Well just got back from my own viewing of the movie, and... WOW.
Real quick - to put my spin on the continuity with the carrier - it's no worse a gaffe than Chekov claiming that the USS Ranger (CV-61) was the Enterprise
in Star Trek IV. (And I believe at the time that the Enterprise still had the old "square island with dome" structure rather than its refitted and
more standard looking tower of its later years, so the difference between Enterprise and Ranger was even more pronounced at the time.)
If they want to say that the one that got vaped was one carrier and the other that launched planes and helped coordinate strikes later in the movie was another
carrier despite the numbers being the same - I'll forgive it. Since such gaffes are par for the course from Hollywood. And at least Michael Bey was TRYING
to let the military look good. I'll forgive an honest mistake. Maybe they only HAD the one carrier to shoot around? They just should have been more careful
about showing the hull numbers. If they had caught it, maybe they could've CGed a change?
Anyway -
I have a few minor nits -
-- The two smart cars... weren't. I refer to them as the Jar Jar Binks twins. Maybe that was a subtle commentary? A parody on the whole smart car idea?
Heh... At least they weren't TOTALLY useless. But to have the red one
shoot his way out of Devastator's mouth? er... Not sure if I buy that completely, but ok...
-- I wish we'd seen more of the female autobots! Arcee was clearly named, but who were the two others? I understand - time didn't allow for a lot, but
could we have LESS of the Jar Jar twins and MORE of them? Please? Gah...
-- The sound mix - overall not bad, but sometimes I just couldn't understand what was being said! This may be more me than the movie though - I'm
notoriously bad at picking voices out of background noise. There's nothing wrong with my overall level of hearing, but it's one reason why I dislike
crowds - a LOT. But I've put subtitles on movies before, including the first Transformers movie, for just that reason. Once I've SEEN what was said, I
no longer need the subtitles since I can glom it from context in subsequent viewings.
Nevertheless, when the dialogue was IMPORTANT to the plot - when we were getting exposition from Jetfire for example - the sound mix was clear enough I could
make out most of what he was saying. I didn't lose the plot for this reason, therefore it's just a nitpick.
I will say that the sound effects were expertly done and man, you really FEEL the weight of metal crunching and tearing in these fights! The gun and explosion
sounds can be felt in your seat! Go see it in the theator with a really GOOD sound system at least once. The visceral punch is simply amazing!
-- What IS IT with the Cube/All-Spark ONLY creating DECEPTICONS??? Why doesn't it sometimes create Autobots?
At least it's shown that Decepticons CAN change. That it is and can be a choice. There are two in this movie that do just that.
-- One MAJOR plot thread left hanging (almost literally) is Soundwave. He's STILL hooked into that Military satellite at the end of the film! Then again,
Starscream and Megatron both survive to the end-credits as well. So we're left with fodder for another sequel.
-- Did anyone else want to dropkick the Astronomy professor? Has anyone EVER seen anything THAT ridiculous in College?
-- Could Sam's roommate be MORE useless? Hell, sector 7 Simmons upstaged him!
Stuff that was cool -
-- At the beginning of the movie - AIRDROPPING OPTIMUS!!! Hot DAMN that was cool! That whole Shanghai fight was cool.
-- Optimus Prime versus at least 4 major Decepticons in the forest. You thought him taking out Bonecrusher was awesome? You ain't seen NOTHING...
-- Man - do NOT mess with Bumblebee! When that faceshield comes down, there is some Decepticon ass about to be kicked in STYLE.
-- Better character development between Sam and Mikaela this time around. I liked Sam's arc throughout this film better than the first one. We see him
definitely grow up. There's a nice scene between him and his dad near the end of the film that was touching.
-- And Mikaela getting the drop on the little Decepticon!
-- And the slightly... er... larger Decepticon getting the... er... drop... on Sam. Shades of Beastwars anyone? That was a bit disturbing actually...
-- The former sector 7 guy, Simmons. He started off in the first movie as Frank Burns and was almost to Charles Winchester by the end. Here, he's Charles
Winchester so he's still a prick, but he's now a prick with a heart of gold, so to speak. And... well he doesn't get better per se, but he does get a couple of moments to shine. Speaking of which -
-- Naval RAIL GUN, BABY!!! Eat some of THAT, Devvy!
-- Ravage... yow... Just... yow...
-- Speaking of - the ways in which the Transformers tech was used in this film got REALLY creative! I was impressed.
-- Nice that they had a bit more of the old Megatron/Starscream rivalry going. That really made if feel more true to the original.
--The whole concept of NEST working directly with the Autobots. I liked that.
Can't think of anything else to comment on that isn't pure spoiler at this point, so I'll wait till later.
Real quick - to put my spin on the continuity with the carrier - it's no worse a gaffe than Chekov claiming that the USS Ranger (CV-61) was the Enterprise
in Star Trek IV. (And I believe at the time that the Enterprise still had the old "square island with dome" structure rather than its refitted and
more standard looking tower of its later years, so the difference between Enterprise and Ranger was even more pronounced at the time.)
If they want to say that the one that got vaped was one carrier and the other that launched planes and helped coordinate strikes later in the movie was another
carrier despite the numbers being the same - I'll forgive it. Since such gaffes are par for the course from Hollywood. And at least Michael Bey was TRYING
to let the military look good. I'll forgive an honest mistake. Maybe they only HAD the one carrier to shoot around? They just should have been more careful
about showing the hull numbers. If they had caught it, maybe they could've CGed a change?
Anyway -
I have a few minor nits -
-- The two smart cars... weren't. I refer to them as the Jar Jar Binks twins. Maybe that was a subtle commentary? A parody on the whole smart car idea?
Heh... At least they weren't TOTALLY useless. But to have the red one
shoot his way out of Devastator's mouth? er... Not sure if I buy that completely, but ok...
-- I wish we'd seen more of the female autobots! Arcee was clearly named, but who were the two others? I understand - time didn't allow for a lot, but
could we have LESS of the Jar Jar twins and MORE of them? Please? Gah...
-- The sound mix - overall not bad, but sometimes I just couldn't understand what was being said! This may be more me than the movie though - I'm
notoriously bad at picking voices out of background noise. There's nothing wrong with my overall level of hearing, but it's one reason why I dislike
crowds - a LOT. But I've put subtitles on movies before, including the first Transformers movie, for just that reason. Once I've SEEN what was said, I
no longer need the subtitles since I can glom it from context in subsequent viewings.
Nevertheless, when the dialogue was IMPORTANT to the plot - when we were getting exposition from Jetfire for example - the sound mix was clear enough I could
make out most of what he was saying. I didn't lose the plot for this reason, therefore it's just a nitpick.
I will say that the sound effects were expertly done and man, you really FEEL the weight of metal crunching and tearing in these fights! The gun and explosion
sounds can be felt in your seat! Go see it in the theator with a really GOOD sound system at least once. The visceral punch is simply amazing!
-- What IS IT with the Cube/All-Spark ONLY creating DECEPTICONS??? Why doesn't it sometimes create Autobots?
At least it's shown that Decepticons CAN change. That it is and can be a choice. There are two in this movie that do just that.
-- One MAJOR plot thread left hanging (almost literally) is Soundwave. He's STILL hooked into that Military satellite at the end of the film! Then again,
Starscream and Megatron both survive to the end-credits as well. So we're left with fodder for another sequel.
-- Did anyone else want to dropkick the Astronomy professor? Has anyone EVER seen anything THAT ridiculous in College?
-- Could Sam's roommate be MORE useless? Hell, sector 7 Simmons upstaged him!
Stuff that was cool -
-- At the beginning of the movie - AIRDROPPING OPTIMUS!!! Hot DAMN that was cool! That whole Shanghai fight was cool.
-- Optimus Prime versus at least 4 major Decepticons in the forest. You thought him taking out Bonecrusher was awesome? You ain't seen NOTHING...
-- Man - do NOT mess with Bumblebee! When that faceshield comes down, there is some Decepticon ass about to be kicked in STYLE.
-- Better character development between Sam and Mikaela this time around. I liked Sam's arc throughout this film better than the first one. We see him
definitely grow up. There's a nice scene between him and his dad near the end of the film that was touching.
-- And Mikaela getting the drop on the little Decepticon!
-- And the slightly... er... larger Decepticon getting the... er... drop... on Sam. Shades of Beastwars anyone? That was a bit disturbing actually...
-- The former sector 7 guy, Simmons. He started off in the first movie as Frank Burns and was almost to Charles Winchester by the end. Here, he's Charles
Winchester so he's still a prick, but he's now a prick with a heart of gold, so to speak. And... well he doesn't get better per se, but he does get a couple of moments to shine. Speaking of which -
-- Naval RAIL GUN, BABY!!! Eat some of THAT, Devvy!
-- Ravage... yow... Just... yow...
-- Speaking of - the ways in which the Transformers tech was used in this film got REALLY creative! I was impressed.
-- Nice that they had a bit more of the old Megatron/Starscream rivalry going. That really made if feel more true to the original.
--The whole concept of NEST working directly with the Autobots. I liked that.
Can't think of anything else to comment on that isn't pure spoiler at this point, so I'll wait till later.