TF Views

*musing on the relevance of the 'cons in the movies*

They were written to be moving obstacles and nothing more. The Decepticons in the movies are not characters. They are indistinguishable from an asteroid hurtling to the Earth or a tornado that seems to follow you. Check this out:

Take every scene with a Decepticon in it. If you remove the Decepticon, would the story still move forward?

For example- The Forest Battle in RotF.
If this scene is removed, what would happen?
- Sam, Mikaela, and Leo are already aware that Alice was a 'con.
They would still be off on their own, seeking out Agent Simmons.

The story doesn't require the Decepticons here. We get a nice action piece and Prime dies, which seems kind of significant, but that's all.

If Prime had lived:

Sam, Mikaela, Leo, and Simmons still go to Egypt.
Still find the Matrix.
The Autobots arrive in the desert, but Prime is alive and among them.
Sam still runs across the desert to get a sock full of Matrix dust to Prime.
Not much changes.

Let's try part 1.

Bumblebee vs. Barricade.
This seems like a key scene, which you would need the Decepticon in to make it work. But take Barricade out and. . .

The scene starts with Sam being chased by "Satan's Camaro."
He passes by Mikaela and wipes out on his bike. He gets up and keeps going.
Mikaela gets on her scooter and follows after him.
Bumblebee finally corners Sam in the warehouse where Barricade normally shows up.
Bumblebee transforms and reveals himself.
Mikaela arrives just then, and the scene proceeds as normal, with them catching a ride with BB.

Not nearly as fun or action-packed, but the story was already moving in the direction of BB revealing himself before Barricade showed up.


And one from part 3, just because I don't want it to feel left out.

Shockwave and the Driller show up at Chernobyl.

Take Shockwave and the Driller out of that scene, and what are we left with?
The Autobots still locate Cybertronian technology inside Chernobyl.
Optimus is still mad that the humans were keeping secrets from them.
Done. No change at all.

This is what I mean, when I say the Decepticons are nothing but moving obstacles. They're not written as characters. The stories are first and foremost about the humans. Each story already has its own drive and arc before the insertion of the Decepticons, and it's always about Sam or Lennox or another human. It's never about Optimus or the Autobots or even what the Decepticons are doing. So removing the robots isn't all that hard, though there are a few scenes that are necessary or there wouldn't be any conflict at all.

I'd say Blackout's attack at the start of part 1 is necessary. But notice that this time it's a human//Decepticon fight. Autobot/Decepticon fights tend to be unessential to moving the plot forward.
But then later on, you could remove the Scorponok fight in the desert and nothing would change. Epps still has the camera that he recorded Blackout on. The only thing that fighting Scorponok added to the story was that they figured out they needed more powerful ammo to shoot the robots with. I'm sure that eventually they would've figured that out anyway. They got his tail after the fight, but what did they ever do with it? Not a thing. Not essential to the story.

The Decepticons don't test the heroes in many different ways, other than how good their aim is. I dare say that Alice in RotF tested the heroes' resolve more than Megatron did. The hero being Sam.

(an addition)
What if Alice wasn't a Decepticon?
Sam is still writing gibberish all over his walls.
Alice either
a.) tries to have her way with him or
b.) isn't in the movie at all.

If it's A.), then Sam ditches her to go explain himself to Mikaela (he was about to do just that in the movie). They still have their little spat, and proceed to seek out the only man that knows about the symbols in Sam's head- Simmons.

If it's B.), then Mikaela walks into Sam's dorm and is shocked by all the symbols on the walls. They decide to seek out the only man that knows about the symbols- Simmons.

Yeah, there's a lot of that. I won't go as far as you and say that they don't "need" to be there, because there needs to be SOMETHING to keep the movie moving along--without a Decepticon force to be 'attacking the humans in the first place,' the Autobots have no real reason to be there. And, a lot like you said, the movies would be a lot more boring without them.

But I will agree--the Decepticons are simply treated as obstacles. This is not actually uncommon in American action films. Look at Independence Day, for example, where the aliens get a single conversation with a human (The "Release me!" scene) and then that's all we get of them--the entire rest of the movie, they're just faceless antagonists. (Here's a fun exercise--watch Independence Day and then watch any Bay TF film, and take a shot every time something similar between the two happens.)

It makes them less interesting as Transformers films, but for American cinema? Par for the course. (Check out a movie called "Skyline" sometime. Awful film; only really worth watching to see Turk from Scrubs play a famous movie producer and say Fuck a lot. And for its easy comparison to the TF films.) Even Avengers kind of suffers from this! The Chi'tauri (why the fuck aren't they just called Skrulls?! So much easier to type...) are basically a big faceless enemy who exist to...invade Earth. We get maybe two or three scenes where one of them even speaks in the entire movie.

Onslaught Six wrote:Yeah, there's a lot of that. I won't go as far as you and say that they don't "need" to be there, because there needs to be SOMETHING to keep the movie moving along--without a Decepticon force to be 'attacking the humans in the first place,' the Autobots have no real reason to be there. And, a lot like you said, the movies would be a lot more boring without them.

But I will agree--the Decepticons are simply treated as obstacles. This is not actually uncommon in American action films. Look at Independence Day, for example, where the aliens get a single conversation with a human (The "Release me!" scene) and then that's all we get of them--the entire rest of the movie, they're just faceless antagonists. (Here's a fun exercise--watch Independence Day and then watch any Bay TF film, and take a shot every time something similar between the two happens.)

It makes them less interesting as Transformers films, but for American cinema? Par for the course.

I did say that there had to be a couple scenes with the 'cons or there wouldn't be any conflict. Just that many of the scenes are unnecessary to the plot or character growth. They're kind of tossed into the mix wherever they felt an action piece would fit.

And yeah, gotta agree that it's par for the course as far as Hollywood is concerned. I think the only reason why it's notable here is because we've all grown up with these characters and have gotten to know them as characters. Individuals with unique traits and quirks and dispositions. To see them recast for the movies as nearly indistinguishable canon fodder can make for a disconnect of sorts. Like, it took me a while before I was able to put my finger on why exactly the portrayal of the 'cons, some of my favorite villains of all time, wasn't really doing it for me. The 'cons of the movies have about as much personality as a Stormtrooper. A whole legion of Stormtroopers.

I don't want this to turn into another morality debate, but I would guess that the reason a lot of people had issues with Optimus cutting down 'cons left and right without showing mercy or compassion, or most importantly IMO trying to reason with the enemy, is because they were still thinking of the Decepticons as they had known them from cartoons and comics. Characters.
I like to think of the movie 'cons now as a mindless zombie or monster horde. Considering how many of them are based off of monsters from cinema and literature, it seems almost too fitting. And Optimus Prime is really Bruce Campbell from the Evil Dead trilogy, mercilessly mowing down demon after demon with no hesitation. We all cheer him on, because we all know there's no reasoning with mindless zombies or demons. You chainsaw your way through them with no remorse and no stopping until every last one is dead.


GROOVY.

Again, this isn't a morality debate. More a critique on how the Decepticons were written as mindless and being evil for the sake of being evil. Moving obstacles.

Yeah, I dig. I mean, I for one never had a problem with Murderous Prime as a character or concept. (I DID have a problem with Peter Cullen voicing him doing that. Cullen's "wise old man" Prime is just plain inappropriate for Action Hero Prime. It worked in the 80s because Cullen was younger. Now? Nah.)

But yeah, the Decepticons should've been characters. It's like...like Small Soldiers, that almost worked well that way. The villains in that were at least 'distinct,' even if they weren't quite characters.

it's hard to give movie-verse transformers persona. when Each transformer in the live action movies barely spoke a few words or a few dialogue lines.

I think james cameron did a excellent job of giving the CGI blue aliens decent amount of dialogue words & having the movie centered around the blue aliens. I can only imagine the awesomeness james cameron can do for a TF live movie.

Cameron's sadly gone off the deep end in recent years, though, and his raging hard-on for Sam Worthington is the most inexplicable thing I've ever seen.

Onslaught Six wrote: and his raging hard-on for Sam Worthington is the most inexplicable thing I've ever seen.

It can be any worse than what micheal bay feels about shia le bouf.

At the very least Sam Worthingron is a less obnoxious,more mature,more talented actor than shia le bouf is.

I suspect the reasons we saw so much over the top comedy with same,his parents & friends in the three live action TF movies. is because the writters personally tailored everything around the only acting skill shia knows which is generic/over the top nickoldeon teen comedy

I was watching the special features on part 1 (pretty sure it was part 1), and I saw a part where Michael Bay or someone on set was describing how they'd go through every scene and then ask, "how can we make this funny?" I think they were talking about the scene where Epps is in a war zone and shouting, "Left cheek! Left cheek! Left cheek!" But it kind of applies to rest of the movie too.

And I was unaware of Cameron's man-crush for Sam Worthington. What's this all about now???

He just really likes the guy! Cameron hasn't done much since Avatar, but dude got a starring role in it, and apparently Cameron is the reason Worthington was the co-star of Terminator: Salivation. (The director, whose dumb name I forget, asked Cameron who he should cast as the human/Terminator hybrid, and Cameron said Worthington.)

Ahh, okay. So much like Spielberg casting Shia in Indiana 4. Kind of their new favorite actors to work with. That's cool.

Oh! Just remembered we have Avatar 2 coming up sometime soon! More Cameron/Worthington love!