She may have been captured but she wasn't waiting for Sam to rescue her (she really didn't know what was happening with him during that period). She was just in a restrictive situation and biding her time, asking all the right questions ended up giving her knowledge that became vital in the actual climax (Megatron's pride and the importance of the central pillar). Her escape also wasn't so much based on Sam becoming the shining knight but her taking off like a rocket and jumping onto the scout craft when the opportunity arose.
Having her turn into Xena and beat up the guards would have been a bit much, and even still besides being the Love Interest she certainly wasn't an expy of Mikaela. Mikaela was rather cynical and got worked up over the more typical romance cliches. Carly was almost always positive, smiling and affectionate towards Sam, even after their fight over Sam's obsession with the Government Conspiracy stuff. As well, it is very unlikely Mikaela could have been put into Carly's position believably (executive assistant to a Fiction 500 CEO), having a new character there made it work.
I see no point in principle of making a live action movie where all characters of importance are special effects. The whole point of going live action is to see these characters interacting with real people, truthfully the human characters ground the film. If we didn't have a certain sense of wonder we would quickly start to question how sturdy a saturday morning cartoon is for such a movie.
Honestly, almost every review I have heard, watched or read share the same opinion: Why aren't the Transformers the main characters in "Transformers", and no, 'budget issues' is not a real reason unless somebody from the production team actually confirms it.
edited 7th Jul '11 12:20:41 AM by Dream_Huntress
I can't have you close, so I become a ghost and I watch you, I watch you.I don't see why we needed a "live-action" Transformers in the first place. Just make an animated movie.
Oh wait, Animation Age Ghetto. Everyone would think it's a... kids' movie! /gasp
Because somehow animated robots and Shia LeBouf are more "mature" than just animated robots.
edited 7th Jul '11 12:48:27 AM by Kerrah
Well, sucks to be you.
Because live action robots and explosions (remember, this man uses REAL explosions) are much cooler than animated ones?
Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.The original cartoon and Avatar both had lots of human characters. They really can't be used as evidence for a no-humans-whatsoever-film. They ground the story, and give us a basis from which to relate. Audience Surrogate is a highly effective trope in such situations, and the stories are better for it.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.@Space Jawa: Then he should've just made a regular alien invasion movie instead of slapping the Transformers on it.
@d Roy: Given how nonexistent their screen time and characterization is the movie, being "cooler" isn't much consolation. Hell, it's still not much "cooler" given how much better the average animated Gundam looks. These look more like car wrecks that got up and walked away.
The point of special effects is to allow regular people to interact with non-human characters or environments. If you are going to have only FX characters in the film you might as well go completely animated. (That is the exact same thing I said in my previous post, only worded differently)
In fact I kind of felt that way about some films like Avatar, it was so CG heavy (including the 3D) it was visually exhausting by the end. The Star Wars prequels squeak by because (despite what people believe) there was still extensive amounts of practical costumes, make-up, animatronics, sets and modeling that were enhanced by CG and not replaced by it.
Even though I love the special effects used for the robots I would probably get burned out on them if they were the focus of the entire movie, so many shifting pieces and parts breaking off during fights that it becomes information overload. While we may pick apart problems with the story and characters, the vision and structure of the films are the best we could hope for (My dad enjoys the films but he's admitted if it was just robots he wouldn't care for them much, basically the same reasons as everyone else has said). If all we want is pure robot battles there are many other ways of getting that hook-up, Transformers Prime is doing a pretty damn good job of that.
All of the robots don't necessarily get a personality and a lot of screen time but key robots do, like Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron through all the films. You'd probably still have a problem with characterization just due to the sheer number of characters you have to choose from, G1 literally had characters show up and leave after one episode. There is a reason Beast Wars, Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime have fairly small casts.
I felt DOTM still did a great job with trying to make the robot characters more interesting. They weren't just robots battling robots but were capable of intelligent conversations, I would have loved to see more of Mirage, Sideswipe and the Wreckers (especially Mirage, since we don't get a toy of him, that Italian accent was pretty cool too). Even if they didn't get much screen time, the fact I wanted to see more of a certain character is a good thing regardless of the movie.
edited 7th Jul '11 1:35:09 PM by KJMackley
Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh gaaaaaaaaaawwwd.
I just got back from seeing this in Imax 3D and my dad and I both have headaches. Ugh, the sound was so loud it hurt. Don't even get me started on the plot holes, I just.... uuuuuugh
I HATE MICHEAL BAY, I SHALL NEVER SEE ANOTHER OF HIS MOVIES AGAIN.
TALOSTALOSTALOSTALOSTALOSTALOS

If you can call tactics and subtle manipulation "hyper aggressive" than sure, why not.
Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.