Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review Thread (Spoilers)

[joshimus]

Originally Posted by chaingunsofdoom

was Fig on the team with Lennox?

Fig died in the first movie from the Scorponok battle. It's actually in deleted scenes but technically happened. So gonna say no.

I too felt the end didn't have the same, in a sense, hero shot ending TF1 and ROTF had, that calm after the storm to end credits. So yeah it felt rushed there as did the final battle between the 3, Prime, Sentinal and Megatron.
Overall I really enjoyed the movie and plan on seeing it again though in 2D as I really am officially giving up on this 3D nonsense. It does nothing for me but add an extra layer of glasses.

[alexsaurus_rex]

Originally Posted by Alexander Quinn

Honestly, yeah. Both are attractive, and neither can act worth a damn, so it just really vexed me that a girl who went through hell with Sam, twice, would just say fuck it and break up with him. High school girlfriend or not, that was just lazy ass story telling. Carly did nothing for me, story-wise. Her background was just jumbled as all hell, and seeing as how the first two movies feautred love as a prominent point, it seemed pointless to even have it featured at all in this film. I would have rathered there be no female lead than just a cardboard replacement. Her only purpose was blackmail bait and apparently to call Megatron a bitch. Honestly, if Bay and Speilberg hated Fox so much but really needed someone's ass to focus the camera on every now and then, I would have been happier I think if they had just replaced the actress and recast Mikaela.

See, I totally never got 'love' from Fox. Ok rereading that last sentence made me chuckle!

ROTF was on TMN today, and after seeing her replacment, Mikeala bugged me even more. You're right though, no female lead would have been fine but a change up is good. I really felt there was more of a connection between Sam and Carly.

[Perceptor]

It's gonna make no sense I guess but did anyone try to piece together the three TF movies in some sort of rational order? Since the plan was to bring Cybertron to earth from the get-go, that meant Megatron was always looking for the Matrix of Leadership to revive Sentinel on the moon (right?). Sentinel and Megatron wanted to harness slave labour on earth, but the Fallen was about to harness the sun's energy in ROTF. That would have destroyed earth right? Did anyone remember whether the Fallen or Megatron ever got their hands on the Matrix last movie? My train of thought isn't leading anywhere on this ... Help?

[Nightscrabbler]

Originally Posted by Perceptor

It's gonna make no sense I guess but did anyone try to piece together the three TF movies in some sort of rational order? Since the plan was to bring Cybertron to earth from the get-go, that meant Megatron was always looking for the Matrix of Leadership to revive Sentinel on the moon (right?). Sentinel and Megatron wanted to harness slave labour on earth, but the Fallen was about to harness the sun's energy in ROTF. That would have destroyed earth right? Did anyone remember whether the Fallen or Megatron ever got their hands on the Matrix last movie? My train of thought isn't leading anywhere on this ... Help?

here you go

The HUGOTRON Memoirs

A) Megatron chases Allspark even though he is supposedly winning the battle on Cybertron without it
B) En route to Earth where Allspark is, Megatron makes deal with Sentinel Prime to rendezvous there to open Spacebridge to bring Decepticons and obtain Earth resources
C) Decepticons shoot at their ally Sentinel Prime damaging his ship and leading to him crash land on Moon
D) Megatron crash lands in the Arctic due to being an alien spacecraft that does not understand gravity
E) Megatron wakes up in ice wondering what ever happened to Sentinel
F) Megatron is freed by Decepticons who attack Hoover Dam and as he is thawing, downloads English language pack so that humans understand his cool "I AM MEGATRON" comeback line
G) Megatron fights Optimus Prime, but gets killed by Sam with Allspark and his body is dumped in the ocean
H) Megatron is revived with an Allspark fragment by loyal Decepticons
I) Megatron retrieves Sam for revenge and to probe his brain for AllSpark knowledge such as location of the Matrix
J) Megatron kills Optimus Prime as instructed by his master The Fallen, who probably did not want to go up against a Prime himself
K) Megatron orders Decepticons to fight Autobots while they bring the sun harvester online
L) Megatron watches as Optimus Prime is revived with the Matrix, then obtains Jetfire's parts in order to defeat the Fallen
M) Megatron flees and lives with animals in Africa
N) Megatron either gets the Autobots to realize that Sentinel is on the moon or they figure that out on their own, not really clear
O) Optimus Prime revives Sentinel Prime, so Megatron can get back to plan B to bring Cybertron beside Earth
P) Prime keeps The Matrix at Sentinel's insistence, which is apparently also an item that signifies Autobot leadership even though it had been buried on Earth since time of original Primes
Q) Decepticons have been hiding in the Moon for some reason and finally decide to get up
R) Control pillar is knocked down, first resulting in transport of Cybertron halting, then resulting in apparent destruction of Cybertron
S) Megatron is so weak, he is convinced by Carly to betray Sentinel Prime
T) Sentinel is killed by Optimus Prime thanks to Megatron's help, but Optimus doesn't appreciate that and kills Megatron too


So, all in all, a sad end to the greatest Decepticon. But he really didn't plan anything well. It's possible, one could argue, that he only wanted the Allspark to determine the location of the Matrix in the first place, to operate the sun harvester. Although if they wanted to harvest our sun (whatever that means), why would they want to transport Cybertron here?

He got owned by Sam, The Fallen, Sentinel Prime and Optimus Prime. Tragic.

[Darth Cylon]

DOTM is so bad that I am not even bothering to write my review about it.

On the other hand, seeing Shockwave not transforming, did practically nothing, and got killed off so easily by a not-so-peace-loving Optimus Prime makes me think the chance of Shockwave getting Leader toy is now close to nil.

[chans formers]

Originally Posted by malteselegacy

I believe his name is Igor.

yup,and he was basically rotf longhauls head with some extras added

Originally Posted by transforminator

i really hated how after ironhide's death nobody gave a damn about it. I expected Optimus to arrive and bring up ironhide and mourn his death for even just a few seconds before going out to beat the shit out of (or talk to) sentinel prime. I mean in TFTM, even though his way of mourning a comrades death was still underwhelming, we did see him take a few seconds to mourn the death of Jazz.

Oh and did anyone notice that Carly's clothes kept changing during the final battle (blue dress at dylan's party, white dress while being kept hostage, then white jacket and pants near the end of it all)

ops couldn't pick him up and mourn him because the cosmic rust gun turned him to dust.

and yeah,i noticed the changing carly did,
first the sexy blue dress when s/w first kidnapped her,then the white pants and white blazer when she was being held in trump tower,then when she jumps to sams arms on the drop ship,she's wearing blue jeans and the white blazer.

so how did bb get captured?we see him rescue lennox and sam after sam takes out screamer,bb using his hood as a cushion of sorts,then not minutes later bb's on his knees watching que plead like a bee-otch

also,to kill some rumors,it was actually a generic decepticon troop builder that fired the first shot at que,then the second finishing shot was barracade.

[Robimus]

I thought this was a fun film. I loved the bits of Cybertron and how the cockpit of the Arc looks like Omega Supreme's head.

Laserbeak was a standout, Shockwave a dud. I liked how Prime really had a significant role in this one, seemed to me like he had way more dialog than in ROTF.

The "Spock gone crazy" episode being watched by Wheelie and Brains and their comment was really cute.

Cutting out Mikaela was just an epic fail for me, but I'll not dwell on it. Sam was funny, as was Simmons whom I always like.

Barricade! Nice to see him. I'm not even 100% positive he died. Probably but maybe not.

Could have sworn I saw Jolt in there near the start. I didn't really attach myself to Dino or Wheeljack, I kinda found both to be lackluster.

Overall I think it was a fun movie, little heavy on the last battle, but meh.

TFTM is still my favorite of the three by far, but I shall enjoy watching this one over and over a little more than I did ROTF.

[JLvatron]

Originally Posted by Alexander Quinn

Honestly, if Bay and Speilberg hated Fox so much but really needed someone's ass to focus the camera on every now and then, I would have been happier I think if they had just replaced the actress and recast Mikaela.

Well, I say who cares about Mikaela or Carly.
The best woman in the series was Alice the Pretender. Definitely the coolest.

[Bruticus82]

Well, saw this movie yesterday...

Cons
1. I thought the storyline over all was very weak and rushed. They basically lifted the story from several episodes of Transformers G1 cartoon series. It would have been nicer if they planned 2 and 3 out into a proper trilogy earlier.

2. The trend from past movies of the autobots being more violent than the decepticons continues.
a) "We will kill them all." ~ Optimus Prime
b) Decepticons apparently take prisoners, an don't execute them until a HUMAN suggests they do same. Autobots don't take prisoners, period.
c) Optimus apparently decided the only way to get the humans to trust them was to let the Decepitcons trash Chicago and kill tens of thousands of people while they were at it. They're dead now Optimus, all so you could gain the trust of the humans? What the hell Optimus...seems like a high price to pay for trust.
d) The wreckers rip a Decepticon limb from limb. Only time we've seen something similar was Megatron v. Jazz in the first movie. Stay classy autobots, you're the good guys, right?

3. The bridges
Megatron: "I know how to stop the autobots, we'll raise the bridges! Mwa ha ha!"
Starscream: "Wait...can they maybe jump, or walk into the water and scale the sides..."
Megatron: "Uhm...no no...they'll have to lower the bridges to get to us."
Starscream: "Why don't we just blow up the bridges?"
Megatron: "Why don't you just shut up Starscream"
Starscream: "Why am I the only Decepticon who can fly without a ship? We seem to have tonnes of identical drones, none of which are copies of me, or of blackout..."
Megatron: "...who?"

4. Cartoon logic.
a) Dr. McDecepticon: "I'm going to tell you all about our plan, including which cupola the control pillar is in, because there's no way anything you will ever do can ever stop us."

b) Carly: "Hey, you, Megatron, yeah...uhm...aren't you jealous of the new guy?"
Megatron: "You're right!"
Sentinel Prime: "Curses, I would have gotten away with it were it not for you meddling earth children!"

5. Decepticons explode whenever they appear on-screen. Autobots only explode from point-blank shots to the head when they're NOT in battle!

6. New characters barely introduced. After all, this movie isn't about giant robots with personalities, it's about explosions!

7. Questionable Humour.
a) Deep Wang? WTF...is this a comedy or an action film? I don't remember seeing these sorts of "funny bits" in Terminator 2, or the original star wars trilogy. It makes it hard to take the movie seriously.

b) Brains, Wheelie, and Slobbery (as I call Megs' "assistant".). Why are these characters there? For the kids to laugh at? It's The Phantom Menace all over again...Pick one target audience, and stick with it! Trying to target the kids and the adults at the same time just means the kids are bored half the time, and the adults are face-palming half the time.

8. "Missing" scenes?
Did anyone else think when they first started showing the Decepitcon ships hitting Chicago that we had "missed" some scene that showed how the ships go there, or the initial "attack"? Felt very disjointed.

9. Why were the decepticons on the moon at all? Why didn't they just fly straight to earth and "hide". Why hide on the moon first and then fly to earth and then hide until they could distribute the remaining pillars?

That said, why bother porting to earth at all. Why not distribute the pillars from orbit straight from the moon?

10. For being the warriors who were winning the war, they seemed to be "winning" like Charlie Sheen. Less than a dozen autobots verusus how many decepticons?

11. Whoops, optimus got tangled in some super-strong earth cables! Too bad he doesn't have laser-hot blades he could use to cut through them, or some guns to shoot them...good thing the wreckers were there to help him, and no decepticon ships which were sitting on nearby buildings and patrolling the sky decided to head over there and shoot at him...

12. The actors portraying Kennedy and Obama.

13. The robots were too "wet"...since when does starscream spit all over everything when he talks?

Pros

1. Human collaborators - Very well done, I didn't see Carly's boss being a human collaborator until the moment it happened.

2. Evil Sentinel Prime - I did not see that one coming either. Very unexpected, and a good twist.

[chaingunsofdoom]

For 2c - I mentioned in post #95 above. The time it takes to travel to Chicago is significant. They were in the booster rocket. They had to get to shore. They had to drive to Chicago.

9 - the NEST/Autobot alliance had detectors all over Earth. The only place to hide is either underwater or on the moon.