TRANSFORMERS 2 Rumblings/Filming! (2 Viewers)

[Brent M]

I really liked the first flick and I thought the Super Bowl spot was AWESOME!!! I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Being a kid + 80's + Transformers after school...ya had to be there.

As a fan of Transformers the first film captured everything I love about them which of course is why IMO it rocks the house.

Even though I watched the link above yesterday morning there was nothing like seeing that teaster in HD on my 60" Mits last night in 5.1!

I did see a very Ravage-like robot in there.

BTW, who was the very large bad boy at the end who made a rag-doll out of Prime!?

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Might be fake but supposedly this is Soundwave...

First Look: Soundwave from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen FirstShowing.net

 

[Jerome Grate]

Ditto that remark, my son was excited too.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Hammer, I was there. I got Jazz G1 as a gift when they were brand new. Thanks to Christmas, I had all G1. I watched the cartoon when it was a 3 part mini-series, before it expanded to full-time.

I was a big Transformers fan in the 1980's. But I am a big movie fan as an adult. And the first film was hollow spectacle polishing a truly mind-numbing script. As far better blockbusters before showed (T2), spectacle is at it's most effective when paired with consequences and actual conflict, two things Bay has never, ever been good at.

That said, if you liked the first, I have no doubt this will scratch your itch. I disliked the first, not because I wasn't a TF fan, but because I demand a bit more from movies than Bay is capable of delivering. I don't care if it was based on a line of toys - you can make a good movie out of anything if you care about the script.

 

[Steve_Tk]

This should be fun.

 

[Cory S.]

Chuck,

The funny thing about Bay is that if he could ever, ever get a handle on story and character, he'd be the whole package in terms of action directors.

I was secretly hoping that the first film would be that because I didn't have single issue with the action in that film but again, he lets himself down on story and character. I mean, I personally believe he's getting close. Had he cut out a few humans in the first film and shorten the plot a bit, he would've had it.

Apparently this film is going to be longer than the last...not the best sign in the world but we're going to be digging deeper into the mythology with this one, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Still, I'm optimistic about it. I still like the first film a lot while recognizing the many errors in story.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Cory,
I agree his visual acumen is extraordinary. But it seems to be all that he cares about.

I saw the trailers for TF, and got excited two years back. But the movie was disjointed gobbledygook, and it finally sunk it for me. Bay is an extremely talented focus group director. His films have no depth, no layers, and no characters. And he is OK with that.

So I'm wary of the trailers. His trailers always look good. Minimal dialogue, focus on the action beats and effects. But in the end, they'll be about 10-15 minutes of the movie, and the rest will be tedium, generic stereotypes, and commercial quality dialogue and interaction.

I'd love to be proved wrong. I'm not asking for Die Hard or anything. But I'll take Pirates: Black Pearl at this point.

 

[Cory S.]

Chuck,

You're pretty much on point and I agree with you. Even with that, if I had to chose one director to watch "check your brain at the door" fluff, it's always going to be Bay.

For better or worse, he's my guilty pleasure in cinema.

 

[Brent M]

I'm not ashamed to admit it....I love Bay and almost all of his films(Pearl Harbor being the only exception). Sadly, his style has spawned a bunch of hack copycats like Steven Sommers, Brett Ratner and McG(although I'll give him a pass if Terminator Salvation turns out to be good). I'm just a sucker for blowing as much s**t up as possible onscreen and Bay does that better than anybody. Period.

 

[Rhoq]

Peter Cullen voicing Optimus Prime in the first film sealed the deal for me. Once he arrived and introduced himself I got a chill down my spine (and still do every time I see it). It's like I'm a 9-year-old kid again in 1985 watching Transformers after school. I couldn't care less that the movie wasn't perfect. For everything Bay got wrong, there are 2 things he got right (or mostly right). At the end of the day, it was a huge nostalgia trip for me and I am sincerely looking forward to the next installment in just under 5 months from now.

Inspector Hammer! - I'm pretty sure that was Ravage. You can't have Soundwave without him!

The big guy at the end is most likely "The Fallen". He is supposed to be this film's main villain, to both Autobots & Decepticons. He is a minion of Unicron (who is rumored to appear in the next Transformers sequel).

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I agree. Bay is a much better director than most give him credit for. The characters in his films fit perfectly into the perameter of the kinds of stories he tells, well, most of the time they fit anyway, in PH he was dealing with a very serious subject and he had characters in it that just did not work in the way they ordinarily would in any of his other films.

Transformers worked better in character than most, again, give it credit for, it's a film about giant living robots from space...characterization could have been much worse than it was. Besides, that was the first part of a longer story, I believe that he'll deepen the characters even further in the second one.

The best example I can think of for people not giving Bay credit for being an intelligent filmmaker is The Island, that was a fantastic and smart sci fi film in my opinion that never gets the attention it deserves.

 

[Cory S.]

Rhog,

The big guy at the end is ONE of the Constructicons that form Devastator, according to spoilers....

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I'm confused, though, Devastator was the tank Decepticon that was killed at the end of the first film.

 

[Cory S.]

Inspector,

Yeah, I know. Actually, the funny thing about that was that all throughout production, the Tank Decepticon went by a different name. It wasn't until the very last minute in post production that Bay changed his mind.

Either way, it's a screw up with the knowledge that Devastator, as fans of the original series know him, will be a major part of this film.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Ah okay, doesn't really help my case that Bay is smarter than most give him credit for but okay lol.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Actually, there is nothing Bay can do that Cameron can't do a little better. And there are quite a few things that Cameron can do that Bay can't. And I only included that because you said "period"

But Bay is one of the best at mindless violence, which I wouldn't object to, if they could keep the script from being insultingly stupid. Time will tell. A decent script could do wonders for this type of film.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I wouldn't classify his scripts as being "insultingly stupid", that's a tad dramatic IMO.

The script for Twilight now THAT was an insultingly stupid script.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I don't think it is dramatic at all. There was almost no coherent motivation from one scene to another. I was told that Megatron was (apparently retroactively) responsible for the internal combustion engine. And for no reason at all did it include this line. It was the patented "best driller in the world" type nonsense Bay loves in his films.

 

[Edwin-S]

I find it kind of funny that a show based on toy transforming robots is somehow supposed to be anything but mindless action and fun. A good script is an oxymoron with this type of film. I mean, the original series wasn't exactly a paragon of good writing either.

I'd like to know exactly what a "good script" would contain for a Transformer film. Optimus Prime waxing poetically about the meaning of life and death while punching a hole in the latest Decepticon punching bag?