Transformers 4

Well, I cared for the characters. Ok, I get it, the Jitty Camera is not for everyone, but it has been done before, with success. The action scenes were brilliant in all three movies, tbh.

Frankly, I just don't see what the heck is wrong with Shia Labeouf. He starts of as a kid, he's awkward, and by the end, he's cooler, fights against the Decepticons, gets the girl, still a little akward. Pretty standard to me.

They made fucking Starscream a real threat, for fuck's sake. Laserbeak was ladden with Nightmare Fuel ("Where's your daddy?"). Sentinel Prime was voiced by Leonard Nimoy.

Frankly, Transformers fandom can get quite bitchy at times, you know?

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

We've known since people were screaming "Trukk Not Munky!" in the 90's.

The movies aren't the best things in the world but I liked the first and third ones very much. My only wish is to see what else there is to show and there is so much to show.

Eh, I don't have an issue with Shia as an actor and I think that in the first one he was pretty good. The character of Sam got successively worse with each installment however. In the first he's awkward and pretty much on the standard hero's journey. In the second he's a bit of a yammering goober which isn't so bad but then he pretty much forgets that he's a dork and due to incredible luck he's with a girl who's several orders of magnitude too hot to be with him. Then you have the third movie where he's a screaming, entitled, self-important, whining, douchebag who bitches out his alien buddy because he's too busy trying to keep the world safe to chauffer his sorry ass around.

I disagree. Starscream had his moments, especially in one where he wiped the floor with a squadron of F-22's and in three where he ambushed the Spec Ops teams and again, nearly wiped them out. However he spent most of the second movie groveling (and incredible Flanderization of the character) and in the third he went down like a total bitch.

This I 100% agree with, well maybe not the Accidental part.

And they were so busy geeking out about getting Spock to voice Sentinel Prime that they forgot HE'S NOT SPOCK!

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

So, in the second movie, he's hateable because he's been with a hot girl for 2 years, and gets cocky. Wouldn't you? And since when does that affect him horribly? He still goes and risks his life in the climax for Optimus. Then, in the third movie, he's understandably jealous that Bumblebee's having "fun", but he doesn't bitch about it. In fact, he saves the world, sort of. Again.

Look at it this way: First movie, he's an Action Survivor who destroys the cube and kills megatron in a critical moment, many people would do that. Second one, he's not willing to accept a bigger responsability, since he wants to lie down, but still accepts the charge because The Call Knows Where You Live. By the third one, he's dating ANOTHER hot girl, he's a little cockier, but when things get serious, he humbles down and matures and Kills that sonuvabitch Dylan. Pretty good to me, but whatever.

He spent the whole first movie doing awesome stuff, and people were afraid of him for the first time. I agree with the second one, since I cannot rememeber much of him, but his "Cowards do survive" line is kinda cool. Third one? The guy is the one who "kills" the autobots, that's pretty menacing, not to mention a high caliber mission to trust him with. "Went down like a total bitch"? That's when Transformers fans demonstrate their polarizing opinions. Some people think of that as Sam's most awesome moment, and if an ant ripped my eye out, and implanted a bomb in me, I would be scared too.

Uh, what? Come again? Spock speaks and acts differently than Sentinel. They just took Sentinel's Jerkass personality and ran with it. They made a total of two Shout Outs to Spock, and only one of them is said by Sentinel, and used in a good way. Sheesh, now it's a crime to use Shout Outs?

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

Actually three Shout Outs. "This is the one where Spock goes nuts." "The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few." And "You have been, and always shall be, my friend."

Personally I think Sentinel was the high point of the movie. During most of the climatic battle I was thinking "When are they going to get back to Optimus vs. Sentinel?"

Byte Me

How does, "yammering goober" become hatable? I never said he was hatable in the second movie, I said he's a goober. More or less he's just an idiot with respect to his girlfriend and yes, if you take your girl for granted you are an idiot. And given that he more or less had the hero's journey forced upon him I don't give him huge props for being all brave and heroic, those appelations are reserved by those who don't have to be drug kicking and screaming into saving the world.

Did you watch the third movie? Conceptually what Sam was undergoing would have been a very good story. The problem is that there's what it is conceptually and could have been, and there's what's committed to celuloid. The Sam in the movie was a screaming, disrespectful, entitled, ass clown who spends the movie being a complete and total douchebag to everyone. I like the idea of Sam dealing with all this, but the execution is so horrible it gets no credit since it murdered a good idea.

He had maybe 5 minutes of screentime in the first movie. A third of which was stock footage of F-22's flying, a third kissing Megatron's ass, and a third of fighting at which he was very competant at. The second movie, his "Cowards do survive," line? It sucked. Starscream is a schemer, a fighter, and a backstabbing asshole. Coward? Not so much. Megatron? Are you fucking kidding me? Suggesting that Megatron should be a coward would have had any other incarnation of Megatron ripping Starscreams head off before wading in against Optimus. Instead on this one it works and he runs away. Which reflects not only the Flanderization of Starscream, just making him a coward, and how they more or less kepy making FUCKING MEGATRON, less and less important in the Transformers movies. In the third movie he doesn't kill the Autobots. If he had gone toe to toe fighting them and wiped them out, that would be meanacing. What he did was ambush their ship while they were tucked inside unable to do anything and shot it up. Which did completely fail to actually even scratch the autobot's paint. And yes, he went down in the end like a bitch. First off, Sam just happens to hit him in the eye, a target the size of a softball, on top of a 40 foot tall robot moving around a good bit, with a comparatively slow moving projectile. Ok, whatever, it's a movie. Then, instead of Starscream, oh, I dunno, ANYTHING ELSE, he just hops around yelping about his eye and doing nothing to stop Sam while Sam dicks around with the bomb until he gets it in his other eye and then gets beheaded by it. Starscream, who should be about on Bumblebee in terms of asskicking, just hops around like a bitch until he gets decapitated by Sam. The only thing he had to do was transform into jet mode, hit the gas for two seconds, and them come back to find Sam bleeding to death because his arm had been completely ripped off. End of Sam, half decent scar for Starscream. But no, he just hops around and dies. Then again this sort of describes the way about half the Decepticons die in the movie. It's like Bay took his inspiration for the last half of this movie from the Ewoks vs. Stormtroopers fight in Return of the Jedi.

Speaks differently? Is that why they lifted half his key lines from Trek? They don't even make sense half the time. "The needs of the many, outweight the needs of the few?" Nice to know he fails basic math. 200 Decepticons + 10 Autobots is not greater than 6.5 Billion humans. It's a nonsensical line. It's there purely to give you the shivers as Nimoy spouts off a Trek line. And don't try and tell me that Sentinel doesn't see humans as counting. If he really thought that he'd have said something else. "You have been, and always shall be, my friend," sure, that actually works. In fact, if they'd just left the Trek shout outs right there it wouldn't have been a problem. A nice shoutout, slightly obscure (much more so than the "needs" line), and it works in context. That's how to do a shoutout. Except they didn't. They had to throw in the "Needs" line as his justification which makes no fucking sense at all. And you don't really need a shoutout when you've got SPOCK doing the voice work.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

So one extraneous shoutout is enough to make it too much?

Let's make a TCG!

Given that the extraneous one makes absolutely no sense in the context of the movie and counts purely as a, "SQUEEEE! We got SPOCK to do a voice in our movie!" moment then yes, it's too much. The friend line would have been a good shoutout as it's a line most will be reasonably familiar with and it makes sense in the context of the movie we're watching.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

That's hardly "lifting half his key lines from Trek."

Let's make a TCG!

Key lines. When he says something that matters half the time it's a Trek line. Most of the rest of his dialogue, and there's not all that much, isn't saying much. His entire motivation for turning his back on his autobot ways and siding with the Decepticons to enslave an entire planet of free people was a line from Trek that doesn't even make sense in context. That's probably the most key part of his character, going from someone Optimus considered a mentor into someone willing to enslave an entire planet to make ends meet, and they reuse a Trek line that only proves Sentinel is REALLY bad at math. His key motivation for doing what he does is that he can't count.

Establishing his friendship with Optimus, Trek line. Again, I don't mind this one because it WORKED. This is a good shoutout.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

You've cited only 3 lines; one of which you had an issue with. Exaggerating much?

Let's make a TCG!

You keep missing the "Key" part. You know, lines that establish relationships and motivations? And he had about what, 15 or 20 lines in the whole movie? Most of them variations of, "You don't understand," while fighting Optimus?

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

I took the "Needs of the Many" line as being he was willing to sacrifice the Autobots that stand in his way to ensure the survival of the race. Humans aren't even a part of the equation. It's a dark form of the original line in Star Trek II, where it was Spock performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save the ship and crew. His last lines were apologizing to Optimus for betraying them, still trying to justify his actions.

On a related note, after rewatching the scene a few times I think Megatrons offer of a truce might have been directed to Sentinel and not Optimus. The exact line is "Who would you be without me, Prime?" and he was looking at Sentinel, though he did consistently refer to Optimus as simply Prime in the previous movies.

That's, actually an interesting idea with regards to what Sentinel is speaking of. I'd have to rewatch the movie to establish the context but it's an idea that would certainly make that line far less stupid.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

That's the exact same context you just decried, only worded differently.

Let's make a TCG!

Would you at least try and comprehend what's being said before you speak?

What I derided was the idea that they used the line in reference to Sentinel claiming that sacrificing humanities freedom for the good of Cybertron was worth it. That somehow the ~220ish cybertronians on Earth were the many and the 6 billion humans were the few. That's a fucking stupid use of the line.

However, if in the context of the scene Sentinel is obviously aiming his remarks at the Autobots and that sacrificing the ten or so Autobots and their cause for the good of their entire race, then the line actually makes sense.

The entire difference is the context, how Sentinel said it, exactly the lines framing it, and how it was presented in the movie. The way I remember it is that Sentinel directed it at the humans. However if upon rewatching it it's more obvious that it's being directed towards Optimus and the Autobots then the line makes sense. Which is what I said, I remember it one way but I would need to rewatch it to verify the context of the line and if it could have been aimed at Optimus and the Autobot instead.

So no, it's not the same. AT. ALL. I will change my opinion if the context of the line is different from what I remember.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

You're the one who said himself not to use "humans dont count" as a justification. And that's' exactly what just happened.

You just switched your perspective due to your misinterpretation.

edited 29th Nov '11 10:35:44 AM by JusticeMan

Let's make a TCG!

The exact line is Sentinel Prime looking down at the Autobot hostages and saying "How doomed you are Autobots. You simply fail to understand the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Tyyrlym was interpreting the line as being "Humans are the few, Decepticons are the many" because they were going to use humans for slave labor. But since his line was directed to the Autobots it is more likely what I said, that he was willing to kill the Autobots that try to stop him in order to revive Cybertron and the Cybertronian race. The specific line was not about the use of humans as slave labor.

Ah, I see. Thank you Mack.

Let's make a TCG!

Yeah, that was REALLY hard to comprehend when I spent three posts saying exactly that.

Thanks for the youtube link though, saves me the pain of rewatching that abortion.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

Is it cool to say abortion now? I know "rape" was in controversy for a bit...

Let's make a TCG!

besides the fact that Tyyrlim got annoyed by one Shout-Out''...

Oh, and the friend line? Sentinel never says it. Bumblebee does. What was your argument for half his lines from Spock again?

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

You keep dropping the "key" part of what I say.

Second, after a rational discussion with someone rather than nit-picking pedantry, along with a clip to provide back up, I've stated I was willing to revise my opinion on the line/shout-out and *GASP* did! OMG!

So I tell you what, drag up the clip where Bumblebee says it along with the Optimus/Sentinel Serengeti talk and I'll revise my opinion again.

Or, I dunno. How about defending the movie in its entirety as even if I reverse my opinion 180 degrees on Sentinel's lines (a single, small quibble I have with T3) the movie itself is still one of the worst I have ever seen.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

I'm not defining the movie, I'm just finding being called a pedant because I noted that your entire argument is based on faulty information rather tactless, I hadn't even seen the film.

edited 7th Dec '11 7:01:56 AM by JusticeMan

Let's make a TCG!

For the love of... Your inability to grasp what was being said has now been brought into laser like focus.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit