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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Transformers: the Movie (dir. Michael Bay, 2007) - SPOILERS

  
  

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The Falcon
23:27 / 21.06.07
The awesome shit herein has just almost made me cry. This film is going to be the best thing ever + I hate wheedling fan-entitlement turds who believe otherwise.

THE GIANT ROBOT IS REALLY DISTRACTING.
 
 
The Falcon
23:29 / 21.06.07
No lie about the crying there. I'm actually quite choked up right now, which I was hitherto unaware of as a side-effect of things rocking so hard.
 
 
The Falcon
23:35 / 21.06.07
Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck.

Meaning: yes.
 
 
Triplets
00:03 / 22.06.07
WELCOME TO ROCK CITY.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
05:09 / 22.06.07
No no no no no.

Yes yes yes yes yes.
 
 
Benny the Ball
08:45 / 22.06.07
ha ha - I love that song - you never walk you never run...

Still feeling nothing for this - has any clip escaped with the robots actually talking?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:54 / 22.06.07
ha ha - I love that song - you never walk you never run...

Which would normally make one not a fighter, but a jogger. In this case, however, presumably it just means that that he has realised that he can move around more effectively by transforming into a truck and driving from point to point. As such, it's not really a lesson he can pass on. After all is said and done, you never walk, you never run, you're a robot with the ability to fly (sometimes) and also to transform into a truck. Not so catchy.
 
 
Benny the Ball
09:58 / 22.06.07
but, Haus, he is nobody's fool.
 
 
The Falcon
15:35 / 22.06.07
Also, a winner.
 
 
The Falcon
15:36 / 22.06.07
Baby.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
15:55 / 22.06.07
Whenever I need to submit a song from a 1980s cartoon movie to rigorous textual analysis, this is the first place I turn. Barbelith is wonderful.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:44 / 22.06.07
Saw a preview of this tonight - in the areas that really count, i.e. giant robots smacking and shooting the shit out of each other and the surroundings, it delivers. It could do with a little more of that, and fewer PUNY FLESHLING characters (although the Witwicky kit is solid). Oh, and fewer moments of racist comedy. All in all though, worth your summer blockbuster money.

There is one moment involving Optimus Prime that did make me go "OH FUCK YEAH!", and I expect it will make many of you do the same. We'll talk about which moment it was later.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:50 / 22.06.07
I blew slightly cooler on it than Flyboy - too many characters - one or two too many transformers on either side, and about four too many humans, and yes - a surprising amount of racism, in particular in the apparent realisation by the directors that they had forgotten to put in any black characters, and throwing in not one, not two, but three trusty sidekicks, one of whom was also comic relief. It did look great though, and I think that when the clowning, the piss gags, the godawful subplots and the worst mcguffin in the history of film have faded in my memory I will be more able to appreciate the very cool bits, which I will not recount here to avoid spoilage.
 
 
Triplets
22:48 / 22.06.07
More annoying than the Matrix of Victory? I mean Leadership? Leadership.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
05:09 / 23.06.07
Oh god, yes.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:10 / 26.06.07

Great CNN article about Orson Welles doing the 80s animated movie, with some trivia and info. I had never heard...
 
 
FinderWolf
14:46 / 27.06.07
glad to hear that most advance reviews say this looks to be very fun and a bit better than most of us expect...
 
 
Mug Chum
15:59 / 27.06.07
I feel somewhat pitiful that I'm not one bit excited and that I don't have geekgasms by this. I think I was born one year too late. I wish I had lust for giant flying truck robots, orgasmic metal explosions and weird names.

Even though I'm mildly excited for the prospect of an actual big fuckin whaaaaaam! zooooomboom! dumbadadumb! motherfuckin blockbuster. I miss those.
 
 
Ticker
17:53 / 27.06.07
Ok I have a wee bit of time and I'd like to run this article through the 'Lithmind ala the Scary Comics thread:

Problematic opinion piece on The Rebirth of Optimus Prime

So for me it begins hitting me in the head with:

Add a touch of Cold War moral clarity and we were hooked. Boys ages 5 to 11 — and it was boys —

Was there a study of who watched it? Did I miss the 'Go play with yer dollies stinky girl' alert as a wee one and what's up with the other double XX's I know who are excited about the movie? Can a broadcast TV cartoon really only be for half an audience?

Thus began the cyber-outsourcing of masculine heroism, a process that would eventually, inextricably, link Y chromosome to Xbox.

I cringe, I really do when these gender absolutes are chucked out. Shout out to the girl gamers, you exist!

Bay notes that he "took it up the ass" for product placement on his last movie

er...

But pimping our childhood ride is one thing; pimping our dad is another. With bated breath and shaken faith we await the return of our Almighty Rig. Because without Prime, we're stuck with whiney Spider-Boys, metrosexual pirates, and koan-spouting kung-fu Christs in designer sunglasses and unisex clubwear. Because he died protecting us in '86, and nothing's ever been the same since. Because these days, the only real men left are giant robots. It's moot, of course: With or without the sons of Prime, Transformers will do zero-to-bank in four seconds. Still, we wonder: When Papa comes truckin' home, will we recognize him?

Ok do we have a thread about this weird nostalgia for a lost model of malehood that to my knowledge never really existed?

I ran screaming from a messageboard a few months back when I spotted a serious thread on 'when men were men' and read a much lauded post about the reason 'men were men' was because at that time 'women were women'.

The gender fascists are freaking me out. As I struggle with expanding what is my range of personhood I see this distressing trend with an outcry that men have less room to be manly. Which frankly rings like bullshit as gender role expansion doesn't say one can't be certain things rather that one has a wider range to choose from.

To bring this back to Transformer land I do remember being a young girl a bit confused why all the 'bots and 'cons were male...where were the female transformers?

I don't expect to see any in the movie franchise but I'd like to peel back the cover on some of this Papa Bot stuff.
 
 
Hieronymus
04:32 / 30.06.07
So I realize this tangent you're on is related to the Wired article about the movie... but doesn't that warrant a separate thread?

'Do Robot Dads Make you A Real Man' or something like that?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
07:43 / 30.06.07
Although the Transformers were all male (and Arcee only makes it worse) they weren't particularly traditionally masculine, Optimus was pretty New Dad a decade before the breed was seen to exist, he spends his entire time agonizing and second-guessing his every decision. The only real male Transformer was Grimlock and everyone, including the other Dinobots, thought he was a dick. But using the UK comic mythology, Primus and Unicron were both male forces of nature that transformed themselves into planets, and then Primus created life, so the Transformers universe is almost devoid of women, Buster and Spike Whitwicky don't have girlfriends, their Dad is a widower, the only woman there is is Circuit Breaker, the electric harridan trying to stop the Transformers from wiping her from existence.

Am I forgetting anyone?
 
 
Mysterious Transfer Student
07:54 / 30.06.07
There was the Lois Lane-esque TV reporter who made friends with the Dinobots (and was the target of Sludge's puppy love... eesh), and tried to expose the truth about the Transformers but was stopped by secret government bastards Triple I. Also the three girls who made speshul friends with Ultra Magnus around the time he was getting his arse perpetually kicked by Galvatron (was reporter girl one of them? It's all fairly hazy).

That was all Transformers UK anyway, so our American contributors probably will not know or care. Anyway, yes, mostly handmaidens to the big metal boys.
 
 
Quantum
09:05 / 30.06.07
Just reading about Elita 1, the Pink robot;
only Prime's power supply could properly interface with hers
It's like romantic destiny. 'wanna cyber?' 're-energise me, Optimus!'

XK, it's just more of the 'girls play with dolls boys play with robots' bullshit isn't it? The existence of Barbie/Cindy and GI Joe/Action Man is more of an issue I'd say. One thing's for sure, the giant robot gender disparity isn't about to be sorted out by Michael 'Pearl Harbour' Bay.
 
 
Pyewacket The Elder
19:09 / 30.06.07
Do you think there's even a teensy wee chance we'll ever see a Simon Furman scripted, Geoff Senior drawn Deaths Head on the big screen hunting down Scourge and Cyclonus or some such? OMG I would joygasm. Deaths Head was my all time favourite character in the UK comics. Cool in every way. Shame he became kinda rubbish in later incarnations.

So questions to those lucky peeps who've already seen it:

Have they preserved the dynamics of relationship and character that we know and love from the comics and cartoons?
Are they recognizable in this capacity?
 
 
Pyewacket The Elder
19:31 / 30.06.07
With regards to the roles of gender - clearly there is nothing to worry about.

< Sarcasm >See how Bay confounds notions of gender by having the really slim chick in tiny clothing be a closet car mechanic < /Sarcasm >.
 
 
Triplets
00:43 / 03.07.07
Just found out this doesn't come out here (UK) til the 27th.

I am a sad robot
 
 
FinderWolf
01:56 / 03.07.07
Very funny youtube video about Soundwave's life as an actor out of work after the '86 movie.

"FUCKING iPODS!!"
 
 
Pyewacket The Elder
06:04 / 03.07.07
I hear ya Bizarro - We organised a night at my workplace to go see it - ABOUT 2 BLEDDY WEEKS EARLY! That date is a wrong'un.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:05 / 03.07.07
Do you think there's even a teensy wee chance we'll ever see a Simon Furman scripted, Geoff Senior drawn Deaths Head on the big screen hunting down Scourge and Cyclonus or some such?

SPOILERS!!!


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SPOILER WARNING!

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No.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:16 / 03.07.07
Sorry. On character:

+] [-] Spoiler
 
 
Seth
08:57 / 03.07.07
Does the movie solve the problem of Optimus Prime's name in true Dr. Who style?

"Lots of planets have ancient Mediterranean civilisations..."
 
 
Dead Megatron
11:43 / 03.07.07
Just found out this doesn't come out here (UK) til the 27th.

My release date is the 30th, so let`s start a club
 
 
FinderWolf
15:07 / 03.07.07
no one else loved the Soundwave-centric youtube video up above?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:15 / 03.07.07
Maybe they managed to enjoy it without filling the thread with "LOL!", which would make them _good people_.
 
 
Hieronymus
16:32 / 03.07.07
So I saw it last night.

SPOILERY SO WATCH WHERE YOU STEP

Overall I'd say it's another Michael Bay movie, cloned rote from his stock "action film" stash. The bumbling hero with the "hawt girl" who falls for him. The rule-breaking, gung-ho soldiers. The moronic "hacker" scene that seems born out of another decade (I was seriously expecting at least one token use of the line "We're in"). The swoopy motorcycle scene. And the secret government agency that's like a mad cross between the CIA and the Keystone Cops. This sucker mines the cliches like it's the last chance Bay'll get to use them.

Except for Shia LaBeouf and his parents, there wasn't anything interesting about the human factor in this movie. I HATED Turturro in this and Jon Voight too. Underused and hammy as all hell.

But the most compelling part of the movie was also the most frustrating. The all-spark in this isn't at all like the Creation Matrix of the comics. It's not a well of life, per se, with no bias as to what it creates. Instead, it seems to be an energy force that can make appliances (like vending machines and cellphones and yes, X-Boxes) into violent, aggressive Decepticons, all after one zap from it. How it goes from that to a hallowed object when Bumblebee encounters it is just one of the weird disparities in the movie. An old man's glasses and the frenzied search to find them is another thing that doesn't pan out very well in the end.

And for some reason, between the over-gesturing ala Ultraman during the "Autobot introduction scene", Optimus's pointless speechifying (was he running for office?) and Bumblebee 'urinating' on a secret government agent, I started to wonder if maybe I should be rooting for the Decepticons. And yes the use of "lubrication" is used twice in a pissing context. Ho, ho.

Speaking of the villains, Megatron really is the best bit in this movie. It's bizarre that he dies by getting the very thing he'd chased across stars to get his hands on. And of course the sequel is setup with all the laziness of a country invaded by giant robots.... by dumping him in the ocean, completely intact.

*sigh* Did anyone else suffer through this thing?
 
  

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