Are we still obligated to pretend that it’s a surprise that Michael Bay – who’s entire skillset is creating the kind of brief action tableaus that look good when arranged out-of-context into a trailer – gets a great-looking trailer? Below, the 2nd (final?) ad for “Transformers 3: Dark of The Moon,” which I’m assuming will be seen in front of tons of showings of the punishingly-stupid “Fast Five” this weekend.:
Yes, yes, VERY well-cut trailer – even down to the umpteenth ripoff of the “Inception” BWAAAAAAHMMM! DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUM BWAAAAAAAAHM!!!!! music cues – but look between the lines and it’s clear that NOTHING has changed: The mecha-design still looks like shit, the robots are still indistinguishable from eachother, the army/conspiracy bullshit is still taking up plotspace and the “main” story is still going to revolve around Shia dragging a vapid piece of arm-candy through CGI explosions by the elbow.
This is the last one, right? I want to be able to kick-off the countdown to when someone who knows what they’re doing takes over, reboots the franchise and erases this shit from the pop-culture memorysphere.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
I don't see anything of the new robot-deigns yet… Bay brought in the guys that made the War for Cybertron game. I hope they will deliver.
Also: Leonard Nimoy isn't in the trailer yet.
2 big (original) shortcomings for me.
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I dunno Bob… Seems to look about as interesting and cliche as the first 2 films IMO.
The one thing that I do see is that it seems as though TF3 may actually be trying to take a little bit more of a serious tone this time around.
Which will be a welcome change… I can really do without racism and robot testicles this time.
Sure it's gonna blow just like the other two though.
Completely lost any hope of any kind of redemption for these films after TF2.
Now we get to sit back and wait for the inevitable destruction of the Ninja Turtles franchise.
Yay for exploiting and sucking the life out of childhood memories! Thank you Micheal Bay… fucken douche.
The only movies he EVER did right IMO are The Rock and The Island. Everything else has been crap… and I'm sure this will be no exception.
Just my opinion though.
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meh, its not a bad trailer, but nothing about it raises my expectations for this movie. It still looks like generic Michael Bay crap.
I actually did enjoy The Rock, in a cheesy, dumb-but-fun, so bad its good kind of way. But I can't respect Bay after Revenge of the Fallen.
So yeah, I'll wait for a few reviews before I make the call to see this one or not. But I'm not counting on it.
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I love how Bob mocks “Fast Five” but there's an ad for it right below this post. Oops.
(I'd have something to say about “Transformers 3” but what's the point? Its stupid, we know its stupid, who cares?)
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I'm curious if Bob is interested in mentioning that Fast Five is the only movie so far released this year with a multi-racial main cast and a plot that isn't about race…
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It's very strange how I started out hating the transformer movies but have been steadily warming to them over time. Hated the first one, really liked the second (and yes, the second one was better than the first. More transformers battles, better fight choreography, frank welker, a mid point battle that is for all intents and purposes a supersized update of the last 5 minutes of Code of Hero, and crochety old man jetfire. All awesome. if you are looking for a coherent plot and human characters worth caring about then you clearly were not a transformers fan because the series has NEVER had those things)
@ Blue
I love how he mocks fast five but loved torque. Which is essentially the same movie only not as good..but has more implied lesbianism so it's ok now.
Honestly I never understood the hostility behind the FF movies. I saw the first one on tv once. It's a pretty unremarkable movie sure to appeal to action fans who like cars alot. i didn't find it interesting nor particularly offensive. I'm kind of blindsides that there exists a market enough for 5 of these things (plus the reprehensibly bad torque), but whatever.
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Huge ass robots invading Earth? I expect Bioware to sue!
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…Good? You think this looks good? I understand you're talking about the trailer, not the film itself, but just…. buh. Buh.
When Optimus Prime does his need little dive'n'slide, he spins around several times, sliding at least fifty feet, barely moving his legs. His feet are metal and he's on a road. This wouldn't happen. Bumblebee's little rescue maneuver is needlessly obtuse. Bay is playing with physics even more poorly than he did in the first movie. And oh boy, the Decepticons manage to knock over a building? With a tentacle monster? Oooooh, exciting. And oh man, Shia is once again not allowed to say anything about these robots? These same robots that are popping up more and more frequently and that just about everybody would have heard of? Don't forget that the National Mall's reflecting pool is secretly a teleporting platform!
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@Dave:
First of all, great name. (coulnd't resist) I don't think there's any problem with a movie about giant alien robots that turn into cars, and doesn't focus on the human characters. I agree if that's what you're expecting then you're in the wrong theater.
The problem is I DO want to see a movie about giant alien robots that turn into cars, but Bay insists on 70%-80% of it being about a whiny, stammering, little idiot.
Imagine how frustrating it would be if they made a James Bond movie from the point of view of the hotel desk clerk.
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@ Dav3
I don't think it's reasonable to blame Bay for Shia. If bay had his druthers the film would be nothing but helicopters at sunset.
And like I said, the annoying human characters have always been apart of transformers. If they didn't exist, you'd have people complaining about that.Google RUINED FOREVER. Outside of Fallout, the transformers fandom is one of the most unpleasable on the planet.
The human are annoying sure, but as long as there is a decent amount of action and the action is of good quality, I'm ok. Hence why I liked 2 more than 1. 1 alluded to action but cut to shia and shaky cam instead. 2 showed it all in glorious wide angle. If 3 can have the same amount of action with a story that makes more sense or is less annoying,(and given how incredibly bad orci and company are at writing any script that isn't plagiarized from star wars…that's kind of a given)I'm sold.
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Jesus christ that soundtrack started making my ears bleed. When that guys said “it was over” In my mind I was thinking, if only that were true.
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ew. Also, to clarify, Bob says the TRAILER is good. He knows the movie is gonna be crap
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@ Bob
Oh and pretty neat trick of Bay and co to rip off inception before inception was ever released.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maPFhlFfJG8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N2YWRJ-ppo
That sound has been in each trailer since the beginning.
Seriously man. It's called google. Your phone can probably use it.
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Does anyone find it ironic that the New!MeganFox does Dull Suprise better than anyone from the Dreamwave comics ever did?
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@Dave Transformers the Animated Movie in the 80's was about Hot Rod's rise to leadership, the Autobots regrouping and the new face of the Decepticons. Oh, and Daniel had to save his Dad Spike at some point.
These live action movies are all about Shia saving the day, and oh hey, here's a shot of Optimus…stepping on his Dad's water fountain. Maybe they'll fight some Decepticons?
It's not about the human element always being shitty, it's about the human element being the focus every damn time.
We just got HBO for Game of Thrones at my house and they've been showing Transformers 2. I've never seen the movie, but I walked in with NO KNOWLEDGE of what movie was on, just in time to see Wheelie dry-humping Fox's leg and Jetfire turned into an old-fart comic relief and exposition machine.
The movie fucking sucks, and it's a damn shame because when I see the robot-on-robot combat of this trailer it makes me WANT the movie to rock.
Fucking Michael Bay…
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@Chris
And the animated movie was also inferior to the modern movies in every way but nostalgic value.
it was about the rise of an annoying character we care nothing about, whose retardedness gets our old favourite killed (along with all the main cast so they cal sell more toys) who become embroiled in a hunt for the matrix(which can kill unicron somehow…it's never explained or elborated on why this is or how anyone knows this) and becomes a leader….again for no real reason. He never learns anything, never does anything of value
Shia's character has a story arc. Not a good one, but there is some minor character development. The animated movie is just one long sequence of events that just sort of happen, until the main character gets replaced with an entirely new one…in the same movie he replaced optimus.
I'm not saying the story of the movies is good, but as bad as it is, it is orders of magnitude better than anything from g1. IN fact the number of transformers series to actually give a damn about writing and characterization is a scant 2. Beast Wars and Animated. Two series that Geewuners hate because they changed the desings.
You cannot make a smartly written transformers movie without making is extremely different form transformers.
Because transformers was terrible. Like pretty much everything from the 80s that gets romanticized becuause anime and the DCAU weren't here yet and we hadn't learned that cartoons don't have to be stupid and virulently racist.I enjoy the movies for the same reason I enjoyed the show: for tons of badass robots kicking the primus out of each other.
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Bob, you should totally make a trailer like this for the antithinker saga. I would like it alot.
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I can't wait to pay to see this train wreck.
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I had the same peculiar reaction to this trailer that you did, Bob. Namely that I know the finished product will be awful, but that these couple of minutes were actually a tiny bit of fun to watch.
Some suggestions why this is:
-The Inceptiony parts of the music reminded me of Inception, which from all acounts seems like a much better movie to be thinking about.
-Peter Cullen.
-This particular ad has moments where the shot is sustained for 2, sometimes even 3 seconds. Which is a big step up from Bay's average of .2 seconds.
-Peter Cullen.
-Slight increase in visual clarity. For example, while most of them still look like “junkyard throwup”, I could actually tell that Bumblebee was rescuing two people from falling off a roof by reaching out his hands. That I could recognize his hands from everything else in the mess puts this a little bit above what I saw in the first movie at least.
-Peter Cullen.
-Tyrese Gibson… NOT shouting? And actually trying to inflect? Huh.
-Peter Cullen.
-More closeups of Bumblebee's face. The puppy-dog look in his eyes is what does it for me. With so much else wrong, it's amazing they got that right.
-Marge from Fargo.
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Actually, the ads are based on your cookies, so you've been visiting the websites you see promoted there.
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The only good thing I can say about this trailer is that it has squirrel suits in it.
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@ Dave,
You're spot on in your assessment of transformers. You said what I tend to respond the majority of the time.
@ MovieBob,
I'm hoping the movie makes you eat your words I really am. for all vemon you have spit since their since has come into existence , that would be true justice haha.
I have to ask, have you watched any series since G1 or is that all you know? Most of your complaints can be assign to just bout every series since then including G1 (it had plenty of racism and offensive stuff. Carbombya?) So let's rip off those nostalgia goggles and call it down the middle.
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Michael Bay himself said the franchise needs a reboot, so…
there's that.
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I continue to feel bad for Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving, John Tuturro, and Stephen Spielberg. They're all wasting their time on this.
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I get the feeling that the giant tentacle-looking robot will be set up for either a crude visual gag or a comment with innuendo
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@Dave
I didn't say the cartoons were any GOOD (until Beast Wars). I just said they at least had to do with the robots.
Though when it comes to the animated movie, nearly any scene focusing on the Decepticons is actually pretty well written. The scene where Unicron and Megatron meet for the first time is actually very well done for what amounts to a silly children's cartoon, contrasting the difference between a conceited villain and confident villain pretty clearly. All in all, that one scene alone is written better than the entirety of Transformers 1 or 2.
For me, it's not about “inaccuracies” or anything. It's the fact that even 1998's Godzilla was a better movie than the Transformers flicks. We couldn't even get something the quality of Independence Day, a movie with little meaning outside of getting people to stuff their faces full of popcorn.
Or even Men in Black. That movie is mostly a comedy, but it is never confused in tone. When they are giving dramatic exposition, they don't have a little alien humping a woman's leg. It is serious when it needs to be and humorous when the tone allows for it.
Transformers seems incredibly confused as to whether it is a comedy, a drama or a summer blockbuster.
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Bay's first Transformers was pretty good, nothing will convince me otherwise. The second was a pathetic failure though, and not that good kind of pathetic failure where you finally realize how much you suck and you need to make a change, but that terrible kind where you finally stop caring about everything and you've only just begun to suck.
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Um…great-looking? I can already tell it's going to be the exact same fucking crap as the other two.
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