KnightWing

It didn't affect my overall review; it was just a personal side-note. The other stuff they changed didn't bother me. I prefer Soundwave as a satellite rather than a cassette player.

I agree. I wrote up a review of it yesterday: This is not a good film. It is, however, an amazing movie. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen lacks solid character development, good scriptwriting, and a coherent plot. And yet, for all it's flaws, it's still highly entertaining. Unlike the first film, in which the the film's budget greatly restricted the amount of screentime that the transformers could be given, here we see the robots in their full glory throughout the film, even when we probably don't need to. The extreme close-up camera problems from the first film are gone, as the action is perfectly framed in Revenge of the Fallen. Revenge starts off with a brief prologue, followed by a great action scene that sets up the plot very well. In this story, Optimus Prime and his team of Autobots are working alongside NEST, a small U.S. military force led by Major Lennox, to eradicate the Decepticons from the face of the planet. The film feels very much like the original animated series, as we get the same globe-spanning (and oft-ridiculous) Sci-Fi war adventures of the Transformers. It's a lot of fun, even if it comes off as convoluted and silly. A highlight of this film is the much-improved character of Sam Witwicky. In the last film, he was an annoying boy whose entire motivation was to get a cool car and a hot girlfriend. His entire existence in the last film seemed contrived and silly, as was the film's assertion that he somehow represented the best of humankind. In this film, he is shown to be much more responsible, working right from the start towards getting his college education, and, later, saving the world. He is also given a completely plausible reason to exist in the film, which makes his scenes actually contribute to the overall plot rather than distract from it as in the first film. For the first time, I actually care about Sam. He earns his place in the film, and is an integral part of it. While Mikaela (Megan Fox) has been upgraded from "high school skank" to "worthwhile human being," she doesn't have much to do in the movie. All of her important scenes only serve to advance the plot in a very small way, and it's obvious that the scriptwriters were just looking for something to do with her. Still, she feels like she belongs in the story much more than in the last film, and her presence doesn't distract from the plot. In fact, Sam and Mikaela's relationship is far less uncomfortable in Revenge, as they have actually come to deeply care for one another at this point. It's as if this film's portrayal of its characters is a "do-over" for all the ways they failed in the last film. Major Lennox is a great character for this story, fitting in perfectly as the commander of the military task force NEST and, later, the temporary leader of the Autobots. The rest of the human cast is, sadly, there for no real reason. They, along with new Autobot "twins" Skids and Mudflap, are essentially this film's Jar Jar Binks. [Former] Agent Simmons (John Turturro) advances the plot in a minor way, but then spends the rest of the film being a terribly annoying (and sometimes disgusting) distraction. Sam's new college roommate, Leo, is a completely unnecessary character that does nothing important. Throughout the film we see Optimus Prime not as the slow, clunky old robot that he was in the last film, but as a powerful and skilled warrior. After seeing Optimus do little in the first film but give inspirational speeches and get kicked around by Megatron, it's great to see him as the great warrior that he should be. One of his fight scenes is, without a doubt, the best action scene I've seen in a long time. As a Transformers fan, that scene alone was worth the $9.50 I paid for the ticket. Bumblebee is the only other Autobot that's given much spotlight, which is probably for the best. Honestly, there's no reason for the audience to care about anyone else, so this is a welcome change. He's every bit as cool as he was in the first film, though his speech problems are becoming annoying. In the last movie, we never really got to see him in action, as he was either off-screen or crippled for all of his fight scenes, but here we can see that he's an extremely good fighter: fast and powerful. His Camaro form also gets an upgrade from the 2007 film, which is nice for the people like me who appreciate that. The two new "comic relief" characters, Skids and Mudflap, are extremely annoying. They're portrayed with a large number of racial stereotypes (which makes absolutely no sense), and serve to do nothing other than sit there and act like morons. They could have been completely taken out of the story and the film would have been better for it. Jetfire, perhaps the most important of the new Autobots, is portrayed in an odd fashion. Whereas he was a powerful (and relatively young) Autobot in all of his previous appearances in Transformers lore, here he is shown to be an ancient transformer that can barely move. As a fan, I'm somewhat disappointed with this portrayal, as Jetfire is one of my favorite TF characters. Here he serves the purposes of exposition and little more. His entire introduction scene is actually one of the major subplots that did not need to be in the film. The rest of the Autobot cast is relatively ignored. Ironhide and Ratchet are given only a few lines in this film, and serve as background characters along with Arcee, Jolt, and Sideswipe. While this might seem sad, it ultimately works, as they really are mere soldiers in a war, and aren't extremely important characters anyway. The villains this time are actually shown in their full glory outside of battle, rather than only glimpsed as in the 2007 film. It's nice, even if they're a bit silly and not very deep. They really only serve as the threat, not actual characters. However, as that threat, they serve their purpose well. The aforementioned amazing fight scene comes in the middle of the story, and honestly is the high point of the entire film. The film's climax isn't anywhere near as interesting, but the endless number of explosions and mini-battles keep the intensity high. It's been said by some that a film is filled with depth, while a movie is superficial entertainment. By those definitions, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a terrible film, but an amazing movie. 8/10

Yeah, same here; I'm running Firefox on a Mac as well.

So I just saw the movie, and thought it was simultaneously amazing and resoundingly "meh." I really don't see the movie as a real "film," I just look at it as a montage of robot fight scenes. And, in that light, it was pretty amazing. The action scenes are much better than the first film's extreme close-ups; they seem to have found the perfect camera distance. The forest battle is one of the best fight scenes I've seen in a long, long time. Just those two minutes were worth the entire $9.50 I paid for the ticket. I'm really not joking; it was that awesome. After that, however, the film gets bogged down by a plot that just plows along, mixing annoying humor and ridiculously dense visual effects. Still, it wasn't horrible. If you go in expecting a passable story, you'll get it. If you go in expecting a terrible, terrible story, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Story = Ehh. Action = Anywhere from "meh" to "OH MY GOD THAT WAS AMAZING."

I concur. I loved it when I first saw it, but, on further reflection, the film really was just a visual adaptation of the book; not much was done to make it work as a movie.

It's because there was so much emphasis on it. While the novel was (almost) every bit as explicit, it was done in a very matter-of-fact style. The film, however, made every attempt to glorify the sex, as if the actual point of the scene was to stimulate the viewer (as opposed to the novel, in which the sex was there simply as a character development point rather than excitement for the reader). The book was very clear in that the sex scenes were there as development points for Dan and Laurie; the movie was basically "Laurie wants to have sex. A lot."

I like this idea. Hopefully it'll put back in a lot of the story information that was necessary for the story's depth. A lot of my friends who hadn't read the book thought the movie was complete garbage because of the way the action and sex overshadowed the actual plot and character depth. They assumed that it was a pornographic, gore-filled action movie with a boring plot. I still have yet to convince them that there's actually a great story hidden behind the sawn-off hands, blue penis, and flashy camera effects.

I think it's referring to the people, not a place. After all, what were they going to say? "All that remains of a once-powerful nomadic tribe"? "All that remains of a once-powerful group of people that weren't technically a 'nation,' but were still recognized as a fully separate political group"?

OH GOD YES. Seriously, Ultimates 3 was so bad that I couldn't read more than ten pages without shoving it back on the shelf. And yet somehow Marvel thinks he's the messiah of comic writers.

I always really enjoyed his art, even if all his women had glittering eyeballs and all his men had jawlines that could slice a pear in half. Jim Lee may be a lot better with character models, but Turner comes very close with his knack for lighting style and framing. His work in books like Superman/Batman is excellent. I, for one, was really upset when he died. That actually makes a twisted kind of sense from a certain point of view. As we've learned from the fan reaction to The Brave and the Bold, there are some people that will ONLY accept ONE version of Batman. The 1989 film is the closest to portraying a Batman that's still comic-book-fantastical while still treading near a type of pseudo-realism. It doesn't exactly succeed, but it's still the only "decent" Batman film of its type; the other Burton/Schumacher films get worse and worse. The Nolan films are great, but are so completely realistic that they alienate that small, twisted portion of the fan community that only likes the Burton-esque films.

My thoughts echoed exactly. The first bit seemed a little silly, but it steadily got better. By the final shot, I was shouting "WOAH!" It looks visually to be a great live-action version of the story, with all the great epic action from the best fantasy war films. This could be like Lord of the Rings with Kung Fu. =D

Edit: [DELETED] Nevermind.

That's usually why PS3 developers sometimes choose to put an install feature into the game. That way it can use the hard drive as VRAM. Ergh....

Yeah, the PS3 version is a lot blurrier. I'm not sure if I mind it as much, because at full resolution some of the polygons in the 360 version look really harsh, whereas in the PS3 version they look more smoothed out, like an actual movie. The 360 has much better contrast, however, so depth perception is a bit easier to see.

Ehhh.... That soundtrack was one of my least favorite parts of the film. I would have probably liked 80s metal better. (like that movie's version of the TF theme)

Oh, I'm sure. What I meant was that most moviegoers that want to see Transformers aren't actually looking for anything beyond surface-deep. (hence the casting of Megan Fox) Speaking of that original film, though, Hasbro did a shortened live-action-style redo of the Optimus/Megatron battle from the original movie; have you seen it?

Ah. We agree then. It's odd, but I think that most people who go to see Transformers aren't going to see anything with real heart or soul; they just want eye candy. They expect terrible dialogue and characterization (like you'd get from an 80s cartoon), so they're satisfied.

See, I thought Terminator Salvation was passable, at least. And the Matrix sequels were just weird for me, not terrible. So I may like this film, then.

He's had some pretty amazing character development in the comics lately, and, if done right, his "becoming a true leader" character arc is really great. Also, he works well as a team character, so an ensemble film would be easier to do instead of a Logan-centric film like the first three. One of my dream films would be a Scott-centered X-men film; I think he mostly gets a bad rep from the animated series, where he was basically an apple-polisher. Most casual comics fans don't realize that he really is an incredible badass when the occasion calls for it.

She's popular because she's a relatively hot chick that's into geek culture and has a blatantly honest attitude. I vote that Jessica Chobot is hotter.

I think the problem is that in order to do Magneto correctly, you need to have a slower, character-based film. You can't really have an action film when your main character is essentially a demigod. You can play with the "he doesn't understand his powers yet" angle, but even that has its limits. There are a few rumors floating about that suggest that Fox may erase the first three X-men films (considering that they killed half their cast in X3) and start over with an X-Men: First Class story akin to the First Class comics. I personally would love to see that, but I think the problem would be that Fox would never let that film be done right; they'd HAVE to have Wolverine in the film, and there's no way they'd let Cyclops be the deep, maturing central character that he'd need to be for that film to work as it should.

But... but I like baby seals... Namor better than Aquaman? Outrageous!

I doubt the existence of another Robin in that continuity. We got not so much as a hint of it; and in those future scenes it looked like Nightwing was still trying to escape the Robin persona, so the existence of another Robin wouldn't have made sense. That episode was filled with dialogue references (to the point of Mr. Freeze literally saying "the Dark Knight returns"), so I wouldn't take anything from that line about "Red Robin" other than a reference to the comics.

Not everything from Stan Lee is great. Remember when he did his own versions of the DC characters? Some of them were okay, but most of them were made into crap because of his "THEY MUST HAVE MORE PROBLEMS!" philosophy. (Well, that and he didn't stay true to what the characters represent) I'm still interested in what he comes up with, though.

http://video.ign.com/dor/articles/958530/b...nfox_61209.html