Alright, Doomy, let's talk transformers for just a moment.

First thing I have to say is that Soundwave was voice by Welker because Welker voiced soundwave in the cartoons. Look it up if you don't believe me. Dr. Klaw was Soundwave (as well as Megatron, and a few others).

The second thing I have to say is that you cannot claim 'RAPE OF MY CHILDHOOD!!!!' with the latest transformers movies. Fans said they wanted films that were faithful to the ridiculous cartoons, and that's exactly what they got: campy movies that, by and large, Hasbro just uses to sell toys to children. There's cartoon precedent for nearly everything that's done in the films, from the holograms to Optimus Prime's much disputed design (it is absolutely identical to one of the designs used in one of the Korean TF series'; what I imagine happened was that Bay was given a presentation by Hasbro of the different designs they had made over the years for the various transformers, and Bay picked the ones that most appealed to him).

Every specific issue you brought up likely has some precedent from the show (Devastator, for example, was taken apart pretty easily during the fight in Astrotrain after the Decepticons retreated in Transformers: The Movie).

There was nothing to rape. Transformers was all about whoring you some cool toys anyway. That the characters became so iconic was just icing on the proverbial cake; an unintended benefit. The movies follow the TV show formula to the letter; if you don't believe me, go watch the pilot episode of transformers and then watch the first movie again.

I can't see why you'd be upset with Bay and Spielburg if you're a real hardcore traditionalist. They did the series justice, and as promised, made the movies mostly for kids to watch (Hasbro's target audience).

Frankly, I'm disappointed that it's still just the same old transformers from the 80s that they decided to revive. I wish the'd done a reboot of the series for us grown-up fans (Hasbro would be taking a risk, but they could try marketing us adults some high fidelity models alongside such a reboot) rather than just re-releasing stuff for the kids (I know, I'm selfish). There's a big audience for a grittier take on transformers with a much more blurry ethical gradience. I mean, it's a story about a foreign war that's being dropped on our doorstep. There's a lot of depth to explore with that (they even touched on this in the cartoon, with the autobots essentially hiding the fact from the U.S. government that they were on the losing side of the war; but it was just a surface touch. A reboot could really dig into that material).

Anyway, I'm sure the new movie is exactly what it intended to be (a long and exciting toy commercial), much like the first, and is probably at least mildly entertaining to watch. But I'm hoping someone in the future decides to take a new spin on my old childhood cartoon companions.

Doomy, those are awful cams, even among cams.

I'll go to the theatre tomorrow instead. I don't mind paying so I can actually, y'know, see the damn movie.

It's not amazing to what extent people will go to both defend a shit movie, and debate every idiotic point about it, regardless of who made the point.

Guess you way more bored than I'm just trying to put meself to sleep by responding.

Aye... guilty

... really? o_O

... the way you're still defending this, you must not have gone out to the movies yet

This isn't accurate. First, Sam couldn't bring Bumblebee with him due to the University's rules (for some bizarre reason the University portrayed in the film did not allow Freshmen to own personal vehicles). Second... there was only one member added to the human cast, and he didn't get all that much screen time (he was mostly used for comic relief). At any rate, the human cast did not outnumber the Transformer cast, particularly when you factor-in the Decepticon gumbies.

 - Yes, the scene where Sam was interrogated included a machine that looked like the robot bug from the Matrix. But the scene didn't feel very similar, and you should consider:

This was an obvious throwback element to the Matrix scene in question, given that Mr. Smith (Hugo Weaving) voices Megatron and Megatron was doing the interrogation. This actually made me laugh.

 - Bay likes doing scenes where buildings get smashed-up by high velocity projectiles. If you go into a movie he makes and are surprised when you see this, you probably don't go to the theatre very often.

 - The decepticon chick was a throwback to the Pretenders toy line, and I must sheepishly admit I was aglow with nostalgia when I saw that scene.

 - The Optimus Prime fight scene was fantastic, and yes, most definitely a throwback to the TF: The Movie fight to end all fights between Optimus and Megatron.

 - Uh. Unless I missed it, the sun-killing plot device in Revenge of the Fallen was not called 'The Ark'.

 - This loosely follows established Transformers canon, though some creative liberties have obviously been taken with the origin of Cybertron (and thank God for that. The original origin story was horrdendous). 'The Primes' are a clear reference to first generation transformers like Alpha Trion, which makes 'The Fallen' the original betrayers of the rebellion against the Quintessons (assuming they implement the Quintessons'. I hope they don't. Like I said, that origin story sucked), just like 'The Cube' was a clear re-envisioning of Vector Sigma.

 - Megatron does not die at the end. He flees with Starscream. Perhaps that part was clipped out in the shitty cam you watched.

 - Devastator, who was a throwaway gumbie in this film anyway, was killed via dues ex machina (a U.S. anti-transformer superweapon they had mounted on a ship). It happens sometimes. The fight between Devastator, Mudflap and Mudflap's counterpart was fun to watch regardless.

 - I liked Mudflap and his compatriot. They screamed Saturday morning cartoon. Their first scene where they share an altmode as an Ice Cream Truck is another throwback to one of the transformer toy lines - the Micromaster Combiners (...a real possibility for the Micromaster and Pretender throwbacks is that, after a lot of transformers fans discovered this new thing called 'girls' and stopped buying toys, these were the only toy lines able to keep Hasbro afloat with their sales).

At any rate, the Ice Cream truck was only in one scene. You couldn't handle one scene of silliness?

...Some time back in the 1990s

"...Guys! Guys! Oh my God, I just heard about this new thing and you've *got* to check it out!"

"Woah, Clint, slow down. Is it that new re-deco of Soundwave? It is pretty cool, but I've still got to wait another wekk before my mom will give me my next allowance."

"No, no - not the new Soundwave. It's *better* than that! No jokes!"

"...What? Have you gone crazy? What could be better than the new re-deco of Soundwave?"

"It's this brand new thing. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's brand new. I just noticed it, anyway. It's called 'girls'."

" 'Girls'? Well, it doesn't sound very cool. What's it about? Who brought it out?"

"...Well, I admit, I'm pretty new to the whole thing. I'm not exactly sure where they came from. But each one comes with a pair of these things called 'boobies', and man, are they fun to play around with. You'll just have to take my word for it."

"Are they posable?"

"Oh, yeah. Fully posable. And automated, too! Dude... I'm not sure how they did it, but you don't even have to put batteries in them! Just buy them some chocolate every now and then and your set!"

"Chocolate?"

"...Don't ask, dude. I don't have all the answers yet. Just follow me! And hurry up; everybody is starting to pick up at least one for themselves - I hear that Craig Phillips even has 2 - and there's only so many left!"

...And so girls were discovered, and Transformers abandoned. Tragically, not every young man had also yet made the all-important discovery of shampoo and toothpaste, and so were left behind to collect the plastic relics of Hasbro and spend their life savings on DVD re-releases of old cartoon shows.

DDA, I'm not sure if Transformers is/ever was your thing, but if you do happen to have a spare 2 and a half hours between eating vaginas, there's worse things you could do with it than watch the new movie. It's pretty fun.

I could quibble about details, but that's pretty much how it happened.  Good show, old boy.  Good show.  

Actually I never knew about a Soundwave re-release, but I did have the original Soundwave, Shockwave, Jetfire, Optimus, Megatron and the component bots of Devastor... of course I was five at the time.  Knowing my mom, they're somewhere up in the attic, baking in the heat of the South Carolina day and cooling down every night only to continue the cycle of warping every morning.

Wait a god damn minute.  Were you comparing me to Cartman?  You bastard...

Once again, I could quibble about details, but that's not far from the truth either.

... greed is kicking in

You could probably sell those to some dumb mook for decent money!

Ah, the mob. So fickle.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_the_movie/

...It's not like Revenge of the Fallen was a radical departure from the 1st Transformers movie. Both were shallow popcorn flics. I guess that's what people were looking for in '07, not so much in '09.

It happens.

They were crane hooks, by the way, not a scrotum. The testicles comment was just another cheap bit of juvenile humor (I didn't find it that funny, but most people in the theatre laughed). Anyway, I liked the film, and found it to be a massive improvement over the '07 production (especially in terms of writing). Plenty of people apparently disagree, but oh well.

Ah yes... Dr.Smoov

He always does good work, he's even moved into custom CG

(whole series somewhere... )

This is one geekfest I can't commit myself to. I too watched and loved the cartoon as a child, but even cable at the time only had 25 odd channels, and I was able to see it literally once a month. In later years it wasn't on at all that I could find, so I missed probably 95% of the episodes. I did see the toon movie a couple times.
But I can say that while there are corny bits geared to children, this movie is awesome, and a must see. Better than the first, which is also a must see.
Edit: One thing occurs to me. Was not the Autobot ship in the cartoon called "The Ark"?