TF2 disappointments [Spoilers]

[Cliffjumper]

They are the ones who get trained to have seven shades of shit blown out of them. Nobody ever swore in Warlord, to the best of my recollection.]

Warlord Annuals, that's what I was after...

[Sir Auros]

My views on the language and innuendo are pretty similar to Akula's. The first movie had the same rating, but it had a lot less of that stuff, and it wasn't as painfully forced and unsubtle as the "funny" parts in the sequel. The only dirty parts that stick out to me in the original were the masturbation dialogue and Jazz calling the humans little bitches. This movie had a lot more of it, and it was pretty gratuitous in some parts.

If I were a parent and a Transformers fan, I would have been pissed about the movie. As a Transformers fan, I would have wanted to stay as in the dark as possible, so I wouldn't have "done my homework." Additionally, given how inoffensive the first movie was, I would not have expected this one to be that dirty.

The worst offense is that almost all of the swearing is forced, the dirty jokes are LCD material that's even too juvenile for me, and the gangsta jive is ludicrous. It was all just unnecessary, but I guess dumbass teenagers and the uneducated dregs will eat it up.

Also, everything that happened at the college was cringe-worthy, the Witwicky family is stupid, and the humans managed to suck even more in this movie than the first.

I did like the movie overall, and I think it was better than the first if only because there were more Transformers, more mythology, and less human bullshit. I just think the human parts were even more obnoxious, and the "humor" was only funny if you're part of the lowest common denominator.

EDIT - As far as violence goes, we're not talking about SAW here, it's cartoon/videogame violence. It's the type of stuff that should have been in the original cartoon. Even the humans who get killed mostly just disappear in an explosion. At least it wasn't just thrown in cheaply, it fit the story, and made sense in the context. These are machines that have been fighting a civil war for millions of years, not third-rate black/hillbilly stand-up comedians.

[Notabot]

As a Transformers fan, I would have wanted to stay as in the dark as possible, so I wouldn't have "done my homework." Additionally, given how inoffensive the first movie was, I would not have expected this one to be that dirty.

The worst offense is that almost all of the swearing is forced, the dirty jokes are LCD material that's even too juvenile for me, and the gangsta jive is ludicrous. It was all just unnecessary,

Yup. As a fan, I did no homework. As a parent, though, I knew already that my children would not be seeing this in the theater. We'll get the DVD, we can skip the objectionable parts. This is pretty much the case for any movie. Given the garbage that Disney puts out in both TV and movie, I don't assume that anything's a "safe" movie anymore.

And, yeah, that was my big problem with the swearing and stuff too. It didn't fit the movie at all. It would have been a much better movie had the vast majority of that been edited out. Maybe one or two at a convenient place, but it was so overdone and just didn't fit.

On a side note, I'd be curious how much is scripted that way. I recall from somewhere that Mr. Lebeouffexef said parts of the first were skeletally scripted (seems like most of the parts where he said the same thing several times), so I wonder how much was done on the fly and how much was written exactly as delivered.

[fantomdranzerx]

While we're mentioning disappointments...here's something weird. Why is it, all of a sudden, all the transformers spit? Megs, Starscream, Prime, and Jetfire all let loose with mouth juice. Where'd that come from?

Oh yeah...and because it can't be mentioned enough: Devestator's balls.

Well, I think Prime spat out a tooth, or a piece of his faceplate. I don't remember the other three spitting, though. But yeah, Devastator's balls were definitely unnecessary. The Cybertronians don't need to be that anthropomorphic.

Other than the huge increase in sex jokes (I can stand the language; I hear my friends say similar things in school), I found Skids and Mudflap rather annoying. I mean, they weren't really that funny. Actually, I'd also be happier if they didnt' swear so much; it would be safer for families.

[Vin Ghostal]

I didn't have a problem with the violence - it's a war to the death between giant robots. If you don't walk in expecting violence, you're grossly misinformed. All the foul language, however, I find off-putting, particularly when it's coming from Transformers. I don't know why, but characters like Wheelie cursing gratuitously just makes me...uncomfortable.

[Cliffjumper]

I'm not entirely sure what this big problem with Devastator's 'balls' is. It's not like they're his testicles, and someone kicks him in them and he goes down or something - they're two wrecking balls hanging between his legs, and Simmons makes the same stupid assumption as, well, some of you. I mean, have a problem with Simmons making said assumption and all and by all means feel it wasn't funny, but people should probably stop acting like we saw a sweaty hairy ballsack or something.

fantomdranzerx, for example, is acting like a cartoon.

[Summerhayes]

Why is it, all of a sudden, all the transformers spit? Megs, Starscream, Prime, and Jetfire all let loose with mouth juice. Where'd that come from?

That annoyed me a little bit as well. Prime only spat out broken parts and Jetfire was old and leaky, but why were Screamy and Megs spitting everywhere? And why was Ravage full of gunge? I assumed it was to do with Cybertron being so minging and on the brink of death and also the fact that the Decepticons are, of course, baddies.

(and don't anyone give me the toys thing, bloody Terminator had a toyline in the 1990s)

The difference is, Transformers was a children's toyline first with the cartoon and comics and films and videogames and lunchboxes coming from the toys. It was invented for the children- kids want to see the heroic Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons.
Terminator was an 18-rated thriller designed for adults, which still scared my girlfriend when she watched it for the first time today. The toys came later, as a result of the robots being very cool. They're more for adult collectors, I would imagine, than for the children whose grandparents used to let them watch 18-rated Arnie films when they were 2 (like me.)

people should probably stop acting like we saw a sweaty hairy ballsack or something.

QFT

[Cliffjumper]

Nah, see, for some time Transformers has been divided between stuff aimed at kids (the cartoons, the UT & Animated stuff) and stuff aimed at [note for dullards: read all the words, I don't give a **** if you saw some random kid buying a TFC Skywarp] an older teens/twenty-something audience (the DW/IDW comics, the old kids' show on DVD, Alternators, reissues). If the film was genuinely aimed at a young or family audience they'd have sanitised it to get a U (is it 'G' in America?) rating.

Transformers fans obviously have a good reason to scope it out in detail, though Warcry showed that vague explanations are findable. General families? It's their fault for taking kids to see a film they haven't at least done some in-depth research into.

[Sir Auros]

Like I said earlier, it has the same rating (PG-13) as the first movie; however, the first movie was a borderline PG, and ROTF is more on the R end of things. If I were a parent, I would have been disappointed by the gratuitous crap in the movie. I disagree with Warcry's claim that not researching the movie is bad parenting, for the reasons I mentioned in my first post in the thread.

EDIT - Also, for what it's worth, the Terminator 2 toys actually took a lot of heat in the media in the early 90s for basically the same reasons as Joe Camel. Something targeted at kids to get them into something adult.

[Summerhayes]

Nah, see, for some time Transformers has been divided between stuff aimed at kids and stuff aimed at an older teens/twenty-something audience

True, but I don't think its fair to say the film is aimed entirely at that audience. For the general pulic (i.e, people who are never going to come on this website) Transformers was a cartoon in the 80s and a film now. The stuff which is squarely aimed at adults is, for all intents and purposes, fringe media.

[Ackula]

Like I said earlier, it has the same rating (PG-13) as the first movie; however, the first movie was a borderline PG, and ROTF is more on the R end of things. If I were a parent, I would have been disappointed by the gratuitous crap in the movie. I disagree with Warcry's claim that not researching the movie is bad parenting, for the reasons I mentioned in my first post in the thread.

This is exactly what I meant too. It carried the exact same rating as the first film, yet it had tons more inappropriate language. I don't know of any sort of "homework" I could have done that would have told me the exact curse words and how frequently they are used. I read the rating, saw it was the same as the first film, and assumed it would be. I avoided all the news threads about ROTF so that I would have an awesome experience when I saw the film. I had no knowledge of any of the plot details or anything going into it.

I really don't think its bad parenting, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone without kids has any right to even have an opinion about this subject...little alone have the right to judge someone's parenting ability. It would be like me posting my opinion on a "good" nuclear physicist, obviously I would have no clue what the **** I was talking about, and just come off as an ass. And before it gets said, having young siblings, cousins, ect is not, and never will be, the same as being a parent. Until you are a parent, you won't get it, to be perfectly honest.

As far as the whole Transformers isn't for kids, its really hard to explain that to a kid who sees the toys in every department store, and has watched every Transformers cartoon there is. Transformers is a kids toyline, just because there have been some releases that cater more towards adult collectors, there is no reason to assume that the movie would throw all good humor and common sense out the window. They have to know that children are going to want to see this movie, and Bay has even been quoted as saying that the Twins are there mostly for the kids...the two characters that use the most cursing..next to Wheelie.

[Warcry]

I disagree with Warcry's claim that not researching the movie is bad parenting, for the reasons I mentioned in my first post in the thread.

I'm not saying that it's bad parenting, because IMO something like this is so far down the scale of what's important that it's barely worth noticing -- when I was a kid, my parents and all of my friends' parents let us watch movies that were wildly inappropriate for our age, and we turned out fine.

What I am saying is that people don't get to get all worked up with moral outrage about a movie not being what they expected when they could have spent five minutes online reading reactions and reviews to the movie and found out that, hey, it's filled with a lot more vulgarity and crude humour than the first one was. If people decide not to do that because they want to avoid spoilers then that is their problem, not Micheal Bay's.

I really don't think its bad parenting, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone without kids has any right to even have an opinion about this subject...little alone have the right to judge someone's parenting ability.

People without children have every right to speak up, because when someone does a bad job raising their children everyone in society suffers for it. And until we get rid of all of the people out there who genuinely are bad parents, that's not going to change.

[inflatable dalek]

Here in the UK it's a 12A, the entire point of which is supposed to be that parents with children younger than this should check it out properly first to be sure. I'm not sure how analogous that is to its rating in the US but certainly in this country parents who took very young kids to see it and were then surprised when it didn't agree with them do only have themselves to blame. It's not some obscure little heard of film we're talking about, it's easy enough to check. Hell, even the rating bits on the poster give you a good summing up of it.

It's also worth remembering Hasbro's two pronged assault, Animated is basically specifically aimed at that younger end of the market not old enough for the film stuff.

[Denyer]

Even the humans who get killed mostly just disappear in an explosion. At least it wasn't just thrown in cheaply, it fit the story, and made sense in the context. These are machines that have been fighting a civil war for millions of years, not third-rate black/hillbilly stand-up comedians.

Yeah, Transformers, written to spec (i.e. it's a war) isn't kid-friendly at all. That's a large part of the reason kids like it -- the same goes for Batman.

Mildly surprised at the number of limp bodies floating close to camera in the ocean scenes, so fair play to them. It still broke disbelief quite frequently to see people not get pasted by debris flying around and humans tossed around like Transformers without doing much damage; Shia wounding himself during the shooting was actually a plus point, else I doubt we'd have seen any injury on-screen until much later.

I disagree with Warcry's claim that not researching the movie is bad parenting

It is bad guardianship. That isn't to say that the rating isn't wrong, but we've got final responsibility for anything we deliberately take kids to see, show them in the classroom, etc. There's not even the flimsy excuse that kids have been given (inadvisable) unrestricted access to a TV or internet connection. Looking after kids means that personal feelings about spoilers take a backseat to finding and reading some reviews written by people with roughly the same sensibilities about content as yourself.

(Or by this lot for entertainment value and mention of anything discerning religious fundamentalists could find even slightly objectionable; unfortunately they don't stay up-to-date much these days, but the review of the first film should give a fair idea of where they see it sitting.)

Of course, I'd also wager that most of us saw a fair number of 18 certificate films as kids and it didn't turn the majority of us into psychotics -- plus that we saw (and indeed have shown) a fair amount of material at school that was technically for older eyes only.

[Cliffjumper]

Uh-huh. There might be the Chromia card of "We don't know what it's like to be parents", but we do all know what it's like to be kids, and I think there are probably very few of us who didn't do a few things before it was strictly legal to do so, and turned out plenty fine. It might be a cultural thing - if you got to the age 12 without hearing the f-word (that's our version of the f-bomb - is everything American violent? ) you'd have led a very sheltered life.

Ignoring that 'pussy' has multiple meanings (even "pussy" has a non-embarrassing explanation - he's not literally calling him a vagina, he's calling him a wuss/pussycat... ), we're talking about a few "Shit"s, aren't we? So, where're the pitchforks for that Maverick menu? Or indeed, the original, where the sudden use in a very clean cartoon really, really stands out.

I felt the language was excessive just because, well, it displayed a certain lack of imagination. Wasn't mad on TFs swearing, even if the universe has a built-in explanation for any human mannerisms/modes of speech that the TFs use, but then I'm not mad on TFs going "I think it's my camshaft" or "Me Grimlock blah blah" either, thems the breaks...

[Sir Auros]

I'm just going to have to disagree with both of you (Warcry and Denyer). I don't think the excess was necessary, or amusing, and the first movie and second have drastic differences in crude content despite having the exact same rating. The rating being the thing that's supposed to tell you what questionable content is in the movie. That's supposed to be the extent of the research you should have to do.

[inflatable dalek]

I think we're now back to the difference between the UK and US rating then, the Advisory in the 12A means parents are supposed to check. What was it in America, a PG13 or just a straight PG?

[Denyer]

[edit] Dalek --

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055369/

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material. [/edit]

I don't think the excess was necessary, or amusing,

Likewise, though the bits that stood out most personally were Leo's backroom ops and Wheelie humping Mikaela's leg.

That's supposed to be the extent of the research you should have to do.

http://www.mpaa.org/flmrat_ratings.asp

A PG-13 rating is a sterner warning by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture, as some material might not be suited for them. A PG-13 motion picture may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category. The theme of the motion picture by itself will not result in a rating greater than PG-13, although depictions of activities related to a mature theme may result in a restricted rating for the motion picture. Any drug use will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. More than brief nudity will require at least a PG-13 rating, but such nudity in a PG-13 rated motion picture generally will not be sexually oriented. There may be depictions of violence in a PG-13 movie, but generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent violence. A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. The Rating Board nevertheless may rate such a motion picture PG-13 if, based on a special vote by a two-thirds majority, the Raters feel that most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of those words in the motion picture is inconspicuous.

So, the rating itself ("PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED") is based on guardians investigating whether they consider a film is suitable for their charges. It's very reactive to people saying things like "I want to f*ck you", but allows for drug use, scatological swearing and a fair measure of violence.

Even the PG classification includes "A PG-rated motion picture should be investigated by parents" and "There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence".

[wolfbolt86]

Just because a rating of PG-13 doesn't mean that it is alright to bring the kids. Hell the Dark Knight isn't a show to bring the kids and it's rated PG-13. I've seen all manners of movies that should have been rated above or below the rating it was given.

Also remember that a lot of the older PG films had quite a few cursings. Hell Tank was give a PG rating even though it had used the F world.

Parents should never based seeing something based just on the rating alone.

[The PS3 KILLeR]

I was surprised at how poor I thought the effects were, actually. Not the explosions and such, but the character animation. Sure, they're impressively detailed, but they're not very clear and the weight and motion felt completely off throughout most of the fight scenes.

I know what you mean, they were kinda jumpy and too fluid. the part where Starscream rips up the tree had that wonkyness to it when I saw it screened, but when I saw it on a tv spot it looked Perfect. Maybe it have something to do with it the whole anytime you copy something it takes away 10% of the quality and when you screen it you take away 20% more factor.

Just because a rating of PG-13 doesn't mean that it is alright to bring the kids. Hell the Dark Knight isn't a show to bring the kids and it's rated PG-13. I've seen all manners of movies that should have been rated above or below the rating it was given.

Also remember that a lot of the older PG films had quite a few cursings. Hell Tank was give a PG rating even though it had used the F world.

Parents should never based seeing something based just on the rating alone.

Yeah the dark Knight is... well DARK. Yet floods of kids saw it. And talking about PG movies with F bombs, Spaceballs is one that comes to mind. it whould get an R today easy. But back then there was no PG-13, it was just G, PG,R,X and that was it. X was replaced by NC-17. you can thank Indiana jones for the PG-13 rating, as Raiders was the reason they made it up. They didn't want to go R but PG was too light, and speilberg said how about a PG-14 or 13 and a few years later out came PG-13.