Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Picked up Transformers 2 Blu-Ray today....

I bought the "Big Screen" edition or whatever that they are selling only at Walmart that has the IMAX scenes in it for $19.64... That was less than the 2 disc DVD version... Must have been some price matching going on or something!

I would be even more excited, but I've heard that the movie is bad. I didn't see it in the theaters for that reason, but hopefully I will get at least $20 of use out of it.

Cul Nick, I was planning on getting it today as well, may have to go tomorrow... I like T1 better, but T2 is ok, Mudflap and his sidekick will get on your nerves...

Jar Jar Binks for the current generation?

yup

Oh great.... Something to (NOT) look forward to.

Looking forward to getting your thoughts on it!

I was very disappointed in #2. It didn't hold my interest like the first and that hurts for a three hour movie. I also agree about it having too many childish characters. Sure it's the kids who will buy the toys but most kids I know also complained about the "stupid dick-bots", as my 11 year old nephew called them.

However, as a BR, the visual and sound effects will be worth a watch. You may never watch it a second time but it's worth watching once. Well, except maybe for watching Megan Fox. She totally justifies any amount of R&D dollars that went into inventing the Pause Button..

Dude, you missed putting the text "Megan Fox" and the text "Dick-bot" in the same paragraph....

Not in my mind......not in my mind.

Guys - I watched this last night (Big Screen / Wal-Mart version) and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The sound is AMAZING. It's the best I've heard for a while. There were numerous scenes where the EP-800 was rumbling DEEP and loud. I loved it.

Personally, I actually thought the movie was great too. I realize there are people who didn't like it as much as the first but the three people who watched it with me all felt it was a very good movie. I didn't love a couple of the new Transformer characters, but all in all I thought the movie had good humor and fantastic action scenes. The CGI work is truly astounding.

Even if you think the movie is mediocre, the audio quality makes this Blu-Ray totally worth watching. Enjoy!

Jason

No doubt it, the sequels to an original are rarely as good, however, I take it for what it is worth and have bought these movies to essentially obtain the picture and sound to test the system. Action movies tend to do that.
It should be interesting to see the new "Star Trek"(which got good write-ups) and the "Terminator" sequel and how they measure up for picture and sound, both arriving in December.

Man, am I ever going to have a bunch of movies to watch once I get moved into the new house next year.

Amen on the Dick-bots. Double Amen on Megan. I saw it at the theater - my daughters took me as a Father's day present. They seconded on the D-bots - I had to be careful on the Megan part.

I am sure it will sound better on the Epic 60-500 than in the theater I went to.

I did see Star Trek. It was fairly well done and for fans of the original series (we watched the reruns over and over in college) - it is a must see.

Wanted to see Terminator but dint make it.

I saw Terminator Salvation on the plane heading home from Dallas last night. I don't recommend it for the story, but if you like shiny silver robots with red eyes, fast moving objects, and big balls of fire, there is some entertainment value here.

I enjoyed Terminator 1, 2 and even 3. And there is so much they could have done with the story here. For me, it just fell flat.

paul

I found Terminator Salvation more entertaining than Transformers 2.

I don't want to watch Terminator again until I have my full speaker upgrade. The sound of that beam weapon gave me chills.

Thanks to all the negative input about Transformers I was able to enjoy it much more than expected. For a cartoon turned into SciFi I thought it was fine. Certainly a workout on the ole audio system. Looked great on the projector. Enjoyed the experience for what it was.

But glad I was not expecting to engage my brain for 3 hours.

I need to pick this up. I watched it in the Theater on release, and although I thought the movie was not great overall, I kept thinking that it would be a good one to put the axioms to the test.

Ok, problem with the T2 DVD, wondering if anyone else is seeing it. Starting about the fight scene where Optimus dies the aspect ratio jumps from having black bars on top/bottom (expected) to full 16;9 frame. Then after a minute or so, it goes back. There are 2-3 occasions near the latter half of the movie where it does this....anyone else seeing this?

I have a Panny BD60 player and Sanyo Z2 projector. I purches the "big screen" version at Walmart.

just did a quick goole search, not sure this is it, but some movies like the Dark Knight (Imax) version) shift AR's during the movie, what the hell is that about.

Is this what the T2 movie is doing? Are there other versions that don't have this crap?

Exactly how I felt about it. Not much plot, but a fun romp with a noble cause, lots of action, some laughs, great audio, a gorgeous young lady, and a happy ending. Absolutely NOTHING like real life. What more could you want?

found this...what a crock of crap...this really sucks when you zoom your projector to get the black bars off the screen, probably would not have purchased this version had I known.

As I mentioned, this edition calls out the IMAX shots with a clear shift from a 2.4:1 aspect ratio to 16:9 (1.78:1). That's actually not the accurate aspect ratio for IMAX, but it is ideal for home video, to maximize the appearance on widescreen HDTVs. The first of two such instances begins at 59:23 (ending at 1:02:44, then cutting back for about another minute to conclude the scene) as robo-hero Optimus Prime takes on three Decepticons in the forest. The image quality is absolutely gorgeous, but is it a night-and-day difference? No, but only because the rest of the movie looks so damned good.

Colors are amped but not cartoonish, soft imagery somehow manages to keep the ringing and other artifacting to a minimum, and even darker or out-of-focus areas of the frame, typically poison for Blu-ray, are relatively clear and natural. The second IMAX sequence starts at 1:51:25, cutting back and forth throughout a lengthy battle in the desert with a super-ultra-combo-Decepticon that eats other robots. These special effects-heavy shots are indeed very big and very crisp.

The version which cuts back and forth between aspect ratios is exclusive to Walmart, it's called the "Big Screen" edition. Other versions use the IMAX footage, but it's been reframed so as to not cut off important things in the top of bottom of the 4:3 IMAX frame.

You can read reviews covering both versions here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2638/transformers_revenge.html
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2780/transformers-revenge_imax.html

The projector to start spewing gold coins at the end of the movie. Is that so unrasonable??

Um, nice "Spoiler Alert" there Randy! I STILL haven't seen the movie and now, it is ruined for me. I will curl into a ball and sob for 2 hours contemplating the meaning of life and how I can possibly go on....

Seriously though, you should have "spoiler alert" flagged that one...

Nick - Randy was joking. Don't believe me? The only way to find out is to buy the movie. :p

Jason

Figured everyone had watched the movie by now. Ok Nick, I'll give you this much, Optimus is saved by a Camaro.

That tears it for me. I am not giving my disposable income to Wally World.

Stop It!

Hey Jason... Look back to see who started this thread....

I'll wait....

OK, back now? Yup, it was me... (just picking on you)

I do own the movie.

Anyway, with my travel schedule, it seems like I don't get to watch much of anything anymore and what I do watch is whatever my wife and/or kids want to watch.... which is OK since I am just happy to be home.

Maybe this next week I'll have better luck.

Oops, good point Nick. I should have said "the only way to find out is to WATCH the movie."

By the way, for people who do not have a setup like Randy with constant image height, the IMAX scenes are awesome. I would buy this version again after seeing those specially added scenes in the Wal-Mart version.

Jason

LOL. Yup Jason. I was just teasing you anyway.

I think that I may need to have a "guy's movie night" this weekend and watch this with X-Men Wolverine. Neither are supposed to be that great, but should still be fun.

Don't listen to the hype, I liked them both a lot. That's a great lineup for a guy's movie night, especially on your system!

I managed to watch Transformers 2 today and actually enjoyed it for the most part. Expectations were low going in, so that may have helped. The two "twins" weren't as annoying as I thought Jar Jar was, so that was good, but there were plenty of "cheap gags" that detracted from the film being less "stupid" in areas.

The twins' hillbilly/gangsta talk was pointless, the gold tooth and big "ears" were dumb. The big Decepticon near the end really didn't need the wrecking "balls".

But I still liked the film. I got the WalMart "Big Screen" edition which actually was pretty cool since my front projector is 16:9 format, but I can see how SirQuack and others with constant height screens would have an issues with it.

I still need to see X-Men, Fast and Furious, Monsters vs Aliens, and my wish list of upcoming Blu-Rays includes Up, Harry Potter, Terminator Salvation (which I haven't seen any of those), and some good films that I have like District 9 and Star Trek.

Some may have to go into my Christmas list (I know that District 9 comes out after Christmas), but it should be quite a growth of movies this year.

Let me help you with the expectations on Fast and Furious, it's awful. Get F&F: Tokyo Drift instead.

I've got Tokyo on HD-DVD... Actually, I have all of the others on HD-DVD...

I will say this, none of the movies were THAT great for plot or anything. People generally didn't watch them for a great plot... Cars, girls, or even good video/audio on disc, so I am not expecting much there either.