DISQUS

Film School Rejects: Transformers

  • Tara · 2 years ago
    Finally a Transformers review that I agree with!!!
  • Dylan · 2 years ago
    "This is a movie made for juveniles, by juveniles, nothing more"

    and thanfully there is no age limit on being a juvenile.
  • Brian Gibson · 2 years ago
    "distasteful image of Megatron, in jet form, cutting a building in half brings back painful memories of 9/11"...This is the first time I have heard anyone reference this. I think it's a bit of a reach...otherwise you are by far one of the more convincing Bay-Haters
  • Neil Miller · 2 years ago
    “distasteful image of Megatron, in jet form, cutting a building in half brings back painful memories of 9/11"

    Are you shitting me?

    How did I miss that while editing this article? Not that I would have taken it out or anything... But I would have loved to make a comment earlier. I don't see how you can possibly relate this to 9/11. That is like saying that the flood in Evan Almighty is painfully reminiscent of the floods after Hurricane Katrina... It just doesn't make sense.

    It is one thing to spit venom at this film out of your angst toward Michael Bay, but leave national disasters and attacks on America out of this...
  • Clayton L. White · 2 years ago
    I don't think I should have to apologize for a simple gut reaction. Do I think that Bay purposefully set up that shot to mirror the tragedy of 9/11? No, I don't believe that at all. But in my mind, I couldn't help but feel that the scene was a little distasteful, and I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't mention it.

    I am not spitting venom at this film out of my angst for Michael Bay, I am spitting venom at this film because it was so poorly made.

    And yes, there obviously is no age limit on being juvenile, as the success of this film has proven.
  • H. Stewart · 2 years ago
    I haven't seen Transformers (notice I didn't say "yet") but I had a similar reaction to Clayton's when watching a steel beam slice through a building in Spiderman 3 that I didn't hear anyone else mention; whether intentional or not, I would believe 9/11 is so deeply entwined with "disaster imagery" in our culture's mind that it inspires (consciously or unconsciously) contemporary filmmaking. I don't think Neil's Katrina analogy is apt, because there's no iconic images of impending flood waters the way there are of plane-on-Trade-Center impact. At this point in time, I don't think you can cut through a building, particularly in jet form, without evoking September 11th.
  • Clayton L. White · 5 months ago
    I thought the same thing about that scene in Spiderman, and I don't think it's ridiculous to feel that way. When I see a building, essentially being cut in half, with people screaming inside, I think of 9/11. And yes, I know it was a talking evil jet that was pushing a talking hero Semi-truck through the building, but it still made me think that way. The fact that no one else thought this while watching the film amazes me.
  • dannybee · 2 months ago
    "I don't think it's ridiculous to feel that way."

    Well, it is, whether you think so or not.

    Anyone who automatically associates skyscrapers being destroyed in movies (by giant robots or otherwise) to 9/11, and then calls the scene in a movie "distasteful" for featuring such a spectacle, has obviously run out of things to bitch about and is trying to create non-existent flaws to fuel their endless griping...