Official Movie talk for those who HAVE seen it. SPOILERS GALORE

[redrum2581]

Jazz has a black voice, is named after black music, there's no way you can say his character wasnt't based on african americans, robot or not. Too say Jazz has no race would be like saying a transformer with a star of david symbol where the autobot symbol should be wouldn't be jewish. Or the entire cast of Transformers: Cybertron weren't Australian.

 

Transformers isn't a documentary, it is a movie made by human beings using human culture.

 

And up until the 90's when it became cliche and racist, the black man was always the first to die in movies, so to kill Jazz is a step back to racism. I understand that a non racist white person may not understand that the color of the skin of the person dying makes any different, because we're all people, but racism still exists, and the people who make decisions to kill off black characters first in the movies know exactly what they are doing, and it's wrong.

 

R.I.P. Jazz 1984-2007.

 

it kinda upset me when Jazz died, say what you want but even in the og cartoon he had that token african american persona, because back then you want to represent all racis to get toys sold, just like now, in every major cartoon and everything else, they go to great lengths to represent the different culture and ethnicities, so yes it could be complained that the only autobot killed was the "black" one and it did upset me, but let him die wasn't scatman carothers voicing him

[Devilbat]

I would be tempted to think that there are those who would have seen Jazz as taking orders from "The Man" if he had done what Ironhide or whoever had told him to and had fallen back, allowing someone else to take on Megatron. They might say, "Yeah sure, portray Jazz as the submissive token "black" character, allowing one of the "white" characters to step up and die like a hero." (lol) I see it as Jazz being brave by taking on Megatron, thereby dying a hero's death. Why hasn't anyone said anything about that?! (lol) I think sometimes people read too much into things that mean absolutely nothing. I'm not saying racism and stereotyping doesn't still exist. I just personally don't think that's the case here.

[pogoman]

sucks that Jazz died but it gives room for a new character(s) for the sequel.

[DarthJoe]

it kinda upset me when Jazz died, say what you want but even in the og cartoon he had that token african american persona, because back then you want to represent all racis to get toys sold, just like now, in every major cartoon and everything else, they go to great lengths to represent the different culture and ethnicities, so yes it could be complained that the only autobot killed was the "black" one and it did upset me, but let him die wasn't scatman carothers voicing him

 

I missed the part where kids should be able to like cars and robots without associating race...

 

On a side note...when you say "they go to great lengths to represent the different culture and ethnicities"...call off five cartoons from the 80's and five cartoons from present day where they actively TRY to represent at least 3 different cultures and ethnicities.

 

And, BTW, just because a character is voice-acted by a certain race, doesn't mean that the cartoon/movie was purposely trying to represent that background.

[DarthJoe]

I would be tempted to think that there are those who would have seen Jazz as taking orders from "The Man" if he had done what Ironhide or whoever had told him to and had fallen back, allowing someone else to take on Megatron. They might say, "Yeah sure, portray Jazz as the submissive token "black" character, allowing one of the "white" characters to step up and die like a hero." (lol) I see it as Jazz being brave by taking on Megatron, thereby dying a hero's death. Why hasn't anyone said anything about that?! (lol) I think sometimes people read too much into things that mean absolutely nothing. I'm not saying racism and stereotyping doesn't still exist. I just personally don't think that's the case here.

 

Oh, I agree completely.

 

Some people just run around looking for reasons to pull the race card to stir things up (Al Sharpton anyone?).

 

As I said before, I have pretty limitted knowlege of TF...a little above average, but not nearly the fanboy that many of the people on these forums are. I don't remember ANYTHING about the cartoons, other than the fact that I remember watching them as a kid.

 

That said, I had no preconceived notions of Jazz being any particular "race" going into this movie, and as I said before, when he was introduced, it irritated me that he was protrayed as the hip-hop, wanna-be inner city character of the movie. I didn't associate race with it until I came here. At the time, I was just irritated by his persona...not because he "sounded black."

[Destro]

Calling a transformer thunderCRACKER is racist against white people. @grumpy@

[pesatyel]

I would be tempted to think that there are those who would have seen Jazz as taking orders from "The Man" if he had done what Ironhide or whoever had told him to and had fallen back, allowing someone else to take on Megatron. They might say, "Yeah sure, portray Jazz as the submissive token "black" character, allowing one of the "white" characters to step up and die like a hero." (lol) I see it as Jazz being brave by taking on Megatron, thereby dying a hero's death. Why hasn't anyone said anything about that?! (lol) I think sometimes people read too much into things that mean absolutely nothing. I'm not saying racism and stereotyping doesn't still exist. I just personally don't think that's the case here.

 

Nah, it's just "fan nitpicking" more than anything.

 

I didn't really see Jazz as "brave" or anything in going against Megatron. None of the TFs were fleshed out enough to really get a feel for them as characters.

 

Well, Prime and Bumblebee were, of course, and Ironhide a little. I like Prime's line after Ironhide asked if he could kill Sam's parents. Prime said no, of course (but more drawn out, heh), and then muttered "what's the matter with you?"

 

But with Jazz, it was like "oh...look. He died. Oh well." There was no real connection that made me think "HOLY CRAP! Megatron killed him!" Partly because I knew already (I tried ignoring the spoilers but sometimes stuff slips through). And partly because it happened so FAST.

 

It sucked that the TFs had no real characterization. I mean at least the Autobots HAD some. But the Decepticons? They spent WAY to much time focusing on Scorponok. Brawl and Bonecrusher were practically cameos. Hell I think the TFs combined had a total of what, a dozen lines? Not counting the "stars".

[Devilbat]

Yeah, I didn't really like how Prime was holding Jazz's remains, ala Chewbacca holding C-3PO's head in ESB. (lol) Kinda unceremonius, huh. And I agree in that it would have been nice to have a little more characterization, but it was alot to cram into one movie I guess.

[synch]

This movie has me more excited for the next one the more I think about it now that they know what to do and what not do to with this type of a flick

 

basically

 

more character for the robots

more robots

more robots beating the snot out of each other

more on sam/family

more with army guys ( use same guys who fought robots in last film???... hey why not?.. )

 

Less annoying humans like hacker idiots & s7 jokers

 

[Devilbat]

I would like to see a scenario similar to X-Men 2 where you have Sector 7, or even some OTHER secret government organization that is evil and has it's own agenda concerning Transformers, like they outlaw them or hunt them down like some MIB-type organization, and you see this big three-way battle between them, the Autobots, and the Decpticons. That way you could see the Decpticons cut loose on humans and not feel bad. (lol)

 

And...I wanna see Hot Rod integrated somehow, among others.

[RC_rika]

Me too... ME WANT MORE ROBOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think they tried to get too many humans in the story b/c they wanted us to FEEL what it'd be like if this ACTUALLY happened, and a bunch of huge robots came to our planet. Dang, I think it'd be cool!!

 

Again, I say... less racist talk here, b/c this isn't a race topic. It's a TRANSFORMER MOVIE topic. And that's what we'll talk about! If you want to create your own thread for it, by all means, go have fun, but let's not stray off here.

[Gundam Prime]

Speaking of Jazz dying unceremoniously, did they dump him in the ocean like the rest of the dead decepticons? I couldn't quite notice if his body was one of the ones in the boat. And if not, what did they do to his body?

[RC_rika]

Maybe they will try to work on it, and bring him back for the 2nd movie!!

[Rodimus Primal]

Maybe they will try to work on it, and bring him back for the 2nd movie!!

 

I can see that happening. That would be better than just dumping him.

[Destro]

As much as I'd like to see jazz again, in a way I don't want him to come back: it would remove the realism; in war, death happens. If he can just be brought back, then it just shows that nothing has truly been lost/sacrificed in the fight and would take away from the overall signficance of the story.

[RC_rika]

BUT they are transformers, NOT humans. It would show that they can recoup... that means Megs and all the other Decepticons are dead too. For GOOD. That would just SUCK! At least as far as Megs is concerned unless you want them to do what they did in the 1st movie... let him encounter Unicron somehow and be revived...

[Mike]

bah, jazz is over-rated, keep him dead.

 

I want them to bring in lots of new characters for the 2nd film

[pesatyel]

BUT they are transformers, NOT humans. It would show that they can recoup... that means Megs and all the other Decepticons are dead too. For GOOD. That would just SUCK! At least as far as Megs is concerned unless you want them to do what they did in the 1st movie... let him encounter Unicron somehow and be revived...

 

IF...they bring back Megatron, my guess will be that the Allspark will "fuse" with him and transform him into Galvatron. I'm guessing the Prime only assumed the Allspark was "too powerful" for any one body to contain.

 

Course, they could also end up doing that and either combining the bodies of the dead Decepticons (Blackout, Brawl, Bonecrusher and Megatron) into one big ass robot or having the others "reformated" ala Cyclonus and Scourge.

[Destro]

BUT they are transformers, NOT humans.

So? Giving them the ability to "recoup" from just about anything would destroy the whole emotional appeal any of their deaths would initially bring.

 

Also, given the way megatron died, I see the allspark reviving him; leave jazz dead, as one of the fallen heroes; show that tf's feel the pain of death similar to the way we do (add in all that "war is horrible, etc., stuff as well).

[RC_rika]

Just read in Yahoo, that Transformers is rated A-, whereas Harry Potter was rated B+... HA!

[biglebowski9999]

I'd like to see everyone come back but Jazz. He annoyed me. Megs is not even a question, really...I was surprised they even bothered killing him off because now they have to write in a way for him to come back.

[Wheeljack35]

Can we keep this to movie talk and not racial talk? Thanks...

 

I have seen this on other boards today

 

Because he is voiced by a black man doesn't mean he is black

 

Remember Golaith from Gargoyles

 

Yes comparing golaith to a black person is just out right silly!! Hes clearly PURPLE! POWER TO THE PURPLE GARGOYLES PEOPLE!!

 

 

Quiet you or I will send out the one eyed one armed flying purple people eater

[#1 Star Wars Fan]

I just saw the movie today, LOVE IT. It's my favorite movie of the summer by far! Plenty of kick@$$ action, and plenty of funny bits, especially the autobots in Sam's yard... Although, I didn't care for all the cursing and whatnot... Most of it seemed un-needed...

 

I'm ok with Jazz dying... Besides being the comic relief, he really didn't do much... And I don't think they'd just drop him in the ocean... The Autobots will probably work on him.. (I hope..)

 

The final battle in the city was so chaotic.... I couldn't tell what was going on and who was dying... And, Personally, I could only recognize Optimus, Megatron, Ratchet and Bumblebee... Also, who was the little annoying robot? I thought he was the cassette tape from Soundwave but Soundwave wasn't in the movie..

 

They also left alot open for a sequel! Optimus' last line about there being other Autobots in the galaxy sounded like a hint, Starscream flew off, Megatron and Jazz COULD come back, too.... And Scorponok (sp?) went back underground... And Barricade could come back aswell!

[madman1366]

Also, who was the little annoying robot? I thought he was the cassette tape from Soundwave but Soundwave wasn't in the movie..

 

 

Frenzy. Originally that character was going to be Soundwave but they wisely decided that he wouldn't really fit as Soundwave not to mention the fans would hate it so they made him Frenzy instead.

 

A good choice!

 

I personally loved Frenzy. Some people found him annoying but I thought he was cool. I just we wish knew what happened to the bots that the allspark created accidentally, they just kinda went away. Hopefully we'll see when the version with the deleted scenes comes out. I hope it's a lot of extra footage!

[DPrime]

Well, I FINALLY saw it. I've been pretty busy what with the move and all but I got a chance to see it last night. My thoughts...

 

I must admit, although I didn't like the designs from the start, I've grown accustomed to them over the past few weeks. I saw that pic on Shortpacked.com, with all the Autobot toys together, and they looked pretty cool. So I'm over that (I think... more on this later).

 

The first half was great. REALLY entertaining. The characters were well written, and the casting was spot on. I think that there were a bit too many human characters, but they were all well done. Even the Sector 7 guy... He didn't really fit the type of person who would be in that position, and that whole part of the movie was pretty unnecessary, but he was still entertaining to watch. The writing, especially with Bumblebee, Spike (sorry, SAM) and Michaela, was VERY good. All the G1 references were great too. I was pleasantly surprised by this, to be quite honest. Bumblebee was cool as well.

 

What I was also surprised about was that I felt the movie started to suffer once the rest of the Transformers showed up. Although much of what I thought would be bad about the movie turned out to be good, almost eerything I thought would be good about this movie wasn't. First off, the most obvious thing were the designs. Yes, from the start I would have prefered G1-type looks (Alternator styles would have been perfect), purely for reasons of nostalgia. Now I have another, more objective reason as well: the new designs just weren't suited to the action sequences. Whenever the TFs fought eachother, all you could see was a mass of metal pieces, vaguely resembling Johnny 5 on steroids. The only ones that stood out were Bumblebee and Optimus Prime - and even they tended to get lost in all the close-up shots. So-called "blocky" designs would have had a cleaner look, and have been easier to see. Say what you will, but something more like G1 or Alternators would have made for better action sequences. I think that may have been the major contributor to the fact that I really just didn't enjoy the action sequences. As soon as the TFs transformed into their alt modes and started fighting, I honestly lost interest... I was looking at my watch, seriously. I was really surprised that I wasn't into the action sequences. Bay has many weaknesses as a director, but he's always managed to do action well.

 

The faces were terrible... I think they should have gone with traditional TF faces. It's not "less unrealistic", seeing as easily they can chance the appearance of their alt modes. I figure the Autobots at least might have changed their facial features to appear more human, much like they learned English in order to communicate with them. At least then the animators would have been able to have the characters emote to some degree.

 

Cullen as Prime was good, no doubt about that. The rest of the voices were uninspired... they all seemed to speak the same way, even Bumblebee (when he finally got his voice back). The only characterization (other than Prime) came from Jazz, who despite sounding a LITTLE too much like a stereotype, actually had a bit of G1 style to him. Really terrible that the one TF Bay actually managed to get (somewhat) right was killed off, for no real reason at all. Sucks for us G1 fans too, seeing as how Jazz was one of the very few original characters to escape the original movie unscathed. The fact that Jazz was obviously based on an African-American stereotype and ended up being the only Autobot killed was pretty lame too, considering that having the black guy be the first/only guy to die in movies is pretty cliche as well. Yes we all know there aren't any "races" in TFs (other than Autobots and Decepticons, I guess), but c'mon... if you aren't seeing the stereotype there I don't know what to say. It's pretty obvious.

 

Why did Jazz die? Megs only ripped his legs off. What's up with that unceremonius memorial for him by Prime in the end while holding up his remains? Prime was like "he's dead but oh well s*** happens" just like he basically said "s*** happens forget about him" when Bumblebee got captured instead of disarming the humans just like they did not even five minutes before.

 

Yeah, that was pretty lame too... I mean, his death just seemed like an unnecessary afterthought, and Prime was just like, "oh well".

 

I was more pleased than I thought I would be with Megatron and Starscream, but still, I can't look at the G1 characters these days without thinking how sad it was I couldn't have seen something more like that in the movie... Oh well. Frenzy was absolutely horrible though. I mean, he acted like a friggin' Gremlin, and just looked plain stupid. Way too much screen time for that stupid little thing. The rest of the Decepticons were okay, not great. Starscream, as terrible as he looked in comparison to every single other version of him, managed to be my favourite (as always, it seems), despite his lack of screen time.

 

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the first half, but left the theatre feeling unfulfilled. It's sad they couldn't have gotten a younger director with more respect for the franchise and its roots. Like I said before I was pleasantly surprised by Bay's dialog and all the parts with the human characters, but then again this is a movie about TRANSFORMERS, and I think there, he failed. I doubt I'll be picking this up on DVD before it hits $10.