Darth Snoopy wrote:"He just turned out treatment and transferred it to screenplay format. He picked a few characters from Hasbro and wrote what kind of things he needed in production, but he didn't write a script.

Yeah, he's still a fucking scab.

This article is very powerful... it completely destroyed the little optimism I had.

Second verse, same as the first...

Darth Snoopy wrote:Now that the writers' strike has ended, Transformers 2 cowriter Roberto Orci sets the record straight. Michael Bay told Rotten Tomatoes that he continued writing during the strike, but, as it turns out, that isn't the whole truth.

"He just turned out treatment and transferred it to screenplay format. He picked a few characters from Hasbro and wrote what kind of things he needed in production, but he didn't write a script. We were involved up until the strike, and then shortly thereafter. Of course, it's a continuation of the first movie. It's the characters that we selected from the first movie, in addition to some of the ones we wanted to see that we couldn't put in the first one, and some of them were even in our original drafts."

Set two years later, the sequel has no need to introduce the Transformers. "Yeah, the first movie was very much structured as a mystery, such that the Transformers are revealed at sort of the midpoint. This time, this is a different structure, it's a different movie, it's a different story. The Transformers are there from minute one, and that's something that now we actually felt confident we could get away with, because we saw that it could work and that you could have these sentient robots and you're happy when they're onscreen."

Still, there will be opportunities for intimate comedy scenes, like the backyard sequence from the original. "It's still a continuation of these characters. Tonally, it's similar, if you liked the first one, you're still going to get that intimate story of who Sam is and what he's doing, but if you're a sci-fi fan, because we can start the movie much more Transformer-centric, it's a more balanced story with higher stakes -- as many sequels tend to be."


http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transfo ... d_straight

Oh good, another formula movie that will make me "happy" whenever I see robots on screen.

Sounds cool to me. But I liked the first.

Though I wonder how long it's going to take me to truly enjoy a genre film, regardless, after witnessing The Dark Knight. And I know that the one is more summer popcorn entertainment and the other is serious, brainy art-tainment (yeah I'm using that :P ), but still...

I seem to recall, Ulic, that you fanboyed all over the first one pretty hard, last summer. Just as hard, perhaps, as you've been doing about Batman. This is fine, of course. I just wanted to point it out.

Speaking of which, I don't think U. ever finished his review.

At least he started it.

*looks at Snoop*

Ipsilon wrote:I seem to recall, Ulic, that you fanboyed all over the first one pretty hard, last summer. Just as hard, perhaps, as you've been doing about Batman. This is fine, of course. I just wanted to point it out.

You are Sean's passive aggressive right kidney.

His left kidney's an asshole.

Thurston McQ wrote:Speaking of which, I don't think U. ever finished his review.

At least he started it.

*looks at Snoop*

You are Sean's swollen left eye.

Ipsilon wrote:I seem to recall, Ulic, that you fanboyed all over the first one pretty hard, last summer. Just as hard, perhaps, as you've been doing about Batman. This is fine, of course. I just wanted to point it out.

Yes, I enjoyed it immensely. But that doesn't mean that both films fall into the same category. In other words, you can geek out over a film that's more about entertainment as equally as you can over a film that's a bit more lofty in its aspirations, without the universe imploding on itself. I don't know why so many people these days can't grasp that simple fact. You can also like one film more but get more excited over another. I like Seven Samurai more than just about any other film ever made, but I don't get nearly as excited for it as I do for Casino Royale. Try to learn the distinction.

And for the record, having watched both, my satisfaction and enthusiasm for TDK is miles ahead of TF.

Thurston McQ wrote:Speaking of which, I don't think U. ever finished his review.

At least he started it.

*looks at Snoop*

Excelsior's post- and thread-terminating glitchiness some months ago took away my review, and sapped any enthusiasm I had to continue it. That's one reason why I haven't been writing as many long reviews (or posts) lately.

I lost my Batman Begins review, as well.

Master Ulic wrote:I don't know why so many people these days can't grasp that simple fact.

Grasping . . .

Grasping . . .

I can ALMOST . . .

Just a liiiiittle more . . .

I . . .

. . .











FUCK!

Also, I'd like to point out the one highpoint of this article:

They said there would be robots. On screen. A LOT. Which, IIRC, was one of the big complaints around here about TF1.

Sickness wrote:Also, I'd like to point out the one highpoint of this article:

They said there would be robots. On screen. A LOT. Which, IIRC, was one of the big complaints around here about TF1.

Yeah, exactly. Thanks for pointing that out, Sick. Ipsy and the others have to go for the negative view right away. :P Since they've already established the Transformers in the first film and ILM's now well-versed in creating the effects for them, we should expect to see a lot more of them. That alone is cool.

I hope you're right. I really do.

But forgive me if my confidence in the people making this film is... well, miniscule.

Ipsilon wrote:I hope you're right. I really do.

But forgive me if my confidence in the people making this film is... well, miniscule.

You're forgiven.

Good. I lost sleep. Seriously.
















(Not really.)

Ipsilon wrote:Good. I lost sleep. Seriously.
















(Not really.)

Bastiche!

:P

What's the point of having more robots when they all look the same?

Well. Yeah. Because a Peterbilt, a Porsche 911, a Hummer, a 2009 Camaro, a crane truck, a police car, an F-22 and an alien jet all look alike.

He means the robot forms themselves. The color and size are the only real noticible features to me.

I think it was more that most shots were so tight that you couldn't tell which was which. In nice, wide shots like Prime vs. Bonecrusher, I could easily tell who was who.

Ironhide vs. the Helicopter? Not so much.

Darth Snoopy wrote:He means the robot forms themselves. The color and size are the only real noticible features to me.

So you can't tell the difference between Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in this image?



Have you considered contacts or eyeglasses, Snoop? Or perhaps Lasik surgery? :P

Sickness wrote:Well. Yeah. Because a Peterbilt, a Porsche 911, a Hummer, a 2009 Camaro, a crane truck, a police car, an F-22 and an alien jet all look alike.

Those are robots in diguise: when they are robots, they lack form. They all look like they are made from a billion little parts, and yes, I know they probably would be made from a billion little parts, but those parts should be on the inside. The outsides need to have stronger lines, more identifiable forms. You'd think basics like that would be one thing Bay & co. would know to do. And maybe people complained about the lack of robots, but I don't think that was the one of the biggest complaints about the movie, more just a comment made by many. I was into the movie a little bit during the first half hour or so, myself, but I was bored to death by the end, even though some of the action scenes toward the end looked superb. Whatever people felt that the first movie didn't have enough robots will probably be excited about the next one, and also people who liked the first one but would have liked to have had even more robots. It's going to take something more to get me interested: like having the evil robots get that Fox chick drunk and then gang bang her.

Jack's Sorrow wrote:

Sickness wrote:Well. Yeah. Because a Peterbilt, a Porsche 911, a Hummer, a 2009 Camaro, a crane truck, a police car, an F-22 and an alien jet all look alike.

Those are robots in diguise: when they are robots, they lack form. They all look like they are made from a billion little parts, and yes, I know they probably would be made from a billion little parts, but those parts should be on the inside. The outsides need to have stronger lines, more identifiable forms. You'd think basics like that would be one thing Bay & co. would know to do. And maybe people complained about the lack of robots, but I don't think that was the one of the biggest complaints about the movie, more just a comment made by many. I was into the movie a little bit during the first half hour or so, myself, but I was bored to death by the end, even though some of the action scenes toward the end looked superb. Whatever people felt that the first movie didn't have enough robots will probably be excited about the next one, and also people who liked the first one but would have liked to have had even more robots. It's going to take something more to get me interested: like having the evil robots get that Fox chick drunk and then gang bang her.

I can understand your reservation about their robot forms, Jack, but ILM wanted to keep their different modes coherent from a design perspective, in the sense that all those little parts and bits and pieces from their alt modes *have* to go somewhere in their robot modes, and not simply disappear or be covered over by magical exterior pieces like in the cartoon. Had they been willing to use mass-shifting in the film, they might've gone with more streamlined designs that were more identifiable to the general audience. Then again, aside from my parents and you guys, I haven't encountered anyone who had problems telling the Transformers apart.

I think the complexity of the robot modes might make them hard to identify at first, but if you take more than a second to look, you can easily see that Blackout and Ironhide, for instance, look noticeably different.

Master Ulic wrote:

Darth Snoopy wrote:He means the robot forms themselves. The color and size are the only real noticible features to me.

So you can't tell the difference between Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in this image?



Have you considered contacts or eyeglasses, Snoop? Or perhaps Lasik surgery? :P

Nope, I know who Optimus us, obviously, but not Bumblebee, as there are two yellow ones there.

Also, since Bay spend the whole movie on Shah's adolensence and Fox's belly button, I never even got to know any of the robots, who are the real characters.

Darth Snoopy wrote:

Master Ulic wrote:

Darth Snoopy wrote:He means the robot forms themselves. The color and size are the only real noticible features to me.

So you can't tell the difference between Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in this image?



Have you considered contacts or eyeglasses, Snoop? Or perhaps Lasik surgery? :P

Nope, I know who Optimus us, obviously, but not Bumblebee, as there are two yellow ones there.

Also, since Bay spend the whole movie on Shah's adolensence and Fox's belly button, I never even got to know any of the robots, who are the real characters.

Did you actually watch the scenes where Bumblebee was in robot mode, or cover your eyes? :P I really don't see what's so difficult about it. His head is completely different from Ratchet's, his coloring is *similar* but different, he's smaller, has "wings" produced by the doors (unlike Ratchet)... I could go on and on.

Maybe I just pay more attention to these things. *shrugs*

Darth Snoopy wrote:Also, since Bay spend the whole movie on Shah's adolensence and Fox's belly button, I never even got to know any of the robots, who are the real characters.

And BINGO was his name-o.

This is my primary beef with the film (inconvenient cutaways to Josh Duhamel coming in a close second). The human characters have always been secondary in Transformers stories.

And don't give me any bullshit about how humans relate better to humans. Why did WALL*E work out so well, then?