http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech....html?series=6 For those who did enjoy the movie and are interested in the technical details of how they pulled off the CGI.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech....html?series=6 For those who did enjoy the movie and are interested in the technical details of how they pulled off the CGI. "How are we gonna get this thing from a car into the robot and back in a believable way?" I think it's pretty obvious that they only cared about making that part of the movie believable.

Hey, dude. Mind shutting up and not being a provocative pain in the ass? If you want to discuss stuff you didn't like about the movie, sweet. Lots of people have done that. Being a flamebait twit derails the thread.

snip Then scene where all the autobots are driving along the road, and the camera keeps panning across them EXACTLY as it would in a car commercial? Wow, I didn't even think about that. Hmm. I guess in my mind, I always see the transformers as robots first, so mentally it's the same as if they'd been running down the highway. But now that you've pointed it out, yeah.

I think it's pretty obvious that they only cared about making that part of the movie believable. Are you honestly saying something like this about a movie based on transforming sentient alien robots?

Then scene where all the autobots are driving along the road, and the camera keeps panning across them EXACTLY as it would in a car commercial? Yeah, because that's totally NOT an effective shot for showing a moving column of vehicles along a road. OH SNAP. (You'd think the transformers were actually vehicles, I dunno why I think this, maybe I wasn't paying sufficient attention during the movie) Edit: I would like to point out that Michael Bay has also shot a lot of car commercials before, so happens to know how to effectively show off a car using a camera.

Just saw this... holycrapholycrapholycrap it is so AWESOME!!!!!! I was in a permanent state of during the entire thing.

Car company marketing tie-in? Check. Actually, this is because they were only able to get licenses from GM (and of course, the military doesn't appear to mind their vehicles being portrayed as decepticons ;)). Many of the 'original' autobots vehicle designs are owned by companies that don't like the idea of their cars being used as 'war toys' (hence the primary reason that Bumblebee is a Camaro). Buying the license to use a range of cars from one company is simpler than doing so from lots of different ones, hence why they use GM cars.

The concept camero is pretty rad. I wonder if it will be priced similarly to the redesigned mustang.

Yeah, the new Camaro is pretty sweet. I liked that they had the yellow Bug next to the Camaro when Sam got his car. I also kinda thought it was funny that the Decepticon that was Bumblebee's counterpart was a Mustang, seeing as the new Camaro is more or less an answer to the new Mustang.

Barricade and Bumblebee really show off some of the coolness American cars have. Although I found it funny that the yellow car that gets chopped up by Blackout is an Australian designed Holden Commodore. The American GM version probably, but still. Between that and the Unit, they're slowly infiltrating Hollywood.

Just saw it. It was a good Hollywood movie with a good mix of action and comedy. However, as a TF fan, I just have to nitpick a bit. I'm not even going to comment on the human screentime, it is Hollywood after all. I should apologize in advance, all of this probably have been said earlier one way or another. Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler - This is a personal opinion, but I found the transformations too exaggerated for my taste. It seems realistic, but it looks like a billion individual parts waiting to fall apart. Plus, I miss hoods as torsos and flappy doors at the back. - Blackout went from awesome to pathetic. Sure, the base was surprised, but getting destroyed by a few shots to the groin felt too rushed. It didn't help that the troops firing at him were using some concrete walls as cover and survived, knowing that it destroyed a complete military base earlier with little trouble. - Jazz getting killed. If it was one Autobot who deserved to die, it's Ironhide and his anti-human attitude. Jazz is an icon, shitholes, don't fuck with him. Also, he kind of stood there in vehicle form when Bumblebee got badly injured. - Prime was a total disappointment. He did nothing worth noting. When he did do something he got Bumblebee in trouble, abandonded him and he didn't even finish off Megatron in the end. It didn't help that the majority of his lines were either utter shit or regurgitations of past material. - Megatron during cryopreservation felt a bit too much like Independance Day. His hybernation in the polar circle wasn't too original either. - Barricade should have been an Autobot, not a Decepticon. He also disappeared at the big final or I wasn't keeping attention. - Starscream was perfectly done however. The way he bailed out in the end was completely in character. I would have liked Skywarp and Thundercracker to have appeared as his wingmen though and taking out an entire fighter squadron. I just love dogfights. There's probably more, but I'm not going to dwell on it too much. Overall, it's definitely an entertaining movie and is probably succesful enough to justify sequels. Can't wait what they have in store for us.

I had a lot of trouble following most of the fight scenes Thankfully Megan Fox is ridiculously hot. edit: I should note that I simply skipped every scene not featuring robot fights or Megan Fox, the movie is really good when you do that.

The Onion's review summed up my feelings perfectly: http://www.avclub.com/content/cinema/transformers Basically shits on it for all the 'spastic teen comedy'. Come on, more than half the movie was like sub-par OC episode. And then you had some olol fat guy 'ima black dood haxsaw' plus 'ima pee on the meeny special forces baddie'.

i really don't see this 'stupid teen comedy' everyone alleges. there are different kinds of humour, you know? the humour here was character driven, rarely reliant on cheap references, and as such i think it'll survive as genuine. i mean you can assume that anything that makes you laugh is a cheap trick to sway the audience but there really is depth here.

I'm not saying anything about what the humour was driven by, i just think it was pretty goddamn lame. I HAVE TO HIDE MY GIANT ROBOT FRIENDS FROM MOM! okay kid, I'm fucking Optimus Prime, but I'll wait.

Chen: Why should Barricade have been an Autobot? Because he was a car? :roll: Wait, that's not large enough to properly express my incredulity. There, that's better. There have been car Decepticons since G1.

what i'm saying is it made me laugh, and in fifteen years when i show this movie to my kids they're going to laugh then, too. probably the ebay and WWW references might slip by, but everything else is created by drawing convincing character portraits and playing with them. it's good humour. and i'm not sure what you're trying to argue. what made this film so satisfying was that the transformers could interact with humans on a meaningful level, they could step down into this new context and still be convincing. if you're one of these people who'd rather see a movie set on Cybertron with no humans and robots talking in their little robot houses you'll get no sympathy from me, because the human element in this film is one of its most valuable assets

Chen: Why should Barricade have been an Autobot? Because he was a car? :roll: Wait, that's not large enough to properly express my incredulity. There, that's better. There have been car Decepticons since G1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunticon

Chen: Why should Barricade have been an Autobot? Because he was a car? Maybe because he was a police cruiser, or because he looked like Prowl. Lighten up.

You know what, I'm surprised they made sure none of the parts hit each other and that they could all fit inside. I figured they just made sure everything went really fast so they could just mash it all in there. That sounds like incredibly hard work (the 'making sure it all works' part, not the 'do it really fast part'). The movie has a slight bit of cheese, but not nearly as much as the last few films I've seen.

what i'm saying is it made me laugh, and in fifteen years when i show this movie to my kids they're going to laugh then, too. probably the ebay and WWW references might slip by, but everything else is created by drawing convincing character portraits and playing with them. it's good humour. and i'm not sure what you're trying to argue. what made this film so satisfying was that the transformers could interact with humans on a meaningful level, they could step down into this new context and still be convincing. if you're one of these people who'd rather see a movie set on Cybertron with no humans and robots talking in their little robot houses you'll get no sympathy from me, because the human element in this film is one of its most valuable assets This is exactly what I thought. They could've seriously goofed up the humans and just made them talking fleshbags that prevent us from seeing awesome robot battles. But instead they went and made meaningful and sympathetic characters that exemplified the reason why Optimus' belief of all life, no matter what, is precious is worth fighting for. this movie so much.

what i'm saying is it made me laugh, and in fifteen years when i show this movie to my kids they're going to laugh then, too. probably the ebay and WWW references might slip by, but everything else is created by drawing convincing character portraits and playing with them. it's good humour. and i'm not sure what you're trying to argue. what made this film so satisfying was that the transformers could interact with humans on a meaningful level, they could step down into this new context and still be convincing. if you're one of these people who'd rather see a movie set on Cybertron with no humans and robots talking in their little robot houses you'll get no sympathy from me, because the human element in this film is one of its most valuable assets This is exactly what I thought. They could've seriously goofed up the humans and just made them talking fleshbags that prevent us from seeing awesome robot battles. But instead they went and made meaningful and sympathetic characters that exemplified the reason why Optimus' belief of all life, no matter what, is precious is worth fighting for. this movie so much. meaningful and sympathetic characters??? Was it the 'hot popular girl who is in a bad relationship with the jock but is eventually won over by the kind hearted nerd' or the 'government leader who takes a chance on some maverick kids because he has faith in good decent americans' that made you think that? Or maybe it was the 'cold hearted black ops dude who is mean to the heroes because he thinks that only he knows how to solve problems but is eventually redeemed at the end' or the 'tough as nails army dude with kids back home who fights for his buddies and to get THE MESSAGE BACK TO THE PENTAGON'? I don't mind people saying this movie was good mindless fun but saying that that this movie affirmed your humanity? seriously, wtf?

I don't mind people saying this movie was good mindless fun but saying that that this movie affirmed your humanity? seriously, wtf? Well, if a person has a very shallow view of their humanity... The characters were one dimensional predictable objects that fit into the shoddily constructed "plot". There weren't any meaningful interactions. I don't understand what people saw in this movie, unless they wanted middle-school level humor and 'splosions.

_J_, are you the Grinch?