Transformers (UA Edit)

November 14, 2009 @ 10:26 am

The Edit is fantastic, I really like how you’ve arranged it, and changed the music in some scenes. But as a whole I think I’d still leave out more of certain dialogue and visuals (“What’s stressing, bitches?”, or whatever it is he says, Bumblebee dancing, Fat hacker Boy freaking out in the interview room, and Captain Obvious stuff like “It’s a robot”, “The ice is cracking!”, and “It’s going after the files!”.) What I also hate is annoying ignorant stuff like “Bring The Rain!” – no military professional would talk like that on a radio – and the fat hacker boy being able to see an embedded message within an audio file and be able to decode it in five seconds, complete with pretty visuals. Michael Bay lives in a dream world! (It’s not your fault it was written by a 12-year old). I’d just like to see an attempt to make it a bit more “grown up”.

SO, the Technical – 10/10, and for the movie itself 6/10. But with improvement the movie as a whole could be an 8 or 9. The original I was WOWED with at the cinema but I must’ve been wearing rose-tinted glasses, and still found myself embarrassed at certain scenes (plus I was with my 8-yr old nephew at the time), so in hindsight having seen the movie after it came out on DVD I was terribly disappointed. I haven’t even bothered to see ROTF.

Still a recommended download, thank you for putting the time and effort into this.

Review by gugliemo — July 12, 2011 @ 2:45 am

From the very first viewing, I never likes Transformers. I didn’t know how it was possible to take the concept and *not* make an entertaining film, but Michael Bay’s horrible, messy, bigoted, superficial and insultingly stupid film removed any sense of joy from the experience. (On a side note, I am perhaps the only person in the world who thought the sequel was a considerable improvement, but that’s another story)

Uncanny Antman’s edit is a massive improvement. The new opening is excellent, and the entire first act was a very enjoyable film. The film now has a central focus on the setting up of events (similar to disaster movies like Armageddon or Deep Impact), we follow the Decepticons as they begin to infiltrate Earth, the pentagon’s response and the Analysts who try and stop them. Cleverly, the soldiers and Sam Witwicky become smaller subplots who will become the main focus of the second half (once the pentagon and analysts’ roles have become redundant). Uncanny Antman has managed to take one of the aspects of the film I found particularly irritating (the blonde supermodel “analyst” subplot) and actually make it interesting.

Towards the second half, things become a bit shakier. To be fair, Uncanny Antman is limited by the material and he had already gone massively beyond any reasonable expectations. The analyst suplot leads to a dead end once she makes a copy for her friend. Some kind of conclusion would be nice, the interogation scene is now pointless as neither character plays a further role in the film.

Megan Fox’s character was attocious in the original, but her complete eradication leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Who is she, why has she followed Sam. It is clear they’re still getting to know each other and flirting, yet the film also suggests they’re pre-established friends. While I prefer no-Fox to too-much-Fox, it does sadly highlight the fact that we’re watching an edit.

Antman has done improved the film’s climax a hundred fold. The original is one of the dumbest endings I have ever seen, it mostly revolves around a teenager, who’s friends are 30 foot racing cars, running *on foot* to get to a helicopter which he will use to escape from evil *supersonic jetplanes*, and is concluded by the bad guy who wants the magic box being given the magic box, which then kills him (as established about an hour earlier in the film). I really don’t think a person could write the ending any more retarded.

While the “put the allspark in my chest” conclusion cannot be avoided, Antman’s re-ordering of the entire climax turns it into an exciting and(mostly) logical brawl.

This review cannot do justice to the wonders that Uncanny Antman has done. He has taken out 90% of the stupidity, chauvenism, cheese, and unfunny remedial humour, and made Transformers one of the best films it can be given the material.

I do think it could have done more though. In my opinion, the scene with the Transformers in the garden and with Sam’s parents is just terrible. The scene is perhaps made even worse because it follows what Antman has designed to be a tense and exciting set-up: the Earth is being infiltrated by an incredibly powerful and unknown enemy, however, our saviours have arrived (the scene of the Autobots arriving has been snipped into being particularly cool now)… and yet the first 15 minutes we spend in their company is played for (unfunny) laughs. Maybe Antman just likes the scene, but I think the film and pacing would improve considerably if the whole thing was taken out: Sam looks for/finds his glasses, Sector 7 turn up and arrest him, Autobots intersept the convoy.

I would give the original theatrical cut of Transformers a 3/10 (without exageration). It does have some impressive special effects, but these are so badly handled and the rest of the film is such a loud, offensive mess that I find it painful to even try and watch it.

Judging Uncanny Antman’s edit purely as a film in its own rights, I would give it a 6 or 7/10. On the whole, its an enjoyable experience, and parts of the film are easily 9/10 quality. I don’t know if there’s much more you can do with the film, but I do think a bit of extra cutting might help (which contrasts the opinions above which suggest too much has been cut. The thing with a shit sandwisanwich though, is less will always be more). I look forward to watching the other fanedits of the first Transformers and seeing what their take on the film was. But for now I thank Uncanny for actually making Transformers into a watchable experience and allowing me the pleasure of watching Robots beat the crap out of each other.

January 17, 2012 @ 12:23 am

This probably is my favorite version of Transformers. Big improvement over the original. I liked the rearranging of scenes and pacing.

Technical quality – 9/10 – there were a couple parts where the audio seemed too quiet/too loud. There were lots of parts with choppy video, but I’m guessing this was a problem created when I burned the disc, not an error in the original video.

Editing – 10/10 – absolutely seamless. I didn’t notice any hard cuts or abrupt transitions. Probably one of the best editing jobs I’ve seen.

Presentation – 10/10 – menu was nice and the cover art was pretty good too.

Entertainment – 9/10 – I loved most of the cuts. The main thing I wished you had changed was some of the Transformers’ lines. Some of them are a bit on the cheesy side, and I know that’s sort of how Transformers is supposed to be, but it’s always bugged me. Also, the Transformers song during the opening credits didn’t really work for me. Either way, though, a solid 9/10 for entertainment value.

Overall – 9/10

Review by Angel — May 8, 2012 @ 6:38 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by tehwallaby — December 18, 2011 @ 5:11 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*