Transformers (UA Edit)

at first i wasn’t really interested in this fanedit, but the overwhelming positive response has made me curious

back when TF1 came into cinemas i had a great time and it is still one of my favorite mindless blockbusters along with armageddon (baysplosions…) and i couldn’t imagine what could be changed about this movie. The thing with transformers is that it is a dumb rollercoaster ride – so any “making it more serious” cuts are more or less doomed in the first place. A faneditor editing transformers also can run the risk of cutting the hell out of the movie to “reduce the dumb humor” without realizing that there is an inherent sillyness about robots turning into cool stuff and nuking each other, which begs for some comic relief – now of course scenes like bumblebee peeing and stuff are dumb humor and deserve to get cut, but i was afraid that UA might have fallen into the faneditor trap of reducing all those elements – luckily he perfectly hit the balance
he got rid of the annoying stuff, but there is still a good share of bay-hero-moments (military guy riding the bike for no apparent reason under a decepticon) or enough of sam comedy + thankfully a lot of sam’s parents has been kept, which is one of the first things most faneditors cut to make TF1 more “serious”

there are some drastic cuts, like mikaela first appearing when sam is chased by barricade and the whole s7 stuff has been trimmed for good, but boy does it flow well – the only dumb scene i was hoping to have survived the edit was the indian phone guy with the credit card, but it’s not in this edit. Also UA knows how a story flows: often an editor will cut out a line that is just plain horrible and a lot of the times (especially in michael bay movies) this will result in either the loss of the barely existing so-called characters in a michael bay movie or there will be an awkward flow where even if the technical stuff fits, the viewer notices that there is a beat missing – but UA never falls for that

Special congrats for the final battle, the rearranging and removal of the “you’re a soldier now” worked tremendously well

10/10 – great job UA

March 14, 2011 @ 2:52 am

This movie stayed as ridiculous as I thought it would be, though the editor surely toned that down remarkably. I didn’t notice any crap editing, no problems that caught my attention, and the editing was all done well, but the movie still didn’t win me over.

Editing: 9/10, Fanedit Movie: 6/10 (and only because of the source material, which would probably rate as a 2 or 3 out of 10)
Well done, UncannyAntman!

April 16, 2010 @ 3:49 pm

Transformer (UA edit) by Uncanny Antman

review by boon23

Prologue:
I have been wanting to watch this fanedit for a long time, but somehow never got to it. Finally I did. As for all edits by Uncanny Antman, my expectations were pretty high, because he almost always delivers outstanding quality.
The original movie was not bad IMO, but never really good. It was superficial, had way too much stupid humor and the plot seemed to be the thing the movie cared not much about. Of course it wanted to show Transformers to an audience that grew up with the Hasbro toys – and that it totally did. Unfortunately I am not part of this generation. I never had a Transformer and other than knowing they exist and are toys, I knew nothing before I watched the movie.

As for all my reviews: this is just my personal opinion of this fanedit. I cannot tell anybody else, if he or she will experience it in the same way or the opposite. So my review is not objective and does not reflect the opinion of fanedit.org.

!!!!This review contains heavy spoilers!!!

The edit:
The fanedit started with what I did not like. The song in the beginning was a variation of the one from the main menu, obviously from some classic Transformers thing that I don’t know. I take it, this is a cool thing for the fans, but for someone unfamiliar with it, it just does not fit at all. The title credits are also not great.

But this is about all the bad stuff I can say about an otherwise great fanedit. We get a condensed, action-packed version of Transformers, where most of the stupid humor and the distractions are gone.

The characters and their changes:

Sam: It seemed impossible, but the Antman made me like Shia LaBeouf in this movie. By losing such an incredible mas of bad scenes and concentrating on the important parts he seems like just the type of anti-hero to like. Awesome achievement. Improvement factor: 100%

Mikaela: The relationship between Sam and Mikaela loses a lot of depth by deleting the sidetracks. In fact, Mikaela loses almost everything she ever had. we never learn why she is skilled with tools and cars or what she thinks of Sam and why. The original, although deeply flawed, took a lot more care about the relationship and to make it believable. It also presented Mikaela as a much more important and real person. Mikaela is the loser of this fanedit. Decrement factor: 90%

Captain Lennox: losing his back story he is now a true war hero. It feels a bit odd that he is presented as important when we get to know nothing about him, but still he is a lot more convincing in his role now. Improvement factor: 50%

Defense Secretary John Keller: he was really annoying at times int he original from what I recall. Now he is most of all helpful. We see him running around a lot. Not a great performance, but he is much more bearable now. Improvement factor: 50%

Agent Simmons: the major pain in the movie. His stupidity was just annoying. The movie could not 100% save him from being stupid, but he was so much believable as a weird expert of a super secret organization. In fact, he is not really a pain anymore. Incredible achievement. Improvement factor: 100%

Bumblebee: he is more likable and less childish. Big Improvement, especially for not pissing on Simmons. Improvement factor: 50%

Optimus Prime: He seems smarter, wiser and more like a true a leader. Thanks for deleting the final speech (although it felt like something was missing. Improvement factor: 50%

Back to the edit:
The streamlined action plot works really well, with a few exceptions: the Witwicky back garden scene and the autobots hiding is still akward and I think this should have been even more trimmed. The decepticon still turns into the Nokia cell, but this part is never continued. Other than that I was highly entertained and enjoyed all the cool changes. The new score worked great, the more mysterious all-spark was a wonderful idea. Sector 7 was much more serious and believable. all the worst parts of Transformers were masterfully addressed and turned into a magnificent improvement over the original.

editing: 9 of 10 (great and very creative editing decisions, no hard cuts, good plot development, but unfortunately we lose too much of Mikaela.)

entertainment: 8 of 10 (it was a good watching experience. Still not great, but far improved – the original got a 6 of 10 from me on imdb )

Image and video quality:
Perfect.

Audio editing and audio quality:
audio quality was perfect.
audio editing: 10 of 10
sound quality: 10 of 10
resulting in a 10 of 10 for overall audio

presentation:
The fanedit has no custom title. I did not like the menu music and the title score. The main menu and the extras menu look great and have awesome transitions. There is no chapter menu. The fanedit had quite some extras, most are additional internet videos with the outstanding and funny “no” video. Some sort of making of would have been great. The starting and end credits were self made but do not inform about the editor. The fanedit comes with nice cover art.
Overall: a nice package!
Great!
8 of 10 for overall presentation

Final result: 9 of 10
While it still is a superficial action movie, this is a highly entertaining and very improved version of Transformers. A huge achievement and I can definitely recommend this fanedit to anyone being in the mood to watch Transformers. It totally replaces my original.

48 minutes of cringe trimmed and I didn't miss 47 of it (Prime's speech at the end). The battle in the city at the end of the movie is vastly improved, but hard to follow in a few spots... that will likely improve on repeat viewings. This will be the version I watch next time I scan my collection and get the urge to watch Transformers again.