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Transformers: Age of Extinction
Aug. 22nd, 2014 12:18 amTransformers: Age of Extinction because everything has to be "Age of" something now.
I'm going to preface this whole post on my thoughts on this film by saying...
This could have been an awesome movie. This could have been the game-changer that made everyone rethink the Transformers franchise.
In Captain America: Winter Soldier, they explored how easily government bureaucracy could become Nazis. This could have been the film that explored how easily each of US could become Nazis. I wanted Mark Wahlberg's character to really admit and explore how close he came to selling out Optimus Prime and getting him killed for money instead of a few lines in one scene. Come on, you have nearly three hours of film and you can't go in depth on what really matters to the story?
Instead, they squandered this opportunity on side plots with alien bounty hunters and Megatron and making female characters stupid.
Still, making the Transformers into a minority on the verge of genocide was truly inspired. They really did reenact World War 2 with the Transformers being rounded up, killed without mercy and experimented on. Plus, people were given money to help in this genocide and all of this was done in the name of preventing terrorism and violence! Damn, that's good and thought provoking. This was all done in a way that could happen today only with certain ethnic or religious groups instead of Transformers.
I've loved Transformers since I was a toddler and my brother got obsessed with them. Still, when Ratchet was murdered...that's the first time I ever cried in a Transformers film. This film finally made the film-goer empathize with the alien robots instead of just following the humans which is the good because the humans were all worthless stereotypes/tropes. I know some daughters have dads whose world revolves around that daughter and they would do everything for them. I get it, but I'm tired of seeing it. This is made worse...more ironic?...by the fact that they establish how much he loves his daughter, how she's UNDERAGE and STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL but proceed to turn her into a SEX OBJECT! There are even multiple shots of just her ASS WEARING TINY SHORTS! What the fuck? How did no one tell you how extremely gross that is? You made every person watching the film and turned on by her into a pedophile. On top of that, despite being told how extremely smart she is-top of the class and honors and helping her dad out with his work, SHE DOES BASICALLY NOTHING! She doesn't even help out with the technical work or anything. She steals stuff and she throws an anchor to take down an alien bounty hunter, THAT'S IT! How can you write alien robots so well that I'm crying over them and your female characterizations suck so badly?????
As I said on Twitter, if you're not going to write a female decently, I'd rather you just not write females at all. I'm also ashamed that Steven Spielberg is still involved with this mess and allowed that shit to happen. Maybe he was distracted by the awesomeness of turning the Transformers into Jews.
The real reason I wanted to see this film was DINOBOTS! They're dinosaurs AND robots at the same time! Who wouldn't like that? My favorite Dinobots were actually pretend cassette tapes that came in cases and everything but they also had legs that popped out and everything. I loved them. I bet Peter Quill had Dinobots but they're Hasbro so no Hasbro anything in Guardians of the Galaxy.
How much Dinobots are actually in the film?
About ten minutes, yeah, that was horrible, crippling disappointment. They're totally fun and worth it for those few minutes but you have to get through TWO AND A HALF HOURS to get there!
eww
Marvel has ruined me for female characters named Darcy. They introduced her as Darcy and I went, "Nope, she's blonde." I did get excited for nothing because I thought they had found a dinobot but on second viewing, it was a dinosaur that had been murdered by the metal stuff. Yeah, I saw it twice, try not to dwell on it.
I did like that Darcy was played by Sophia Myles and I did hope that she would have something decent to do, like sabotage the research or bring the dinobots to life or...something. She was exposition and little else.
There were so many, many pointless scenes, like that rope climb/escape.
Hi, random Thomas Lennon! I didn't realize the Battle of Chicago had been that bad in the last film and the emphasis on the Transformers being turned into an enemy just made me wonder that much more about Sam and his family. Did they have to renounce their ties to the Autobots? Were they in a version of Gitmo? Were they dead and that's the story reason why we'll never see them again?
Hi, Detroit posing as random podunk Texas but is obviously Detroit because I'd just seen Only Lovers Left Alive less than two months before! Was the building where racer boyfriend jumped the car part of the same abandoned Packard plant where Adam and Eve dispose of the body? I thought it looked the same. I also had my doubts about a semi cab easily blending into a theatre unless it was like the parking lot one in Only Lovers Left Alive...gosh, that was so beautiful and so sad at the same time. Also, racer boyfriend was totally familiar but I couldn't place him...turns out he was from Delivery Man!
I was so happy when Lucas died that I felt bad about how happy I felt. He annoyed me so very, very much.
Okay, let me get this straight...you got flack over racial stereotypes in an earlier Transformers film so you...DECIDED TO MAKE THEM WORSE??? What's wrong with you? Okay, cultural stereotype might be the better word but they all made me cringe. Even Ken Watanabe who I LOVE made me cringe.
However, when one of the Decepticons was a green Waste Management Garbage truck, that made so much sense to us.
I was hoping for Tyrese Gibson to show up but he didn't. Obviously this film had a fair number of Asians and that's great but everyone else was Caucasian. Well, except for the one military guy.
Stanley Tucci remains adorable even being an asshole. I sometimes catch myself wanting him to be in an Marvel movie and remembering that he was and his character was killed off already. Speaking of Marvel, Titus Welliver really has that whole blasting people away while wearing glasses thing down. I'm glad Agent Blake wasn't killed on Agents of SHIELD. I like Bingbing Li. I hope she is in better stuff in the future. Sadly, I think she had the best female role of the whole film.
Do they still use mathematical equations to figure out how the Transformers would transform? Because this time it felt more like, Fuck it, let's just make them look COOL!
I was so sad at the lack of Linkin Park. It didn't feel like real Transformers credits. Also, all films need to have scenes during or after the credits. I now feel cheated when they don't.
I'm going to preface this whole post on my thoughts on this film by saying...
This could have been an awesome movie. This could have been the game-changer that made everyone rethink the Transformers franchise.
In Captain America: Winter Soldier, they explored how easily government bureaucracy could become Nazis. This could have been the film that explored how easily each of US could become Nazis. I wanted Mark Wahlberg's character to really admit and explore how close he came to selling out Optimus Prime and getting him killed for money instead of a few lines in one scene. Come on, you have nearly three hours of film and you can't go in depth on what really matters to the story?
Instead, they squandered this opportunity on side plots with alien bounty hunters and Megatron and making female characters stupid.
Still, making the Transformers into a minority on the verge of genocide was truly inspired. They really did reenact World War 2 with the Transformers being rounded up, killed without mercy and experimented on. Plus, people were given money to help in this genocide and all of this was done in the name of preventing terrorism and violence! Damn, that's good and thought provoking. This was all done in a way that could happen today only with certain ethnic or religious groups instead of Transformers.
I've loved Transformers since I was a toddler and my brother got obsessed with them. Still, when Ratchet was murdered...that's the first time I ever cried in a Transformers film. This film finally made the film-goer empathize with the alien robots instead of just following the humans which is the good because the humans were all worthless stereotypes/tropes. I know some daughters have dads whose world revolves around that daughter and they would do everything for them. I get it, but I'm tired of seeing it. This is made worse...more ironic?...by the fact that they establish how much he loves his daughter, how she's UNDERAGE and STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL but proceed to turn her into a SEX OBJECT! There are even multiple shots of just her ASS WEARING TINY SHORTS! What the fuck? How did no one tell you how extremely gross that is? You made every person watching the film and turned on by her into a pedophile. On top of that, despite being told how extremely smart she is-top of the class and honors and helping her dad out with his work, SHE DOES BASICALLY NOTHING! She doesn't even help out with the technical work or anything. She steals stuff and she throws an anchor to take down an alien bounty hunter, THAT'S IT! How can you write alien robots so well that I'm crying over them and your female characterizations suck so badly?????
As I said on Twitter, if you're not going to write a female decently, I'd rather you just not write females at all. I'm also ashamed that Steven Spielberg is still involved with this mess and allowed that shit to happen. Maybe he was distracted by the awesomeness of turning the Transformers into Jews.
The real reason I wanted to see this film was DINOBOTS! They're dinosaurs AND robots at the same time! Who wouldn't like that? My favorite Dinobots were actually pretend cassette tapes that came in cases and everything but they also had legs that popped out and everything. I loved them. I bet Peter Quill had Dinobots but they're Hasbro so no Hasbro anything in Guardians of the Galaxy.
How much Dinobots are actually in the film?
About ten minutes, yeah, that was horrible, crippling disappointment. They're totally fun and worth it for those few minutes but you have to get through TWO AND A HALF HOURS to get there!
eww
Marvel has ruined me for female characters named Darcy. They introduced her as Darcy and I went, "Nope, she's blonde." I did get excited for nothing because I thought they had found a dinobot but on second viewing, it was a dinosaur that had been murdered by the metal stuff. Yeah, I saw it twice, try not to dwell on it.
I did like that Darcy was played by Sophia Myles and I did hope that she would have something decent to do, like sabotage the research or bring the dinobots to life or...something. She was exposition and little else.
There were so many, many pointless scenes, like that rope climb/escape.
Hi, random Thomas Lennon! I didn't realize the Battle of Chicago had been that bad in the last film and the emphasis on the Transformers being turned into an enemy just made me wonder that much more about Sam and his family. Did they have to renounce their ties to the Autobots? Were they in a version of Gitmo? Were they dead and that's the story reason why we'll never see them again?
Hi, Detroit posing as random podunk Texas but is obviously Detroit because I'd just seen Only Lovers Left Alive less than two months before! Was the building where racer boyfriend jumped the car part of the same abandoned Packard plant where Adam and Eve dispose of the body? I thought it looked the same. I also had my doubts about a semi cab easily blending into a theatre unless it was like the parking lot one in Only Lovers Left Alive...gosh, that was so beautiful and so sad at the same time. Also, racer boyfriend was totally familiar but I couldn't place him...turns out he was from Delivery Man!
I was so happy when Lucas died that I felt bad about how happy I felt. He annoyed me so very, very much.
Okay, let me get this straight...you got flack over racial stereotypes in an earlier Transformers film so you...DECIDED TO MAKE THEM WORSE??? What's wrong with you? Okay, cultural stereotype might be the better word but they all made me cringe. Even Ken Watanabe who I LOVE made me cringe.
However, when one of the Decepticons was a green Waste Management Garbage truck, that made so much sense to us.
I was hoping for Tyrese Gibson to show up but he didn't. Obviously this film had a fair number of Asians and that's great but everyone else was Caucasian. Well, except for the one military guy.
Stanley Tucci remains adorable even being an asshole. I sometimes catch myself wanting him to be in an Marvel movie and remembering that he was and his character was killed off already. Speaking of Marvel, Titus Welliver really has that whole blasting people away while wearing glasses thing down. I'm glad Agent Blake wasn't killed on Agents of SHIELD. I like Bingbing Li. I hope she is in better stuff in the future. Sadly, I think she had the best female role of the whole film.
Do they still use mathematical equations to figure out how the Transformers would transform? Because this time it felt more like, Fuck it, let's just make them look COOL!
I was so sad at the lack of Linkin Park. It didn't feel like real Transformers credits. Also, all films need to have scenes during or after the credits. I now feel cheated when they don't.
