Putting the "dumb" in fandom

So I've been spending an unhealthy amount of time on websites discussing the ins and outs of Transformers 2. And much to my surprise, there is a vast number of people who deeply detest this film. It goes far beyond just not liking the movie; it's been called "the worst movie ever made", "an action film with no action", and Roger Ebert even famously suggested that TF2 will be studied by future generations as the film that proved big budget blockbusters can be "too much."

This is all, of course, while everyone I know who has seen it has loved it, and it's making a killing at the box office.

I'm not trying to suggest that box office numbers = quality, but 99% of the negative opinions I've seen have been coming from so-called Transformers fans! This is the group that I thought would be most forgiving about whatever shortcomings the film may have. I know for me personally, there's quite a bit of stuff that I would have definitely done differently regarding Movie 1. And yet, I saw it in the theater 3 times, bought the DVD the day it came out, and then bought the Blu-Ray months before I even had a player to play it on. My point is, my being a fan didn't result in me being more critical of the film. I enjoyed the movie far more than most people did because I'm a fan.

With TF2, my enjoyment was even more, because the movie was so much "more" of a Transformers film. And as with the first one, there are definitely things I would have done differently. There are imperfections. There are also a ton of scenes that were unlike anything I've ever seen in a movie. Ever.

It's like that cartoon floating around the web. There's a group of characters playing "Rock Band", while another one is yelling at them about how playing that game doesn't make you a musician.

They don't hear him because they're all having so much fun.

Same thing with this movie, while so many of these TF perfectionists are bitching about the movie, the rest of us are watching it and having a good time.