work. Transitions between each of the channels are seamless and I found myself looking up to see if the planes were flying over me. Fidelity is excellent producing a clean and clear presentation that is free from any distortion. Bass effects come alive in the action scenes, obviously, but they do not overshadow the rest of the soundtrack. It is still completely aggressive, but it works very well in harmony with the rest of the soundtrack. As the robots set off various explosives aimed at the viewer, the low bass rumbles your way, increasing in intensity as it washes over you. Voices are natural sounding but ADR is noticed in a couple scenes. Again, this is reference material and the sound designer on this soundtrack deserves an Oscar.

Audio: *****/*****


Bonus Material:

Disc One:
Feature Length Commentary by Director Michael Bay and Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman: the three keep the commentary rolling talking about the usual things: the story, characters and the shoot. Many of the stories we heard in the other docs are elaborated on, especially by Orci and Kurtzman who get a little shorted on the big doc on Disc Two. Bay as usual turns in a good doc, and Orci and Kurtzman keep up with some thoughtful insight into the story.

Disc Two: everything on the disc is in HD unless otherwise noted.
The Human Factor: Extracting Revenge of the Fallen (2:14:31) is an overriding title that contains the following parts: Seeds of Vengeance covering development and design; Domestic Destruction, Joint Operations and Wonders of the World charts the production in the U.S., the military parts and finally in the Middle East, respectively; Start Making Sense highlights the editing and Under the Gun explores the visual effects. Finally, Running the Gauntlet deals with post-production and the final release. This is one loooong documentary on about every aspect of the making of the movie, and everyone agrees the first one was really just a warm-up for this verbose sequel. It becomes almost laughable when everyone is commenting on just how big this picture is yet now we have a doc on the making that is nearly the same length. Regardless, it’s a very good piece on the state of big budget pictures today and some of the amazing things that can be done in CG.

A Day with Bay: Tokyo (13:23): Bay guides us through the world premier of the movie in Tokyo and you see him still doing editing and tweaks to the movie up to minutes before the showing.

25 Years of Transformers (10:44) is a look at the continuing popularity of the Transformers from toys to comics to animation to the movie.

Nest: Transformers Data Hub is an interactive set of menus that allows you to choose the various Transformers and get more information about them. It is split between the Decepticons and the Autobots, and gives you information from the animated series, a bio, pin-ups, their Marvel Comics and IDW comic inceptions, concept art, ILM production art and Hasbro toys. This is a fun primer to the characters and it’s interesting to see how they’ve evolved over the years.

The AllSpark Experiment is your chance to unleash the power of the recently recovered AllSpark shard on Earth vehicles. You choose your vehicle and customize it with parts and accessories, and then you trick it out with the AllSpark. You first choose one of four vehicles (and they tease you with a Solstice!) and you apply certain custom combinations to get four new Transformers. Discover all four and this will unlock an all new fifth vehicle. Once you do that, you unlock a top secret message about the future… Once you pimp out your ride, you see it transform into a robot. This is a fun time waster with a nice tease to it!

Deconstructing Visual Bayhem (22:46 total, also available by scene) is an aptly named title for a series of pieces on different scenes in the movie and the effects in them. You choose a scene then use your angle button to switch between pre-vis and pre-vis/ final comparison. Bay gives us an introduction on the importance of pre-vis and there is a commentary with Pre-Vis Supervisor Steve Yamamoto. We’ve seen this type of footage before, and while pre-vis is still pretty rough, it is still more detailed than one would expect.
Deleted and Alternate Scenes (6:01): not so surprisingly, there are only three scenes here: “Sam and Alice at the dorm”, “The Witwicky’s in Paris” and “Leo Refuses to go to Egypt”. Completely unnecessary but here for completeness sake, these scenes just tend to make the more annoying parts of the movie even more grating.
Giant Effing Movie (24:03) has the crew having a bunch of fun ripping on just how stupid big this type of movie making can be. This piece gives you some really cool behind-the-scenes footage of the explosions and stunts and makes you realize filmmaking can be dangerous. It also has the cast and crew goofing around as Bay and the cast try to downplay their hype.

Linkin Park Across this Great Divide music video (4:40).

The Matrix of Marketing contains the two theatrical trailers, the six TV commercials and Galleries shows us the theatrical posters and other promo/ marketing material.

Bonus Features: ****.5/*****


Conclusions:
Bay says in one of his interviews that he will not listen to critics of his work when he has kids and parents coming up to him telling him how much fun they have at his movies and how it reignites childhood for them. I tend to agree with them, but I still don’t want to be bored at an action movie because it goes on too long. This Blu-ray is again, reference material all the way around, from a stunning picture to filling rattling soundtrack to an excellent documentary on the making of the picture.

 

[Southpaw]

Great review Pat! I agree with, well, pretty much everything!

 

[Ron-P]

Other then being about 20 minutes too long it was a fantastic summer popcorn film, looking forward to the Blu-ray.

 

[Southpaw]

I made a post over in Charles De Lauzirika's section of the forum but thought I would mention it here too. The making of documentary he produced called "The Human Touch" is the best documentary I've ever seen. It's so well put together. Informative, funny and infectiously entertaining, it covers just about every aspect of the making of this film. I was practically in stitches when Michael Bay took the camera into his editing studio and dropped in on his four editors. Each editor had the soundtrack blaring during some action scene that they were editing. It was hilarious. I just love these behind the scenes moments.
Well worth checking out for sure.

 

[Kevin EK]

I have to say that I was shocked at one major omission in the Blu-ray's materials. From what I saw of the featurettes and what I heard of the commentary, there was no discussion of the major hand injury suffered by Shia Lebouf, which necessitated a complete upheaval in the shooting schedule and the justification of his wearing a hand cast for the 2nd half of the film. (This is not to spoil anything in the movie's plot - just to note that his car accident had a major impact on the production of the film.)

The most interesting part of the featurettes for me were the brief glimpses of Michael Bay at work on the set. Each bit of this told what looks like a much larger story that really couldn't be put on this kind of a disc without causing some waves.

I would agree there was a healthy amount of ADR here, particularly in the bigger sequences.

Transfer looked great and the sound literally rocked my home.

 

[Holer]

Originally Posted by Ron-P

Other then being about 20 minutes too long it was a fantastic summer popcorn film, looking forward to the Blu-ray.

Yeah man- finally a statement I can agree with. I read all the reviews about what vile horrible film this was, but then my buddy's nine year old son told me it was a must see and much better than the first film because it had less much less of the annoying Shia and much more Transformers, and he was right! I actually thought this film was superior to the first, much more entertaining, even though you definitely do have to put your brain on hold and there were several moments where I just had to laugh out loud at how goofy it all was. Especially true of all those slow motion shots of Megan Fox running in slow motion, dodging Decepticons and bombs in her flouncy halter top. Michael Bay is a man who knows the meaning of the term 'Fan Service'.

Still and all, I am somewhat amazed at the verbal tongue lashing this film recieved, especially among the fan boy geek community. A great stink was made about the racist stereotype robots and they were pretty silly but they were in the film a total of five minutes and really didn't make much of an impression. I accepted that these robots were going to have over the top personalities in the first film so seeing this again in the second was no big deal. In fact, the wizened old stealth bomber Decepticon was pretty cool. Anyway, I just don't know what these people expect from a film like this. Citizen Kane it ain't.

Bottom line, this movie is basically wall-to-wall robots knocking the crap out of each other, wrapped in a silly sci-fi plot stuffed with every cliche imaginable, but if you go into it with the right frame of mind, i.e., get your inner nine year old on, it really is a hoot, and, given that it's based on a CARTOON, who's target audience is nine year olds, I don't think that's a whole lot to ask. Oh, and the Wal-Mart IMAX version is AMAZING, worth a buy for the eye candy appeal alone.

Let's just hope that Bay continues the trend and does away with the human characters altogether in the next one, except Megan Fox of course. She could fight a whole army of those sexy Decepticon Fembots. And they could all be wearing bikini's. Yeaaaaaaahhhhh........

 

[Southpaw]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

I have to say that I was shocked at one major omission in the Blu-ray's materials. From what I saw of the featurettes and what I heard of the commentary, there was no discussion of the major hand injury suffered by Shia Lebouf, which necessitated a complete upheaval in the shooting schedule and the justification of his wearing a hand cast for the 2nd half of the film. (This is not to spoil anything in the movie's plot - just to note that his car accident had a major impact on the production of the film.)

Oh my gosh, I had totally forgotten about the car accident and subsequent hand injury. And you are right - they never touched on that in the making of doc. I haven't heard the commentary yet but you say they didn't mention it there either. Hmmmm, what's up with that?

 

[TravisR]

^ Was alcohol involved in that accident? I'm not trying to slander the guy or bring his personal life into it but I know he's gotten arrested for DUI before so if alcohol was a factor in that accident, that's probably why they didn't mention it.

 

[Holer]

What I don't remember is any scene where they bandaged his hand in the movie. Maybe I just missed it in the hyperkinetic goings on - It just seemed like they were at the Smithsonian and then they were in Egypt and his hand was bandaged...

 

[John Alderson]

I have the IMAX version (excuse me, "Big Screen" version... did IMAX refuse usage of their name to Walmart?) and thought the bouncing between "big" and normal was much more jarring than it was in The Dark Knight. TF2 does a LOT of bouncing between stuff that was shot in large format and stuff that wasn't during the action in the desert. It's a little less jarring during the forest battle, as they don't jump back and forth as much. Still, the IMAX sequences do look AMAZING, though they are rarely on screen long enough to really appreciate. All in all I think I'd rather have the 2.4 version, but not enough to buy it again (or even pay $5 more; that was CHEAP at Wal-Mart).

Also, I did have 2 or 3 VERY brief audio dropouts, but they weren't there when I went back to check, so I don't think it's a bad disc. It could be my player, there was an update for my BDP-S350 right before I put TF2 in, and I wondered if maybe it was related.

And I freely admit this is a bad film, but I like it anyway Same goes for the first.

 

[dbailey100]

Has anyone tried to unlock the secret easter egg in the AllSpark Experiment? You have to put together components for each of the machines. Certain combinations will unlock the fifth vehicle. A perfect custom configuration of the fifth vehicle will unlock a video about the upcoming TF3 I'm guessing.

 

[Kevin EK]

After the guys arrive in Egypt, there's a quick shot of Megan Fox bandaging Shia's hand, and there are isolated shots earlier in the film where you can easily tell that he cannot use his left hand. Other than that, they masked the situation as best they could.

To be fair to the actor, the accident was the other driver's fault - LeBeouf's SUV was hit by another car that ran a red light. The problem was that his hand was outside the vehicle, which then rolled. He's had multiple surgeries and expects to have something like 80% recovery of the use of that hand.

But when this happened, it forced the production to completely reset the schedule and go to anything they had without him. Apparently, a lot of stunt material got pushed up in the schedule, as well as any other non-Sam scenes they could grab. It's akin to the back injury suffered by Harrison Ford during the second Indiana Jones movie - and in the same vein, Spielberg was forced to shoot a lot of non-Indy or non-close-up material for the following month. The difference is that in the case of Indiana Jones, this problem was directly addressed in the DVD materials - as well as the Rinzler book, which clarifies that even after Ford's return, his back problems plagued him for the rest of the shoot. In the case of this new Transformers film, the problem is not included in the discussion - and that's a shame, because it had a significant impact on the production.

At the same time, again, I'm grateful that some footage of Bay's on-set performances made it into the materials here - it's just a hint of what was happening, but you get a pretty clear picture from it.

 

[Cory S.]

dbailey,

Yeah, with the help of tfw2005.com forums section, I unlocked the allspark experiment. (I didn't write down the combination for each vehicle), Essentially, the video is Bay's initial thoughts of what he might want to do with Transformers 3.

Basically, he says he doesn't want to go bigger. He says he wants to go sideways with the scope of it. He believes he can't go bigger after Revenge of the Fallen. He had Hasbro send him lots of material on the lore of the Transformers but the only thing they strongly hint at in the video is Unicron.

He says he also wants to do more scenes with the robots and especially more scenes with Bumblebee(which points to a theory I have after seeing a specific part in Revenge of the Fallen). He wants it to be darker and more dramatic. He says it has to be more dramatic.

Now, obviously, this video was taped before the official announcement of Bay doing Transformers 3 as his next film. He could've changed his mind. But, he seems pretty adamant that he can't go bigger with this next film.

 

[Ron-P]

Watched this last night, what an impressive disc. Lot's of fun to watch as well, well done!

 

[RickER]

You know, i love the first one, and i had REALLY low expectations going into it. I just couldn't get into this second one. As hard as i tried, just when i thought it was going to get cool...they have to do some stupid comedy bit. Sam's mom drove me nuts, the 2 side kick, slack jawed, comedy relief Transformers were not funny, and the whole thing felt like it was twice as long as it really was.

One question though, maybe i missed something, cause i could have. Did they not walk out of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and into a airplane graveyard..in California, or Nevada?

 

[John Alderson]

Originally Posted by RickER

One question though, maybe i missed something, cause i could have. Did they not walk out of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and into a airplane graveyard..in California, or Nevada?

You mean there aren't HUGE tracks of flat, brown grasslands right outside the Air and Space Museum in DC? Huh.

Like I said earlier, it's a bad movie. Probably the worst movie I like

 

[dbailey100]

Originally Posted by Cory S. /forum/thread/294241/htf-blu-ray-review-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen#post_3621026

 

[ToyCarDriver]

Originally Posted by RickER

One question though, maybe i missed something, cause i could have. Did they not walk out of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and into a airplane graveyard..in California, or Nevada?

It's the AMARC facility at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson AZ.

 

[Nathan*W]

Originally Posted by RickER

Did they not walk out of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and into a airplane graveyard..in California, or Nevada?

Originally Posted by John Alderson

It's the AMARC facility at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson AZ.

While you guys probably know this, others may not know that there are actually TWO air and space museums. One is on the Mall in downtown D.C. and is rather small. The other is the Udvar-Hazy annex built adjacent to Dulles airport, so planes can be flown directly in. The annex is where all the restoration takes place, and is a HUGE facility.

To their credit, the filmmakers used exteriors and interiors of the Udvar-Hazy annex when shooting, which (theoretically) could have an airplane graveyard next to it. (though it doesn't)

http://www.nasm.si.edu/UdvarHazy/

 

[dbailey100]

Yeah, I figured that the scene at the museum was the one at Dulles. I used to live in that area but moved out several years before the Udvar-Hazy was built. I'm sure it's a cool place to be.