That's a pretty solid "partial list."

I just knew a guy who "goes into stories" would take issue with "Transformers II."

Dude, down and dirty: if you have ANY resemblance of a sophisticated mind this a TWO BEER movie. Two beers and your inhabitions should be properly adjusted for this far-fetched fun-ride.
Story-smorie. Transformers II is ALL about quick one liners (most of which work and SHOULD get you to laugh -- at least I did). Oh and don't forget the spectacle of watching shit blow up right and left. Why wait for the 4th of July, right? (but I think you got that)

Transformers ISN'T the kind of movie you dig deep into. I saw it with my brother, his wife and my dad. EVERYONE loved it. So did most people in the theatre. It's making lots of $$ for a reason -- it's FUN!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Blowed it up good, real good.

I heard they name President Obama and portray him cowering in a bunker while real man military types disobey orders, take charge and save the day.

I don't know if that's true, but if so, it might tick me off a bit.

You know, I'm sick of the "but it's just a fun dumb summer movie!" argument - nay, EXCUSE - for shit like this movie.

Remember RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? STAR WARS? Hell, even THE MATRIX, which wasn't intellectually deep?

Stop excusing total garbage! Movies can contain both explosions and a great story. There is no reason for any decent writer to accept anything less than the best possible story that can be told.

(The worst part of this is that Bay didn't even have a full script, yet Kurtzman and Orci are getting reamed for the story. People so easily forget the awesomeness of STAR TREK. Now THAT'S a fantastic summer movie that manages to be action-packed and smart! It can be done!)

[/rant]

Yeah Scott but did you like it? ;)

Luzid: I concur.

Jeff: In all honesty, I didn't hate the movie -- I was bored. How much random destruction can a moviegoer take? I know I'm not 18 years-old and don't spend my every waking hour playing videogames, so I'm not the target audience for this movie, but still is it too much to ask for, you know, a little character depth, some actual ideas and themes to engage with, any sort of Internal World dynamics at all instead of a movie that plays out all up top?

Compare to Iron Man -- my glowing posts about that movie here and here -- or The Dark Knight -- which I pimped here. It's not like I don't like movies where things, you know, blow up. If the filmmakers behind Iron Man and The Dark Knight can do blow shit up and yet make it an interesting story with interesting characters and interesting ideas, why not Transformers?

If there's any 'blame' to go around for a movie that will walk -- excuse me -- blow past $500M in B.O., I doubt that responsibility can be laid at the feet of K&O. The script for Transformers had some witty dialogue, at least three nice characterizations (Agent Simmons reprised nicely by John Turturro, the ego-consumed Professor Colan played wonderfully by Rainn Wilson, and the robot who had a cain, a Scottish accent, and a bad attitude) -- clearly some good writing went into the project.

No, the person who came to the fork-in-the-road that said Interesting Movie Stuff (left) vs. Blow Up Stuff Real Good And That's All (right) and charged right, full speed ahead, well... I won't name him, but his job rhymes with "erector."

[Interesting to note that K&O wrote a wonderful piece of entertainment this summer, the movie Star Trek, resurrecting a dead franchise. Of course, the director they worked with J.J. Abrams is a writer himself, so it's probably safe to say story concerns had a bit more importance in that Paramount movie.]

Look, I'm glad people who enjoyed the movie, such E.C. and his family, enjoyed the movie. And I'm not begging for The Seventh Seal here. But shouldn't storytellers actually be expected to, you know... tell a story?

If this movie beats out TDK for the amount of monies made in the U.S. box office, I will be severely fucking pissed on about 17 different levels.

Scott, do you really think they were trying to tell a story?

Dude, as far as transformers go their's no story to tell that's worth telling if you've already graduated past the 5th grade.

The good guys are "autobots."
The bad guys "descepticons."
How can you even ATTEMPT to write a serious film if you work under those constraints?

Unscrew the bottle of Jack, and lett'er rip boyz! 4th of July come early! Yee-haw! Continue to blow shit up, and leave the people daze so people will overlook the fact their's no story worh hearing here boyz.

Point: enjoying Transformers means laying preconceptions and enjoying the film on the terms the artists intended. Story isn't always king...

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Okay, EC, it's on! :p

I can tell you how to do a decent story with TRANSFORMERS -- they even approached it in the first movie: stay true to Prime's self-sacrificing character.

In the series (and yes, I do realize it was written to sell toys), Prime was all about protecting the humans even at the risk of himself or any Autobot. The whole Allspark angle in the first film played on that. A robot who martys himself for mankind? Pretty nifty idea. You get the whole robots-aren't-human-but-still-care thing, which is timely as current robotics and AI technologies improve at a rapid pace every day.

And the best way to write a great story about it? Actually write a great script... which didn't happen here because of the writers' strike cutting short KO's writing stint. Having no finished story was a set up for creative failure, even if a master director (which Bay is NOT) had helmed this thing.

It's possible to do at least a half-decent job with any story if you care enough. It's obvious Bay didn't, and the really sad thing is that he's laughing all the way to the bank. I love action films, but how about some intelligence in them? As writers, it's our JOB to advance the form through great stories, not to excuse terrible films as just another ride that doesn't matter.

Stories matter. At least, they do if they're any good.

Also, I just have to say -- "Story isn't always king..."? Seriously?

I suspect screenwriters far and wide, both pro and weekend warrior alike, are having strong reactions to this Revenge of the Fallen phenomenon.

Having read and enjoyed the comments here, I can honestly say "yes, I agree with you all." Of course, being 1 of the only four people left in the nation who hasn't seen it yet, I'm only partially qualified to speak here.

I believe the hottest button pushed on this comment page will be E.C.'s statement "Story isn't always king." While I don't agree with him, I know for a fact that Hollywood does.

Look, I'm an American male who came of age in the 80's, I logged my share of Hasbro-funded entertainment, usually gnawing on Hostess pastries and washing it down with a stein of Kool-Aid, so I'm certainly in the marketing crosshairs of this movie. The first Transformers movie was, to me, a relatively pleasant surprise. Having been burned by Bay the "erector" (heh heh!) so many times before (Armageddon, in particular, rubbed my rhubarb the wrong way), my expectations were, of course, low. I found Transformers 1, though, to have a nice sense of itself... funny, sexy (Ms. Fox doin' what she does), loud, silly... the perfect "movie based on toys and cartoons." My only gripe was that the final half hour, the "big battle," was directed with such an attention deficit disorder paintbrush that, while I enjoy robots crunching each other, I didn't feel I actually SAW any. It was just a buzzing, whizzing canvass of noise.

If Bay and his editing team would just be a tad less twitchy and let the robots do their thing...

I hear the new one has more of what I didn't like about the first one and less of what I did. Unfortunate.

I think, as screenwriters, we feel a bit threatened when a film like this does boku bucks, and rightfully so. The script could have easily been written with a crayon on a cocktail napkin - - "FADE IN... blow shit up... FADE OUT." As long as Transformers doesn't become the accepted norm, I think we can all breathe easy. I don't suspect we'll see a strain of copycat movies, even though GI Joe is coming down the pike. Films of this ilk are a director's medium, not a writer's. The fact that Orci, Kurtzman, and, of all people, Ehren Krueger (I loved Arlington Road, what the fuck is he doing on this one...oh yeah.... getting paid!) were in the bullpen doesn't mean their skills were at all utilized to the hilt. For those of us (hell, all of us, right?) in the spec script biz, I'm pretty sure we're not expected to take things to this level. Let's face it, how many creative ways are there to say, "blow this shit up"... WE are still expected to tell a good story. Story IS supposed to be our king. It's later on, when we're professionals, when we can forgo story for a paycheck to write "blow shit up," right?

As Joe Bob Briggs, Drive-In movie critic, used to say, "There was no plot to get in the way of the story."

Apply that here.