Is Transformers (2007) better than Transformers: The Movie ?

[spiderfrommars]

Okay, so I realise this might get some backs up, but isn't the 2007 movie better than the 1986 one?

I've just spent a very pleasurable evening watching the animated movie. Having not seen it since I bought the DVD (in 2007, probably) I felt more objective about it than usual.

It goes without saying that the nostalgic heart-warming feelings this film gives me cannot be bettered by the Michael Bay movies.

It's better than it had any right to be, considering it was there primarily to sell a new range of toys. It brought some great things to the table, including top notch voice acting, some memorable one liners, and a sense (for the first time in the animated series) that war has its casualties.

So, as a toy movie, it deserves about a 9/10. As a Transformer movie for Transformers fans, let's go with 9/10 as well.

But as a movie in its own right... maybe 5/10? For non fans, there's not much to see here.

Meanwhile, the Michael Bay movie breaks free from its toy origins and is better than average PG-oriented summer blockbuster fare, even if a lot of its successes came from the groundwork Transformers laid in the 80s.

Okay, so it doesn't have the heart of Spielberg, the wit of Whedon or the brains of Nolan, but it delivered in spectacle. I'll go with a 7/10.

Uh oh, I just handed victory to the 2007 version. But what do you think?

(For the record, I'd place TF:TM higher than Revenge of the Fallen or Dark of the Moon. There's a fine line between spectacle and debacle.)

[Sunyavadin]

Short answer? No.

[Sunyavadin]

Long answer:

I'd generally consider the 1986 Transformers to have writing equivalent to one of the better animated films to come out of Disney, and certainly voice acting on a par with Pixar or Dreamworks stuff.
Meanwhile, the bay one is derivative, has bad acting, an overreliance on special effects (And don't even get me started on the third film's recycling of effects from The Island, because what? They ran out of money??? Unlikely.) rather than plot.
It's very much a film following the formula Hollywood perfected with Super Mario Bros.
Plotwise, It's equal parts Da Vinci Code and AVP 2. (Not to diss AVP 2, watch that film as it's intended and it's brilliant on its own merits. It's a crappy American Teen movie where EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO HAPPEN TO THOSE SAME CHARACTERS YOU SEE IN EVERY SUCH FILM ACTUALLY HAPPENS.) And don't get me started on the overly in your face product placement. There is only ONE product you can sell with this film without getting the audience tired of your crap. But hey, since it's a 2 and a half hour advert for it, why not y'know, show us said product a bit more? The 1986 film is guilty of the product placement to no small degree, killing off tons of established characters so the new toy range can shine, but it feels less tacked-on. Also GM cars suck. Just sayin'.
Unfortunately, the biggest thing that just turns me off so many films, is the very way in which they are written. And also a reason why I tend to stick to independent ones these days. I dislike the hollywood way of doing it. It shows through too much. When you have a random script lying around, and decide to tack brand recognition onto it, and then rewrite the script a dozen times to make it sort of fit, it's messy. Compare it to Ink, or Primer, or Inception? Not even close to the well nailed down writing, and sense of direction those films have.

The 1986 one knew what it was doing. It knew where it was going, and delivered A-B neatly, and with some nice spectacle along the way. These days, it'd be one of those good films that come out all the time, and make steady money in the background while the big blockbusters have all the TV spots and bus ads. I'm looking at about half of Dreamworks' stuff which often outdoes the Pixar competition released at the same time for quality, even as Disney money buys up every bit of advertising space in the city.

[Computron]

I loved the 2007 TF Movie. Really the only fault I had with it was that its sequel was so...underwhelming.

It's consistently funny, entertaining, and like Spider said earlier, it's a spectacle, rather than a debacle. I know I wasn't the only one to have the hairs on my arm stand on end when Optimus first appeared, transformed and spoke. The music was also really well done, and highlighted each scene perfectly. Also Bernie Mac is hilarious. We can't forget John Turturro either. It's my opinion his role was the standout role by far.

TF:TM is also brilliant, but is more narrow in scope. While the animation has poor moments at times (Hello Snarl, goodbye Snarl), and the plot is not necessarily that "complex," it still is entertaining at any age, has a fantastic soundtrack, and it did give us a lot of new TF's that have stuck around and become fan favorites, from Ultra Magnus, to Springer, to of course Galvatron.

But as I learned with my wife, who watched both movies around roughly the same time, and wasn't exactly a big TF fan, the 2007 movie was more entertaining. And frankly, I agree. I think it does a better job of drawing non TF-fanatics into the fandom, and well, to be fair, spending 100 million on presentation does make a difference.

Now if TF:TM had a 100 million dollar budget and some more time on the script, maybe this would be different. Can you imagine a few minutes at the beginning of the movie showing Unicron and Primus' battle in the Astral Plane before shifting to the Material plane and modern Cybertron? Or the animation being done in the MTMTE style? Iron out a few of the dialogue choices, reformat Wheelie and you can leave the plot pretty much the same and it would be brilliant.

[Kaylee]

I'm going to sit on the fence and say, objectively, they're both kinda nosh as films if we're talking artistic 'merit'. Neither is original in story, particularly gripping regarding character arc, intricate in terms of motivation or character depth. Both are bombasts- heavy on promise (Beyond Good, Beyond Evil, Beyond Your Wildest Imagination!) and shallow on substance; the only difference being what that equates to in 1987 vs. 2007.

Is one better because it's a soulless big-budget live action? Is the other better because it has a rag-bag of semi-big names who needed cash?

It'd be churlish to say 'it's all opinion': that's art for you. I guess it comes down to what people want: the 2007 version is more accessible for multiple reasons (IMO)- it is visually more modern, it actually has some build-up and back story, it follows the current (and therefore expected) path of an action movie and it has a more neutral pitch than a kid's cartoon. That'd be my guess why it goes down better with non-TF folks. Does that make it a better film? I guess so, if our measurement is accessibility.

That said, I love the original more dearly than logical explanation could ever hope to account for 1/10th of and will slap anyone who does not admit that The Touch is mankind's greatest achievement, followed by the moon landings. Does that make it a better film? I guess so, if our measurement is the inverse of the number of slaps delivered by yours truly.

[Metal Vendetta]

I've watched TF:TM with my girlfriend twice. The first time, I think she glossed over a bit. The second time, she'd watched S1 of the original cartoon, all of BW, BM and Animated and she'd just started Prime. It's definitely much better if you're a fan.

[bumblemusprime]

The comparison is a bit strained, I think, given that the two are meant to achieve very different sorts of product placement. 1986 is, from a marketing standpoint, a niche-driven campaign. They want kids who play with Transformers to buy movie tickets, then go buy and play with more Transformers.

2007 is a massive marketing campaign across various levels. Toys, yes, movie tickets, yes, but everything else that goes with a big summer blockbuster. They want a movie that kids who play with Transformers will enjoy, that teenagers and young adults will see for action, and that adults will at least tolerate. They want to tie it in to product placement for everything from soda pop to the US Military.

The ridiculous product placement in the 2007 movie almost makes me think that Michael Bay has a sense of satire, because he took the assumption about the movie ("it'll just be a lot of product placement") and put it at ridiculous levels.

There are some things, therefore, that the 1986 movie can do that I just like better. It's far more imaginative. Giant planet-eating planet that turns into planet-eating robot! Judges at a twisted court with five rotating faces! Hot Rod fighting a mecha-octopus! Junk robots that turn into motorcycles, ride each other around, and speak in clips from prime time!

In that sense, I like the 1986 movie much better because it represents everything I've always loved about Transformers: pushing the imagination. It's a story that spans worlds, goes to great lengths of the imagination, and seeks to shatter preconceptions. MTMTE is the same way, as is most of Furman's stuff.

For me, the Bay movies have all the qualities of the most tepid TF stories, from Costa to much of Budiansky's less inspired stuff. They are about a kid who meets aliens that turns into cars. A fun concept, to be sure. I came to the TFs through those stories. I stayed only because of the wide-open imaginative space opera stories.

[Shanti418]

I entirely agree with bumblemus. The inability to do a 1986 live action movie - really, the inability of 1986 Transformers to be a concept/brand that people of all ages were interested in - make the comparison strained because it means they're pitching to two entirely different audiences. I think we'd have the same problem we did GI Joe The Movie vs. the GI Joe of recently or Batman: Mask of the Phantasm vs. Batman Begins. On a personal level, the "WTF" of "why did all the characters I like die and I'm left with this lame, trying-to-be-80s-cool Hot Rod, a geezer like Kup and a *gasp* girl in Arcee?" and of "Bumblebee can't talk like a normal 'bot, everyone is made of pencil shavings and for the love of God, somebody hold that camera steady!" kind of cancel themselves out and all I'm left with is the sentimentality of 1986. But it's weird though, because when I think about it, there's not one character from TF:TM that I actually latched on to and liked (although honorable mention would go to Blurr)*. However, I will say this: Spike Witwicky is totes better than Daniel.

[snarl]

07 was ok with some boner inducing moments but completely forgettable.

86 one I could do large chunks of the script verbatim

[Best First]

It depends on criteria doesn't it?

Er, obviously. dammit.

Anyway...

2007 is definitely more accessible, but it's arguable it's accessible because it has almost no depth whatsoever beyond (as B'mus points out) Sam's rather basic story (I’d argue the "ET" vibe at the start is the most charming part of the movie - i.e. it pretty much goes downhill when you introduce the main characters). Accusable in this sense involves being able to basically turn your brain off, which is arguably better when a trained military force do things like relocate to the place with all the civilians to hold a pitched battle. It's a fine line as I like a good dumb action flick, but being a good dumb action flick is in itself a fine line. I think the plot here is so ill thought in places, and it makes so little effort with most of its ensemble cast that this falls on the wrong side. So yeah, it's easy to watch - but so what. Basically I think Dave's assertion that it is better than an average blockbuster is wrong - once you get over the thrill of seeing a CGI Optimus Prime it’s not a good blockbuster in either older school terms (say T2, Con Air, The Rock, Die Hard) or newer terms, when the best block busters are often comic book movies that are far better at getting value out of the source material without throwing the protoform out with the bath water.

Conversely the 1986 movie, while far more niche in audience, is a pretty nice sci-fi flick, albeit one aimed at a young audience. Look at the concepts and locations. There's a transforming city, people executed by sharkticon, junkion, the whole concept of Unicron and the matrix itself (a lot of which we take for granted now. Look at how much is crammed into it. And while most of the characters are fairly one note, at least they have a note. Neither film has 3 dimensional characters but I’ll take 2 dimensional over 1 dimensional.

Basically I don't think having to have a grounding in or an affection for the source material should count against 1986 and I don't think the 2007 film is either a better Transformers film or a better film full stop. It just made a lot more money.

[Jack Cade]

The 1986 is better, I think by almost any standard. It's still only a 3-star movie at best, but it has more visual flair, better voice acting, more memorable characters and a style of its own.

The 2007 one is hamstrung by its appalling action sequences - very hard to follow first time, and full of clutter. None of the Transformers except Bumblebee (and maybe Prime) come off as particularly memorable or interesting, and the human characters don't really rise above sketchy stereotypes. Basically, the relationship between Bumblebee and Sam carries the whole movie, and that's not enough.

[spiderfrommars]

It's far more imaginative. Giant planet-eating planet that turns into planet-eating robot! Judges at a twisted court with five rotating faces! Hot Rod fighting a mecha-octopus! Junk robots that turn into motorcycles, ride each other around, and speak in clips from prime time!

Absolutely.

10 utterly brilliant things about Transformers: The Movie:

1. The Prime versus Megatron fight
2. The Galvatron creation sequence
3. Orson Frickin’ Welles
4. Slag’s entrance into the Quintesson throne room: “Excuse me!”
5. Weird Al and ERIC IDLE (ok, that's two)
6. Beardy Transformers
7. “Guilty or innocent?” “Guilty!” “Feed him to the Sharkticons!”
8. The death of Starscream
9. “I’ve got better things to do tonight than die!”
10. Kup kills a Sharkticon with its own tail

Basically I think Dave's assertion that it is better than an average blockbuster is wrong - once you get over the thrill of seeing a CGI Optimus Prime it’s not a good blockbuster in either older school terms (say T2, Con Air, The Rock, Die Hard) or newer terms, when the best block busters are often comic book movies that are far better at getting value out of the source material without throwing the protoform out with the bath water.

I said a better than average PG movie. The films you mention are uniformly awesome (apart from Con Air). Did we ever expect Transformers 2007 to be an all time masterpiece? Is that even possible?

But it is way better than Pirates 2-4, Battleship, Gi-Joe, Green Lantern, Spidey 3, Fantastic Four etc. And whilst it was being made how many of us were expecting the absolute worst?

I feel some may be judging the 2007 movie negatively against the original and the idea of what “our” Transformers is. We could claim the film hasn’t “heart” or “soul” but most 7-year-old boys would disagree, just as anyone without the warm glow of nostalgia could easily accuse the 1986 film of lacking the same thing.

These films were made for equally cynical reasons. The 1986 film killed off the majority of the main characters a third of the way in to sell more toys, plot or character development be damned. The upshot of this was extra gravitas and drama, but as controversial as the 2007 film was in its own way, it didn’t have that kind of barefaced cheek.

10 utterly brilliant things about Transformers 2007:

1. Blackout's attack on the military base
2. Scorponok bursts out of the sand to swallow up marines
3. Megan Fox carries out a little auto repair on Bumblebee
4. Prime Vs Devastator skate down the freeway
5. The Autobots arrive on Earth in a stream of fireballs
6. "All Hail Megatron!"
7. Steve Jablonsky's heroic Autobot theme music
8. Realistic live action Transformers (something we thought we'd never see)
9. Transformer climbs out of a swimming pool
10. "You fail me yet again, Starscream!"

[Best First]

I said a better than average PG movie.

I'd say it fares worse in that catagory. Altho i believe you used the term blockbuster which everything i listed can sit within.

Did we ever expect Transformers 2007 to be an all time masterpiece?

No.

Is that even possible?

Of course. Why should it be possible for the films i mentioned but not for TF? - non of them were aiming for high art were they? They were made to make money.

But it is way better than Pirates 2-4, Battleship, Gi-Joe, Green Lantern, Spidey 3, Fantastic Four etc.

Disgaree on Spidey 3. And mildly bettter on the rest.

I feel some may be judging the 2007 movie negatively against the original and the idea of what “our” Transformers is. We could claim the film hasn’t “heart” or “soul” but most 7-year-old boys would disagree, just as anyone without the warm glow of nostalgia could easily accuse the 1986 film of lacking the same thing.

I'm not going to claim to speak on behalf of 7 year olds to support my point, but while i am sure nostalgia plays a part, i think my ability to critcally asses a film also plays a part, and in my eyes it's a broadly sh*t film by any standards other than very modern Hollywood ones which are exactly the kind of values that lead you to Battleship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pM8PrqY5Rg

[Mr_Tigg]

Spidey 3 is definitely better than Transformers (2007). The problem with Spidey 3 is that Spidey 1 & 2 were both excellent movies - tough act to follow y'know!

[spiderfrommars]

Why should it be possible for the films i mentioned but not for TF?

If it can be done I've yet to hear of the pitch that could do it. In all the TF media I've ever consumed I've yet to see a story that could translate into an all time classic film starring Transformers.

i think my ability to critcally asses a film also plays a part, and in my eyes it's a broadly sh*t film by any standards other than very modern Hollywood ones which are exactly the kind of values that lead you to Battleship.

I wouldn't call either the directing, music, or special effects as "broadly sh*t".

And other than some of the younger cast (though I actually rate Shia) this film had some top flight actors. Ok, so the original had Citizen Kane, but this had Barton Fink and a midnight cowboy!

Be honest, did you come out of the first screening thinking it was "broadly sh*t"?

I remember at the time thinking how much better it was than Terminator: Salvation, a humourless special-effects fest aiming for prestige.

Which is why I'd say TF 2007 is better than Man of Steel too.

[Best First]

Why should it be possible for the films i mentioned but not for TF?

If it can be done I've yet to hear of the pitch that could do it. In all the TF media I've ever consumed I've yet to see a story that could translate into an all time classic film starring Transformers.

I'm confused as to how that translates into "it's not possible".

And, thinking about it, Legacy of Unicron would make an awesome movie.

Also why are people pitching TF movies to BBC:Oxford?

i think my ability to critcally asses a film also plays a part, and in my eyes it's a broadly sh*t film by any standards other than very modern Hollywood ones which are exactly the kind of values that lead you to Battleship.

I wouldn't call either the directing, music, or special effects as "broadly sh*t".

I would actively call the directing broadly sh*t. Music and FX, fine - niether on their own is enough to make a movie good. Better yes.

And other than some of the younger cast (though I actually rate Shia) this film had some top flight actors. Ok, so the original had Citizen Kane, but this had Barton Fink and a midnight cowboy!

Quality of cast doesn't automatically translate to quality of film though does it?

Be honest, did you come out of the first screening thinking it was "broadly sh*t"?

No - but i didn't think the Phantom Menace was sh*t the first time i saw it either. So if anything i would say the nostalgia for the product in both cases initialy reduced my awareness of the faults at the heart of both. With time, distance and rewatching my enthusiasm has faded signficiantly. And as you point out yourself very low expectations also played a part.

Don't get me wrong - i don't hate it, i must have seen it at least 7 times - but i don't agree with the majority of your assertions in it's favour (or certianly not the strength of them and the distance you place between TF:TM and other middling summer films) and i'm perfectly comfortable with my own view of the merits of each film and how each may or may not influenced by my affection for TFs. And i think TF:TM is better.

Which is why I'd say TF 2007 is better than Man of Steel too.

Again - not really a compliment is it? I'd say they were broadly the same - style over substance in both cases. Altho in at least one unitentional instance MoS manages to be significantly funnier than any of the humour in the TF films which means all 13 year old boys probably think its better.

[spiderfrommars]

I'm confused as to how that translates into "it's not possible".

I’m not stating that it's not possible, I’m asking whether it is.

And, thinking about it, Legacy of Unicron would make an awesome movie.

For fans of the original movie, or of the comics, maybe.

I would actively call the directing broadly sh*t.

The merits or otherwise of Bay as a director could span a thread of their own. Is he crap? Pearl Harbor would suggest so. The Rock would suggest not.

On balance he’s a trusted director of action cinema. Some will take issue with the composition of some of his action shots in the movie. Is it filmed up too close? THat seems to be a developing trend in action movies. But any confusion isn’t helped by the look of the Transformers themselves.

Quality of cast doesn't automatically translate to quality of film though does it?

Nope, but it’s fun to compare and contrast with the original.

I didn't think the Phantom Menace was sh*t the first time i saw it either.

Fair enough, but The Phantom Menace is an outright stinker. I didn’t think it was **** after the first viewing, but it was anti-climactic. If I were to watch it today I'd probably injure myself with all the

Again - not really a compliment is it? I'd say they were broadly the same.

I’m not here to throw accolades at its feet. I was just pointing out that it was better than average, and that it was a movie that accomplished what it wanted to. And maybe better than an 80s animated movie did.

[Best First]

And, thinking about it, Legacy of Unicron would make an awesome movie.

For fans of the original movie, or of the comics, maybe.

Good source material for something ultimately different adapted for cinema - but it has the scale, the plot, the characters and the story beats to work.

On balance he’s a trusted director of action cinema. Some will take issue with the composition of some of his action shots in the movie. Is it filmed up too close? THat seems to be a developing trend in action movies. But any confusion isn’t helped by the look of the Transformers themselves.

Yeah, but trusted by who? And i'm pretty sure he had a say in the look.

I was just pointing out that it was better than average, and that it was a movie that accomplished what it wanted to. And maybe better than an 80s animated movie did.

Agree it set out to do what it wanted to do, but it didn't set it's ambitions very high in a lot of ways. Can't agree it's anything more than average.