More Then Meets My Expectations

So here is something I like talking about that is not TOO politically heavy handed. That Big McLarge Huge sporting event that happened a few weeks back is also known as commercial cental, you remember that? Yeah I did not care much about it either, mostly cause the Kansas City Chiefs, nor the New York Jets were involved. I know how to pick teams don’t I? but one commercial played and I caught it on apple’s movie trailers after the game.



God Damn you Michael Bay! God Damn you!

Now I fit into a very small niche of Transformers fans. I am not in the “if it is transformers it is good” category, but neither am I in the “Purist” line of thought either. Much like my post partisan pragmatists political affiliation, I take each category of this beloved franchise in turn, and I examine it on its own merits.

The First Transformers film released in 2007 actually impressed me. I thought the character designs were a wonderful way to make the idea of robots that could turn into cares functionally work. The plot was thin no doubt, but nowhere NEAR as thin as the cartoon from the 1980s, and the set pieces were enjoyable. My main complaint was the lack of character development with the Decepticon characters.

The 2009 sequel was an unmitigated disaster. May people have their own ideas as to why, and I want to share my own. The writer’s strike of 2008 happened a few months before principle photography was scheduled to start. This meant that a Shooting Script was never developed, and rumor has it that a full final screenplay was sitting unfinished on Orici and Kruzman’s desk. As the strike carried on Michael Bay (director) and Steven Speilberg (Producer) had a tough decision to make, do we wait out the strike, lose a crap ton of funding or get our funding pulled, and delay shooting? Or do we try to work with what we have. Bay Elected to work with what he had, which mean shooting Revenge of the Fallen with what is called a Film Treatment.

For those that don’t know, a Film Treatment is a piece of prose, often in a short story form, that provides a basic outline of a films plot. For a good example of a Film Treatment I recommend picking up the special edition of “The Terminator” which has its full treatment as a special feature. At 44 pages it tells the story of the film, but you can pick apart what was discarded, what was altered, and what was enhanced.

This led to Revenge of the Fallen being CLOSE to the original vision of the film, but every fan could see where things fell apart. There was a “wait what?” moment within the movie where it all broke down. For me it was around the time Optimus prime got killed and the ever infamous twins escorted Bumblebee and Shia Lebouf across the globe. At that point what was actually a pretty decent action flick degenerated into a bad episode of Beavis and Butt-head.

So now we have this third movie, and again it is sold to me. I will be there, in the front of the line, waiting for my seat on opening day. It is the same thing as why G.I.JOE, and the Marvel Pantheon are so close to my heart. Basically people my age, the 30 year olds, are grown up and want their childhood back. Maybe it is some mid life precursor or something. Will we have a better movie? Well I am of the mind it can not get much worse, and at least the 30 second spot at the Daytona 500 looks promising.