Well everyone, i'm reaching the climax of my research. For those of you who did not read my review for The Transformers: The Movie, i have been researching about what Transformers really is outside of these movies before i went to see them again in order to be fully ready for the third one. and as such with the help of so much borrowing from the library, i have done the following things:
TV shows:
1) Watched the whole original series of The Transformers
2)saw the first...6 ish episodes of Transformers: Energon
3)saw some random episodes of Transformers: Armada
4)saw the whole series of Transformers: Beast Machines
5)currently taking a look at the current show, Transformers: Prime
Movies:
The Transformers: The Movie (obviously)
Comics:
just a bunch of random stuff i either find in the library or what is currently in Barnes & Noble.
now that's not everything even for things that came before Bay's movies but i've decided to call it and say i know enough from just all of that. so without further ado, I HAK, and review the first movie after borrowing it from the library and seeing it again now i know so much more about the transformers. enjoy...if that's possible.
Plot:
it was very cheesy. cliche even. in a way it's Independence Day 2.0. the story goes, the transformers were made my this cube called the All Spark. eventually one of them named Megatron wanted to use the powers of the All Spark for evil and so leaded an army called the Decepticons. and the guys that are fighting against him are called the Autobots lead by Optimus Prime. War raged and eventually the Autobots sent the All SPark into space to keep it from Megatron. so for millions of years transformers from both sides try to find it. and it end up landing on, you guessed it, Earth. Megarton finds it first but when he reaches Earth in the arctic circle, he gets frozen and eventually places a map of the All Spark's location in the glasses of an explorer. years later, both the Autobots & Decepticons try to get the glasses from the explorer's descendant named Sam. eventually they all find the All Spark and Megatron become free and so comes the final battle which ends with Megatron winning until Sam pushes the All Spark into the spark on Megatron's chest killing him and destroying the All Spark. Now the plot is particularly cliche on four counts.
1) Good vs. Evil: well all love stories like these. but let's face it, bad guys become evil due to their lust for power and the good guys need to stop them and get all 'never give up' in the process.
2) Hero's Story: Sam is introduced as the guy that wants to be cool even if it's just by having a car and a girl. a heroic quest kind of calls when his car turns out to be a Transformer which leads him through a who bunch of things which end with him "slaying the dragon" if you will when it comes to killing Megatron.
3) Guy gets girl: his original goal through out the movie is to win the heart of this hot girl named Mikaela who he has known since the first grade but she hasn't even noticed he even exists until the events of the movie...and through the stuff they both face, he ends up getting her.
4) Guns, cars & boobs: need i say more? a whole lot of the film is all explosions and car chases, people getting killed and of coarse, a really hot chick to top it all.
Actors/Characters:
Humans
Shia Lebeouf/Sam Witwicky: well most of what i said is self explanatory about LeBeouf's character. I think he did a nice job, slightly carried away, but was definitely one of the best actors of the film.
Megan Fox/Mikaela Banes: she did her job and that was just it. because really she doesn't become totally hateful until the next film. that's all i can think about her.
Ron & Julie Witwicky: i could not STAND Sam's parents. that's all i'm going to say about them. i'm not going to lay it down for you because you already know if you have seen the movie and it's good that you don't have a good idea if you haven't. i mean half the time they weren't really into it. Really when Ironhide asked Optimus about killing them because they were irritating...i'd say go for it.
everyone else human wise was just doing there thing. and how good or bad they did really just depended on the kind of character they got.
Autobots
Bumblebee:well you can sort of guess why some fan love Bumbleebee, but what i really dislike about the films now that i've gone through most of the transformers stuff, it's a complete idiotic thing that Bay did to fans with having him not being able to talk aside from using his radio. (lost his voice being injured by Megatron as he distracted him while the Autobots shot the All Spark into space according to the comics) that's just stupid. i mean he gets it back in the end (very cheesy) but he loses it again my the next film.
Jazz: I do not like Jazz. i didn't care for him in the other stuff and even if i did it's enough that they made him almost nothing like he originally is. especially with the voice. that's a no.
Rachet: eh, nothing really to say about him. they just made him the way he was suppose to be.
Ironhide: when it comes to action i think most of us can like Ironhide being the guy with all the cannons & other weapons & stuff. and he's the exact same thing in the original stuff except that he normally dives in front of Optimus if someone is going to dare try to shoot him. but hey, he's still cool.
and the big boy himself, Optimus Prime: now with most of the things with Optimus you can sort of like him in a way. while he's an especially cheesy character, you can at least like him in the comics & such were they have more character development in him and how he takes his role as a leader and as someone determined to defeat Megatron and the Decepticons and for there to be peace. i mean i don't view him as my favorite characters ever. but i can sort understand the idea of why so many fans love him to death...in a scary way.
Decepticons:
Barricade AKA the police car: all i'm going to say about this guy is the holes in the movie over the fact that they make you assume he's dead after he fought Bumblebee, and then he pops out of nowhere but then is never seen again after the scene on the highway.
Frenzy AKA the little guy that's a boombox: he was such a weird character. and also nothing like what he originally is. what is messed up especially with him is how in some points, he sounded like Robert Towers who was the original voice of Snoopy in most of the TV Peanuts specials.
Blackout/ Scorponok AKA the helicopter and the scorpion guy: the one problem i have with Blackout is where he hesitates to kill the back soldier that took a picture of him. cause it was long enough to distract him so he can escape. and as for Scorponok, i thought we was cool but i wouldn't think too many would get excited that he's in it as the small form as he is. i mean the guy is not even a real living transformer. he was created and then controlled by this alien. i mean he is a normal transformer in other version but still.
Starscream: what i imagine a lot of people who are long time fans of transformers when they saw this movie is how they didn't show a darn thing about Starscream's determination to get rid of Megatron and try to become the leader of the Decepticons. that's one of the most obvious things that happen in the main storyline of the Transformers.
Megatron: they almost developed Megatron perfectly for this movie. the two problems is is that he gets killed by a human easily (which i liked about LeBeouf's character too i mean the guys the basic Souron, or Vader of the film and he kills him. but that's still a down for Megatron) and of coarse, there's the most ridiculous thing: when Megatron gets unfrozen, all he does as he begins to kill some soldiers is "I AM MEGATRON!!!!" seriously. he guy has been frozen for years and he's finally free and about to grab the All Spark and then he just says that line like he's part Pokemon.
Screenplay: well it's obviously bad. but all that i'm going tomention a few things. 1) i thought it was funny with the joke Sam pulled on the jock that was Mikaela's boyfriend. 2)i think we can all roll our eyes when there was a part in the movie were Rachet landed on earth and a lot of people were crowing were he landed and there's this kid that's making a video of it on his phone shouting how there's "explosions everywhere" and that he "swears to god that this is million times better than Armageddon" now that may be true, but seriously. that's a roll you eyes at what Bay was doing there. not to mention there is stuff like that one guy who is running from the police and he runs through the window door. what's with that?
Sound effects/mixing: now most of the sound effects were great...but they could have been better. i mainly say that because i noticed a flaw in the sound mixing where there are two points in the movie where as someone is transforming, part of the effects to the transforming was the actual sound effect in the original series for transforming. trust me they did use that. i heard that effect a million times from that series and i heard it right away in the beginning of this film and i was like "what. the. frick?" so yeah.
Visual effects: they were good but i wish i could have seen things more clearly.
Editing: i didn't like the editing. i mean they did their job plenty, but the thing was that A) there were a lot of camera shots that they used that i did not agree on because they weren't clear enough. especially when it comes to the action. and B)some of the action was too fast.
music: the original score was alright. but i especially disliked where they used rock & rock type of music or stuff like that when it comes to some of the action. especially when it's a car chase where they really played songs like that while the cars are speeding, driving through abandoned warehouses, really just falling in line to my Guns, cars and boobs section for the plot.
so that's my review for the first Transformers movie. now in a way this film works as far as actually introducing the story. but it's still a bad, cliche movie...and now off to review the second one. wish me luck.
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