[barend]

Jazz (known as Meister in Japan) was voiced by a black man named Scatman Crothers in the 1980s (who is deceased). I assume your implying that the persona of Jazz from the 80's cartoon imbued a stereotypical african american. i dont feel that was the case, in fact, if anything Blaster leaned more towards being stereotypical in this aspect than Jazz ever was. But really, neither character displayed a full fledged stereotype, racial or otherwise.

Jazz, as his moniker implies, was a very smooth laidback character. Of all his autobot comrades, he was usually regarded as being slow to hostility or anger. (unlike warpath or grimlock for example).

I never once heard Jazz say "yess massa" in any cartoon, so Im assuming youre adding in a pun, albiet being somewhat slightly racial. Jazz is an mechanical being from Cybertron, not a plantation cotton picker from the movie "The Color Purple".

by the way, i despise how Jazz looks now compared to his old look. They changed him from a quite stylish Martini Porsche 935 Turbo into a bland grey Pontiac Solstice,..booorrrring.

No no... I Just meant, listening to him talk recently, he sounded like someone who was about to teach shirly temple to tap dance in 20 seconds. He was a step away from starting every sentance with "Yes sir, Mr.Prime."

I just found it funny is all. No damage. I'm not starting a thing here. I'll still buy the series.


(gven that he was born in 1910, that's probably no coincidence)

[mireaux7]

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

(my review is sooooo big,..it is in 3 posts!)

ok, i have just got back from seeing transformers, and i have a lot to say about this film.

overall, i feel the film was quite good. it exceeded my expectations, but not by too much.

i will admit that i had already knew a lot about the storyline, even before going in to see the film. there were a few surprises here and there

a little about me:

i am a child of the 1980's, and grew up and practically worshipped transformers. i had a lot of the toys, watched the cartoons, saw the 1986 movie in theatre, and i pretty know a lot about the transformers universe and mythos. especially generation one.

now, in all fairness, it has been 21 years since the animated film debuted in theatres, and with that being said, i am willing to accept changes here and there.

my first complaint, is sort of a complaint, but not so much. i felt that the storyline had waaay too much human involvement and lacked in developing a lot of the autobot and decepticon characters in the film. i understand that the purpose of the excessive human interaction is that this is a mainstream film, meant to attract and entertain a mainstream audience while still apeasing to the hardcore fans as well.

there was also too much slapstick puns and humor involved with the film. which i am okay with there being humor in this sort of mainstream approach that the film takes, as it helps those unaccustomed to the transformers mythos be somewhat more at ease in trying to learn about it. so, its cool..but they didnt need to have as much humor as they did.

there are parts of the film that move excessively fast, and parts that simply drag on forever. as the film starts out,.for what seems like the first 45 minutes,..there is this slooowww and rather awkward process of the film slowly revealing one transformer character at a time. like, it was too expensive for the graphics department to put more than one transformer on the screen at any given time. so, we see bumblebee,..scorponok,.rumble,..etc etc etc.

there is also waaaay too much product placement in this film as well. its pretty obvious that the film is already a product plug for the 2008 chevy camaro. but closer revelation also shows burger king, gpx electronics, ebay, and porsche also with ads as well. in fact, the word ebay is referenced about 20 damn times in the film. i think i recall even optimus prime versing the word "ebay". i cringed in my seat. i mean,..i hate when films reference too many things of the current hey-day, because when films do this, the film can show considerably age when/if certain things like ebay arent around, say 20 years from now. it would be like if in the 1986 film, john moschitta reference galoob's micro machines...younger kids have no idea what micro machines are, and even moreso wouldnt know that john moschitta did tv ads for micro machines.

the film starts out beautifully, you hear the voice of peter cullen reprising optimus prime as he does an opening prelude introduction, and if youre a huge transformers fan like myself..its like hearing the voice of a long lost friend that was presumed to be dead. i was in awe,..its optimus prime!!!...optimus prime!!...peter cullen!! wow!...i loved it.

but speaking of peter cullen, as many transformers fans already know, back in the 1980's he did the voice of both optimus prime and ironhide. well, optimus prime and ironhide are both in the new film as well,..but cullen doesnt voice ironhide...he is voiced by josh harnell. why couldnt cullen reprise his role of ironhide as well? what was up with that?

anthony andersen...omg...what a sore embarrassment. he ruined the film in all the parts he was in, i wish he wasnt in the film. the only purpose he served was his small part as some whiz tech kid that can decipher advanced decepticon technology on his home computer. so what? big deal. the real reason that he is even in the film, he that he is an untalented actor out of work that was somehow granted the blessing of spielberg to be cast for a role in the film. he was also the nasty drive-thru chef at a competitor fast food restaurant in the film "harry and kumar go to white castle".

as i said before, the film drags on too long on certain scenes and moves too fast on others. if i could take a wax crayon and draw a straight line to seperate this all into two categories,.you would have scenes with human actors that take too long,.and scenes with the transformers that are too brief. there is very short scenes with certain transformer characters.,.namely the decepticons. we see no character development from devastator, bonecrusher, blackout, starscream, ...heck starscream is only shown in robot form in like one short 20 second scene in the whole damn film...what the fudge?!??

dont get me started on rumble. first off, how in the world are you going to feature rumble prominently in this film, and not have soundwave in the picture at all? how? thats impossible. its damn absurd! soundwave should have been in this movie, and should there be a sequel (and trust me, i can already smell one brewing) soundwave needs to be in it. but back to rumble,. if there is one character i just totally disagreed with the entire time in the movie,.it was rumble. he looks ridiculous!!,.like 13 sets of stainless steel swiss army knives all welded together,..and to top it all off he transforms into a cheapass GPX boombox. yeah,..you heard me right...not sony..not panasonic,.not bose,..GPX..walmart discount rack GPX. what a shame.

I couldnt even understand anything rumble was saying..he looked a lot like the cousin of Johnny Five from short circuit. Give me the 1980's rumble, complete with raspy new jersey accent.

Optimus prime is trailerless. i dont know if i agree with that move or not. granted, in the cartoon, they always made his trailer roll away and disappear off into the horizon. so, i guess they reviewed this prior to making the 2007 film, and decided to discard the trailer, and the new toy by hasbro followed suit. but damn, i sure miss roller,...sob.

i really dont understand what reasons frank welker declined to do the reprise the role of megatron. granted it, welker is now 61 years old,..but like cullen, the man is a damn talented vocal actor, and im very sure that he would have done an amazing job reprising as megatron. this is not to say that hugo weaving did not do a good job, in fact, i was somewhat impressed with weavings work in the film. but from a fan perspective, it would have been awesome to see welker reprise his vocal role alongside with cullen...you couldnt beat that...total sheer awesome.

in the course of the film, it is learned that the autobots learned how to speak english from the world wide web. okay,.im willing to accept this theory,..given what they are trying to tell us here, is that, the autobots acquired a vast wealth of overall knowledge about human society from the internet. this theory seems to work in the film so far,..until its thoroughly shot down hard by ratchet, who is in robot mode stumbling around awkwardly in the witwicky backyard and falls into a high voltage powerline, thus knocking out power in the whole neighborhood.

gee, ratchet...didnt you read the webpage regarding earth electricity? you seemed to pick up on english very good, but you know nothing about powerlines. some scriptwriter goofed, if you ask me.

bumblebee cant talk for the majority of the whole film, until the very end. during the majority of the film he communicates through his radio. this is reminiscent of the way wreck-gar spoke in the 1986 film, speaking short phrases from television. bumblebee is doing the same damn thing, but with radio stations instead. what a clever re-hash. ...im not done. ...bumblebee, who is an advanced alien robot possess high technology, so advanced that he can scan a speeding 2008 camaro and transform from a late 70's camaro into a 2008 model, can not seem to find a way to fix his vocal cords. then, somehow,..without sheer explanation...towards the very end of the film..bumblebee found some sort of way to talk again. gee,..maybe during the heat of the hectic street combat in downtown los angeles,..ratchet found some spare time to repair bumblebee's vocal chords. yes, thats what had to have happened. because, if you remember in the cartoon..ratchet never engaged in battle,..he always stayed inside the ark and babysat teletran 1 (yes folks, i am being sarcastic)



part two. review (continued)

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

there is too many sexuality references in this film,so much, it garnered a pg-13 rating. wow. lets rememeber that this summer blockbuster comes complete with a huge marketing campaign. everything from general motors vehicles to toys, video games, and childrens bedsheets. ...oh wait,.did i just reference children? i did, didnt I?...well, its because many children will be seeing this film as well. what a shame. these children will all get to view the scenes where sam witwicky is accused of masterbating inside his bedroom by his parents,..when an autobot's sensors indicates that sam witwicky's hormones are raging for megan fox...the scene with sam in his drawers...seems like there were some other sexuality references as well, that i cant think of at this time. lets not forget that bumblebee has a decal hanging in his windshield that says "bee-otch"...nice one spielberg!. i can see legions of children asking their parents..."mom..what is masterbating?...dad, what are hormones??"

i was actually impressed with some of the new transfomers., namely barricade. he kicked ass. i dont understand why devastator is no longer comprised of 6 construction vehicles, and he is now a battle tank. or even more confusing...how bonecrusher,.who used to be a part of devastator,.as he was once a constructicon,.is now apartheid from devastator,.and functions without devastator.

in this 2007 film, we see devastator in both tank and robot mode. what is not known, is if this new devastator is also comprised of the 5 remaining components: (mixmaster, long haul, hook, scrapper, and scavenger), and can bond with the new bonecrusher to form an even bigger devastator..or if they are trying to re-invent devastator , and simply tell us that he is just one guy now. but even going from that standpoint...if youre trying to follow everything to conclusion,.how and where in the transformers universe and mythos does this fit into place?,..of course assuming that this new film is canonical to the rest of the franchise. did devastator retain his same decepticion personality component from cybertron?, or was the original devastator somehow destroyed and replaced with a new devastator complete with brand new personality component from cybertron?

im sure im totally confusing the average mainstream joe, but for you hardcore fans, you know where am i coming from on this.

the new film pays homages to the 1986 film. in both films prime states "one shall stand..one shall fall". which, to my knowledge, is the only sole line from the new film that mirrors the old film. however, the new film borrows key aspects from the 1986 film. the 1986 animated film, the decepticons were seeking the matrix, in this new film..they are after the allspark. in the 1986 film, optimus prime dies,.in the new film..megatron dies. kind of a reversal, but in the same aspect, it apologizes to the fans for killing off prime in the 1986 film, as it hurt many to see that.

i dont agree with certain scenes, that show some of the transformers easily mutilated, decapitated, etc. i dont think its that easy to decapitate a transformer, even by another transformer. in fact, only two times seem to come to my mind that ever showed a transformer being decapitated. in the 1986 film, unicron's head is seeing floating about in space (although not a true act of decapitation), but aside from that,..in the cartoon episode "prime target", optimus prime's body is disassemble by the constructicons and megatron is seen holding prime's head in his hand.


in the film, its revealed that optimus prime and megatron are brothers. if what is being said is true, then this story of brotherhood dates back some 9 million years ago, as explained in the cartoon episode "war dawn". in this episode, it shows cybertron during the golden age, optimus prime was formerly a cybertronian factory worker called orion pax, and had a girlfriend named ariel, and a friend named dion. this is the first time ever, in transfomers mythos, that megatron and optimus prime have ever met. its the intial meeting. basically, megatron injures orion pax, and is rescued by the aerialbots and taken to alpha trion's workshop for immediate repairs. alpha tron then reconstructs a new body for orion pax, and thus optimus prime is born.

now, its known that the quintessons created the transformers, and that vector sigma gave life to all transformers. so if the new film implies that the megs and op are bros, then this was held as top secret by vector sigma and the quintessons for a very very long time. wow.

i just hope the sequel reveals some insight onto this revelation of brotherhood. inquiring transformer fans want to know.


part three..review (continued)

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

******************spoiler content!!!!!!!!!**********************************************

conclusion and summary:

so, all in all, the film was great. it was awesome from a mainstream point of view. from a fan point of view, its quite endearing to hear cullen reprise his vocal role as prime. but, it leaves a huge chunk out as far as storyline development is concerned. many questions still left unanswered, and a big cliffhanger ending, especially as megatron is dumped deep into the ocean. (hmmm? maybe this is how the decepticons developed and built that wicked undersea headquarters base in the cartoon?)

i would love to see combiners in the next film..you know..menasor, computron, defensor, bruticus, etc.

i would also like to see more character development with the transformers in the sequel, and a lot less with the humans. lets also see some more vintage transformers brought into the next film as well, namely, soundwave, ravage, laserbeak, prowl, hound (yeah...holograms...cool)..mirage (invisibilty is sweet too), ultra magnus and hot rod ( why not?, they were cool as hell)...and to liven things up,..omega supreme...(ohhh yeah,..talk about a huge robot),..heck,.go ahead and feature fortress maximus,.the biggest autobot of them all!

i was sad to see that this film didnt pay dedication or homages to now deceased: scatman crothers (jazz), chris latta (starscream), and don messick (ratchet). it would have made perfect sense, since all three of these characters were featured in the new film, and all three are deceased.

im sure chris latta would have turned in his grave, if he knew just how small of a role starscream has in the new film.

i almost forgot..whatever happened to scorponok? we see him in white sands, new mexico,..errr,..qatar at last count. but he decided not to attend the huge robot bashing party on the other side of the globe in los angeles?

why did the sole transformer not rejoin with his decepticon comrades, to take on the autobots?

[mireaux7]

to me, and other transformer purists such as myself, the mere fact that peter cullen is reprising his vocal role of optimus prime is one of the most rewarding aspects of the film. granted, cullen is now 51 years old, the voice of prime has aged somewhat. but its still there, and it sounds awesome. that voice that has become legendary..its very sentimental and endearing,.almost bringing tears to your eyes. its optimus prime! he back, after all this time. cullen brings a sense of assurance to legions of fans that he stands behind the work of bay and spielberg, as just the fact cullen is in it-giving his vocal seal of approval that the film is alright, and fans like me shouldnt be too concerned. its almost like hearing your own father telling you that everything is going to be ok, over something you may be fearing to encounter. its been over 5 hours since ive walked out of the theatre, and cullens voice is still resonating in me..i cant begin to tell you,..its undescribable sheer magic and essence. it makes you wish that every character could have been reprised by their original vocal actor. cullen carries optimus prime very well, and his vocal work should be highly commended by all.

This post has been edited by mireaux7: 05 July 2007 - 04:05 AM

[optimus_prime]

there are indeed some pretty embarrasing moments in the new film. from what I observed when I went to see it are:

Bumblebee urinating oil, and Optimus Prime telling him to stop.

The promotional advertisement for Taco Bell used in the reference of the Witwicky family chihuahua

Shia LeBeouf standing up like some sort of arrogant Transformers fan boy constantly correcting a man that Megatron's name is not "N-V 1", but that he is Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons.

Bernie Mac and Anthony Andersen both having elders yell at them, and both telling their elders to shut up.

[Storm Shadow]

...............

so let me get this straight; there are folks here who are genuinely happy with how this debacle of a movie turned out, yet have a million complaints about the Prequels? What the fuck?

Say what you want about the PT, at least Lucas didnt bash you over the fucking head with product placement for 2 hours, and try to subliminally brainwash young kids in the audience into joining the military. Shit, seriously, this movie was one HUGE American military recruitment commercial. Just disgusting.

[barend]

It was a silly film about huge robots kicking each others asses. Based on a cartoon that hed quotes like:

"Starscream! You're intelligence is overshadowed by your stupidity!"
-Megatron.

"Next week; Optimus Prime and his mortal enemy Megatron fight each other... on top of a dam!"
-Narrator

WTF where you expecting? 2001? I walked into that cinema and got exactly what I was expecting.

Star Wars set a standard for all effects films, be they fantasy of sci-fi, and borrowed from many wonderfiul scources like Lord of the rings and hidden fortess and so on...

the prequels were infantile gibberish scrapped from the prebubesant arsehole of a strawberry shortcake doll, dipped in fairy floss and sprinkled with shit.

from "luminous beings are we" to "you're breaking my heart"

I think you're drawing a pretty poor comparison.

[TruJade]

I actually didn't think the film was bad.
I liked it ...
No, I enjoyed it.

There were tedious moments
and the story was messed up
but it all kinda worked out ok

I hope to GOD there isn't a sequel
but yea Shia is funny so are the autobots
so all in all

not too shabby
I guess now i know how all those
people who liked Spiderman 3 feel

[Storm Shadow]

It was a silly film about huge robots kicking each others asses.

why do people keep SAYING this? Dude, if you totalled all the action scenes (that were poorly, poorly shot I might add....pull the fucking camera back, Bay!), you'd have maybe....oh....35-40 minutes. That's from beginning to end. Are you convienently leaving out the remaining almost 1.5 hours of running time that involved retarded hackers trying to solve a problem that the AUDIENCE ALREADY KNOWS THE ANSWER TO, Optimus and his wacky Autobot pals trudging around mom's flowerbed for 15 minutes (Christ I was hoping someone would shoot me during this part....it was almost as bad as hearing Anakin tell Padme how much he liked her skin), all those damn military shots, product placement every 5 minutes, etc......

then when the robots do fight, you can barely tell who is fighting who. They're all damn near colored the same! A bunch of grey robots firing missles at each other. The only ones who really stand out are Bumblebee, Optimus and Megatron, everyone else is interchangable.

and no, I wasnt expecting 2001. Please dont get retarded on me. You know the difference between a great mindless action movie that will have infinite replay value, and the equivalent of summertime cinematic junk food.

[barend]

I'm not being retarded. The film kicked ass in the robots kicking ass department. the fact that the fight scenes had a hand held feel gave the cgi more realism.

the 15 minutes of flower trampling and motherly masturbation talk took far too long, especially the second time i watched it.

but over all i was entertained. Which is what this film was about.

The PT was 6 hours of bullshit with childish concepts and infant approach to politics thrown in to make it seem more intelligent to spastic inbred assholes. NO REDEMING FEATURES AT ALL.

6 hours of static would be more entertaining. I couldn't honestly say that about transformers. I will actually watch it again.


and probably again and bit more.

This post has been edited by barend: 10 July 2007 - 02:09 AM

[Sailor Abbey]

I absolutely loved it. The cheesy one liners were kept to an acceptable minimum and we didn’t have to deal with a shabby Michael Bay love story.

The transformers were way cooler than I remember them when I was little - and I was a huge fan.

I actually had nightmares about Megatron for two nights straight. It was good and long too. That’s always a plus.

I’ll be seeing it again in a week or so.

[Dorothy]

I saw this on Saturday, and I thought it was quite good. Probably one of the best "Childhood revisited" movies out there. Just enough silly moments to make you remember that it is based on a cartoon (and toy line) from the '80s, and enough "adult-type" humor that you think that the makers might have a tiny bit of respect for fans and their memories.

I saw it with a friend who had this to say... "Now I wish I hadn't made my brother throw away his transformers." ... well, I thought it was funny...

[barend]

I Just can't believe anyone was dissapointed by a film that has "in association with HASBRO" in the opening credits.

Or in films based on disneyland rides for that matter

[TruJade]

I Just can't believe anyone was dissapointed by a
film that has "in association with HASBRO" in the opening credits.

When i read that in theatres
I had a nice little laugh
and prepared myself for all the

shots of transformation
and machine action
in slow-mo

[Storm]

Barend,

Based on your feelings about the PT in Star Wars, I have no idea how you can possibly like this movie. The dialogue was equally as embarassing and the action sequences just sucked. 90% of the time it wasn't even possible to determine who was fighting each other because the camera was rammed right up into the Robot's asses.

I got Megatron and Starscream mixed up numerous times, probably because Megatron could turn into a jet. From what I recall, Megatron could transform into a gun which was then held by Devastator. And speaking of which, Devastator was actually the combination of the Constructicons, not a giant tank. And didn't you just love that little spider robot with all its childish little sounds? It reminded me of the "cute" buzzdroids from ROTS.

I find it funny that you seem to compare dialogue to the almighty line "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter!". That isn't even a good line! Luminous means radiating or reflecting light. So luminous beings we are....well, no shit!

One star out of five.

[georgelucas4greedo]

bam!