Transformers

[Crash]

Go and see it at the cinema right away! It'll be nowhere near as good on DVD...

[felice]

Well, see it at the theatre if you're going to see it at all. It doesn't hold a candle to the 80s movie. The Transformers themselves get virtually no characterisation, and there are far too many unnecessary humans.

[Crash]

Well, that was due to the cost of the CGI. The sequels are to feature far more of the transformers. Plus I think it made the film more kinda entertaining to a mainstream.

[Crash]

... I think you're one of those people who complains that the original Battlestar Galactica was better than the new one, (which is a complete lie of course).

[Shane]

It's a mess of a movie, pretty incoherent, hey, it's a Michael Bay movie I expected no less!It was definitely trying very hard not to alienate a mainstream audience, hence all the lengthy "comedy" moments, and all the unnecessary talky bits with military types. But the last 20 minutes of robot on robot action is solid gold, and worth the price of admission alone. Yeah, little characterisation going on for the bots, although Prime and Megatron seemed right to me.The robots were all way more violent than their 80's counterparts, autobots included, that was quite startling.Looking forward to the sequel, with a different director.Bring on those Dinobots!!!

[felice]

I was very skeptical about the new BSG based on early reports, but it is a very good show (having seen two seasons). I'd rather have seen Richard Hatch's sequel produced to the same standard, though, instead of a "remake" that could have been a completely new show with little additional alteration.There are better ways to cut down on CGI - like having the Transformers talking to each other while in vehicle mode. I found a lot of the fighting at the end hard to follow; the robots weren't very distinctive.

[Crash]

Yes there was one scene with 3 grey robots attacking eachother very fast. I had the same problem first watching Gundam, unable to tell whose mobile suit was whose. I wasn't really bothered by that however.Aren't the dinobots from Beast Wars or whatever? That was quite a good series even if the CGI stinks for today.I thought the film was very funny. I was rather concerned from the trailers that the transformers weren't going to talk at all but their characterisation was great, especially optimus and bumblebee. The score was another thing that really helped make it. I travelled 200 miles to see it and had the dire review from the Sunday Times in my mind but as soon as I saw the opening sequence I thought ... "Hmmm, this might be good after all"... that and the autobots landing. That music was fantastic.I suppose it was a bit sad that the aussie computer coder girl and the soldiers (Jamie Foxx FTW!) subplots never did anything in the end but they served their purpose.The best part was the spectre AC-130 gunship blasting away at Scorponok. My friend said "You know it's still gonna be totally fine when the smoke clears". I said "I'm not so sure about that... A 105mm M102 howitzer can really spoil your day".

[Shane]

Ah, Dinobots are very much old school, they were part of the second wave of toys in the 80s and were in the cartoons, movie, and comics. They were by far the most popular characters, and I would have thought giant transforming robotic dinosauars would be amazing on the big screen.I wasn't to bothered that I couldn't tell who was fighting who, but the bots did kind of pop up, and then wait around untill the boring human subplot played itself out, Starscream at the dam was one example.One thing about Bay, he's very good at shooting military hardware.

[AndyThomas]

I was pleasantly surprised by it; not having read reviews I didn't know what to expect but it was far more adult than I was expecting and there were some genuinely funny moments even if some of them were in the style of the old Herbie movies! All in all I think it was a good cinema experience but I'm not sure how well it would play at home. And a nice gratuitous sequel set up...!

[FZeroOne]

I must confess to not having actually seen this yet. I will admit to be intrigued by the new animated series, which initially caused a strong reaction with its Teen Titans-like character designs. It would be nice if anyone planning to insert Grimlock into any new Transformers projects goes with Simon Furmans "Headstrong, quick to anger but certainly not stupid!" take on the character, rather than the awful "Me Grimlock, me Dinobot!" US version...!Incidentally, although Dinobots were part of the second wave of Transformers, in Japan they pre-dated even the first US wave, although under a different name...