Summer Movie Guide

Burning Questions: The 10 Most Confusing Things in 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'
by Matt McDaniel
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June 30, 2009

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" made over $200 million last week. What it didn't make, however, was one lick of sense.

Now, suspension of disbelief is usually not a problem for me. Tell me that a billionaire could put on a bat suit and swoop around fighting crime and I'll buy it. Or that a different billionaire could build flying armor in his basement. Or that in the future people will beam onto spaceships with their pointy-eared best friend. I'll accept all of it. I'll even take your word for it that a mechanized alien race can come to our planet, scan some cars, and turn themselves into vehicles.

That being said, there were moments in this new "Transformers" movie that were so confusing, so contradictory, or so corny that they completely took me out of the movie. Even days after watching it, some new inconsistency or plot hole would pop into my mind.

I can hear it already: "It's a popcorn movie. It's based on a bunch of toys. It's just supposed to be fun." And yes, all of those things are true. But that doesn't mean I can't ask questions about what in the world was going on. Here are the ten that I most want answered. (WARNING: contains spoilers).


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?

Shia LaBeouf 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?

Shia LaBeouf 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?

Megan Fox 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)?

Megan Fox 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?!?!

Megan Fox 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?

OK, so I went overboard at the end, but the questions remain. And I'm sure more will pop up next time I think about the movie. But the movie did make a ton of money, and it's earned a solid B+ rating from our users. Maybe I should go see it again. My questions probably won't get answered in a second viewing, but if I can just clear them from my mind I can be in Robot Heaven, too.
Got a question or an answer? Let us know. >>
Watch Clips from 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'

i'll answer on this one...
the 2nd piece was used to resurrect the old decepticon - Jetfire...
i was unsure about this also... but saw this movie twice and kinda see the piece flew to Jetfire than its ressurected

hahaha Robot Heaven ftw.....

plus watching some scenes remind me of American Pie...

i realized one thing haha, this bashing would never end even if i or some of the sensible people here would point out to those ignorant beings how wrong they are with their assumptions, look up some fool posted the same review that was posted by another forrumer a few pages back, and theres another guy whos making fun of robot heaven,really funny, that would be the case if they were actual robot but hey even the fact that they are an alien race that share some social aspect mirroring the human society structure seems alluding at best. Moving along just fine i watched it the 4th time today in GSC MV, somehow watching at the second seats before the screen gave me that IMAX feeling,though theres only one IMAX theatre left in Malaysia and its being used by the Planetarium in KL,its a dome IMAX summore damn sure syiok watching the jungle scene,sigh.

This post has been edited by nimrod323: Jul 2 2009, 12:45 AM

I just did the geekiest thing a non fanboy could have done - a back to back Transformers The Movie and Transformers in HD. Looking back, TF1 is so much better than TF2 and that's not so surprising isn't it?

Stop being a fanboy.

TF2 is a piece of shit compare to TF1.

I'm not a fanboy.

TF2 made TF1 look like The Godfather.

ermm uhuh, what about you? stop being a hater? cmon repeating the same piece of crap over and over? oooh TF2 is a piece of crap compared to TF1, i dont like it,its shitty,ooh you dont agree with me you are fanboy,im forever right, yea we heard you the first time? But get over it. What are you gonna do about it? Force MB to reshoot the entire movie? What exactly do you want Bay to do? What point are you guys trying to make? That it sucked? Noted. Oh, you're not stopping? You're still b****ing and moaning? Thats entirely your opinion dont try to impose that on others, again i see people are lining up at the cinemas and the shows are still fully taken up,so what now call em fanboys and ask them to watch some movie called "No Country for Old Man"?

Im not saying you.

People say it suxs because the movie have issues with it.So,you think these haters hate this movie just for fun.Right.I dont see your logic at all.There are whole lot of problems with it.No depth,not faithful to the original transformers,and not even a proper,consistent storyline.Just a movie with loads of expensive flashy effects.If i want to see flashy effects,might as well play RA3 or Crysis.

I bet you dont see it,fine.Be a happy fanboy then.Go and watch again.Pay Michael Bay more and make more shitty movies.

I guess you are that kind who enjoy movies with no storyline.Whatever floats your boat,then.

We'll see how long people will line up to watch this shit.Thats one movie that i'll never ever watch again.If the movie is good,i dont mind watching a few times.I watched TDK 4 times,and one time in an expensive IMAX.It's all worth it.TF2? What nice to watch again? To find out more flaws in the storyline? Hear the toilet jokes again?

No Country for Old Man is definitely better than TF2.At least someone knows how to write a proper script with a consistent storyline,rather than a randomly joined up scenes that is full of toilet jokes.

Yeah,Michael Bay raped my childhood favourite cartoon.He really did it this time.

watched it 2nd time. still had fun. yeah, all the problems everyone mentioned is there but i just dont care. its still a fun and funny movie to watch. in the words of the joker 'why so serious?'

ive already accepted the fact that itll be too expensive to focus on the robots throughout the whole thing. i just hope if they make enough, they will give a proper tf storyline in tf3

ahhh .. don't care what people think ..
me watched twice ..yesterday and today ..both in gold class ...
one in signature and in midvalley ..
maybe gold class gave me something good about tf2 ...

Depends on people preference, some hate it (mostly) and some love it. Everyone has their entitle for their opinion so i can deal with that lol...

i never tried gold class lar.. whats it about? worth the rm?

Hey people say its good cause they dont have an issue with it,obviously you think people defend this movie for fun? I dont see your logic here too? what problems you talking about? the review from yahoo? its obvious that guy didnt know shit about the TF series to begin with and pretty much some of us contributed the obvious reasons and made the review a fluke or were you to ignorant to reasons and rather stayed in a warped mindset that the movie sucked? Its already been established fact that Transformers isnt just about G1 tv series,what about the marvel versions,the manga version,the novels,the Dreamwave comic books the IDW versions and others? have you like you say a TF loyalist sink into any of em? the story differ all the time how to make a movie on alternating storyline with different adaptations in all its reincarnations? How to do justice to all of these great work? Somehow the writers were able to pull it off, instead of making a remake of the 80ies classic they made a new universe with references to all the Transformers franchise that was ever made. What flashy effects are you talking about? without those how do you make CGI? so you want some random dude in boxes to play as optimus? didnt we see that in Ultraman as a kid? and you compared cgi to games bravo,nice one.

i watched purely on my own judgement,i read the past work and the prequel comics, i even have the marvel comics,DW and IDW work even some old tapes of G1,some old toys that i have at home. I dont mind if you call me a fanboy. MB made it happen for me so thats that. Just because you think there was no storyline doesnt mean i share the same perspective, again you are trying to impose your opinion, so you are establishing a notion that If anyone likes TF2 so they are the types who dont enjoy movies with storyline? so if it makes you happy,you can assume that,whatever floats your boat right? since the stereotype has already been established in your mind.


ZzZz, yeah we'll see hey the GSC site still down rite? even the e payment is a stripped down version. If you dont want to watch it ,its up to you,your money plus its your free will,i'll never criticize you for that but calling people who dont share your ideals as unappreciative of story line in a movie is just immature. Why would you wanna compare with TDK? both movies dont even share the same storyline how do you compare both? What variables do you take into account? Is it demographic,status,income group,habits equate as the variables since both movies show no similarity? Ok, so you are saying "No Country for Old Man" is better than TF2? how to compare its just different taste, the script and treatment are aimed at different variables,the studio's budget and also whether or not they wanna win oscars,it certainly isnt a movie for the masses try persuading those movie goers that watch TF2 or TF1(since you argue its way better) to sit through this movie, i certainly wouldnt not saying i represent the masses, but hey probably not everyone would like it but hey still that doesnt mean they equate shallow minded people who appreciate movies not for the storyline per se.

This post has been edited by nimrod323: Jul 2 2009, 01:55 AM

A must see...

bay showed us john turturro's ass.
i can bet you he's not going for oscars.
he's just smiling right now for the biggest box office of his life-to-date.

everyone that calls him an idiot, he just secretly tell himself he fooled everyone out of their money and still some more to reach the current revenue. im sure he thinks himself as genius if we are to believe how everyone says how egotistical he is. who would he think be the idiot at the end? the guy who knows hes making an explosive movie with stupid plot and story or the people contributing to him making money eventhough they know its stupid to begin with?

Somehow, the critics and the defenders of Transformers 2 movies made this thread interesting. That what i would want. Reading pleasure. But too bad, i don't have much to say because from the beginning i paid RM12 not to criticize the movie but to enjoy the movie.

This post has been edited by maxizanc: Jul 2 2009, 02:09 AM

same here... in this movie, i will admit bay is more of a visual guy. he got some scenes or moments worked out in his head. and he tried to fit it altogether. some couldve been epic or emotional. but yes a bit disjointed and all the other flaws mentioned..
but i would say he atleast had the guts to follow through with his visions (even if its all explosions mostly ) . its easier for us to criticize and ridicule him for the flaws in this one. but were it not for the high bar he set in tf1, i doubt any other directore couldve gone near what he achieved with a nearly blank canvas.

i meant that for "no country for old man" it is oscar material after all. haha for all its worth, i never really thought of it as a oscar type (ey i would like those ILM guys to win for best CGI category,they deserve it),i'd be perplexed if the story was actually that but its a good storyline nevertheless,thats purely my opinion. Good or bad, i always had the impression that box office earning ultimately proves wether its good or not that also supersedes the fact the movie is heavily promoted or its hype is inescapable cause this things will only take a movie thus far, once the first bunch of people watch it and think its nice thats where the first instance of word of mouth marketing happens,people will flock or avoid just because of what their friends,family or acquaintances say.

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Added on July 2, 2009, 2:29 amwoi apa ni on the fence,tak guna haha

This post has been edited by nimrod323: Jul 2 2009, 02:29 AM

yeah i knew what you meant... i think lol

actually i was implying bay didnt care enough for the story etc whatever. he had tight deadline, he knows what will sell, and he banked on those.
and its paying off massively it seems.

he's laughing all da way to da bank

bay: 'no oscars? nevamind.. i got millions more to keep me company.. muahaha'



This post has been edited by sshahar9: Jul 2 2009, 03:05 AM