Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (MC: 42, RT: 36%)

**Xantavia** · 2011-07-07 17:13

Originally Posted by vagus

Shockwave looked bad ass in the movie. His 1 eye was well created. Soundwave sounded cool as were his pets. Can't really expect much from a "tape deck" so they had to modernize him. Lol. Galvatron would be bad ass. I'd have to agree, as much as I enjoyed the 3 movies from Bay. I expect this franchise to be restarted down the road with a new director.

Seeing Soundwave suprised me. Don't remember if it was in the 1st or 2nd movie, but I thought they had made Soundwave into a satellite in his alternate form. This was a change that I didn't hate at all and thought it was a pretty cool way to show him as an intelligence gathering robot.

**Dryr** · 2011-07-07 19:04

I'll spoiler tag some of my concerns after just seeing it.

Spoiler: show

Overall, I wish it was a good half-hour shorter but It was good enough to see in theaters.

**Ziero** · 2011-07-07 22:32

Originally Posted by Milkster

Except not. He pretty much ended that series of movies with the end of the 3rd. The series is going to be rebooted with another director within 5 years or just about.

Except the lead producer of the series specifically mentioned that not only do they still have the rights to do more Transformers films, there's also no intention and no need to reboot it. Robots don't grow old and don't need to be replaced and there's still tons of enemy bots for Prime and co to do battle against. Hell, they could even pull a whole '86 movie on us and bring in Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime.

Originally Posted by Xantavia

Seeing Soundwave suprised me. Don't remember if it was in the 1st or 2nd movie, but I thought they had made Soundwave into a satellite in his alternate form. This was a change that I didn't hate at all and thought it was a pretty cool way to show him as an intelligence gathering robot.

He was a satellite in the second one, he even shot Ravage down to earth. But yes, it was cool seeing him on earth with an actual alt mode, especially seeing how that alt mode made sense in the film and fit with the character.

Originally Posted by Dryr

I'll spoiler tag some of my concerns after just seeing it.

Spoiler: show

1) Megatron never really had a deal with the Fallen so much as he was just a servant of the Fallen...the first Decepticon and the one who caused Megatron to start the war in the first place. From what I could gather however, the initial plan was a secret between Megatron and Sentinel (and Soundwave), where they'd come to earth and use the planet's native species as slave labor to fix Cybertron. However with Megatron's disappearance the plan fell to the wayside since it seemed most 'cons didn't know about it. That lead to Sentinel's ship being shot down and him eventually crashing on the moon. From there the remaining con's tracked down the All-spark and Megatron, who then tried to use the Allspark to raise an army of 'cons on earth with our current technology.

However, he got pwn'd within minutes of coming back so he didn't have time to really do anything. With Megs dead...again, Starscream ran crying to The Fallen, where the whole sun harvester bit came in. Now with The Fallen back calling the shots, and Sentinel mia, Meg's plan to use the space bridge had to be temporarily abandoned so he went along with The Fallen's plan to find the Matrix and absorb the sun's energy. But when The Fallen got de-faced, Megatron went back to "Plan A" , tricked the Autobots to rescue and revive Sentinel with the newly found Matrix of Leadership so they could get everything back on track.

2) Lolphysics

3) ....I agree that the final battle had some terrible editing. The first half of the movie was actually pretty smooth-flowing, but as soon as they started the whole hour long invasion scene, things just got too jumpy too fast.

4) Yea, this part was kinda "wtf" when you think about it. I mean, yea, it's possible they weren't there the whole time and we actually did see a lot of con's come to earth in the second one, but the whole "Giant ships on the moon" bit seems out of place when you realize they tried to invade in RotF as well.

5) Best excuse I could think of, and I think I mentioned it before in this thread, Nemoy-bot knew he wouldn't be able to make use of it seeing as his intentions all along were to betray Prime and the Autobots and enslave humanity. And if you're wondering "well The Fallen was evil, how come he could use it?" The answer to that is that he was one of the original Prime's who created it, Sentinel was only a descendant of the Primes.

6) Still fighting on Cybertron. In G1, Shockwave was the bot who took over the war on Cybertron once Megatron disappeared to earth, so it was probably a similar situation in the movie-verse. But once Megs came back and started up his whole space-bridge scheme, he called in his most loyal general (Shockwave) to make sure the plan went off without issue.

**Myrrh_Quetz** · 2011-07-12 00:39

I just saw this and I gotta say....I want my money back. I didn't pay to see but I feel owed.

Spoiler: show

I just want them to make Beast Wars. I loved the Beast Wars. No Humans, no bullshit humans.

**Kuya** · 2011-07-12 00:43

Yea i asked myself that too, there are only three major women in the plot. The mom starts talking about how women matter and shia and the dad start basically blowing her off. The girlfriend is basically damsel in distress du jour, and the CIA chief is cast as the resident ball buster who needs a man to mellow her out.

This is a movie that's partially about male insecurities and how much the US military rocks though, some level of misogyny is par for the course.

**Guyverarmor** · 2011-07-13 08:23

Originally Posted by Myrrh_Quetz

I just saw this and I gotta say....I want my money back. I didn't pay to see but I feel owed.

Spoiler: show

I just want them to make Beast Wars. I loved the Beast Wars. No Humans, no bullshit humans.

I want a BW film as well

**Lovex** · 2011-07-13 20:29

REALLY PISSED SHOCKWAVE WAS GIMPED

He started out mega awesome then dies some lol type way and didn't have dialogue.

OMG @ the new chick, again. Bring back megan fox plz for the 4th one.

**SephYuyX** · 2011-07-17 11:52

Bad movie.
First one was awesome, should have just made it longer and ended it there.

**Ksandra** · 2011-07-19 10:06

Shameless bragging:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118040081

Biz crosses blurry line on 'true 3D'
'Transformers' wasn't shot entirely in 3D
By David S. Cohen

"Transformers: Dark of the Moon"

Even "Avatar" used 3D conversion to fix problem shots.
Michael Bay

Bay
Corey Turner

Turner
In the run-up to the June 28 bow of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," Paramount and Michael Bay made it a selling point to tout that the pic was "shot in 3D." The effort aimed to clearly differentiate the franchise's latest installment from pics converted to 3D after lensing, a process that has generated growing ire on the part of moviegoers and contributed to lower grosses for 3D pics.

Trouble is, "Dark of the Moon" wasn't shot entirely in 3D. In fact, about half the picture was shot in 2D and converted to 3D.

For filmmakers versed in the 3D process, however, such distinctions are increasingly moot.

"Transformers" helmer Michael Bay, in fact, says conversion is inherently part of the process for all live-action 3D films.

Bay encountered troublesome technical issues with 3D capture on "Dark of the Moon": misalignment, reflections on the lenses, cameras getting out of sync.

"Sometimes the image is broken and you've got to fix it -- and sometimes it's not fixable, so you have to have conversion companies," said Bay. "It's a must. You can't keep it all native."

The distinction between "real" and "fake" 3D pics is increasingly a false one. Even pics that advertise "shot in 3D" quietly rely on conversion to fix footage and create sharper images.

Bay said he recently warned his longtime friend, "Amazing Spider-Man" d.p. John Schwartzman, that Sony and helmer Marc Webb will end up using conversion on that native-3D pic as well.

"We had a chat and (Schwartzman) goes, 'Well, I shot the whole thing in 3D.' I said 'John you haven't even begun. You think you shot it all in 3D? You have so much broken stuff in there, you don't even know.'?"

Even "Avatar," generally regarded as the pinnacle of 3D precision, had to use 3D conversion to fix shots that had technical problems. After James Cameron helped convince Bay to shoot 3D for "Transformers 3," Bay used conversion even more.

On "Dark of the Moon," some shots are lensed in native 3D, some are all converted, some are a mix of conversion and stereo-rendered CG and some are all CG. And parts of the movie are 2D by design, as Bay wanted to give the audience "depth breaks."

Somewhere from 47% to 52% of the pic's total running time was converted, depending on what shots are counted as "converted." However, since some of the movie is all-CG, in fact less than half of the running time is truly "shot in 3D" -- that is, captured with a stereoscopic camera.

Shooting 3D means shooting digital instead of 35mm, but Bay prefers the look of film for closeups, so any closeups with stereo depth were converted. He also says he used a 3D rig only for his "A" camera at any given moment, because it was simply too cumbersome to manage more than one 3D rig with his run-and-gun shooting style.

Even using the 3D rig selectively, "We had to do a lot of massage work on some of the native photography just to make sure it was comfortable for viewers," said Corey Turner, stereographer on "Transformers 3." He noted that the pic was shot 18 months ago, with 3D rigs that are already obsolete.

"You need both (native and conversion) in the absolute best of scenarios," said Turner. "Let's just say you're able to get the most precise, accurate 3D in the world, but your camera doesn't fit in the location you want to shoot. Let's say it's a small space. What are you going to do? You can try to redefine your rig, you spend a lot of money doing that for a couple of quick shots. Or you can choose to shoot those shots and convert them later."

Turner has heard several ideas of what to shoot native and what to convert, but his idea is simple:

"Shoot what you can native, convert what you can't. And you just kind of go from there. What's more important to me is you go into it with a plan of what kind of 3D movie you want to create."

Lack of creative planning and the last-minute rush to convert movies to 3D has given rise to conversion's bad rep, said Turner. "We've got to stop these 10-week-turnaround conversions. I spent almost a year on 'Alice in Wonderland.' We spent almost nine months on 'Transformers' for just our conversion. You've got to stretch that time out a little bit to make sure it's clean, make sure it's good."

The lead conversion company on "Transformers 3" was Legend3D, with work also done by In-Three and Prime Focus. Turner said that though he'd worked with Legend3D on "Alice in Wonderland," he warned them the quality they'd reached on "Alice" would be unacceptable for "Transformers."

"I think we all looked at each other and there was a little bit of fear in the room," says Turner. Legend3D topper Barry Sandrew said, "We actually spent a year and a significant amount of R&D just preparing for 'Transformers 3,' because this is the most vfx-heavy movie that's ever been converted."

Sandrew credits Bay as "the first director that's been able to intercut conversion and camera capture and do it seamlessly."

Bay and Turner lavish praise on Legend3D, In-Three and Prime Focus for making it possible for Bay to cut seamlessly between native and converted 3D. "Legend did excellent work, they went beyond my expectations," says Bay. "I was just massively impressed. I didn't know they had it in 'em, cause I'm tough on effects and they did a fantastic job." Turner says "They set a really high bar. All of our other conversion vendors had to fall in line with the quality we were getting from Legend, and they all did."

While Bay and Turner were more than satisfied with the 3D quality on "Transformers 3," not everyone agrees with their assessment.

On a Web listserv, DreamWorks Animation global stereoscopic supervisor Phil McNally noted tartly, "A cardboard cutout head over a blurry background is NOT an interesting or creative depth composition. When you can intercut 2D shots into your sequences without anyone noticing this is a clue that your movie is NOT interesting in 3D."

But Rob Engle of Sony Imageworks, while admitting he hadn't yet seen "Transformers 3," noted some directors and d.p.'s "do not like the look of real humans with what most of us on this list would refer to as stereoscopic roundness. ... As a stereographer, we are limited by the lens, composition and aesthetic choices of the director and d.p. We can guide them to water but we cannot make them drink."

Asked by Variety about McNally's comments, Turner said, "Stereo photography is subjective like visual effects are subjective," said Turner, "And it should be treated as such. Each one of us has a different style. Phil's style and the way he is able to create his three-dimensional scenes is what makes him really good for the movies that he does. We chose a different route because we felt it was a better fit for 'Transformers' and for Michael."

Bay himself noted that "native shots are a little bit warmer, the roundness is just a slight bit better, but a movie audience just would not know the difference."

The bottom line, said Turner, is that in order to justify the premium on 3D tickets and avoid leaving auds feeling cheated, "You've got to have a stereographer who's willing to push it and know the limits, and you have to have a director who's willing to cooperate in that situation and help design those 3D scenes." Too often, he said, 3D is just something sent out to a vendor and the director just says, "It looks good to me."

"You wouldn't do that with your visual effects, you wouldn't do that with your color timing, you wouldn't do that with your editing," he says. "It's got to be put into the same category."

And as far as selling "real 3D" over "fake 3D," Turner said, "If there are shows out there and their only marketing point is that they shot in 3D, I think they're going to have problems. Just shooting your show in 3D is not good enough anymore.

"You have to shoot it in 3D but you have to make sure you're customizing the experience so the audience knows you're giving them something extra."

someone's gonna get some good sex with me and another dude tonight!

Spoiler: show

**kuronosan** · 2011-07-20 17:22

Saw this last night. Agreed on most everything - Shockwave gimped, Wheeljack turned into a bitch, pointless Decepticon deaths (that were obviously there because Michael Bay wanted to hammer it home that he was 'done') and cheesy dialogue.

Still better than the second one. Could have totally done without the "You're nothing but Sentinel's bitch" part. Was completely out of place given that Megatron normally would just smack some bitch away in a heartbeat.

**Sol-Blackguy** · 2011-07-20 22:30

First 1/3 of the movie: Typical lovie dovie bullshit that no one cares about + Transformers Movie with Shockwave looking badass (oh shit! Prime finally has a trailer)
Second 1/3 of the movie: Oh snap! Sentinel Prime dropped a Bridget on us! Omg Lazerbeak is an asshole + Why is Patrick Dempsey in this movie?
Final 3rd of the movie: Peeking down at ticket stub to see if I'm watching Transformers or Battle: Los Angeles II

Didn't expect much since 3rd or final installments of movies usually suck ass. (except maybe The Bourne Ultimatum) First 3rd was looking good except the shitty side story, second part was decent, but that last part when all hell broke loose was too out of place. The plot was a lot better than Revenge of the Fallen, but I just didn't feel like I was watching a Transformers move at most parts. Hell, I bet if I got up and took a leak during Sam's bullshit parts, I wouldn't care what I missed and it wouldn't have any effect on the story. One big ass letdown for me was when that Road Warriors tanker was driving through Africa. 2 things were going through my head: Are those elephants going to transform? and Oh shit! it's Scourge... fuck! it's just Megatron. So far 1 and 2 have to be the best of the series, but the 1986 version still rules over all. Not because it was the original, not because it was nostalgic, but because it had the damn theme song and it was performed by Lion.

**Dmitry** · 2011-07-21 22:03

Was there anything during/after the credits? I left after the guy in the wheelchair got arrested.

**Ziero** · 2011-07-22 02:12

Nope, nothing after credits

Thread: Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (MC: 42, RT: 36%)

Thread Tools

Similar Threads

Iron Sky: Nazis on the Moon (MC: 43, RT: 40%)

The Thing (MC: 49, RT: 36%)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (MC: 68, RT: 83%)

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (MC: 68, RT: 74%)

Book of ELI aka Fallout: the movie (MC: 53, RT: 48%)

Legend of Chun Li (MC: 17, RT: 16%)

Latest Threads

Up & Coming Threads

Hottest Threads