Transformers Dark of the Moon 3D Limited Edition Blu-Ray

Posted by Michael Weyer on 01.31.2012

Can a disc packed with extras be worth buying one of the most critically reviled hits of 2011? There really is more than meets the eye.

Transformers Dark of the Moon 3-D Limited Edition Blu-Ray
Paramount Home Video
154 Minutes



One of the most popular Internet groups lately has been Rifftrax. The guys behind the classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 offer special audio commentaries that can be downloaded and played with recent Hollywood blockbusters. As you can imagine, they have a ball ripping into some notable bombs like Batman and Robin, Battlefield Earth, The Wicker Man and The Last Airbender. But they also target big hit stuff like Star Wars, Twilight, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and The Matrix (with a line on the first film in which they can’t believe a movie so stupid inspired an entire geek religion). They even managed to do a Riff on Casablanca that made the most perfect movie ever hysterical. So as you can imagine, the Transformers trilogy has given them the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

I actually liked the first Transformers film. Sure, I wanted to see more of the actual Robots in Disguise but as a long-time fan of the cartoon, I still got a kick seeing it on the big screen. It made sense for Michael Bay to direct it as the man is perfect for huge, over-the-top epic action that this required. Yes, I was annoyed at John Turturro’s act and watching toilet humor from Bumblebee but it was still a decent action flick. Revenge of the Fallen, however, turned out to be a total mess as Bay apparently believed that what audiences wanted was less of the Autbot/Decepticon war and more of drugged-out parents, Shia LaBeouf acting crazy and a pair of robots who made Jar Jar Binks look like the model of fan love. It still made a mint but was horrible to actually watch. So my hopes were less than high for Dark of the Moon, the 3-D installment that broke box office records this year (the sudden exit of Megan Fox, one of the few bright spots to the first two movies, didn’t help). The movie is an improvement over Revenge but that’s faint praise as in order to get to some really great action sequences, you have to wade through some of the most painful “comedy” of any blockbuster in recent memory. That’s not to mention the slap in the face to history and some mind-boggling storytelling that makes this a sometimes painful experience to get through. After a “bare-bones” release last fall, the movie comes out in a big 4-disc edition that is an odd case of a great set of extras for a movie that doesn’t really deserve them.

The Film

The movie starts promising enough by giving Transformers fan what they want: A look at the final days of the war on Cybertron, an epic battle where a huge ship carrying a special cargo escapes. It’s shot down, somehow crashing on Earth’s moon in 1961. President Kennedy (represented by some truly poor CGI modeling) is told and decides that the U.S. has to get to the moon before the Soviets do to find the UFO. That’s right, according to the movie, the entire space race, one of the greatest achievements in mankind’s history, was all a smokescreen to get hold of the Autobot ship. We even see the first moon walk where Neil Armstrong was briefed to check the ship out and make sure it fell into American hands.



Flash forward to the present as Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) finds himself, despite having helped save the world twice and presented with a Medal of Honor, unable to land a job, much to the annoyance of his parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White). Sam has a new girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) who works for a bigwig industrialist, Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey). We’re treated to a long montage of Sam blowing various interviews before getting a job in the mailroom for Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich). Meanwhile, with the Decepticons seemingly on the run, the Autobots now work with the U.S. military taking on terrorist threats alongside Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel). Investigating the ruins of Chernobyl (yep, that was caused by Transformers too), the Autobots discover evidence that the Soviets knew about Transformers, which doesn’t make Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) happy with new National Intelligence director Charlotte Mearing (Frances McDormand). Traveling to the moon, the Autobots discover the ship and its pilot, the revered Sentinel Prime (voice of Leonard Nimoy) who warns them the Decepticons are after his cargo, which can teleport forces to Earth.

During all this, Sam has been working when he’s confronted in the bathroom by a crazed man (Ken Jeong) who warns him that someone is after him. The man is killed by Laserbeak and Sam tracks down former agent Seymour Simmons (Turturro) who learns that various people have been killed that are suspected to have worked with the Decepticons. It’s not long before it turns out that Megatron (Hugo Weaving) is working with some figures to launch an attack on Earth and isn’t above blackmailing humanity to get rid of the Autobots first.

Now, I’m not Peter Travers or some critic who demands everything out of Hollywood has to be high-brow entertainment. I have nothing against turning my brain off for a blockbuster, I’ve done it lots of times, including for Bay’s past work. The Rock remains one of my favorite action movies and I loved Armageddon. However, this really presses my limit. The first half of the movie is just brutally painful to watch with Bay thinking folks want to see LaBeouf doing “humor” on his job and pads the film with this stuff. That’s a benefit of having it on DVD, you can fast-forward past all this, which helps the ridiculously long two-and-a-half-hour running time go by a bit faster. Folks buy tickets to Transformers wanting to see big metal robots beat the hell out of each other, not the adventures of the quirky human guy. That’s enhanced by such gems as Jeong being the height of annoying rambling and over-the-top in his cameo and his presenting Sam with evidence in a men’s room so Malkovich can overhear and assume they’re having sex. A development late in the movie of Sam forced to wear a Decepticon as a watch is supposed to be tense but it’s ruined by having Sam do crazy convulsions through it all.



That’s without mentioning the story problems. I’m more than used to sequels ignoring stuff that’s gone before but the inconsistencies with the previous films (which made little sense as it was) are too lengthy to list. A key one is how the supposed grand plan could work when the Decepticons had no idea the Autobots had a key item needed for it to work? Or how a teleport bridge was supposed to stop the war on Cybertron in the first place. Or how hundreds of Decepticons could come out of nowhere after decades in hiding that Megatron apparently never considered using in the first two movies. And the revelation of the actual grand plan which violates pretty much every rule of physics. Yes, I know the original cartoon was hardly a science manual but that’s the point, an ‘80’s cartoon shouldn’t have more semblance to reality than a modern-day blockbuster movie. I’m angered as a fan as the Transformers themselves are so interchangeable, you never get to feel for any of them as actual characters and Bay doesn’t help matters by throwing in new ones like a Ferrari who talks like an Italian guy and a trio of Autobots who sound Scottish. What I really take issue with is his treatment of the two big ones. Optimus Prime is made to sound like a moron for the first half of the film before turning into a brutal Decepticon-slaying machine who (after a supposed plot development you see coming) is seemingly ready to let thousands of humans die just to show how you can’t trust Decepticons. And Megatron? One of the greatest villains of his medium is reduced to a complete flunky this time out, nowhere near the power he should be.

And then there’s the acting. To be fair, it’s hard to find a cast capable of aiding this bad script but it still amazes me to see such talented people brought low with this. LaBeouf evidentially believes that the best way to show Sam’s growth is to just amp up the annoying attributes of the first two films with lots of screaming and hysterical nonsense. Huntington-Whiteley is nice to look at (enhanced by Bay insisting she be in either underwear or hot dresses) but her acting skills make Fox look like Tilda Swinton and Bay doesn’t help by having her be the damsel in distress for most of the film before an absolutely insulting moment in the final battle that makes you want to tear your hair out. Thankfully, Turturro dials it down a bit but Malkovich looks like he’s in a totally different movie. As for McDormand…what, did she lose money to Madoff or something? Watching this talented Oscar-winner trying to be a hard-flint boss and even flirting with Turturro is painful to watch. Alan Tudyk’s character of an ex-spy who now serves as Simmons’s bodyguard sounds good but is ruined by a ridiculous accent and fey manner. Dempsey’s meant to be a big twist but the way he smarms with the role, he should just be wearing a sign saying “I’m a bad guy” in his entrance. Duhamel and Gibson might as well be just nameless grunts for all the attention they get. For the voice work, it’s good to have Cullen as Prime and while Nimoy is serviceable as Sentinel, it’s tarnished by Bay insisting he replicate one of the most honored Star Trek lines ever. And if historians weren’t upset enough, seeing Buzz Aldrin playing himself claiming to have been on a secret mission on the moon will get them really riled up.



What makes the whole experience sadder is that when the action starts, Bay shows he really is talented at this stuff. There’s a great chase sequence with Decepticons after the Autobots on the road that includes a truly awesome bit with Bumblebee turning from car to robot to leap over debris, Sam flying through the air with Bumblebee grabbing him and transforming back into a car, all in one smooth shot. The Decepticon attack on Chicago is very well done, sheer brutality with people blasted into dust and burned-out cars and buildings, showing how horrific an army of alien robots attacking an Earth city would be. The battle scene at the end is filled with some nice bits like a collapsing tower and guys using skysuits and the FX guys pull out all the stops through it. The best part of the movies is how they take a realistic look at how transforming robots look and move, bolts flying off in battle and great details like when towers fall and you see papers and desks fly out just like they would if it really happened. The final battle is a huge effort but the fact it takes up the entire last hour of the movie is a bit much. It’s like an ice cream sundae; sure you love one but a twenty-ounce bowl is a bit too hard to get through. The movie also loses a bit of impact on the small screen and without the 3D of the theaters. Ironically, the 3D may have helped things as you can’t get too in close with that tech yet so Bay has to pull back the camera and thus not as frantic in the action scenes, letting you appreciate it more. The action is overall well done which makes it harder that we have to wade through an hour of painful “comedy” to get to the good stuff.

Some will say I’m being too harsh, that these are just popcorn flicks. Well, when I have popcorn, I expect it to taste good and not overwhelm me with the icky stuff. Dark of the Moon has a slam-bang finish but it’s not worth the pain of the “comedy” that precedes it, not to mention the horrible gaps in logic they ask you to leap to enjoy it. It’s a shame because when Bay gets it on with the action, the film really is a stunning spectacle. But, as much as I love a cool action flick, sometimes there is a limit and packing in way too many fancy shots and effects can overwhelm the senses. Fans of the franchise may not be happy with the way it turns a noble hero into a typical Hollywood action punk and pushes a classic villain to the side. Overall, it may be an improvement on the second film but still stands mostly as an example of how you really can get too much of a big-budget thing and in a painful package.

Rating: 5.0 out of 10.0

Video

The film comes in a four-disc set with the Blu-Ray feature in regular and 3D mode. Both are presented in 1080p high definition while the DVD is widescreen enhanced for 16:9 sets. As you can expect, the transfer is ultra-top-notch, selling every detail of the film in vivid detail. It really does come up in the battle scenes, letting you see every piece of debris and cloud of dust like it’s right in front of you. Say what you will about the movie itself but the way it’s presented cannot be faulted.

Rating: 10.0 out of 10.0


Audio

The Blu-Ray is in English 7.1 Dolby Digital while the DVD is Dolby Digital English 5.1. Subtitles are in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, the sound coming in wonderfully, especially for the action sequences. If you’ve got a good stereo system, you’ll enjoy a wild experience that immerses you fully into the film and brings the event to vivid life.

Rating: 10.0 out of 10.0


Bonus Features

Some were upset with the original Blu-ray release being a bare-bones edition with word coming of this four-disc set. But give credit where it’s due, Paramount made the wait worth it by packing this thing full of nearly four hours of extras that shed terrific light on the making of such an epic.



Above and Beyond: Exploring Dark of the Moon is the key “making-of” feature, clocking in just under two hours and is a fascinating case of a “making of” doc that’s more interesting and entertaining than the movie it showcases. It benefits from not holding back, far more into the warts of the production than I expected and proves to Bay haters that the man really does love the process of filmmaking and gives it his all. It’s divided into five sections that can be viewed separately or all at once.

Rising from the Fallen: Development and Design (22:24) focuses on the pre-production aspects. Producer Ian Bryce kicks off the acknowledgement that the second movie was not as good as they hoped for, LaBeouf adding that they overdid too much of the robot and comedy stuff. Bay and Ethan Kruger put most of the blame on the 2007 writer’s strike, saying it marred production and led to a story they weren’t happy with. There’s a nice bit where we see critic quotes that start positive and slowly slide into trashing the film. Bay wanted to hurry production so as not to split up the team he’d worked with. For not getting as much screen time as one would hope, there’s a lot of discussion on how they developed the characters, upgrading Bumblebee, giving Optimus his trailer and creating new guys like Sentinel (who in the original designs was named Ultra Magnus) and others. Car editor David Urich and transport coordinator Randy Peters talk about the work in making these cars function and going in depth on origins, such as how Enzo was meant to be classic Autobot Mirage but turned him into a Ferrari. Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura talks about the character Que being based on James Bond’s Q and how original sketches were deemed “too Pixar.” Josh Duhamel loves the Wreckers, “race cars with guns, how cool is that” and they go into how Shockwave was meant to use his driller like a chariot and Procter glad to finally use some anime style for Sentinel. A big talk is on Fox leaving, Bay actually blaming Hollywood for wanting actresses to be a certain way and Fox “didn’t look like Mikaela” anymore in the rehearsals. It’s clear Huntington-Whiteley was chosen off her looks, Bay claiming that she had a “magnetism” on screen but it’s clear he’s not talking about her acting talent.

Ready for Prime Time: Filming Across America (27:50) reveals the decision to shoot in 3D was added late in pre-production and Bay was unprepared for how much slower it would take with the way the camera moved and was bulky. Special effects supervisor John Frazier discusses the big building set which was on a platform a third of a football field in size and funny how the actors used baby powder on their behinds to slide down it. Detroit was chosen for how it looks like a ruined city so much of the time, set decorator Jennifer Williams talking about the trouble in having a train stuck in a building. Moving to the shoot in Washington D.C., Bay noted how it’s easier to shoot under the space shuttle than on a D.C. street and the complications of shooting in the Lincoln Memorial, going to far as to send Duhamel out on the street to distract people and using sneakers so the tripod wouldn’t be on the floor. A funny bit is when a stuntman accidentally scrapes the side of a $300,000 car, Bay screaming at first before eating a Big Mac. They lucked out with the metal doors of the space shuttle being open for a key scene but a strange bit of LaBeouf kneeling listening to Feist on his headphones to get into the mood for a scene. People are diplomatic about working with Bay, noting how he can be an asshole but still a great director on set and willing to put up with it due to the skill he has.

Battle in the Heartland: Shooting in Chicago (13:40) shows the huge shoot in the city. I remember how every day, there’d be something in the local papers about this and unit production manager Allegra Clegg speaks for everyone on how impressed they were the city let them do so much. Bay laughs that “they closed Michigan Avenue twice. Once for Oprah, once for me.” Williams talks of them wanting a 9/11-esque feel and making the debris light foam so it could be moved around easily. They had good shooting days except for one notable storm that dumped eight inches of rain on the set. Bay is noted as prepared but always open to improvising so they had to have the practice of “A-T-T-A-T-T: All the toys, all the time.” They compliment Bay on not wanting as much CGI destruction but as much as could be done for real. There’s a lot on the thousands of fans who showed up to watch and were rewarded with big explosions and even Mayor Daly dropped by. Best of all was how fast they were able to clean things up and good to see Chicago used in such a big way.

Attack of the Birdmen: Aerial Stunts (16:08) looks at the cool air suits used in the film. Bay got the idea after watching it on TV and felt he had to use it for the film. J.T. Holmes is the precision skydiver used to plan it all, excited to showcase these. We get some of the pre-visualization stuff that planned it but Holmes reveals that they needed to be on set in order to truly figure it out. A fun comment is how some might say the divers were nuts but they were truly pros. It was tricky using the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower but you have to admire the sheer guts of these guys using these things in a major city and making it work out.

Shadow of the Sentinel: Post-Production and Release (29:30) looks at the lengthy post-production phase. Film editors Joel Negron and Roger Barton note the problems using the 3D as it slows down style of filming and makes it harder to fix things. Special effects guys Dave Folger, Matthew Butler, David Hodgins and Rick O’Connor all note the effects stuff and sum up Bay as “a pain in the ass but an f---ing genius.” We see Bay in the effects room yelling to make things look better with Bay laughing about how he can be. Marten Larrson talks about how Japan used a satellite years back to laser-scan the moon and thus give them a way to make it look realistic. Even the FX guys seem to think there was too much human stuff in the movies as “finally using giant robots is very therapeutic.” Jeff White notes how hard it was making the Driller work with all its moving parts and the details of it burrowing through the ground and a building. It’s surprising that the effects work was so huge that ILM needed to upgrade their computers to handle it all. Nimoy seemed to have a good time getting into voicing Sentinel, adding his respectful tone to things. Like the CGI guys, sound editors Erik Aadahl and Greg P. Russell maxed out their sound board making it work, creating sounds with a fridge for the crashing building. The whole feature finishes with the Moscow premiere and a wrap-up with Bay saying he’d love to do more films and all ending with “To be continued…”

Uncharted Territory: NASA's Future Then and Now (26:15) is a love letter to the agency. Robert Jacobs, with the office communications center says that the general public’s knowledge of NASA is “a mile wide but an inch deep.” Lisa Malone talks about how important the agency still is with Bob Williams loving his job as construction guy as “who doesn’t want to build a rocket?” Long-time publicist Jack King hates how far the program has fallen, hating the idea of needing Russia to carry up astronauts now. He does acknowledge how the moon landings needed to end because of the economics (“we sentenced ourselves to 30 years of hard labor in orbit”) and now history repeats with the shuttles grounded. They say that they’ve lost so many people but have to change the public perception that NASA is still needed, that mankind has to eventually leave Earth in order to survive. Overall, it’s a great look at the organization in a critical time and how big a part it played in our culture.

Deconstructing Chicago is a series of short features on the key action sequences of the final battle. They’re divided into pre-visualization and visual effects, which can be viewed separate or a side-by-side comparison with the final product in the film. The pre-viz come with commentary by Bay and supervisor Steve Yamamoto who note things like shooting at a tower once used by Al Capone and wanting a War of the Worlds feel for the Decepticon invasion. It’s noted that Bay doesn’t like to use storyboards and finds it easier to shoot than explain. A funny one has him telling Huntington-Whiteley in a scene with explosions going off behind her, “you flinch, you’re going back to London.” The effects ones have commentary by Scott Farrar and Matthew Butler that’s a bit drier but still good explaining how they make such complicated effects stuff work.



The Art of Cybertron are a series of galleries you can bounce around to check out the various parts of the film:
- Autobots
- Decepticons
- Environments
- Weapons and Gear
- Ships

The Dark of the Moon Archive are a series of short featurettes.

3D: A Transforming Visual Art (3:06) has excerpts from a talk between Bay and James Cameron on the future of the technology as they see it as a benefit for movies, not a distraction.

Moscow World Premiere (2:38) looks at the epic event in Russia with a huge crowd.

Birdmen Featurette (2:28) is a rather unnecessary look at the suits after their chapter in the big documentary.

Cody's iPad (2:07) shows the softer side of Bay as he introduces us to Cody, a wheelchair-bound disabled man he met outside his office a few years ago, wanting to be an actor. The man communicates with an iPhone in his chair, using his nose to type and Bay, treating him as a real friend, gives him an iPad, a great touch by the man.

The Sound of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (9:17) looks again at the sound stuff, Greg Russell saying he assumed the movie was a 2012 release and pushed by the new time. Erik Aadahl laughs that they thought the movie would be smaller than the second one as Ethan Van der Ryn adds Bay is a good director to get freedom from for technical stuff. It goes into the creation of effects like dry ice for some ships and such, technical but good.

The Matrix of Marketing contains trailers and posters. Surprisingly no deleted scenes but still something truly packed with extras to satisfy.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.0

The 411: The movie itself is still horribly flawed, too dull in its first half and too relentless in the second. It's a shame as the action sequences are well done and with a great flair but the poor storytelling and acting ruin those merits. However, the film itself is ultra-top notch in its quality and the 3D is used well. Best of all, the extras are fantastic, offering an in-depth look at the creation of the film with open acknowledgement of the faults of the second and Bay's unique style and even the controversy of Megan Fox leaving. It's a better treatment than the film deserves but if you enjoyed this series, you'd be well off buying this set which truly offers a lot on how to transform an idea into reality.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]