Somebody Please Explain This Scene From Transformers 4 To Me

[tegan]

So there's a My Little Pony cameo in Transformers: Fool Me Four or More Times, Shame on Me. That's dumb enough on paper, but a friend showed me this gif of the scene:

 

 

Video here

 

I had to check multiple sources to confirm that it is in fact real and not a Photoshop, and moreover, that scientist dude is supposed to be holding a real object and not a hologram (apparently he's playing with a blob of an element called, I shit you not, Transformium). I always thought the draw of these movies was that, if literally nothing else, at least the CG was good. This is just stunningly bad. How?

 

How?

[dibs]

I think you are forgetting that My Little Ponies hover above the hands of those that try to hold them, quivering slightly.

[SecretAsianMan]

The way it turns from a pony into a gun is somebody's wet dream.

 

Also at one point the gun clips through the guy's right hand.

[mikemariano]

Truly Criterion-worthy filmmaking.

[feelthedarkness]

crazy. it really doesn't remotely look like he's holding something.

 

also, Transformers 4 is 166 minutes long.

[Merus]

The answer is that Transformers is a franchise made by people who have realised audiences do not have standards.

[Justin Leego]

The answer is

 

[tegan]

also, Transformers 4 is 166 minutes long.

 

I know, right? You could watch two good movies in the time it takes to watch this goddamn thing.

 

(I really miss the days when movies were ninety minutes)

[feelthedarkness]

Haha, right?! We've entered a truly decadent age where superhero movie makers really believe in their stories. 

 

I the Polygon article covers a lot of it pretty well:

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/30/5857506/Transformers-bay-300-million

[tegan]

God, I can't stop watching this. It's like seeing someone use an augmented reality app on their phone. This film that cost 210 million dollars to make elicits the same level of disbelief from me that I normally reserve for Hatsune Miku dancing on a goddamn pizza box. Ugh. UGH. UGH.

[Roderick]

I am so excited whenever I go to the cinema and a movie is a lean 90 minutes.

[Twig]

I am so excited whenever I go to the cinema and a movie is a lean 90 minutes.

Damn right! I hate long movies. ):

 

I mean fuck I remember thinking 90 minutes was long when I was a kid. FIX THIS SHIT, MOVIE INDUSTRY.

[Coods]

Damn right! I hate long movies. ):

 

I mean fuck I remember thinking 90 minutes was long when I was a kid. FIX THIS SHIT, MOVIE INDUSTRY.

 

I usually feel like the issue isn't with the length of the movie but the the lack of need for such a length. 

 

I do agree, the idea that all movies should aim for 1.5 to 3 hours is incredibly dumb, but that doesn't mean there aren't a few movies that simply choose to tell that kind of longer story, or don't draw attention to its length via shitty pacing. I think about this with the Avengers, particularly, cause I like the length of that movie whereas a lot of people don't.

[Twig]

Yes obviously but when I'm complaining I don't have time for logic or reason!

[Coods]

Yes obviously but when I'm complaining I don't have time for logic or reason!

 

then yeah

 

fuck that shit

[Brannigan]

Yes obviously but when I'm complaining I don't have time for logic or reason!

I like to keep my complaining to 90 seconds or so myself

[Ucantalas]

I sometimes wonder if the trend towards longer movies is a reaction to longer TV shows?

Maybe its just because when I was younger I didn't pay attention to the length of shows or didn't watch things other than cartoons, but it seems that as time has gone on the number of shows that are an hour long have dramatically increased in comparison to the number of half-hour shows. Perhaps, in a world where a big season finale story arc can be 2 hours long, movies feel the need to differentiate themselves by being even longer? 

(Also, can someone who is older than I am possibly confirm or dispute my potentially highly biased theory on the length of the average TV show?)

[SecretAsianMan]

Half hour shows are mostly comedies with little plot so you can resolve the situation in 23 minutes and have some jokes in there.  Hour long shows are usually action/drama that need time to tell a story.  Comedies need to be funny all the time to keep an audience.  Action/drama can keep people coming back because they get involved in the story.  It seems to me that comedies disappear quicker while action/drama has more staying power so it looks like there are more of them.  But I don't really watch tv so I'm probably way off.

[syntheticgerbil]

That's my thoughts on the issue, Ucantalas. I think it's also because almost every show these days seems to try to shoot for a 24 episode season when I seem to recall shows being way less in the 90s and earlier, unless they were extremely popular like The Simpsons.

 

Also I was actually thinking about movie length a few weeks ago after reading some bullshit in an imdb.com forum thread where those old codgers bitch about new things. One of their gripes was that kids these days don't have the attention span to sit longer than 90s minutes for whatever good long epic movie they love. I call bullshit because it seems that most movies are longer than ever these days. Or on top of that, split in to multiple parts intentionally.

[Cleinhun]

I just found out today that the main character in this movie is named Cade Yeager, which is pretty strange by itself, but now you are telling me that this is a real thing that happens? I mean, I haven't payed much attention to the Transformers movies since Transformers 2 took a dump directly into my eyeballs, but excuse me? What? What is happening?

[Ucantalas]

I just found out today that the main character in this movie is named Cade Yeager, which is pretty strange by itself, but now you are telling me that this is a real thing that happens? I mean, I haven't payed much attention to the Transformers movies since Transformers 2 took a dump directly into my eyeballs, but excuse me? What? What is happening?

You act like you've never seen a cartoon pony turn into a gun.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yesterday a woman in my class announced she had seen the movie and that it was great. Everyone else kind of groaned so she backpedaled and said she was watching for the visuals and not the story. And I guess they had to give her that.

 

But I contest that these visuals are complete shit. The Transformer movie designs have been terrible since the very first one. It's not like they were originally more than just clunky 80s era looking things, but the new ones are just a mess of chrome and bad composition. There's no breathing spaces on their body, it's all just one metallic thing after another and the characters have absolutely no focal point. Their silhouttes also suck. Maybe there's some plot point for why they are just a god damn mess, but I don't care Michael Bay.

 

It's things like these that really put Pacific Rim on a pedestal and makes me appreciate it, even though by far it's not anywhere near Del Toro's best. Also Guillermo refuses to use mocap for things like that and feels you get better results with real animators, but that's a story for a different thread.

[Twig]

The Transformer movies have been consistently fun when they're about giant robots fighting each other!

[Roderick]

Synthetic, you totally nailed what has been bothering me about the Transformers designs all these years. I never got further than 'they just look bad', but it's indeed focal point and silhouette. There's too much going on. The original 'ormers had unique and interesting designs, this is a mess of gears and knick-knacks.

 

Anyway, apparently there are still scores of people who don't just watch these movies, but love them, so I guess I don't know dick about what makes a good film after all. Time to rip apart my film school diploma's and close up Filmadeus, I guess.

[SecretAsianMan]

I think the character design is crap too.  I can't tell them apart except for Optimus and Bumblebee because of the bright red/blue and yellow.  I'm also creeped out by the fact that Optimus has an actual mouth.  But at least the quality of the cg was good.  The cg in the gif is just bad and incredibly awkward, like it came from a movie made 10 years ago instead of today.

 

Also I watched the actual clip instead of just the gif.  Finally figured out that he's holding a doughnut in his right hand and that his phone's ringtone is the "robots in disguise" portion of the theme song.