Point-by-Point critique of Transformers (2007)

[Jinto]

01. The movie was far too focused on humans, despite being titled "Transformers".
    Supporting arguments:
    01a.  Too many separate plot lines revolving around humans:  a) Sam and his glasses being sought by the Decepticons, plus the romantic angle with Mikaela that no-one cared about, plus family stupidity.  b) Code-breaker girl and friends who never really did much of anything in regards to the signal (summary: "wow a signal! what is it? we don't know. oh, there's giant robots we see now. call for a military strike.")  c) Military dudes running away in desert then finally ending up back home to fight some more, because they were too late to report a hostile robot. The rest of the world already knew by the time they got home. Note that plot lines b and c basically fizzled out half-way through, amounting to 'not much'.
    01b.  The number of lines each transformer had was questionably short. I challenge everyone re-watching the movie to take the time to count the lines uttered by each transformer, then determine how many of those were even substantive. Most were short, one-line dialog with little import. I found that Autobots averaged between 15-25 lines each, many of which were short, pointless banter or battle instructions like "Run!". The Decepticons were far worse off however. Megatron had over 20 lines, most being battle-banter of little substance. Frenzy had the next highest number of lines amongst the Decepticons, except they were all subtitled due to being audibly unintelligible. Barricade had the third highest, but most embarrassingly stupid ("Are you username ladiesman###?!".... twice.) lines. All other Decepticons had a mere three or LESS lines.

02. Bad visual experience in many instances of robot combat.
    Supporting arguments:
    02a. the much-loathed shaky-camera effect.
    02b. the near indistinguishability between most of the Transformers in their robot forms, outside of Optimus and Bumblebee who had enough color beyond silver/gray to appear notably different. This, combined with shakey-cam, made it really hard to follow a lot of the robot battle scenes.

03. Nitpicks
    03a. Every machine brought to life by the cube was immediately violent (basically, a Decepticon).
    03b. Soldier uses motorcycle to initiate a completely controlled slide across pavement for upwards of 30-50 feet on his back and stands up with no horrible tearing of clothing or flesh to be seen.
    03c. Making out with your girl on top of your new best friend, while HIS friends watch is somehow acceptable if they're all robots?
    03d. The sheer stupidity of toilet humor (dog leaks on robot, robot leaks on human).


So what else do you guys have to say about it? I started with bad points, but feel free to offer up good points if you can explain why they're good with reasonable logic and intellect.

[Doctor Manhattan]

A typical Bay movie would have a list twice this long.

[Jinto]

A typical Bay movie would have a list twice this long.

well, my post was already too long, and I didn't want to list all the points myself, denying others the chance to rant (more). 

[Sideswipe]

[03. Nitpicks
    03a. Every machine brought to life by the cube was immediately violent (basically, a Decepticon).
    03b. Soldier uses motorcycle to initiate a completely controlled slide across pavement for upwards of 30-50 feet on his back and stands up with no horrible tearing of clothing or flesh to be seen.
   

Have to address these 2 points:

1.  The machines that were brought back to life could be explained that all of the technology were reverese engineered from Megatron, who was a decepticon.
2.  Captain Lennox was wearing a kevlar vest that protected him while he was sliding.  Believe me I have experience diving and sliding around while wearing body armor.

[RoninFox]

2.  Captain Lennox was wearing a kevlar vest that protected him while he was sliding.  Believe me I have experience diving and sliding around while wearing body armor.

Have you seen the behind the scenes footage of the actor attempting this slide, constantly falling off the dragging plate that's pulling him along.  For some reason it struck me as particularly hilarious, just like the unedited footage of Shia actually hanging onto that statue on the roof of the building.

[Jinto]

[03. Nitpicks
    03a. Every machine brought to life by the cube was immediately violent (basically, a Decepticon).
    03b. Soldier uses motorcycle to initiate a completely controlled slide across pavement for upwards of 30-50 feet on his back and stands up with no horrible tearing of clothing or flesh to be seen.
   

Have to address these 2 points:

1.  The machines that were brought back to life could be explained that all of the technology were reverese engineered from Megatron, who was a decepticon.
2.  Captain Lennox was wearing a kevlar vest that protected him while he was sliding.  Believe me I have experience diving and sliding around while wearing body armor.

1. Hmm, you make a good point. I hadn't thought about it from that angle. I suppose that balances the scales a bit.

2. Having just re-watched the film after downloading the Rifftrack, I do see more padding there than I remembered. But I mean, still, the controlled slide? Why not just stay on the motorcycle in the first place? There was plenty of clearance. And wait, what? You have experience with this sort of thing? 

[Sideswipe]

Yeah, I spent a year in Iraq back in 2004.  The most attacked spot in Iraq that year.  We go mortared and rocketted alot so I had so experice diving around taking cover.

[Jinto]

Yeah, I spent a year in Iraq back in 2004.  The most attacked spot in Iraq that year.  We go mortared and rocketted alot so I had so experice diving around taking cover.

Diving and taking cover I can see, but... controlled slides of 25+ feet after ditching your motorcycle?

[Sideswipe]

Well no motorcycles, but there was some crazy shit going on there.  I forgot to mention where I was at.  Abu Ghraib prison.

[Jinto]

Well no motorcycles, but there was some crazy shit going on there.  I forgot to mention where I was at.  Abu Ghraib prison.

Insane. Well, I hope you're nothing but safe at home now-a-days.

[RoninFox]

Insane. Well, I hope you're nothing but safe at home now-a-days.

Yeah sure, when have you ever known a Transformer to stay out of trouble?

[Sideswipe]

good point Fox

[bustahwolf]

1.  The machines that were brought back to life could be explained that all of the technology were reverese engineered from Megatron, who was a decepticon.

If I may remark back on this point, while you do answer the question of why the newly alive machines are violent, I think it brings up a nitpick I have that seems to come up a lot in blockbusters: exposition that's essential for explaining your content, but treated as peripheral to the point of being throwaway.

I.E.: When Frenzy got reconstructed by the cube, I first response was frustration as to how I was supposed to expect that.  Then I remembered that either quantum mechanics or nanotech or whatnot was mentioned in a line a while back, I believe by the aussie engineer.  But the way the film was paced at that point, so little concern was placed on that whole "investigate the signal" subplot that it fell by the wayside.

I don't have that much of a gripe with them wanting some content (like making the sponsors into transformers) and needing to fit the reasoning somewhere in the script.  But I shouldn't have to wrack my brain to remember what the chekov's gun was, and where it occured.  I dunno, maybe it's just the matter of content overload that you get with films like this or Xmen 3 or Spiderman 3.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I could forgive all of that if it were not for the scene with the military guy talking to his wife and son on the camera phone. The dramatic irony was a bit thick. I had to shout at the screen (in the original theater airing)

"Oh yeah. I'm a soldier, at a remote military outpost, far from any help or back-up forces, in an extremely hostile and barren environment. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? What are the odds that I would leave that cute kid fatherless? Isn't it wonderful that nothing bad can happen to somebody who's basic job description is to get shot at? =D"


Points I found decidedly un-humorous:

The fat hacker kid. Great, a character who is very large, geeky, obsessed with eating, and whiney, yet manages to contribute nothing but some nebulous computer skills. Thank you panicking useless fat-person foil character cliche.

Most of the one-liners and robot catch-phrase dialogue.

Points I found humorous:
Family issues.
Cell phone plan conversation.

[GregMcduck]

This pretty much sums up my thoughts:

http://www.scary-crayon.com/spectare/tfbay/