It's been 30 years since Gen 1 Transformers first graced our screens and if you're keeping up you'll probably understand that without it I'd have most likely grown up as some sort of deranged sociopath with more schematics than friends. Only some of that last sentence came true, so we should probably write Hasbro a thank you note and send some flowers. They'll appreciate that.
It wasn't just the cartoon, with its deeply ingrained sense of justice, fairness and compassion for all sentient beings (because screw the non sentient ones, right?) it was the accompanying toy line. It taught you lessons on perseverance, because some of those little bastards were tough to get to right when your hand eye co-ordination hasn't been honed by years of video gaming and iPhones yet (I'm looking at you here Jazz). It taught you to be financially responsible because you had to save your pocket money for weeks just to buy the crappy little ones and it taught you about loss; specifically the terrible emptiness you felt when one of Prime's hands randomly disappeared and presumably left him trying to re-learn how to write, knit and struggling to ride a bike. Having said that, I learnt that lesson when Panthro's nunchucks went down the back of the fireplace and my folks were understandably reticent to rip it out to get them. Devastating, heart-breaking, character-building.
So fast forward a few decades and I'm happily watching the Blu-Ray remaster of the Transformers Animated movie (which is beautiful by the way) and I start to wonder where it all went wrong. Where did it lose its way? Blame is all too easily thrown about, so let's join in and get to mud-slinging shall we?
If we're honest with ourselves, we ought to admit that actually on paper, Michael Bay isn't the worst choice of director. He cut his teeth in car commercials, is no stranger to pyrotechnics and has a penchant for overblown spectacle; on the surface that's basically what you're looking for out of a Transformers movie, right? Sadly that all falls down really quickly when you consider his body if work. People seem to like both the Bad Boys movies and The Rock was a decent cheesy action flick/Nick Cage vehicle (being joy ridden around by Sean Connery) but The Island was sort of OK at best, Pearl Harbour had 30 minutes of decent action crow barred into a nearly three hour romance drama. Armageddon felt like it was a week long and was so riddled with clichéd tropes and poor fore-shadowing it may have well have been some sort of oil rigger's fan fiction (I assume that's a thing. Part of me hopes it is and isn't in equal measure). Ironically though, for someone who may or may not have strange feelings in his privates when he smells Auto Glym the single biggest problem with all the Transformers movies is that there aren't really enough Transformers in them.
I imagine a good part the production was trying how to make it not just be an animated feature. When both your protagonists and antagonists are building-sized robots that transform into vehicle-sized vehicles you face the fairly daunting prospect of just having to film a shitload of extras running away from tennis balls on sticks while you explode enough munitions to level an actual city. Credit where it's due, you have to have some sort of human element but let's be reasonable; Shia Le Beouf babbling like a horny teenager and squawking his way through actions scene isn't really what I'd describe as depth of character. In the cartoon, you had Spike and Sparkplug; a decent father/son duo that sort of straddled the line between getting into trouble for the Autobots to sort out and actually being useful, helpful members of society. In the movies you have a woeful pleb whose character is partially defined by the fact he has a stupid little dog with a broken leg (which is really only there so we can have a "comedy" scene with a random, overly aggressive police detective who mistakes canine medicine for narcotics) and by the fact he has a crush on the greasiest girl in school. None of which has anything to do with the plot in the least. I'm not sure quite why we get so much oddly jarring slapstick physical comedy out of giant hulking robots. At one point you have no less five of them, hiding in a garden stepping on ornaments, Bumblebee pisses coolant all over some bad guys,the stupid dog pisses on Ironhide, Jazz does random and unnecessary break dancing just to sit down (I assume to show how cool he is because reasons); there's just a lot of stuff in here that is nonsensical even within the universe they've created. You know, the universe where sentient, transforming robots are a thing.
I imagine a good part the production was trying how to make it not just be an animated feature. When both your protagonists and antagonists are building-sized robots that transform into vehicle-sized vehicles you face the fairly daunting prospect of just having to film a shitload of extras running away from tennis balls on sticks while you explode enough munitions to level an actual city. Credit where it's due, you have to have some sort of human element but let's be reasonable; Shia Le Beouf babbling like a horny teenager and squawking his way through actions scene isn't really what I'd describe as depth of character. In the cartoon, you had Spike and Sparkplug; a decent father/son duo that sort of straddled the line between getting into trouble for the Autobots to sort out and actually being useful, helpful members of society. In the movies you have a woeful pleb whose character is partially defined by the fact he has a stupid little dog with a broken leg (which is really only there so we can have a "comedy" scene with a random, overly aggressive police detective who mistakes canine medicine for narcotics) and by the fact he has a crush on the greasiest girl in school. None of which has anything to do with the plot in the least. I'm not sure quite why we get so much oddly jarring slapstick physical comedy out of giant hulking robots. At one point you have no less five of them, hiding in a garden stepping on ornaments, Bumblebee pisses coolant all over some bad guys,the stupid dog pisses on Ironhide, Jazz does random and unnecessary break dancing just to sit down (I assume to show how cool he is because reasons); there's just a lot of stuff in here that is nonsensical even within the universe they've created. You know, the universe where sentient, transforming robots are a thing.
The sequels get progressively worse, including some particularly cringe-worthy racial stereotyping and a frankly weird moment where a Decepticon turn-coat starts humping Megan Fox's leg. I hope it wasn't a practical effect, because that puppet would have come away from that scene by far the worse off and probably greasier than he started. Why is she so greasy? Anyway, I de-grease. Sorry, digress. Why have they made these characters so dispensible though? Jazz for example, stalwart of the cartoon, Prime's right hand man and perennial fan favourite says about two things and promptly gets torn in half. I couldn't even tell you the names of half the other random Autobots that just sort of show up; some of them are literally only there to do one thing and vanish into the background. At least with the Decepticons they had the good sense to wheel out random drones. I mean, the answer is a heady cocktail of product placement, merchandising rights and toy sales but still...
It's just such a stunning lack of creativity. You could easily treat these robots as characters rather than just effects shots and sales targets, but why do that when you can torch a few of them and get the design team to just knock out a few more for the next outing? They just don't seem to be able to trust us, as fans, to go to a movie that is to all intents and purposes a very shiny looking cartoon. All this while Disney wheel out just exactly that; "live action" versions of their own classics which contain relatively little live action. Go [action] figure.
"So what's your point buddy?" ought to be the sole entry on my Frequently Asked Questions section, if I had one. I don't get asked questions at all, let alone frequently. My point, should you be wondering, is that The Last Knight hits our screens in June this year and despite the furore, despite (or perhaps because of) Bay promising it's his last, because there's a random, slightly overblown and almost too earnest open letter, consoling fans that "it's OK, we did our homework and it's going to be great": I will still line up, cash in hand to go and see what horrors they've cooked up now, in the vain and fleeting hope that somewhere along the way the 8 year old boy in me will somehow get his wish: a Transformers movie with Transformers in it.
Or Unicron. Just do Unicron already.
"So what's your point buddy?" ought to be the sole entry on my Frequently Asked Questions section, if I had one. I don't get asked questions at all, let alone frequently. My point, should you be wondering, is that The Last Knight hits our screens in June this year and despite the furore, despite (or perhaps because of) Bay promising it's his last, because there's a random, slightly overblown and almost too earnest open letter, consoling fans that "it's OK, we did our homework and it's going to be great": I will still line up, cash in hand to go and see what horrors they've cooked up now, in the vain and fleeting hope that somewhere along the way the 8 year old boy in me will somehow get his wish: a Transformers movie with Transformers in it.
Or Unicron. Just do Unicron already.
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