The Intergalactic Highway

See, I'm one of those moronic people who will still go spend money at the theaters even if I know the movie will be bad. I knew I'd have mixed to negative reactions to the 3rd movie (after what happened with the 2nd) but I still went... twice! First time was due to JazZeke inviting me. Second time was due to other friends inviting me (the day after lol). I'm one of those people who will never go to the theaters by himself no matter how awesome the movie is reviewed. However, as soon as someone asks me to go with them, I pretty much always say yes unless if I have a conflicting schedule.

I know, I'm part of the reason why bad movies are so financially successful

I'm going to wait and see trailers for it. But I have liked the movies so far, second one not as much as the other two. I really liked the third one. I guess I'll wait and see, I will probably see it no matter what though, just because I am a transformers fan. Hoping maybe a BW character can get thrown in there, again.

I agree with Pheonix. I've actually thought about a "like" button for some time now. I'd love to just "like" a post instead of responding just to say: "Yes, I agree!" and not really having anything else to say. In a case like this for instance, I'd usually just read it, wish I could press the "like" button, start a post, decide it sounded dumb, erase it and "x" out of bwint.

However.....this is a different story. So I am going to throw my two cents in here.

I wasn't real crazy about any of the Transformers live action movies. I saw them all and I'll go see the fourth one, but it's kind of like Lord of the Rings for me. I sat through it once; I don't really need to sit through it again.

- Cut screen time from human characters. Hire lesser known, or less demanding actors, who have more natural talent than the models that Bay tends to hire. This will save budget for Paramount studios since they won't have to give so much to the human actors. One very easy way to justify this pay cut would be to make humans as secondary characters instead of primary ones.

I agree. I don't care much for Shia Lebuff (or whatever his name is). And why did you need those big name actors? As Alak said, the hype itself is what got people to go to the movie. But the writing is what got me the most. I realize that this is fiction and all, but I really couldn't stand the fact that humans did things that were really unbelievable such as killing off Transformers with their bare hands. I mean, really?! How does a bumbling idiotic human character kill off one of the coolest Decepticons ever (I won't spoil much more than that)?!

I was really disappointed after the first movie that we didn't see as much of the transformers as I had hoped I would, but I think it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if the plot had been better developed and more believable. Beastbot is right, the human characters are there to put into the movie what CGI characrers can't.....in short, they're there to make the movie more real. It wouldn't be a "live action" movie if there were no humans....it would still be animated. So the audience is relying on the human characters to create a sense of realism for the movie. Humans are weaker than giant, walking, talking, thinking, living robots. But, I disagree with Alak. It could have been a great movie whether the humans were secondary characters or not if only the writers had done a better job "selling" the plot (so to speak) and developing the human characters.

- Cut down the number of actions scenes. Sure, they make the movies more memorable and keep children happy, but I'm willing to bet if you asked a child about all the fight scenes in the movie, they'll most likely only name the final battle. That's how the child psyche works; only the biggest fight is remembered. Divide the number of fights in half, use the vacant scenes for more brain/heart-stirring scenes that make these transformers more developed. To us, they're not just toys. They are characters.

I agree. I would have enjoyed seeing some more scheming on Megatron's part instead of seeing him just run headlong into battle all the time seemingly without any sort of plan in mind. That's what makes the Decepticons so much fun is seeing their diabolical brains at work. Even in the tv show, the fights are kind of secondary to the plot development and seeing just how Optimus planned to stop Megatron. While I certainly think Beastbot has a point. We can't expect as much character and plot development in a movie as we can in the tv show, but it definitely is still important. I think the movies seriously lacked in this area. I mean, there was a plot, but it just wasn't very well developed in my opinion.

- Stop trying to film at really popular sites. Using the pyramids of Egypt was totally unnecessary and that decision is absolutely the sole reason why Revenge of the Fallen was the most costly movie to make. You don't have to use cities like Chicago because your cash will burn through your pocket from closing off main streets during filming. Most movies use footage from lesser known cities while telling audiences that the scene is taking place elsewhere. For example, Batman Begins had much less CGI and action large-scaled action scenes but still had the same budget as the first Transformers film. Why? Nolan shot in Chicago and England. Sure, it's fine to shoot in notable locations for scenes that don't involve paying off the city to reroute traffic due to some epic battle.

They actually did shoot RotF in some lesser known locations. For instance, they shot some scenes near my home town! They put a casting call in the newspaper and everything! I thought about trying to be an extra, but you had to pass for an Asian. That was definitely not at all possible. I'm whiter than a marshmallow....not to mention the blonde hair and blue eyes....

Alak wrote:[I understand where you're coming from, but that mindset is no longer applicable to the new Transformers movies. As I said before, I will always give props to Michael Bay for taking the first attempt at a live-action Transformers movie. I enjoyed 2/3 of the movies even though I recognize that they're bad from a technical standpoint. The whole "risk" argument works... if we're having this discussion in 2007. The problem here is that this is 2012. We've already had a live-action trilogy. We already know how the CGI process works. We already know that if you put transforming robots
on screen, people will flock to the movies and Paramount will make money.

I'm sorry, but no, you don't know that. TF4 could be a box office flop, though with Bay directing again I'd argue they're minimizing the likelihood of that. You're taking your personal experience and conversations with people regarding this movie and extrapolating it to the general public and the movie itself-- it's inherent even in the language you use-- they "recognize" how bad it is, as opposed to they think it's bad, etc.
Meanwhile, my personal experience with people is that nearly every one I know personally-- and I don't know many Transfans IRL, trust me-- loves the Transformers movies. I can think of....three people I know well IRL that don't like them. Compared with dozens who do. Granted, I'm not saying the Transformers movies positive numbers are THAT high, because again, personal experience. And actually, some people I know like the Transformers movies in spite of, not because of, the big ol' robots. I would say from my personal experience, about half of the people I know go to see the movies because of the human cast. They like Shia, they like Josh Duhamel, they like the hot chick. Heck, I know one guy who watched the first two because Megan Fox was in them. Fox was not in DotM, so he didn't watch it. My stepbrother loves some of the human characters to the point where he wants the movies to continue past DotM just so he can see more of Agent Simmons and his "sidekick" Dutch. Wasn't fond of the action sequences, really personally tired of CGI, wasn't fond of the plot. But would "put up" with all of it over and over again to see the "fantastic, engaging" human characters again. Even though we have the same general interests, his favorite parts of DotM tended to be my least favorite and visa versa.
Now, reflective of the general community? Who knows. I would venture a bit more reflective than your personal experience simply because of box office receipts, but I don't know. But I still stand by my argument that the path right now of the least change possible is the wise one. Now, if box office receipts start to slide a pretty good amount, I could see switching it up then, and that perhaps your experience is more indicative of the general audience, but not before then.

Transformers

Critics who liked it: 57%
Audiences who liked it: 89%

Revenge of the Fallen

Critics who liked it: 26%
Audiences who liked it: 76%

Dark of the Moon

Critics who liked it: 35%
Audiences who liked it: 67%

Don't take this the wrong way, but where did you get those numbers? I'm not doubting you, but perhaps your source. Up until this point I had heard that favorables (among the general audience, not critics) were quite high across all three movies. (Not to mention you'd think that, if audiences started souring on the TFs with RotF, you'd think DotM would have lower returns, but it didn't, it blew the others right out of the water in terms of money made.)

Seriously though, franchises that are financially successful (but suck) that are rebooted with better directors have been proven to generate at least as much money while receiving better critical acclaim.

Franchises have also been re-booted (or revisited again) and done worse (like the Star Wars prequels-- though they certainly still did well, they didn't measure up to the phenomenon that were Episodes 4 through 6-- and those were even with the same director!) We don't know which category Transformers would fall into. Again, Bay may just be the director who hits that sweet spot with getting things on in time for the Hasbro execs, as well as the experience car filming, and the humor, the robots, the cast, the girls, etc. that the movie has enough of a bit of everything to draw in a very wide audience. Somebody else takes the reins and it could focus too much on one core audience, making THAT audience like it more, but getting less revenue overall.

Franchises have also been re-booted (or revisited again) and done worse (like the Star Wars prequels-- though they certainly still did well, they didn't measure up to the phenomenon that were Episodes 4 through 6-- and those were even with the same director!)

Not to get off topic, but I don't think those count as a reboot. George Lucas always intended to make episodes 1-3, but he realized he couldn't do it with the resources he had at the time. So he did 4-6 first and they were originally called Episodes 4-6.....they were given those numbers when they were first released. It's not like the numbers were applied after the prequels were made.

But I'm sure there are some franchises that were rebooted and did not receive good reviews , but that doesn't necessarily mean they didn't draw a crowd. There still was that hype that sent people to the theatre to see it. I'm sure plenty of people rushed to the theatre to see the remakes of King Kong, any recent Spiderman movie or X-men movie or Batman movie...or Superman movie. I mean seriously....how many of those movies could they possibly make?!?! But people flock to the theatre to see it just because it has that Marvel comics name on it and they think "it's bound to be good." Not to mention....recently I saw a preview for another Planet of the Apes remake and I was like, "It was good enough for another movie?!" But while people said it wasn't as good as the original movies, it still must have made enough money to warrant a second movie. People went just on the novelty of it being The Planet of the Apes....you know a kind of nostalgia type thing.

As for the reason people go to see this movie......no one can prove how many people went to see Megan Fox and how many people went to see Transformers, but if I had to guess I'd say the latter is the best guess. I'm just thinking back to when the first one came out.....I remember being on a TF RPG around the time the first Bay-verse movie came out and I remember people saying: "I'm going to go see this because I'm a huge fan of Transformers and I want to see how badly Michael Bay is going to ruin this film." So it's not like anyone had really high expectations of this whole thing to begin with, but it was his job to surpass our expectations. And I'd say a good 80% of people that posted in this particular thread said they'd go see the fourth one just because it is transformers....so it's STILL drawing a crowd based on the Transformers name alone.

But you do bring up a good point.... maybe the success of these films will draw in more interest for more remakes of Transformers fiction. Maybe it will inspire fans to make more fan-made things....such as videos, artwork, and even publish books!

Beastbot wrote:*text*

lol Blackrosefencer is right, Lucas made them not for money or for oohs and ahhs. He did it because he owns his own production and distribution companies and it was a personal motivation for him. That's unrelated to other actual reboots. Looking at a movie series, there are far more successful reboots than failures. In fact, I honestly can't think of a single financial failure for a franchise reboot in the past decade. As for my sources, I use rottentomatoes:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/search/?s ... esearch=rt

They aggregate all professional movie critic reviews, and millions of users contribute their own personal votes so that we can compare between critics and audiences. It's the best website to get a statistically sound grasp over how the movie is responded to by North American audiences. Take a look at the first Transformers movie. 2,200,301 different users gave reviews for the movie on Rottentomatoes as opposed to its direct competitor, Yahoo Movies, which only received user 10,540 reviews. According to the very basic foundations of research, your survey data becomes more accurate as your coverage increases over the population. Therefore, the numbers I gave you will provide a better scope than the people you meet in person or on the internet. It is because of this very same reason that we can conclude that the Bayformers trilogy was a critical failure despite being a financial success. Obviously, not everyone hates it or else you wouldn't even see a percentage higher than 0%. Who likes and hates the film are randomly located all over NA. People you know like the films. People I know hate the films. Since our personal circles don't represent all movie goers, we resort to using statistics to legitimize our arguments for us.

As for whether or not we can "know" if a reboot under a different director will be successful, that's an argument that thinly veils either denial or fanboyism or both. Use logic to think this through:

Bad movie + Large fanbase = Financial Success
Good movie + Large fanbase = ???

^ there shouldn't even be question marks, but this is exactly how your insistence appears. You can try to bring up trivial variables but that tactic works both ways. Say you decide to tell me that 30% of the profits came from moviegoers who just wanted to see a hot chick. I'll tell you that 30% will immediately be replaced if I bring in a reputed director such as Peter Jackson who has his own fanbase. Say you tell me that 50% of the profits came from casual viewers wanting to see explosions. I'll just say that the 50% will be made up of viewers who enjoy depth in characterization and plot. We can spin in circles all day long with these little arguments, but that will never negate the original equation:

Bad movie + Large fanbase = Financial Success
Good movie + Large fanbase = ???

I'm not telling you that you should hate the Bayformers trilogy. I'm not telling you that it's wrong to enjoy them no matter what everyone else says. I'm not telling you that it's right or cool to trash talk on what Michael Bay gave us. What I am telling you is that it is wrong to assume that there is nothing major that could be fixed. I'm telling you that it's wrong to resort to the mentality that this is the best that we're ever going to get in the near future. I am most certainly telling you that it is wrong to assume that creating a better Transformers movie within a $200 million budget is impossible.

If you can't even agree to this, then the only thing we'll be able to agree on is that we're at a disagreement and that's that.

Blackrosefencer wrote:I agree. I don't care much for Shia Lebuff (or whatever his name is). And why did you need those big name actors? As Alak said, the hype itself is what got people to go to the movie. But the writing is what got me the most. I realize that this is fiction and all, but I really couldn't stand the fact that humans did things that were really unbelievable such as killing off Transformers with their bare hands. I mean, really?! How does a bumbling idiotic human character kill off one of the coolest Decepticons ever (I won't spoil much more than that)?!

I was really disappointed after the first movie that we didn't see as much of the transformers as I had hoped I would, but I think it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if the plot had been better developed and more believable. Beastbot is right, the human characters are there to put into the movie what CGI characrers can't.....in short, they're there to make the movie more real. It wouldn't be a "live action" movie if there were no humans....it would still be animated. So the audience is relying on the human characters to create a sense of realism for the movie. Humans are weaker than giant, walking, talking, thinking, living robots. But, I disagree with Alak. It could have been a great movie whether the humans were secondary characters or not if only the writers had done a better job "selling" the plot (so to speak) and developing the human characters.

I'm not saying cut out humans completely, only cut their screen time in favor of the transformers. Even a 50-50 distribution would be a huge improvement over what we've been given thus far. Yes, I absolutely agree with you that a proper script could have saved the movies from a lot of facepalm/eye-rolling moments. The decision to insert some borderline-crazy, eccentric human in each movie also put off a lot of adults. Could a human side-kick or partner work well for a reboot? Yes, this I will not deny. I just want to see the non-human characters develop just as much.

I guess that's why I still hold the first movie in a much higher regard than the other two. The amount of time we see between Sam and Bumblebee gives us a human-transformer bond that's not found for the rest of the trilogy (Spielberg's idea for this relationship in the first movie btw). You can see Bay tried resurrect this connection but it was too fleeting in my opinion.

Blackrosefencer wrote:They actually did shoot RotF in some lesser known locations. For instance, they shot some scenes near my home town! They put a casting call in the newspaper and everything! I thought about trying to be an extra, but you had to pass for an Asian. That was definitely not at all possible. I'm whiter than a marshmallow....not to mention the blonde hair and blue eyes....

ROTF had a lot of shooting sites around the world. One of the most terrible sequences, however, was when the scene with meeting Jetfire went from Washington D.C. to the Tucson Air Force Base. My friends and I laughed so hard because we watched the movie in a theater that's 2 miles away from that air force base. Still, even with shots in less expensive sites, we still have full scenes from Paris, Shanghai, Washington D.C., and Egypt. ROTF was the first movie in recent history to have actually shot its scenes on the real pyramids of Egypt. That scene alone must have cost a fortune. It's no coincidence that ROTF had the highest budget costs out of the entire trilogy. Sure, DOTM wasn't that far behind due to its use of Chicago, but those pyramids sure made Egypt a lot of cash lol.

Alak wrote:

Beastbot wrote:*text*

I use rottentomatoes:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/search/?s ... esearch=rt

They aggregate all professional movie critic reviews, and millions of users contribute their own personal votes so that we can compare between critics and audiences. It's the best website to get a statistically sound grasp over how the movie is responded to by North American audiences.

I thought that might be it. Yeah, even though it's large, when it comes to well-known movies Rottentomatoes tends to be either very negatively or positively biased (usually the former)-- they are not scientific polls. People who don't have strong feelings towards a movie won't bother voting. And given how on the Internet, it's "cool" to bash on the Bay films-- moreso with each movie coming out-- I don't care how large the sample size is, it's still biased because it's not random. Same with certain other franchises. They're really not something to gauge a movie's future success on. The Twilight series, for example.

EDIT: Just thought of a good analogy to better explain what I'm talking about. That would be like going to the National Democratic or National Republican Convention and polling them to see who they want to be their presidential nominee during a primary. You only get the people who "follow" the news item in question fairly closely and who tend to have strong feelings one way or the other. You could not generalize from those polls how the American public in general feels about a certain party's nominee.

Bad movie + Large fanbase = Financial Success
Good movie + Large fanbase = ???

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm saying you don't know when you change that much stuff around if the large fanbase will still be there. (People who will see it just 'cause it's Transformers =/= everyone who saw it.) This is what I'm saying, even going with your assumption that the Bay movies are "bad" and that certain other directors would make it "good":

Bad movie + Large fanbase = Financial Success
Good movie + ??? fanbase = ???

Hence why sticking with the former is the better option.

If you can't even agree to this, then the only thing we'll be able to agree on is that we're at a disagreement and that's that.

Oookay then. It seems we're not even agreeing on the premise anymore, given what I just wrote, so I guess that makes sense that we're not going to agree on any conclusion.

Moving on, if you want to support some current fiction that isn't movie-related and heavily focused on characterization among the TFs themselves, buy and read the new ongoing IDW comic series, "More Than Meets The Eye" and "Robots in Disguise". Good jumping-on point (MTMTE is at #2 and RID is at #1), even if you haven't been following the comics so far. Because good heavens, both of them are incredible, and MTMTE is the best TF fiction I've ever read, watched or heard. Yes, ever. I just finished #2 and I'm positively giddy. It tweaks fanwank muscles you didn't know you had.

Seriously, quit reading my post and go read those comics instead.

Now.

....

Fine, you need a bit more convincing? Read this:

http://www.craveonline.com/comics/inter ... M.facebook

Now GO! Buy! Read!

Personally I haven't read a comic since I was 13 years old. I found that comics were simply incapable of drawing me into the action, so quite frankly they bore me. I much prefer a good cgi/cartoon, but it would be totally worth it to see a live action tf movie with a producer who doesn't merely focus on the things I don't care to watch in a movie. Liking the style of the producer has so much to say for the overall experience of the movie, and quite frankly.. all Bay movies I've seen have resulted in the same dislike for his style (or lack thereof). So in my opinion, yes, another director would probably do a much better job with the franchise.

I actually liked the movies for the most part until the pretty girls came in and made me feel ugly x.x but I wish he'd throw in some femme bots and let them LIVE. But if he kills off Ratchet so help me God I will kill off him!

What if he wanted to add some memorable emotion to his movie and killed off Bumblebee?

I don't think Hasbro will ever let that happen, heh. Bumblebee and Prime will never die (permanently). I think the 1986 movie taught them that.

I mean, even when watching DoTM for the first time, during that period where Soundwave points his gun at Bumblebee's head I'm like, "Nope, not gonna happen. Nope. Nope. Nope... yep, didn't happen."

Though Ironhide dying kinda got to me a little. He was my favorite Movie Autobot...

Though Ironhide dying kinda got to me a little. He was my favorite Movie Autobot...

Same here Beastbot. When I watch Transformers 1, I still get a little sad seeing Jazz go.

They need to add the beast warriors in a movie!!

Some reliable robot news about TF4 is finally coming out. Principal photography for the movie is officially beginning, and these three pics of the redesigned Autobots' vehicle modes have been posted:

Optimus Prime:
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... ed-177574/

Two unknown new Autobots:
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... ts-177571/

I never saw the First movie that in theathers and I'm not see the fourth one. I have lost all faith in Michael Bay.... I mean he turned the TF moves into a freaking Victoria's Secret/Car commercial! What that... man fails to realize is that Transformers is about The Autobots and thier war with the Decepticons. Its should be 98-99% about them and 1-2% about the humans, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!