Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 24

Darkness. Optimus Prime’s voice (that of the immortal Peter Cullen) echoes through space as stars fade into view. For a second, for just a second, I think things are going to be ok.

Then I start listening to the words. “Autobots… Decepticons.” Good. “Devastating war that destroyed our whole civilisation.” Great. “Allspark Cube”. Grea… Hang on.

I’m looking at a huge cube, rather remeniscent of the Borg, floating through the void. Apparently, it has the power to create mechanical life. And guess – no – just GUESS, where it’s landed. As Prime melodramatically announces, “a tiny planet, called… EARTH.”

But I’m willing to accept all this. It’s ok for blockbuster adaptations to mess with the canon a bit. But only if it’s done well. And in this movie, it really isn’t.

Now we’re in Qatar. Patriotic, heroic American soldiers are on duty in the Middle Eastern desert, clearly not unnecessarily referencing in any way any current affairs. But fine, I say, I’ll let them off, because suddenly the first Decepticon arrives in the form of an unmanned helicopter. Cue brilliant CG battle between giant stompy robot with energy weapons and the desperate soldiers.

But that’s what’s always so painful about these movie adaptations: they’re so damn pretty. Industrial Light and Magic have outdone themselves with the animation in Transformers, but it’s the WAY it’s done that bothers me.

Optimus Prime doesn’t NEED fiery decals to make him cool. Yes, he transforms into a truck cab. But he’s still cool: he’s Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. In the original, Bumblebee is a VW Bug, not a souped-up Camaro. And their FACES. They look like freaking robot gorillas. And where’s Prime’s face mask? He wears it about three times in the whole film. To console myself I took to putting my hands in front of my face, pretending to wear it myself.

But let’s get back to the story. Basically the whole plot is formed around a tenuous link to eBay, with Megatron having crashed into the Arctic hundreds of years ago and been frozen, except for a brief moment of accidentally shooting a map to the Allspark Cube onto old explorer Witwicky’s glasses (does he often do this, we are forced to wonder?), which are later being sold on the Internet by Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky. You can almost imagine the moment in the scriptwriting session when they thought up this idea:

“Hey, we could reference eBay!”

“Cool! Because, you know, people use that in real life!”

“Yeah, but this would be in

More than meets the eye: Anticipating the release of the Transformers movie – Part 1

The thought of finally watching the movie, Transformers, surely gives a tingle of excitement to all those who grew up with these “robots in disguise.” The story of the epic battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons for the fate of mankind captured the imagination of the kids of the time.

Now we are all grown up, and the prospect of being transported back to our childhood days is slowly sinking in. Better and better, it is not even an animated movie to reflect the original cartoon series. THIS IS THE REAL THING. Thanks to the wonders of CGI, we think to ourselves – how fitting that the movie still inherently targets its original audience – some twenty years on.

Let’s face it, had such a movie been made during ‘our’ time, it would have looked plastic, even toy like a la Japan’s Godzilla and Ultraman series. Actually, it would have been impossible even – lest we forget – these robots can also TRANSFORM.

The trailers and promotions for the movie have looked absolutely smashing so far, but I cannot help but feel a little apprehensive. No doubt that the movie will have updated the original cartoon to something eminently realistic and more catered to us adults, but the premise for the story somehow bothers me.

It is easy to believe in anything as a kid, so long as it excites. But the idea that somewhere out there is a planet (the Transformers’ home planet Cybertron) with inhabitants created in the exact image of our machines on Earth – now that’s rather far out isn’t it? We have all grown up after all. Can the movie address this loophole, or are we expected to leave our brains outside the cinema and just enjoy?

Then too, Transformers was a really long running series. Many movie adaptations of whatever have generally come up short on storyline and even characters. One famous example is Godzilla, which looked nothing like the monster from the original Japanese series.

What then, are those characters that have made the cut? I can imagine that many of the first generation Transformers will feature. We will probably see Optimus Prime and Megatron battling it out, but will we be also be seeing some of the Dinobots or Constructicons in action? Will some characters be axed in favour of plot details? Will we be missing the lovable Bumblebee? Will we be seeing the annoying but traitorous Starscream? Or the mysterious but versatile Soundwave? And what about the immensely powerful Unicron (he’s an actual planet!), who after all did not make an appearance until much later in the original series?

So many questions, and really only one answer. Transformers: The Movie is coming soon – to a cinema near you. Only one thing is for sure – it will be “more than meets the eye.”