Scratch
Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.
Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.
On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.
My childhood crashed into my adulthood yesterday evening when I managed to see a preview screening of Transformers. I will state from the start that the effects are great. Never before have giant transforming robots looked so realistic or good on the big screen. If I'm honest though, thats part of the movies main problem. The CGI and the non-CGI parts blend seamlessly, but the action, especially that around the fight scenes is so messy, you cannot actually see what is going on. One bit of robot much like any other as it whirls past at 90mph. I guess thats not the fault of the graphics designers, but of the directors implementation of the 'script'. The camera swings to and fro and then for no reason seems to stop abruptly in the most odd angles where its impossible to see, but I guess I should come back to this.
The MacGuffin of the story is the hitherto-unmentioned-in-Transformers-mythology 'All spark' which crashed onto earth some 10,000 years ago, shortly followed by a rather new spikey adaptation of Megatron who manages to freeze himself into the arctic. Some time around the start of the century he is discovered by one Capt.Archibald Witwicky and in more recent times both are transported to America and house by a secret government organsisation beneath the purpose built hoover dam. Needless to say, the Decepticons, well 'Frenzy', locates their leader, things go a bit awry, he breaks free from cryogenic storage (doesn't quite explain why this would stop them when they can exist in the airless freezing vacuum of space as shown in the after credits implication), theres the rather strange decision of the army to go from a deserted area to the centre of the built up city inevitably increasing collateral damage and the lose of life. Oh, and there was the entrusting the future of Earth to a teenager, sending him up to a tall building for a helicopter pickup knowing that the Decepticons can fly and would blow anything that tried to out of the air. Oh, and lets ignore the random civilian trucks that do a U-turn on the highway and follow us. Oh and don't get me started on the product placement. Whilst the original show may have been an advertisement for toys, this was solely for Macs, Nokia, and one particular online auction site that needs no more naming.
I guess the problem is not that its a bad movie, I mean its not a great movie, it has its pros and cons, but its not the Transformers of my youth.
Both the look and characterisation of the Transformers themselves is off. Ever since I saw the initial designs I had reservations. I never understood why it was necessary to change the designs of certain bots for no real reason, or create new bots when existing ones would have sufficed. Apparently BumbleeBee was destined never to be a VW Bug, since he would have been too small (he always was small), and they didn't want comparisons with Herbie. Strangely though, with the first scene involving Herb- sorry, Bumblebee as a Camaro parked adjacent to a VW Bug (subtle nod anyone), the clanging doors and the later scenes involving the changing of the radio, nothing could have enforced the image more. And why talk in TV, I thought that was Wreck-Gars trick - and I find it strange that if Megatron had originally ripped out his vocal chords some 10,000 years prior that Ratchet was unable to fix his vocal chords in all that time, yet somehow at some point over the next 12 hours as events unfold Ratchet miraculously managed to repair it. Go figure.
Because of the time involved there is pretty little else in the way of time for characterisation and we only get to see any when Prime introduces the bots to Sam. Jazz, Ratchets and Ironhide's physical changes I could handle, although at some point Jazz regressed in age, size and experience, and Ironhide became gun happy. Prime with flames, I was almost convinced by the press releases. Then I watched it, and all doubt was removed. Nope. Sorry. Also later in the film, there were at least two opportunities when Prime could have saved innocent lives, but seemed more preoccupied. Oh, and there was the whole garden scene which was so ridiculous it was painful.
With regard to the Decepticon, the only real personality was 'Frenzy'. All through the design phase the producers said that they didn't want to address the issue of mass shifting in using Soundwave, so bastardise Frenzy and then promptly use mass shifting for the plot device, er All Spark, or for Frenzy's second mode. (And since when did Transformer's get the ability to change design on the fly. I would have thought that the mechanics involved would effectively create a machine of levers and adjustable panels with very little else. And on that note when would a mobile phone have enough physical components of the right nature to be converted into bullets..) Megatron is just an angry fighter with no explanation as to why. Heaven knows why he is pointy as I would have thought . Starscream is pretty redundant and there is no real interaction between the two nor any allusion as to the latter's scheming. The rest of the Decepticons are likewise redundant and do little other than appear at the end for the final fight scene. I have no idea why the names were changed in the cases of Brawl/Devastator & Blackout/Vortex as it really didnt matter what they were called. Generic Decepticons #1 and #2 would've sufficed although I will be interested to see what they will do if they introduce the Constructicons or the rest of the Combaticons in later sequels. *spoiler* If Bonecrusher survives Prime's rather out of character fatal sword to the head.*end of Spoiler*
Strangely enough, the bit that most people were worried about, the humans, weren't that bad or irritating. Well most of the anyway. Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox and Josh Duhamel all acted well given the script they had, and didn't detract particularly from the protagonists. The script itself is rather clanky. In one part when the Autobots first crash to earth in meteor form, a man with a video camera exclaims, "This is so much better than 'Armageddon,'" a likely self referential to director Michael Bay's earlier film Armageddon (and to be fair, I've vomited better things than Armageddon.) Lines are wedged in, though there are some clever nods such as Orson Wells' voice being sampled, but for every good part there are some awfully puerile scenes that should never have made it past the first draft and the scriptwriter should never work again. The voice over is unnecessary and very, for want of a better phrase, American. The final scene is possibly one of the more bizarre, and I can almost see what was desired, but actually what came out was some weird interracial voyeuristic weirdness.
In short then, excellent graphics (when you can see them), a plot anyone can follow (although not necessarily leant on too heavily or it will give way) and big tonking transforming robots fighting in a city.
Not just not the robots of my youth.
25 Jul 2007 10:31 | (0) comments | Movies
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