Howdy amigos!
Sigh, why do I keep doing this to myself? I vow to all my friends that every time another one of these craptastic, explod-o-porn borefests comes around, that I’m not going to see it. I block myself from watching any trailers, I dodge cast and director interviews as if they are patient zero of some hideous digital plague. Yet, every time one of these movie rolls around, I find myself in the cinema, vainly hoping against hope that this time, things will be different. This time, I will get at least a glimpse of some of the charm and excitement that made Transformers such a staple of childhood.
Like many a kid across the world, I grew up watching Optimus Prime and the heroic Autobots battle to save the earth from the nefarious schemes of Megatron and his cadre of Decepticons. The plots, such as they were, were largely terrible. But, the vibrant colours and larger than life characters with kool gimmicks made for some memorable entertainment. You only have to look at how many G1 (think the 80’s cartoon) fans there are still out there, to illustrate the power the brand still has.
As you have probably gathered from my opening paragraph, I am not a fan of the Transformers movie franchise. The first movie does manage to capture some of the fun and joy of the animated series whilst delivering some genuinely jaw dropping spectacle. The story is simple enough to follow, wisely choosing to focus on the adventures of a boy and his 1st car (Autobot?) and building it’s plot around that key theme. It’s script is still terrible, but at least it carries some of the verve and sense of adventure that the cartoon captured. As time has gone on though, the movies have got progressively worse. The studio have chosen to follow the path of least resistance, namely, do the easiest thing possible to make a fast buck, quality be damned. Idiotic characters, plots that are needlessly convoluted that seem to repeat themselves over and over and over again. Offensive stereotypes, stupid dialogue, incomprehensible actions scenes, aggressive product placement, way too much focus on boring human characters that seem to be clones of others from other movies, need I go on?
In spite of all of this, I found myself in the cinema watching trailers for movies that I wished I was watching instead of latest pile of crap that Paramount and Michael Bay have served up. Look, I readily accept that I am in the minority here. These films make huge amounts of money worldwide, though interestingly, Transformers The Last Knight is way down on on the weekend box office takings, in comparison to Age Of Extinction. Clearly, there are lots of fans of this franchise out there and God bless you, if that’s you dear reader, keep on keeping on. Everybody should have their fandom in my opinion, I’ve seen some beautiful things come from people’s passion for geeky stuff. Hell, the reason why we are here at this blog is because we love talking about this stuff. But, I can’t muster anymore energy to devote to trying find something positive about the Transformers movies. This was originally supposed to be a review of ‘The Last Knight’ but frankly, I can’t be assed. There are lots of excellent reviews available for you out there for those that want to know more about the movie itself. If you really want to know my thoughts, take the last two sentences from the previous paragraph and that pretty much sums it up.
Apparently there are plans for a Bumblebee spin off movie and at this point, I couldn’t give less of a shit. This franchise has sucked me dry like an emotional vampire and I don’t intend to hang around long enough for it to start chewing my bones. If anybody wants me, I’ll be in my room watching old G1 episodes and quietly sobbing into my Optimus Prime bed sheets and what should have been.
Jason P.
Woo Long Talks 