Bonus: if you win, you can slap JJ Abrams.

Seriously, someone needs to slap that dude. I have entered just so I can potentially slap him.

"No matter who wins... J.J. Abrams loses... a franchise."

I saw the first one when it came out, more out of curiosity than anything else. I was a big transformers fan as a kid, but I wasn't expecting much from Bay. Even my low expectations weren't met.

Tonight, by coincidence, Dark of the Moon was on TV. "Maybe I'm being too hard" I thought. I mean, they're only glorified toy commercials anyway, right? Maybe I'm guilty of just jumping on the Bay-hate band wagon...

Nope.

Aside from being a completely un-fucking-watchable mess, it was just boring. How the hell do you spend that much money (and the money clearly didn't go on writers or actors), have that many explosions and still have it be boring?

I didn't like JJ Abrams new Star Trek movies, but at lest he was in trying (in his own half-assed, ham-fisted way) to pay homage to the property. Bay clearly hates this whole concept. He hates the characters, the design, the plot lines, he's not even really interested in the central concept of robots that bloody transform. And to top it all off, you couldn't even let kids watch this. Instead of the noble, if naïve leader of the 80s, Optimus is just a dick here. And a psychopathic one too. He flat out murders his defeated enemy at the end.

FFS, if it's a terrible movie and you can't use it to sell toys to kids..what is the goddamn point of its existence?

Well from the leaked photos and other bits released, Abrams certainly seems to be making an effort to return the grit and realism of the first by using less CG and more props and animatronics, etc. No more shiny space ships and obviously fake cg characters is a great start.

Reminds me of Avatar. I watch the first trailer and think "Oh, this looks like a good flick!" and the more I think about the story and consider it's predictability and obvious stupidity, the more it turns me off. Still haven't seen Cameron's oh so great masterpiece.
I don't care much for J.J. Abrams McGuffin fetish (red spheres anyone?) or Nolans plot holes (the Joker is apparently psychic) but at least their movies don't start to look stupid when the first trailers are out. They're becoming stupid once you saw them. And you had a good time doing it, too.
I'll always prefer the stupidity in hindsight over using 10% of my brain to roll my eyes really, really hard in advance.

Point of clarification, I know there is lots of evidence of localized flooding, I'm speaking of a lack of evidence for the Bible's description of a world wide flood.

Also, my understanding of the first five books were that they all come from 4 older documents, which were segmented into the Pentateuch... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis for more. I haven't followed up with more recent hypothesis regarding the books, but I was under the impression the general idea, even if it isn't the the specific four books originally thought composed the books, with Genesis being a combo of all four, which stretch into 500 BCE. The Noah story itself is combined of the "Jahwist (YHWH) source and the Priestly (Elohim) source", and the Priestly would be after the exile, though the Jahwist would be well before the exile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_flood_narrative and it's link to flood myths overall). I know Wikipedia isn't the most reliable of sources, and without taking the time to vet the sources they quote, I'll go with the explanation given for the moment.

Also, I'm into seeing it. I'm sure it will be entertaining. Aronofsky alone makes it worth considering at the very least... Biblical epics (and semi Biblical movies such as Ben-Hur...) can make for great cinema. So count me in... Even when I was a Christian I started doubting the flood story as anything more than a parable or allegory, much like the Creation story, Jonah, Sodom's destruction and the rescue of Lot... and there are some good stories to tell... perhaps some exposure to other myths would be nice, but I think the Abramic stories are more familiar to more Americans and world wide audiences than say trying to make a movie about some Celtic god... or Nordic god (Thor doesn't count...)... most of which they'd butcher in Hollywood anyhow...

APFSDS - Armour Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot. The American Abrams tankers used to call them 'Silver Bullets' back in the early nineties; maybe they still do. They were made largely out of natural or depleted uranium and they combusted slightly when shot through the air, leaving a faint glowing silvery trail behind. You could see it best at night obviously.

I don't know if this still works or not as it isn't listed in Possible invocations.. but here we go... *amazon=http://www.amazon.com/S-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642

In the end, it is a teaser for a book
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/abrams-teaser-revealed-article-1.1450471

I'll start the theories:

Alfonso Cuaron's upcoming NBC sci-fi/fantasy series Believe. This seems to be the popular choice.

J. J. Abram's special project concerning Rod Serling's "The Stop Along the Way". Serling's last script before his death which he considered his best work. Of course it hasn't been nearly long enough since Abrams got the rights to it for him to have done much with it yet.

Star Wars. Can't see them making a teaser this far from everything yet, and the only thing people seem to point to is the way "Soon he will know" leaves in reverse order ala Yoda speak. I'm not betting on this option at all.

The Crow. Not sure why people are saying that since near as I can tell Bad Robot isn't involved with the reboot at all.

Almost anything would have been better. To my mind, the single biggest flaw with the prequels was that the originals focused on a small set of largely likeable characters who were generally together having adventures in space. The Prequels were just all over the place and there weren't really any likeable characters, and... and... for the sake of brevity, let's just say they suck in every way.

Also, for the love of god, George Lucas should not have been allowed to direct. He is a terrible, terrible, terrible director. Everyone knows that. Everyone has known that since the first one, and George should have known that too. He isn't a great artist in any sense of the word. I'd say the prequels are a textbook example of why the role of director is so important. How can such an accomplished cast deliver a performance barely better than what you'd expect from, say, "Sharktopus."

I think the next three will be decent. They don't have to be great (and really, the original three weren't *great* per se, they were just novel fun, imaginative, and hit a sweet spot. I think JJ Abrams will do fine.

Anyways, this guys plot would have worked. So would have a lot of others though.

Probably none, or simply render times. My guess is their goal is to allow a frozen moment, such as when the runner comes into home, to show from various angles that A) the ball was in the mitt but B) the runners foot was already on base. Mostly, but not limiting the view angles you can more clearly see the action while if the motion was still ongoing while the camera moved, it'd cause a jarring effect on the viewer and make it even more confusing as to what really happened.

It's why JJ Abrams shakes the camera a lot. It helps hide the flaws in action scenes such as where people don't actually stab each other or hit each other etc.

I liked this film too. Most sci-fi movies these days are action movies in space, no offense to JJ Abrams, but Oblivion actually had some ideas working for it. Nice twists and turns. My only complaint is that they could have come up with a more interesting ending.

J.J. Abrams was right! There is lens flare in space

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Good stuff - all of the lens flares and lighting reminds me of a JJ Abrams film.