Poll: Live-Action Transformers Movies. What did you think?

[[Kira Must Die]]

The first one I thought was okay.

The second one was bad, but I didn't hate it nearly as much as most people did.

The third one was the one that pissed me off.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

You don't have a "They're fun as hell to riff on!" option. Seriously, I just re-watched Dark of the Moon this weekend, so much more fun out of the theater since I can mock every terrible line of dialogue. Anyway, they're not very good, but I love how incredibly cheesy they are.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I didn't mind the first one that much, and when I went to see the second one with my sister I actually enjoyed it, although that was probably because those types of mindless action movies get better if you watch them with friends. We laughed at the "gangsta rapper" robots and didn't find them racist (I did't associate it with black people, it's just a social group like emos, chavs, hipsters, etc.)
I enjoyed the SR-71's cameo, and the swordfight optimus had with all the decepticons (even if he was using wrist-blade things instead of a proper sword) Although the massive battle at the end seemed completely superfluous and dragged out.

Of course as soon as I started to think about the plot and everything, I realised all the flaws in the movie, but as a mindless action flick it wasn't bad.

Haven't seen the third one yet, decided that it wouldn't get my money.

I agree that Michael Bay would have been much better making a "Battle Los Angeles" type movie, and for him the Transformers only got in the way of what he wanted to make. Way too many human characters, not enough focus on the Transformers, and many, many other problems from characterisations to camera angles plagued these movies.

 

[MuppeTeN]

Not voting since I actually liked the movie

 

[Lady Larunai]

I would have liked the movie if it was actually about the transformers and not another romance comedy

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Bad movies with weak-ass repeated plots, ungodly annoying main character and idiotic romance character.

Poor humour.

Michael Bay is wanking off to Soldiers.

Oh, and somewhere in there, I think there might be a robot battle, but I can't recall much.

They are bad movies with poorly written characters, bad humour, they barely pay attention to the source material and most of the movie focuses on the humans, especialy the soliders while the Transformer's are merely shoehorned in so that it can keep the name: "Transformers".

They're even bad for mindless action flicks. Dark of the Moon is mind numblingly horrible and doesn't get entertaining until like 2 hours in with the huge city battle, and even that's ruined by how it focus on, doofus, slut and soldiers.

I still can't believe that she crawled around in a war zone, got under cars, fell through a building and still looked like nothing happened.

I think the best thing about this movie is that you see her ass at the beginning. Now, don't misinterpet that. I mean that her ass tells you right there and then, this movie was made by an immature man who doesn't give a shit about the Transformer's movies and that she's only there for sexual appeal.


The saving graces of these movies are the fight scenes, but even those are mishandled. Oh, look. It's The Fallen. The guy who makes Megatron bow. The movie's been building this guy up.

[Optimus Equipped Jetfire]

Optimus used Maximum combo breaker

It's Super Effective

Critical Hit

The Fallen has fainted


Gee, thank god we got such an intense fight scene of Optimus pretty much raping The Fallen with no tention what-so-ever.

Well, time for Megatron to tak- nope, he got his ass handed to him.



Oh, damn boy. This time Megatron's serious, he's gone to-- I didn't know Megatron was made of paper mache. Well, he's dead. What a dissapointing end for Optimus' greatest rival.

 

[Fragrance of Mtn Dew]

Bad movies with weak-ass repeated plots, ungodly annoying main character and idiotic romance character.

Poor humour.

Michael Bay is wanking off to Soldiers.

Oh, and somewhere in there, I think there might be a robot battle, but I can't recall much.

They are bad movies with poorly written characters, bad humour, they barely pay attention to the source material and most of the movie focuses on the humans, especialy the soliders while the Transformer's are merely shoehorned in so that it can keep the name: "Transformers".

They're even bad for mindless action flicks. Dark of the Moon is mind numblingly horrible and doesn't get entertaining until like 2 hours in with the huge city battle, and even that's ruined by how it focus on, doofus, slut and soldiers.

I still can't believe that she crawled around in a war zone, got under cars, fell through a building and still looked like nothing happened.

I think the best thing about this movie is that you see her ass at the beginning. Now, don't misinterpet that. I mean that her ass tells you right there and then, this movie was made by an immature man who doesn't give a shit about the Transformer's movies and that she's only there for sexual appeal.


The saving graces of these movies are the fight scenes, but even those are mishandled. Oh, look. It's The Fallen. The guy who makes Megatron bow. The movie's been building this guy up.

[Optimus Equipped Jetfire]

Optimus used Maximum combo breaker

It's Super Effective

Critical Hit

The Fallen has fainted


Gee, thank god we got such an intense fight scene of Optimus pretty much raping The Fallen with no tention what-so-ever.

Well, time for Megatron to tak- nope, he got his ass handed to him.



Oh, damn boy. This time Megatron's serious, he's gone to-- I didn't know Megatron was made of paper mache. Well, he's dead. What a dissapointing end for Optimus' greatest rival.

Agreed. 100%. The first one was actually pretty tolerable now that I think about it. I mean it did open with the military getting it's teeth kicked in by one Decepticon which is what would probably actually happen if a giant robot invaded Earth. And then it continued with the also probable idea that we are fucked without the Autobots.

Then the second one came around and suddenly the soldiers are all professional robot fighters to the point where I wondered why the Autobots were even in it. At one point in the final desert battle of the second movie I saw an Autobot turn into a truck SO SOLDIERS COULD GET IN THE BACK AND SHOOT AT DECEPTICONS WHILE HE DROVE THEM AROUND!!!! It was so retarded that I left the theater in disgust.

And I never saw the third one but I'm sure it's just as stupid.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

What probably creeped me out the most was how psychotic Bay made the Autobots...all the while under the clear influence that they were the heroes. They fight like they're a bloody penal legion, not actual soldiers. By the time 'Dark Side of the Moon' rolls around, the Decepticons are taking prisoners, while when one of their gunships gets shot down by the Autobots, the 'heroes' pull the pilot out and disarm him before ripping off his arms and legs, then finally tearing his head off, laughing and jeering the whole time.

Prime's the scariest out of 'em. Over the course of the movies, there were six separate instances where he went out of his way to cause gruesome harm to an enemy's face, three of which consisted of literally ripping the face off. If these had been flesh-and-blood characters, he would have been creepier than Buffalo fucking Bill.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

First movie was ok, second movie was absolute shit, third movie was ok again. There are 2 problems with the movies.

First problem is that the movies focus on the human characters, all of who are annoying caricatures more than real people. No one is coming into the movies to learn about the black guy who is a computer hacker, or the the crazy paranoid secret agent, no one gives a rat's ass about them, we're all there for the robots, so why the hell are the robots only on screen for 1/3 of any movie, and only fighting for about 20 minutes total usually? Fuck the military assholes, fuck the teenage drama, no one gives a shit, we're there for the ROBOTS!

Second problem is the fact that the plots make absolutely no fucking sense. Moviebob pointed this out already and I'll reiterate, but why the hell do the robots want to enslave humanity in the third movie? I mean, it's like humans trying to enslave mice to do our construction, it's stupid and pointless. Humans don't have the strength, or the technical knowledge to build anything for the decepticons. Whoever wrote this garbage should be fired.

Quite honestly though, once you get past the teenage drama, and the shitty writing, the spectacle of the movies is usually pretty cool in that you get to see giant robots beat the hell out of each other all over cities, and I for one actually enjoyed the design of the transformers (although I know a lot of people didn't).

 

[Lizardon]

I loved the Transformers as a kid born in the 80s, but I see what they're doing with the Franchise these days (Beast Wars, super deformed cutesy anime, Micheal Bay) and the Small child inside me throws down the Optimus Prime action figure in disgust and goes off to find some lego to play with.

Beast Wars was in the nineties, I wouldn't count that as "these days"

Anyway I'm not a fan of the movies. Michael Bay just isn't into the franchise and would rather make army movies.

Something I found out about the Bay movies that annoys me is how much sway the car companies apparently have over the films. The Transformer Jolt from Revenge of the Fallen was added simply because the company who made his car form wanted their car in the movie. And Dino in Dark of the Moon was going to be called Mirage, the name of an original Transformer, but his car company request the character's name to be changed to the nickname given to the car.

 

[ckam]

I don't remember ever liking Transformers ... at all. Not even in the 80s.

 

[DrEmo]

The first one was bad. The tone shifted from 'serious' to 'goofy' from one scene to another, the characters were incredibly annoying and the dialogue was written by a 4th grader.



The second one was even worse. The tone was all goofy, the jokes were incredibly low-brow and poorly done, the characters were even worse. Every time one of them spoke I wanted to club them to death, the writing was so bad it made the English language cry, the plot was disjointed and aimless and it was way too long.


The third one was bad. The tone shifted from 'serious' to goofy in the same scene so half the time you don't know whether to laugh at what's happening or take it seriously. A lot of the 'serious' stuff is so bad it comes off as a joke and the jokes are horrible. The characters are even more annoying and the writing is still piss-poor.


To sum it all up: 3 movies about robots where the whiny douchebag human characters get all the attention with horrible/unintelligible action and bad writing and directing.

 

[Bat Vader]

I thought the first film was decent. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either. The second film killed the trilogy for me. I have no plans on watching the third one.

 

[WarDialler]

Well now, this was nice to wake up to. Apologies to Those who liked them and I didn't include a "Wtf WarDialler? I liked the Movies, shut up!" Option on the poll.

Thanks to everyone who cared enough to share thier opinion, and keep 'em coming if you feel like you've got something to add.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I thought the first one was alright, the second one was an absolute abortion of a film, and I haven't seen the third one, so I can't comment.

Same with me. Yes I can understand why people hate it but to me the films are only justify for the actions and special effect (even with the second film had horrid humours). So what? Sometimes it doesn't take alot of intelligents to watch a film.

 

[Vivi22]

Beast Wars was in the nineties, I wouldn't count that as "these days"

Not to mention Beast Wars was fucking awesome. Fell off the rails a bit towards the end, and we won't talk about Beast Machines, but the first two seasons of Beast Wars were epic.

As for the movies, I watched some of the original Transformers as a child, but never enough to really remember any of it now. SO when I say that the movies are completely and objectively terrible in every possible way, know that I'm not speaking from a position influenced by nostalgia (though I will at least concede that I haven't seen the third movie).

Even the big robot fights were completely terrible, in large part due to how the movie Transformers were visually designed. Do the Transformers look believable on screen? Sure. Can you actually follow the action when it happens? Not really. It would be hard enough with the shaky cam work, quick cuts, and close ups of giant robot asses, but when you throw in giant robots who are so unreadable on screen that they look like a tangled mess of scrap metal punching itself every time they get close to one another it makes what should be the one highlight of the films a visual mess and completely unenjoyable.

 

[Thaluikhain]

First one was "meh", second was one awful, haven't seen the third.

I do feel compelled to defend Megan Fox, though. She's easily the best thing in the movies. Not cause of the half-arsed attempts to be sexy, but I can tell which one she is. This is not true of the actual transformers. Ok, yeah, I can tell who the other humans are, but they try to be funny, and Michael Bay is worse at comedy than he is at sexy.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

My problem isn't that they were redesigned, some of redo's were actually pretty good. It's not that Michael Bay is a mediocre director. Its that here we have hyper-advanced machines fighting a brutal war over millions of years, and yet the only ones who seem to be able to do any damage is the U.S military.