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

Foreword: I haven't seen the original in sometime, which I prefer for watching edits and I also didn't review the changes (log) ahead of watching, which I also prefer. I looked at the edit list back when I downloaded the edit, but I like to not know what I'm walking into; I don't watch an edit for a few months or more after downloading it.

What I liked: The intro change was nice. I liked that you redid the movie enough that I thought you might be including bits from the more recent films. It was a refreshing take on the first Transformer movie.

What I didn't: I believe that for what I think you were going for you could have cut down on some of the action. Also the scene right before Sam get's harassed by the Decepticon Barricade about the glasses it felt a little jumpy how quickly the girl shows up and even makes their "relationship" seem to unfold in an unnatural way later as the movie goes...but personally I'd rather take out that love element if it were possible.

Overall: I would recommend people check this out. This version sits better with me than the original release.

Extra: Keep up the good work! Would like to see you do this in better definition, or maybe release it in a better encode, which ever was the reason for the video quality.

Top notch edit from a top notch editor. There's not much to say other than that this is a lean, mean improvement on the source material. This replaces the theatrical cut on my shelf.

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

September 18, 2011 @ 6:54 am

An incredibly enjoyable version of Transformers. Everything on the tech side was perfect and the movie worked wonders for me.