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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Follow-up Transformers

As a sort of response to my previous Transformers post, I wanted to share a funny one I stumbled across this morning outlining the film's various plot holes, written by Matt McDaniel. It had me giggling, and these are all things I noticed as well, so I thought I'd share them with you. You can view the (whole) original post here. I've included all of the plot holes (but there's an intro I didn't include).

1. In "Transformers," there was this giant battle in the middle of downtown Los Angeles -- excuse me, Mission City -- that was witnessed by thousands of people at the very least. But somehow the government was able to cover up the whole thing, and now the existence of alien robots is just an internet rumor? How did they do it? Pay off everyone who was there and quickly fix millions of dollars in damage? Also, didn't Keller (Jon Voight) go on TV and tell everyone we were being attacked by "a technological civilization far superior to our own"? How did they spin that?

2. There are two pieces of the Allspark cube left: the military has one under lock and key, and Sam discovers another. The Decepticons steal one and bring Megatron back to life. But when Sam (Shia LaBeouf) wants to bring back Optimus, he has to find the Matrix of Leadership on the other side of the globe. Why not use the other piece? Mikaela (Megan Fox) has it in her backpack the whole time. It brought his kitchen appliances to life, why can't it do the same for Optimus?

3. Speaking of Megatron's rebirth, when the Decepticons venture deep into the ocean to revive him, the Navy crew tracking them reads five contacts. When they get down there, they tear apart one of the robots for parts to rebuild Megatron. Then as they rise to the surface, the same Navy guys say they spot six contacts. The little "Doctor" robot popped out down there, but he's about a third of the size of a person. Would he have shown up on sonar?

4. That reminds me: even if I were to forgive the Doctor's German accent -- and director Michael Bay is asking me to forgive a lot of ridiculous accents -- why would a robot need glasses? He has little lenses that flip in front of his mechanical eyes. Couldn't he just get his eyes adjusted? You'd think with all the laser guns, someone could perform a Lasik procedure.

5. Apparently, Transformers can look like people now. How? And how is it that even though the robo-girl (Isabel Lucas) is made of metal, she can still straddle Sam without crushing him. And if Bumblebee knows something's wrong with her, why does he spit antifreeze at her instead of telling Sam? Yes, his voicebox is broken, but wasn't it fixed at the end of the last movie?

6. The Fallen is the last of the Primes, since they all sacrificed themselves to stop him from destroying the sun. But then he says that Optimus is a descendant of the Primes. First, Transformers have kids? And second, how could he descend from them if they were all dead? And if the Fallen could only be destroyed by a Prime, why didn't the originals just gang up on him back in the day? And what makes Optimus so special, anyway? Megatron beat him earlier, but all it takes is a few spare parts from creaky old Jetfire for him to take out the Fallen?

7. Sam, Mikaela, and Simmons (John Turturro) go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. to find Jetfire. Then they walk out the back onto a wide open field with old planes and mountains in the distance. When did the National Mall start to look so much like to Tucson, AZ (where they really filmed that scene)?

8. The geography is just as bad when they go to Egypt. The stone city of Petra in Jordan is over 250 miles away, over mountainous terrain, with few paved roads and the Israeli border between them, so how can they drive from one to the other in a couple of hours. And the Pyramids are said to be shooting distance from the Mediterranean, but they are actually well over 80 miles inland. Even if the Navy ship had a secret rail gun, and even if the captain would take an order to fire from a former agent of a government branch that no longer exists (over a walkie-talkie that inexplicably starts working again), how could it hit a moving target from that distance?

9. Sam briefly dies and goes to Robot Heaven. Robot Heaven?!?!

10. Where does Sam's bandage come from? What about his extra sock? Why does Sam's roommate not contribute anything at all? What was the Fallen doing for those thousands of years Megatron was frozen in ice? How does one satellite receive transmissions from everywhere on the planet? Why does Wheelie hump Mikaela's leg? Why do we have to see John Turturro's thong? Why are robots who join together to become Devastator also seen fighting the Army at the same time? Why does the government want only our military fighting Decepticons when our weapons seem unable to make so much as a dent on any of them? Why did the ancient Egyptians build a pyramid around the sun-destroying machines instead of just breaking it? Why is the Matrix of Leadership bigger in the Fallen's hand than in Sam's? And how do Mikaela's pants stay so clean?

(Emphasis is all mine--just wanted to point out my very favorite parts!).

My very favorite one is the robot heaven thing. I mean, I'm not even sure of the existence of a people heaven, let alone one for robots to lurk around all...roboty....

This movie sure sucks. I upset my male boss today by saying how bad it was. He hasn't seen it yet. He seems like the kind of dude that will love it (especially since the burning question he had was "How did Megan Fox look?" This from a man who thinks Batman is weak. Whatevs dude).

5 comments:

Patrick said...

I went into this knowing that I would be suffering a bone-crushingly, mind-numbingly stupid, terrible film. But at the completion, I just wanted to rewind my life two and a half hours the moment this film was over... So, so awful.

Blue Mako said...

I'll point out that the "robot heaven" concept predates the movie (I think Beast Wars might have started it, the way it introduced the concept of sparks, ie robot souls, to the franchise) Also that while THAT Transformers reproduce is a fact, no two writers seem to agree on HOW they do it.

"Why are robots who join together to become Devastator also seen fighting the Army at the same time?"
I believe Constructicons are a "race" (like the Seekers) in this continuity, and thus there's multiples of each type. Yet another Devastator component is sacrificed to rez Megatron as well, I believe.

FilthyGrandeur said...

these are just things i thought were funny, and in no way originate from me. besides, i'm all about robots potentially having souls, but not in this movie--it was just one more over the top thing here.

you want robot souls done right, go read yourself some Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee and get back to me ;)

eloriane said...

Wasn't that also the least plausible college campus you have ever seen on film? The astronomy professor! His pompous lecture! With the blatant sexual harassment of students! Even though the Dean was, as he explicitly stated, in the room! My parents are both professors and they laughed out loud. That's the kind of stuff that gets you fired, instantly and justifiably.

Also, why in the world did we have to watch that stupid mom-on-pot sequence? I couldn't stand it.

But the Egyptian/Jordanian geography was my "favourite" piece. I'll even give them the drive to Petra from Egypt-- it's 250 miles and ought to involve at least two checkpoints, with passports, what with going into and then out of Israel and all, but the movie did at least indicate that it took them a while. No, what I object to is the part where Sam and Mikaela then ran back to Egypt to get to the drop point that they chose.

I only saw the movie because Michael Bay is a brother in my fraternity (it's co-ed, long story) and my brothers told me that our fraternity played a role. If you look closely at the cake at the frat party, it has our name on it. Woo.

Blue Mako said...

According to the novelization, Alice's human appearance is in fact the result of scanning an animatronic character from an amusement park and using it as an alt mode...

Actually, the novelization seems to be a lot better than the movie. Seems like there was a big script revision in between, for the worse (for example, the reference to the Twins being illiterate isn't present in the novel, instead they respond the same way Wheelie does, "That's the language of the Primes, we can't read it"). It's... wierd.