Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

[griftimus prime]

unoriginal as hell. i love the unicron theme. i have all of the versions of the soundtrack on cd. but i want to hear something new in this. also just recycling a bunch of jablonkys music sounds really cheap. just hire the guy to do a new score.

[First-Aid]

Arrival To Earth and Unicron themes will be very cool to hear! I was hoping for the original Bayverse Decepticon theme as well, but see how this wouldn't be the movie for that (if they are indeed ever bringing it back).

Now being realistic, I heard from a couple of directions that the movie has that thick modern layer of wokeness. People aren't eating that anymore and there is already a shift back to normal/good. But since delays that virus could still be in this movie.

Tbh I've seen a lot of, uh, interesting takes on this topic but this is the first time I've seen inclusion of non-white people in a movie as being a virus.

Kinda jarring to see hateful rhetoric like that in a forum about transforming robots, but oh well.

He worded it horribly but I suspect what he means is that the stereotypical "Wokeness" is significant enough that it becomes the story. Nothing wrong with equality, race,, etc. Honestly, I'm not homophobic, racist, etc, I just don't care about it UNLESS it overrides the story. I think his worry is that race will BECOME the story and not the Transformers. It could be an element, but it shouldn't BE the story. Culture/race/etc could be the backdrop/setting, but in the case of ROTB it shouldn't overshadow the fact that there are giant f--king robots trying to blow the snot out of each other.

Hopefully I'm wording it better and it makes more sense. Please let me know if I'm not. It's really hard to explain this...it's like walking on eggshells. And I'm generally pretty crappy at explaining things that aren't related to medicine...

[Cheesinator]

Now being realistic, I heard from a couple of directions that the movie has that thick modern layer of wokeness. People aren't eating that anymore and there is already a shift back to normal/good. But since delays that virus could still be in this movie.

Tbh I've seen a lot of, uh, interesting takes on this topic but this is the first time I've seen inclusion of non-white people in a movie as being a virus.

Kinda jarring to see hateful rhetoric like that in a forum about transforming robots, but oh well.

He worded it horribly but I suspect what he means is that the stereotypical "Wokeness" is significant enough that it becomes the story. Nothing wrong with equality, race,, etc. Honestly, I'm not homophobic, racist, etc, I just don't care about it UNLESS it overrides the story. I think his worry is that race will BECOME the story and not the Transformers. It could be an element, but it shouldn't BE the story. Culture/race/etc could be the backdrop/setting, but in the case of ROTB it shouldn't overshadow the fact that there are giant f--king robots trying to blow the snot out of each other.

Hopefully I'm wording it better and it makes more sense. Please let me know if I'm not. It's really hard to explain this...it's like walking on eggshells. And I'm generally pretty crappy at explaining things that aren't related to medicine...

That does make more sense, but (unless I'm misunderstanding) I don't get how the issue could be wokeness itself, rather than the same issue *every* live action Transformers movies has had wherein the humans take up the bulk of the screentime and provide the skeleton of the story that the Transformer-related setpieces are placed around.

Whether it's LeBouf fumbling through his romances and quirky family, Wahlberg dysfunction with his daughter or being an Arthurian knight or something (I barely paid attention to TLK), or Hailee Steinfeld dealing with the loss of her dad...the core story of the movies has always heavily involved humans and their drama, with the big robot fights being almost totally unrelated. So it seems a bit odd if someone only has a major issue with that now when the only difference seems to be that the human drama is about race (and as far as we know, that isn't even the case in ROTB; we just know the main characters are nonwhite and will do nonwhite things).

(All that said, I'd also prefer human action is kept to a minimum if it means more robot interactions)

[Kamijou Touma]

The music of the TF live action movies makes me appreciate the 86 movie music all the more. The music is just awful.

[First-Aid]

Now being realistic, I heard from a couple of directions that the movie has that thick modern layer of wokeness. People aren't eating that anymore and there is already a shift back to normal/good. But since delays that virus could still be in this movie.

Tbh I've seen a lot of, uh, interesting takes on this topic but this is the first time I've seen inclusion of non-white people in a movie as being a virus.

Kinda jarring to see hateful rhetoric like that in a forum about transforming robots, but oh well.

He worded it horribly but I suspect what he means is that the stereotypical "Wokeness" is significant enough that it becomes the story. Nothing wrong with equality, race,, etc. Honestly, I'm not homophobic, racist, etc, I just don't care about it UNLESS it overrides the story. I think his worry is that race will BECOME the story and not the Transformers. It could be an element, but it shouldn't BE the story. Culture/race/etc could be the backdrop/setting, but in the case of ROTB it shouldn't overshadow the fact that there are giant f--king robots trying to blow the snot out of each other.

Hopefully I'm wording it better and it makes more sense. Please let me know if I'm not. It's really hard to explain this...it's like walking on eggshells. And I'm generally pretty crappy at explaining things that aren't related to medicine...

That does make more sense, but (unless I'm misunderstanding) I don't get how the issue could be wokeness itself, rather than the same issue *every* live action Transformers movies has had wherein the humans take up the bulk of the screentime and provide the skeleton of the story that the Transformer-related setpieces are placed around.

Whether it's LeBouf fumbling through his romances and quirky family, Wahlberg dysfunction with his daughter or being an Arthurian knight or something (I barely paid attention to TLK), or Hailee Steinfeld dealing with the loss of her dad...the core story of the movies has always heavily involved humans and their drama, with the big robot fights being almost totally unrelated. So it seems a bit odd if someone only has a major issue with that now when the only difference seems to be that the human drama is about race (and as far as we know, that isn't even the case in ROTB; we just know the main characters are nonwhite and will do nonwhite things).

(All that said, I'd also prefer human action is kept to a minimum if it means more robot interactions)

I agree. It's confusing. The drama is there, yes, and that has always been the problem with the live actions movies.

Personally, the grammar-jerk in me hates the words homophobia, Islamophobia, etc because of, you know, the meaning of phobia being "clinically afraid or terrified of". Like arachnophobia. Or anthrophobia. Or Aquaphobia. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT! READ THE DICTIONARY! (and yes I know the meaning have been amended, but that's because of masses of ignorant people USING THE WORD WRONG! GRAMMAR, PEOPLE!!!) #wordcrimes #petpeeve

I'm more a fan of apatheaia.

[william-james88]

He worded it horribly but I suspect what he means is that the stereotypical "Wokeness" is significant enough that it becomes the story.

The story is about the terrorcons trying to get a mcguffin to bring unicron to earth, and the autobots and maximals teaming up to stop them.

The only thing "woke" about the film is that this time it stars black and latino people as the main human characters, rather than white ones. We will see their struggles, just as we saw the struggles of past white protagonists. If that's enough to be considered woke than that tells me that the word "woke" has lost all meaning. And yes, wording it that way is a really easy way to stick out in a very unfavourable fashion.

[First-Aid]

The only thing "woke" about the film is that this time it stars black and latino people as the main human characters, rather than white ones. We will see their struggles, just as we saw the struggles of past white protagonists.

True. The cast makes sense based on the primary location of the movie, just like the last one did.

[Cheesinator]

The music of the TF live action movies makes me appreciate the 86 movie music all the more. The music is just awful.

IMO, this is just a symptom of bias due to the movies themselves. We know full well a lot of people (on here especially) are heavily biased towards the '86 movie and heavily biased against anything related to the live action movie. I personally think the scores for several of the live action movies are excellent (Steve Jablonsky is da man), and dismissing them just because you dislike the movie is irrational.

And 'What I've Done' was unironically my jam back when the first live action movie came out.

He worded it horribly but I suspect what he means is that the stereotypical "Wokeness" is significant enough that it becomes the story.

The only thing "woke" about the film is that this time it stars black and latino people as the main human characters, rather than white ones. We will see their struggles, just as we saw the struggles of past white protagonists. If that's enough to be considered woke than that tells me that the word "woke" has lost all meaning.

Exactly. Maybe all of the trailers are somehow deeply misleading with Unicron and the Terrorcons actually being very minor, and the big battle scenes we see are actually all fought over human race issues...but I seriously doubt that, and nothing so far has indicated that to be the case. We know so little about the human plot at the moment, that anyone using 'woke' as a serious criticism is exposing themselves pretty blatantly.

[First-Aid]

We know so little about the human plot at the moment, that anyone using 'woke' as a serious criticism is exposing themselves pretty blatantly.

Not necessarily. Many people are dealing with a perceived overdose of it right now. It could be paranoia that it's going to affect the plot. It may simply be paranoia. I freely admit though that at some point TV and movies became more about "teaching lessons" on things that most people already know than about the escape from reality or the art; it detracts from the fun of the movie/show.

[Burn]

I honestly don't get why having people of different ethnicities in leading roles = wokeness. It's just plain **** stupid.

[Cheesinator]

We know so little about the human plot at the moment, that anyone using 'woke' as a serious criticism is exposing themselves pretty blatantly.

Not necessarily. Many people are dealing with a perceived overdose of it right now. It could be paranoia that it's going to affect the plot. It may simply be paranoia. I freely admit though that at some point TV and movies became more about "teaching lessons" on things that most people already know than about the escape from reality or the art; it detracts from the fun of the movie/show.

But isn't that exactly the point? Literally all we know at the moment is that the leads will be nonwhite, and if that alone makes you "paranoid" that the film is going to be "woke" (and that being woke is a bad thing), it says something about you rather than woke-ism.

Also, TV/movies have *always* been about teaching lessons. Basic morality stuff like good vs bad and right vs wrong have permeated most media (especially children's media, ESPECIALLY heroes vs villains stuff like Transformers) since their inception. Again, the fact that people only get angry when the lesson being taught might be "don't hate other races" is reflective of them rather than any perceived change in media. You guys can't pretend that basic lessons in morality being in the shows/movies is the thing you have a problem with.

Hell, Transformers itself has been portraying the Decepticons as bad guys purely on the basis that they view other races as lesser for years.

[-Kanrabat-]

I honestly don't get why having people of different ethnicities in leading roles = wokeness. It's just plain **** stupid.

The "wokeness" is turning this into something "extraordinary", "groundbreaking", "so stunning", "so brave", when it's none of the above.
The woke will go full "LOOK, LOOK, I CAST COLORED PEOPLE IN MY THING!" with religious fervor.

It's done in a way to appear virtuous. Like a tartuffe bragging his piousness.
THAT'S the "woke".
There's tons of movies starring non-white people all the time and none make a fuss about it. But the woke will point the mundane as something "incredible" just to get some virtue points.

The woke will point that the sun appear in their movie as something "brave and groundbreaking". Then we will point and laugh at this. It won't make us "anti-sun."

That's what we're saying in a more or less awkward fashion.

[Rodimus Prime]

I honestly don't get why having people of different ethnicities in leading roles = wokeness. It's just plain **** stupid.

It might be when the director himself stated that "this film will be for black and brown people." That's a quote from 1 of the early pages of this thread. As in, whites f**k off. At least he has the backbone to come out and say it outright that that's the agenda here. The music selection just solidifies it even more.

Previously I stated that the Transformers story itself might suffer for it (much like it did in previous films), but with all the details released already, the movie might be worth a watch on streaming sometime.

[Cheesinator]

It might be when the director himself stated that "this film will be for black and brown people." That's a quote from 1 of the early pages of this thread. As in, whites f**k off. At least he has the backbone to come out and say it outright that that's the agenda here. The music selection just solidifies it even more.

Previously I stated that the Transformers story itself might suffer for it (much like it did in previous films), but with all the details released already, the movie might be worth a watch on streaming sometime.

Simply portraying cultures of black and brown people is not really the same as "whites **** off". In the same way portraying white families (and their cultures) in the previous movies was not a "POC **** off".

Just to be clear, would you prefer that all films have only (or at least predominantly) white casts? And any deviance would be 'woke'?

I honestly don't get why having people of different ethnicities in leading roles = wokeness. It's just plain **** stupid.

The "wokeness" is turning this into something "extraordinary", "groundbreaking", "so stunning", "so brave", when it's none of the above.
The woke will go full "LOOK, LOOK, I CAST COLORED PEOPLE IN MY THING!" with religious fervor.

Oof, bringing religious fervor into it and saying that it's the woke side that are guilty of it. That seems very tone-deaf, especially these days.

Also, deeply ironic way of describing 'woke' when no one in this thread is saying anything about nonwhite people being cast in the movie as some great thing, but you and others apparently have some major issue with it. Like, why blame the (nonexistent in this thread) "woke people"? Just say what you really feel about the casting and be up front about it, at least.

[zko]

This is gonna be the best movie since "The Crow: City Of Angels", now I want to see it in iMAX.

[First-Aid]

Kay...let's focus again!

Unicron theme. I called it. That was me.

[-Kanrabat-]

I honestly don't get why having people of different ethnicities in leading roles = wokeness. It's just plain **** stupid.

The "wokeness" is turning this into something "extraordinary", "groundbreaking", "so stunning", "so brave", when it's none of the above.
The woke will go full "LOOK, LOOK, I CAST COLORED PEOPLE IN MY THING!" with religious fervor.

Oof, bringing religious fervor into it and saying that it's the woke side that are guilty of it. That seems very tone-deaf, especially these days.

Also, deeply ironic way of describing 'woke' when no one in this thread is saying anything about nonwhite people being cast in the movie as some great thing, but you and others apparently have some major issue with it. Like, why blame the (nonexistent in this thread) "woke people"? Just say what you really feel about the casting and be up front about it, at least.

Have you read the interviews of that director?

He's race-baiting like there's no tomorrow. THAT'S "wokeness". The woke will defend any positions, as long that it follow the ALGORITHM of what is "virtuous" to say. It's a religion of chaos with ever changing rules.

The proof is if any woman speak against feminism, any gay person speak against the overreach of the LGBT "community", or any black people speak against race-grifting and/or the victimhood mentality, they all get "excommunicated" by their "friends".

It's very easy to call us "racist" or any "ism" when we disagree with your ideology. It's the same with a hardcore Christian who see the "devil" everywhere.

Dare to seek out more information about what you believe in. You'll see.
Or just stay as you are. The woke "goal posts" will move and suddenly, you'll "sin" by believing the same thing you always believed in. Then it will be your turn to be called a "ism" and you'll not even know why.

Also, what I TRULY feel about the casting?
I
Do
NOT
CARE.
I never cared about Hollywood actors appart my classics from my childhood like Arnie, Tome Select, Danny DeVito, and more. Those young and new actors? I know none nor care about them since at least 30 years.

[Rodimus Prime]

It might be when the director himself stated that "this film will be for black and brown people." That's a quote from 1 of the early pages of this thread. As in, whites f**k off. At least he has the backbone to come out and say it outright that that's the agenda here. The music selection just solidifies it even more.

Previously I stated that the Transformers story itself might suffer for it (much like it did in previous films), but with all the details released already, the movie might be worth a watch on streaming sometime.

Simply portraying cultures of black and brown people is not really the same as "whites **** off". In the same way portraying white families (and their cultures) in the previous movies was not a "POC **** off".

It might as well be when a creator of the presentation at hand outright states that the setting and story is done specifically due to the involvement of those cultures.

Just to be clear, would you prefer that all films have only (or at least predominantly) white casts? And any deviance would be 'woke'?

Of course not. I enjoy a lot of movies and TV shows that have majority non-white casts. But when a story is done for the purpose of appealing only to a select segment of the population, at the expense of previously established stories and characters, that is wrong.

[william-james88]

We know so little about the human plot at the moment, that anyone using 'woke' as a serious criticism is exposing themselves pretty blatantly.

Not necessarily. Many people are dealing with a perceived overdose of it right now. It could be paranoia that it's going to affect the plot. It may simply be paranoia. I freely admit though that at some point TV and movies became more about "teaching lessons" on things that most people already know than about the escape from reality or the art; it detracts from the fun of the movie/show.

Stories have always been about teaching lessons. The change between then and now is the media and political coverage. People are simply being manipulated by the media to create an us vs them scenario to boost paranoia, consumerism, and allegiance to a certain party or idealogy and it spreads to every facet of entertainment. It's more prominant in the US due to the 2 party system, so the binary nature of political issues.

You see that less in other countries. People just need to think for themselves.

[Cheesinator]

It might be when the director himself stated that "this film will be for black and brown people." That's a quote from 1 of the early pages of this thread. As in, whites f**k off. At least he has the backbone to come out and say it outright that that's the agenda here. The music selection just solidifies it even more.

Previously I stated that the Transformers story itself might suffer for it (much like it did in previous films), but with all the details released already, the movie might be worth a watch on streaming sometime.

Simply portraying cultures of black and brown people is not really the same as "whites **** off". In the same way portraying white families (and their cultures) in the previous movies was not a "POC **** off".

It might as well be when a creator of the presentation at hand outright states that the setting and story is done specifically due to the involvement of those cultures.

Just to be clear, would you prefer that all films have only (or at least predominantly) white casts? And any deviance would be 'woke'?

Of course not. I enjoy a lot of movies and TV shows that have majority non-white casts. But when a story is done for the purpose of appealing only to a select segment of the population, at the expense of previously established stories and characters, that is wrong.

How is this gearing up to be any different to the predominantly white areas/casts we saw in previous films? ROTB is apparently gonna feature areas with different demographics. There are a lot of those in America (and the rest of the world).

I'll annoyed too if they do something weird and portray the whole country/planet as nonwhite, but showing a black kid have a black family and live in a predominantly black neighbourhood is really no different to anything we've seen before in Transformers. Except you guys had no issues with it then.

And...we still have zero evidence any of this will effect the Transformers plot (same as the prior movies)

Have you read the interviews of that director?

He's race-baiting like there's no tomorrow. THAT'S "wokeness". The woke will defend any positions, as long that it follow the ALGORITHM of what is "virtuous" to say. It's a religion of chaos with ever changing rules.

The proof is if any woman speak against feminism, any gay person speak against the overreach of the LGBT "community", or any black people speak against race-grifting and/or the victimhood mentality, they all get "excommunicated" by their "friends".

It's very easy to call us "racist" or any "ism" when we disagree with your ideology. It's the same with a hardcore Christian who see the "devil" everywhere.

Dare to seek out more information about what you believe in. You'll see.
Or just stay as you are. The woke "goal posts" will move and suddenly, you'll "sin" by believing the same thing you always believed in. Then it will be your turn to be called a "ism" and you'll not even know why.

Look man, you hate wokeism and that's fine (or at least, has nothing to do with Transformers). As long as you're not hurting anyone, it's all good and there's really no need to unpack it here.

Until we know anything more about the movie other than 'the leads are nonwhite', this all seems a little unnecessary though.

I'll be annoyed too if the entire plot of the movie is about racial struggles between humans...but I really, really do not see Unicron and the Terrorcons factoring into that.

[-Kanrabat-]

Look man, you hate wokeism and that's fine (or at least, has nothing to do with Transformers). As long as you're not hurting anyone, it's all good and there's really no need to unpack it here.

Until we know anything more about the movie other than 'the leads are nonwhite', this all seems a little unnecessary though.

I'll be annoyed too if the entire plot of the movie is about racial struggles between humans...but I really, really do not see Unicron and the Terrorcons factoring into that.

The only bad thing here is the director appear to be quite the racist in his interviews.
I just hope that it will not be reflected into the movie. (Like that "white privilege line in The Batman".

Artists can be assh0les all they want. Their assh0lery will be called out.
But in the end, if they make a good product, I'll not stop myself from enjoying it.
¯\_( ͡°ヮ ͡°)_/¯

[Rodimus Prime]

How is this gearing up to be any different to the predominantly white areas/casts we saw in previous films? ROTB is apparently gonna feature areas with different demographics. There are a lot of those in America (and the rest of the world).

Because Michael Bay didn't come out and say "this movie will be for whites" before any of the movies he directed. Neither did Travis Knight before Bumblebee, which had a non-white main character as well. Steven Caple should have taken a clue from them and kept his racist trap shut.

I'll annoyed too if they do something weird and portray the whole country/planet as nonwhite, but showing a black kid have a black family and live in a predominantly black neighbourhood is really no different to anything we've seen before in Transformers. Except you guys had no issues with it then.

I don't have the problem with the cast itself. My problem is with the reason for the casting, which the director himself admitted to. The actors are in it because they're minorities, not because they might be good actors. The human parts of the film are set in minority-dominated settings, not because Transformers might interact with them the same as other cultures, which is perfectly plausible, but because of the fact that they are minority-dominated settings. Do you understand the difference?

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Warnings have been issued to multiple users.

You have all been warned, and I am tired of you ignoring the site and staff directives and going off topic and polluting the actual movie discussion.

The very next post off topic from the actual movie content, for example the very next post that has the word "woke" in it in any capacity, will result in immediate suspensions.

Stay. On. Topic.

[william-james88]

If anyone is curious about what the advantages are of being a newstaff, it is that you can end up being in the thick of promotions, and having a closer relationship with Hasbro's PR team and stuff of such, you make what you want and can from it. Case in point, I just had an interview with someone from the film, which I can't post until the film's release. So I know the details on several key points that are not at all in any of the trailers. Just to say that there is more to the film than what we have seen. I will say two things though:

1. From what I was told, there is nothing tieing it with the Bay movies, plot wise, but there is also nothing in preventing it from tieing in later. If they want to tie it in with some and ignore TLK, for instance, they can and will. So it is still not a reboot as of yet, Paramount is not willing to commit to anything remotely close to that. It's just another adventure in this live action franchise.

2. This film will have more focus on the bots as characters than ever before. There will be familial relationships explored among the human cast, and there will be a focus on it, something that has not been highlighted in the trailers, but there will still be more emphasis on the bots than before. They will not be secondary characters to the human cast, as they were in the past.

Honestly, that alone elevates the film for me. Not to be harsh, but while I do think some films were fine (the first movie, for instance, is a fine film, well executed, and holds up), none of these films actually felt like Transformers movies. They felt more like films with transformers in them. Bumblebee got super close to being a step above that, though, so I'm hyped that this film is aiming to go beyond this personal threshold of mine.

[william-james88]

Preview screenings were held for Transformers Rise of the Beasts and the early reactions on Twitter are giving the film some "high praise" as Andy Samberg's Nic Cage would say. The consensus seems to be that Anthony Ramos and Mirage carry the film well and the 90s hip hop soundtrack is a great aspect to the film, adding to the 90s Brooklyn setting. The film is said to be a bit corny, in a Saturday cartoon kind of way, which makes sense for a film based on an 80s kids' cartoon, and there was also mention that the mcguffin aspect is the low point, which is something we could all have predicted. Still none of that seems to detract from the overall positive experience.

Of course, please remember that it is customary for early reactions to be disproportionally positive since the people who saw it are "influencers" who did not pay to watch it and are thus incentivized to be as positive as possible to be given such privilege again.

Here are some early reactions:

PacManNR7: Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts makes good use of the animated movie's storyline and integrates the Maximals and Terrorcons to good effect. Stakes are high and Scourge is a terrifying and powerful villain. Action-packed with a lot of heart (albeit with some cheese on top).

TheEricGoldman: Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts is really fun. It’s actually quite funny and the action is strong. I did find my eyes glazing over when they’d talk about this movie’s special object (this series sure loves those) but way better than Bay’s movies if not quite Bumblebee level.

GermainLussier: Totally dug Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts. It’s got some issues in the middle but it starts strong, has fantastic 90s hip hop, makes great use of the humans & the 3rd act is a blast. Plus I damn near jumped out of my seat at the end. Right up there with the 1st Bay & Bumblebee.

BrandonDavisBD: Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts plays like the ultimate Saturday morning cartoon.

Some dope Transformers action. Anthony Ramos & Pete Davidson are great, even if some of the dialogue is a little clunky. It’s a lean, fun movie and a promising start to something exciting.

VillainousComix: Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts delivers one of the better and more coherent installments in the franchise. They clearly understood what worked so well with 2018’s Bumblebee as ROTB has heart and the human characters are more likable. Mirage will walk away as the fan favorite.


joedeckelmeier: Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts is a lot of fun! Anthony Ramos carries the movie and Pete Davidson steals every scene as Mirage. The ending blew my mind and the music in the film is fire

ErikDavis: The new Transformers movie is pretty solid! LOVE the Brooklyn setting - Maximals & Scourge add a new spin & the action pops, especially the NY scenes. Mirage steals the show, but the true star is the absolute best soundtrack full of early ‘90s hip-hop hits. This ‘90s kid had fun.

MrControversy83: Transformers RiseOfTheBeasts was a blast! The Beast Wars crew finally shows up in what's arguably the BEST Transformers movie in the run. There's a lot of heart, humor, and Brooklyn pride in here; and it all makes for throwback popcorn fun.