Prediction: The only way this will be as good or better than the first one will be if Megan Fox shows her titties and Shia LeBeef takes a head shot with something large and transforms into a corpse.
On his own message boards, director Michael Bay told fans that he's working to bring voice actor Frank Welker back into the fold for 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'. Welker is known as the original voice of Megatro[n], a role he lost to Hugo Weaving in the first film. Bay says he's hoping to hire Welker to be Soundwave in the follow-up.
Yeah, that's almost as nutty as hiring Kirk Allyn and Noell Neill to play Lois Lane's parents in a Superman movie, or getting Adam West to voice the Grey Ghost in a Batman cartoon.
rob your typos are getting out of control. you said "great points" before you wrote the name "gman". please try and use some common sense next time. i hope speaking in your native lowercase language helps to bridge our latent communication problems...
After over 20 years, legendary rocker Stan Bush has remade his classic Transformers anthem "The Touch" into an all new song for 2009 and hopeful consideration for Michael Bay's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Let's get amped for the upcoming release of this awesome sequel to "Transformers" as only the music of Stan Bush allows us to!
So, who is the voice of Megatron in this one? Did they get Welker for Soundwave? When is Leonard Nimoy reprising his role of Galvatron? And who will take over for the voice of Omicron? And is it just me, or does the sequel just look like "more of the same....than meets the eye!" And isn't it hilarious how well-placed and "coifed" Megan Fox is in that trailer, when she's supposed to be "dirty and rough-and-tumble-sweaty"? Where are the answers? Where?!!
I can't help it if I'm a Media Snob. It's just who I am. I am highly critical of certain types of entertainment, and how they are presented. I despise obvious marketing techniques, and enjoy pointing them out in long, run-on paragraphs. It's my thing, just as debating minutia is for you, picking fights is for bsams, and being bitter is for Rexonoplous. How can this be a surprise for you people after this long?
Meanwhile, it goes without saying that I want to have Megan Fox's children. Just be a bit more creative when showing me her ass. But, it is Michael Bay, so what do I expect, right?
I can't help it if I'm a Media Snob. It's just who I am. I am highly critical of certain types of entertainment, and how they are presented. I despise obvious marketing techniques, and enjoy pointing them out in long, run-on paragraphs. It's my thing, just as debating minutia is for you, picking fights is for bsams, and being bitter is for Rexonoplous. How can this be a surprise for you people after this long?
Meanwhile, it goes without saying that I want to have Megan Fox's children. Just be a bit more creative when showing me her ass. But, it is Michael Bay, so what do I expect, right?
So how was Star Treks marketing campaign any different? The point where you are like Pariah is that you make judgments on things before you have even seen them.
And for you to say I debate minutiae, is quite laughable seeing as you are the one who is always critiquing films for the smallest detail, whereas I tend to just go in and enjoy them for the fun throw away entertainment that they are.
Granted, if you didnt like the first Transformers film, you probably wont like this, but being so snarky over a trailer by saying "it looks the same as the first one" is almost as bad as saying you read the script.
No it's not. It's saying "It looks the same as the first one" (or the more fun way I presented it by mixing it with its tagline). It's an opinion, informed by a couple of viewings of the trailer. Just the same when you watch a Star Trek trailer and yell "GUY!!" (I'm taking into consideration your accent) before the movie came out. It's all the same, Cunty-Cunt...
Please re-read my post. I said its understandable that you will dislike this if you didnt like the first one. The trailer to the Trek film meant fuck all to me, I just dont like Trek, thus there is very little chance I will like this....understand?
It'd be like me trying to persuade you to watch a new Buffy tv show or film.
Where have you seen me mention that the Trek trailer had anything to do with why I think the film is gay?
Variety's David Cohen saw the latest "Transformers" movie --- "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" --- and filed this report on its reference to President Obama, but not, at least in his eyes, in a good way.
Cohen writes, "So as usual in these movies, the federal bureaucrats are portrayed as annoying if not villainous. The President's man, "Galloway," is a bespectacled blowhard who becomes an obstacle to our brave fighting men and their alliance with the noble Autobots. Operating specifically under presidential authority, he makes all kinds of mischief. He says the President wants to try "diplomacy" against the evil Decepticons and hints the President would consider handing over Shia LaBouf's character to be killed by them. He eventually is ditched by the fighting men (tricked into parachuting out the back of a transport). All this is par for the course in this kind of movie. In the first, there was a Rumsfeldian secretary of defense (played by Jon Voight) and a bit of dialogue from "the President" clearly meant to be Bush, with an obvious Bush impression on the dialogue.
"However, if memory serves, no real politicians were named in the first movie. The SecDef isn't Rumsfeld. The president is not called by name.
"In this movie, exactly one real-life politician is named: "President Obama." They went out of their way to make sure they named the craven, obstructionist president as Obama."
no. those were quite nice. there were two black robots that made me shake my head everytime they were onscreen. besides that, lots of explosions, lots of robots beating the hell out of eachother, lots of hot chick walking or running in slow motion. pretty much all i could ask for.
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.
The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.
The movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed "The Rock" in 1996. Now he has made "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Faust made a better deal. This isn't a film so much as a toy tie-in. Children holding a Transformer toy in their hand can invest it with wonder and magic, imagining it doing brave deeds and remaining always their friend. I knew a little boy once who lost his blue toy truck at the movies, and cried as if his heart would break. Such a child might regard "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" with fear and dismay.
The human actors are in a witless sitcom part of the time, and lot of the rest of their time is spent running in slo-mo away from explosions, although--hello!--you can't outrun an explosion. They also make speeches like this one by John Turturro: "Oh, no! The machine is buried in the pyramid! If they turn it on, it will destroy the sun! Not on my watch!" The humans, including lots of U.S. troops, shoot at the Transformers a lot, although never in the history of science fiction has an alien been harmed by gunfire.
There are many great-looking babes in the film, who are made up to a flawless perfection and look just like real women, if you are a junior fanboy whose experience of the gender is limited to lad magazines. The two most inexplicable characters are Ron and Judy Witwicky (Kevin Dunn and Julie White), who are the parents of Shia LaBeouf, who Mephistopheles threw in to sweeten the deal. They take their son away to Princeton, apparently a party school, where Judy eats some pot and goes berserk. Later they swoop down out of the sky on Egypt, for reasons the movie doesn't make crystal clear, so they also can run in slo-mo from explosions.
The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, except for one who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard.
Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: "Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!" (Bradshaw, Guardian); "Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!" (Tookey, Daily Mail); "A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!" (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical, reported that Bay's "ambition runs a mile long and an inch deep," but, in a spirited defense, says "this must be the most movie I have ever experienced." He is bullish on the box office: it "feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time." It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.
Footnote 6/24: Does it strike you as a lapse of Pyramid security that no one notices a gigantic Deceptibot ripping off the top of the Great Pyramid? Not anyone watching on the live PyramidCam? Not even a traffic copter?
I thought there were a bunch of very funny moments ("Kill ze small one!"), but the endless action scenes and corny subplots (Shia isn't ready to say I love you - SPOILERS: he does at the end) did nothing for me. I'd just stare at Megan Fox whenever I could and try to think of something else.
Saw it yesterday. There are probably a lot of things wrong with it but I don't want to nitpick and I just enjoyed big robots fighting each other. It was actually kind of gory if you're a machine, with robots faces getting torn off, chests being punched open and spines being removed out of bodies.
yeah. I didn't watch the movie expecting deep stuff. I just wanted robots bashing each other's faces in. The love angle bit was very easy to disregard, thank god.
Rob will surely love this movie. There were at least 6 idiotic ball/nut sack jokes. It was like a running theme. Besides Ravage and Megan Fox I did not like this movie...a real let down...even for popcorn flicks.
I will say I loved Ravage and Soundwave, and a few of the action scenes were great-especially the forest scene. Megan Fox is pretty to look at. Tuturro (sp?) also really underplayed his role which was good.
That said I cannot forgive a steaming pile of a popcorn movie. This movie missed on everything that made the first TF movie charming, entertaining, and engaging. Yes, many summer blockbusters are eye candy and lack plot, but this film lacked any redeeming quality and I wanted to gouge my eyes out, and fill my ears with my leftover nacho cheese.
The endless potty humor, numerous testicle jokes, social stereotype Autobots that made me cringe with every word, blatant cursing, and leg humping robots was alone enough to make me think this film was a blight on society. It also had plot holes, meaningless characters, visually confusing fight scenes, idiotic pot brownie gags, and is it really that hard to say "love" to a super hot woman--geez.
I like Transformers and this film entertained many of my fan boy wants and desires, but honestly, to forgive this film as mindless entertainment is going too easy. A summer blockbuster can also have something more can't it? Does it have to be a bunch of explosions, cgi, and potty humor?
This movie didn't have to be an indie film or an Oscar Nominee, I usually hate half of them, but my love of big giant robots and big action cannot make me forgive this waste of time and money.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harmless comic characters or racist robots?
The buzz over the summer blockbuster "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" only grew Wednesday as some said two jive-talking Chevy characters were racial caricatures.
Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.
As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But their traits raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace," was criticized as a caricature.
One fan called the Transformers twins "Jar Jar Bots" in a blog post online.
Todd Herrold, who watched the movie in New York City, called the characters "outrageous."
"It's one thing when robot cars are racial stereotypes," he said, "but the movie also had a bucktoothed black guy who is briefly in one scene who's also a stereotype."
"They're like the fools," said 18-year-old Nicholas Govede, also of New York City. "The comic relief in a degrading way."
Not all fans were offended. Twin brothers Jason and William Garcia, 18, who saw the movie in Miami, said they related to the characters—not their illiteracy, but their bickering.
"They were hilarious," Jason said. "Every movie has their standout character, and I think they were the ones for this movie."
That was the aim, director Michael Bay said in an interview.
"It's done in fun," he said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes—they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."
Bay said the twins' parts "were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters."
Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.
Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."
"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."
It's not fair to assume the characters are black, he said.
"It could easily be a Transformer that uploaded Kevin Federline data," Wilson said. "They were just like posers to me."
Kenny did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.
"I purely did it for kids," the director said. "Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them."
Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman said they followed Bay's lead in creating the twins. Still, the characters aren't integral to the story, and when the action gets serious, they disappear entirely, notes Tasha Robinson, associate entertainment editor at The Onion.
"They don't really have any positive effect on the film," she said. "They only exist to talk in bad ebonics, beat each other up and talk about how stupid each other is."
Hollywood has a track record of using negative stereotypes of black characters for comic relief, said Todd Boyd, a professor of popular culture at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, who has not seen the "Transformers" sequel.
"There's a history of people getting laughs at the expense of African-Americans and African-American culture," Boyd said. "These images are not completely divorced from history even though it's a new movie and even though they're robots and not humans."
American cinema also has a tendency to deal with race indirectly, said Allyson Nadia Field, an assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," said Field, who also hasn't seen the film. "It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."
If these characters weren't animated and instead played by real black actors, "then you might have to admit that it's racist," Robinson said. "But stick it into a robot's mouth, and it's just a robot, it's OK."
But if they're alien robots, she continued, "why do they talk like bad black stereotypes?"