I’ve had awhile to sit and stew and mull over the steaming cow turd that is Michael Bay’s Transformer movies and I have a few other quick things to say about it.
These movies are not about Transformers. They are about humans. In a movie named Transformers, the Transformers themselves are secondary characters. I can understand having Shia and the other leading humans in there, if anything for general audiences, but the main focus should be on the robots.
It took me literally years to realize how bad the Star Wars Prequels were. Those prequels ruined the entire franchise for me. I don’t think these Transformer movies have gone that far, but I can safely say they strike nothing but hatred, contempt and disgust in my heart.
I re-watched GI Joe: Rise of Cobra two nights ago, and while it’s not a very good movie, and it’s a movie widely considered horrible and awful, it is still a more successful adaptation of the source material than Transformers. GI Joe, despite it’s bad acting, writing, and special effects, is, at the end of the day, ABOUT GI Joe and Cobra. It’s a movie I’ll always defend despite it’s downfalls. I will never defend these Transformer movies. Ever.
-Ethan
Well, it’s finally over.
I’m a HUGE Transformer fan. I grew up with the franchise, it’s part of my childhood and psyche. Thankfully, I can breath a sigh of relief that this movie saga is over….for now….
Bottom Line: Par for the Course. Great action, great explosions ( come on it’s a Michael Bay movie.) More stupid comedy, more inappropriate jokes, language, imagery and sexual innuendos in a movie based off of children’s toys.
Spoiler Free Nerd Rage Rant:
I went to see this movie in 2D because I refuse to support film going in the wrong direction. The movie on a whole is better than the last one. Sadly, it still suffers from a few pitfalls the previous film had, stupid, pointless characters, and inappropriate language. I have two friends with 3-6 year olds and I’m sure neither of them want to have to explain to their kids what a “dickhead” is because the funny robot said it.
Ugh. Let that sink in for a moment. They said “dickhead” in a Transformers movie. A movie about transforming robots. Robots that are toys. That are sold to kids. Ugh. Well, I guess it’s okay because the racist twins of the last movie said “pussy” a few times…and not in the context of a feline.
While Revenge of the Fallen had lots of racist robots, this movie has lots of gay bashing! I really don’t need to go into it, but at least the crowd I saw it with enjoyed laughing at the gay jokes. Uuuugh. Hate this movie….
Okay, I’m over that. Now on to the lack of The Twins. Wait! The Twins aren’t in this movie? The racist Jar-Jar Binks wannabes of Mudflap and Skids? Awesome!!
Wait…there’s two other pointless robots that are mildly racist that fill their spots? DAMN IT!
This is a serious problem here that rings true for the entire series. Sam’s parents are back in this one and they are completely pointless. There’s no reason to have them in this movie. Wheelie and That Other Small Robot also, serve no purpose in the movie accept to annoy us and do one thing at the end of the movie because the script said so.
While we’re on the topic of pointless robots, can we please get the Autobot line up settled? Good God, there’s more random Autobots that pop up between movies than Carter’s got Pills. I know in the 80’s cartoon they had characters pop up all the time out of nowhere, but that was because their toys were out. This time the filmmakers were attempting to tell a narrative (I assume) so why are we forced to care about characters that we haven’t even met yet? You can’t just throw new robots at us between movies. Find a line up and stick with it, introduce more when you need to.
The action was great. The last half of the movie, with the destruction in Chicago was spectacular. I’m sure the 3D was awesome. I think they did a better job this time around with the robot fighting. Thankfully with the new random Autobots being colored brightly (accept for Ironhide and SideSwipe) we can SEE who is getting shot or hit now since the rest of the Decepticons are generic metal colors.
All the important robots were great. I loved the Wreckers. They were pretty much Celtic Robots. They were Dwarves. They were Autobot Dwarves. I want to see more of them. The new Autobot, Sentinel Prime (voiced by Lenard Nemoy, who also made a Wrath of Khan quote) was very good. I really liked him. He was motivated and clearly had a purpose in this movie. Bumblebee is still a mute. I don’t understand why since in the FIRST movie he was FIXED. Ugh.
Moving on, Prime is still a psychopathic killer. Seriously dude, come on. I’ve always thought of Optimus Prime as a noble, John Wayne type character. Movie Optimus Prime is John Wayne in the Searchers times a thousand. He’s totally mental. The fandom had a great time with his “GIVE ME YOUR FACE” line from Revenge of the Fallen. In this one, Prime had some more “imma gonna kill you” lines.
As expected, John Turturro, John Malkovich, and Ken Jeong were totally over the top.
All in all, it’s better than the second movie and is overall a good pop corn -turn off your brain- summer movie.
Now on to the REAL nerd rage rant…
SPOILER NERD RAGE RANT! I’MA GONNA GIVE AWAY THE MOVIE SO DON’T READ OR READ IF YOU WANNA SAVE 10 DOLLARS!! LOOOOOOOOL
Okay so Megatron’s plan is totally stupid and makes no freaking sense….
Driving home, I thought of the story of this movie in regards to the other two films and I’ve come to the conclusion that if Revenge of the Fallen never existed (and God how I hope it never did…) then the series as a whole would be better.
In this movie, Megatron’s plan is to use Sentinel Prime to activate these pillars that creates a space bridge on Earth to pull Cybertron to Earth and use humans as slave labor to rebuild the planet. Great Okay.
Here’s where that plan is stupid. In the second movie, the Fallen and other primes were on earth trying to gather energon (i think) and for whatever reason the Fallen ended up in a space ship on Saturn. The Fallen said that only a Prime could kill him.
So, if only a Prime could kill the Fallen, then was was Megatron’s plan exactly? Hope that they guy stayed in his lazyboy on the ship until Sentinel could bring Cybertron to Earth? What about afterwards? Was Megatron intending on going back on his deal and killing Sentinel? What about the Fallen? Megatron didn’t tell the Fallen about his deal with Sentinel did he? The Fallen would have killed him easily since the only thing that would revive Sentinel was the Matrix. Did Megatron know that? The Matrix was on Earth, right? Since I haven’t seen Revenge of the Fallen lately I might have gotten this wrong, but the old Primes hid the Matrix on Earth…and The Fallen and Megs just wanted to use the sun to create Energon. They didn’t even know about the Matrix yet, right? Sam had to get the Matrix to resurrect Optimus. So….how was Megatron going to revive Sentinel? With the All Spark? Was that why he was looking for it? Was he looking for the All Spark to help power the space bridge? I don’t.. uh..kadnf’
Oh god. My brain broke.
Okay moving on. I can see Optimus killing Megatron at the end. Fine. The guy had only half a head left from their last fight. I don’t think it was necessary for Optimus to murder his former leader. He had him beat. They could have restrained the guy and sent him on his way. Why did Optimus feel it was necessary to shoot him with a shot gun. I don’t understand.
Speaking of killing, Wow, Sam killing Starscream. Didn’t see that coming, nor did I expect Shockwave to die twice. I thought the humans and the Wreckers killed Shockwave, then Optimus comes in and punches him…maybe that was weird editing. I dunno. I’m sad Barricade died because he was my favorite from the first movie. Bumblebee killing Soundwave though….dayum. Ironhide’s death was totally sad, mostly cause that’s the second time Ironhide has died in a Transformer movie.
Let’s talk about the chick. I fully believe that this movie was scripted for Megan Fox to reprise her role as the girlfriend. Then, when it was found out she wasn’t coming back they shoe horned in this new blone girl. The problem is, that the script reads like they looooooooove each other, but it’s hard for me to care since this is the first movie she’s been in. Honestly, I couldn’t give a shit. What they should have done was to dye her hair black and made her hid the British accent and make her play Mikayla. That’s how little it mattered that Sam had a new girlfriend. Why was it so important for them to make a new character for the girlfriend? If they would have kept the character but switched actresses (excuse me, super models) then the romantic parts and the emotion would matter. As it is, it just doesn’t. I can’t care about this relationship if I haven’t seen it grow.
Some girl at the theater said the is movie was “soul crushing.” I don’t know if it was that, but it certainly has issues. It’s a fun ride but really, REALLY stupid.
I’ll say this for these Transformer movies…They are just like the GI Joe live action movie. They are the big budget equivalent to a kid playing with his Transformer toys in his bed room. Nothing makes sense but the action is spectacular and it’s all for fun. :)
Alright, I’ve ranted enough. If I think about this movie any more I’ll go insane. It’s 4:30am. Oh my god i need sleeeeep!
Next movie review I do will be Captain America! Whee!
-ethan
You should read this comic. Really, you should.
Here are some of the things I’m working on. I need to figure out how to do some of these things more often and in some cases, less often.
1. Consistently Update Thelbert
2. Write, do Character prep work, Draw, create buffer for Kapu Cove
3. Create Kapu Cove website
4. Draw DnD characters
5. Paint Skaven, Space Marine, High Elf Warhammer Armies
6. Paint and illustrate other fun things
7. Work on Coloring Book
8. Catch More Pokemon
9. Blog more often
10. Lose weight.
The rest of this year is gonna be caraaaaazy.
My webcomic has been on hiatus since well before Thanksgiving. I enjoyed my break, but I do feel bad not having updating in a while. Starting Tuesday, February, 1st I’m bringing it back.
I decided to treat my comic and it’s hiatuses as seasons of a TV show. Season 1 was the pilot season. Now it’s time for me to step up my game and really push my cartooning to new limits.
I’m not going to set my self to an update schedule. That’s only lead to stress and subpar comics. I’ll just resolve to post a new comic as often as I can. If i’m working on something really cool, I might save it till it’s done and post a silly filler comic instead.
Anyways, here’s hoping Season 2 of Thelbert will be just as insane and zany as the first.
-ethan
Been working on my Crimson Fists Space Marines for Warhammer 40k. Here is my completed tactical squad 1.
First up: some Marines with boltguns.
Here’s my squad Seargent with a power fist and boltgun.
Here is a special unit with a flamer weapon. I decided to paint the end of the flamethrower red because the business end of the weapon is it’s “fist.”
And here’s the whole squad together, ready for war!
-ethan
This is hauntingly appropriate…
Yup.
I’m not going to lie, I haven’t done a comic in a very long time. Thelbert is on hiatus, and has been on hiatus well before the holidays. I got a bit burnt out and my attention was drawn elsewhere. I’m working on bringing it back very soon. I’ve had a few folks ask me about it and if it’s died. It looks that way, but it hasn’t. I promise.
In fact, during this time off, I’ve been working on quite a few other comic ideas and rehashing old ones.
Kapu Cove- it’s my intent to do this one as a monthly comic. I have much of the main story written, but not drawn out yet.
Starship Helvetica - It’s on the board to being launched. I’ve gotten more of the story down and character concepts fleshed out more. I have a url for it, but need to talk to my wizard friend to get it activated with Comic Press. When it launches it’ll be a weekly comic, updating on Wednesdays.
Other Ideas:
I have a super hero comic that I’ve been writing out since 2007. I’ve also got a fantasy story concept that a friend of mine want to work on together.
I think I’ve changed my point of view on wanting to do the webcomic thing. For so long, I hated even the thought of a day job. All I wanted to do was the webcomic job and be like the pros. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that, and I’ll be lucky if that ever happens. So for now, I’m approaching comics as this: Fun. I want to have fun with my comics and make good ones. Thelbert, to me, is quick, fun gags. The other grander comics I have in mind will take longer to produce and longer even to tell their stories.
I have so much on my “want to do plate.” I have comics and my hobbies, consisting of Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, video games, blogging, sketching, watercolor, etc.
The point I’m trying to make is, doing too much at one time is a bad thing. You get burnt out and things kinda fall through the cracks. The key is to take it easy and do one thing at a time. You’ll have more fun that way.
Making comics is my passion but it’s also my curse. I keep putting myself in situations where I stress out about making comics and how I’ll never “make it.” It shouldn’t be that way. I should just take it easy and have fun making the comics I wanna make now, no matter how long it takes me to create them.
Look for some new comics from me in the near future. I have some fun things planned and want to share them with my friends. :)
-ethan
My current desktop at work. I think it’s pretty appropriate.