The movie should come with a warning. It was too realistic for my kids and much too overpowering and loud for my taste. But (isn't there one always), it has been beautifully produced and it has taken animation beyond the previous FX standard ;-)

As to the movie's funding: very much geared towards potential merchandise. For anyone who's recently been presented with a birthday wish list, the Transformers merchandise is the most expensive ever

I'm slowly finding that all these film forum/chat rooms are becoming the same in that the people on them really bash good films. What I'm trying to say is... In this day & age we don't enjoy films as we used to in the 80's and 90's. Now-adays we analise too much, we look for more of an arty farty look to a film instead of just enjoying a film for what it is. Transformers was an excellent film the sfx were awesome. For me their were two problems the first being too human orientated and the vision of cybertron looked like something out of the Matrix Revolutions. Other then that the film was very entertaining and isnt that what films are for????