He's A Truck, Dammit

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Earth at Aphelion
Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day
Birthday - President George W. Bush (43rd President)
Day of Statehood (Lithuania)
Independence Day (Comoros)
Republic Day (Malawi)

 

So my brother and sister remain firmly convinced that we can all just cancel Hollywood and go home, because after the pinnacle that was Transformers it can only go downhill.

 

I gotta admit, it was pretty cool. Out of all the many comic/cartoon geek nostalgia movies being marketed, this is the one that most closely keeps that weirdly light and goofy feel of the original cartoons, which were basically commercials for toys you could change from robots to trucks* and thus have two cool toys in one.

 

But like all these movies, there’s are certain conditions to my suspension of disbelief, and I finally figured out what it is—the stuff is supposed to be set in a world like ours, so we identify with it.  That must remain constant. The variables are the things with the superpowers, which are from another world and thus they can add new information.  Which is why you get the following:

 

Stuff I Could Accept:

 

-Earth finds itself hosting a war between two factions of giant robotic life forms FROM SPACE with names like “Bumblebee” and “Starscream” and “Decepticons,” who want a magic cube that has the power to give life to machines, and even in this epic battle the good robots are human enough to try to help the kid they’re guarding get the girl and to be a little sheepish when they trash somebody’s rosebushes.**

 

Things I Couldn’t Accept:

 

-The periodic bits where somebody would fall 20 stories or so and one of the Autobots would quickly catch him before he hit the ground, saving him from impact.  It doesn’t matter if you hit the ground or a giant metal hand a few feet above the ground.  The impact will be the same—it might even be worse, if the hand caused an uneven hit or was moving upward at the time. Maybe if they had shock-absorber padding on their hands or something, but they didn’t. And they just kept putting that in, and I’d wince every time.

 

-Remember the law of conservation of mass? Shrink a giant power cube to the size of a football and it shouldn’t suddenly have the mass of a football. Similarly, shrink a massive robot into a truck and it still won’t weigh the same as a truck.

 

Though I will note that its being such a consistent error makes it easier to assume that maybe these robots have some limited control of mass, or can negate gravity to a certain extent, or something.

 

-So you say that a power cube has turned your toaster into a malicious sentient robot? Fine. But unless the manufacturer planned for this contingency and was on the side of the robots, I doubt very much that the toaster contains powerful tentacles, tiny machine guns, and camera-shutter eyes, all of which are meant to sprout at a moment such as this.  Its destructive capabilities are pretty much limited to burning your toast to a lump of carbon. Honestly, where do suddenly-evil household appliances get these components?

 

 

Minor nitpicks, really, to a movie that rivals Pirates in both stupid and AWESOME—and completely blows it away in terms of explosions. And I have to admit, when that red and blue truck drove up to the kids for the Big Entrance!, I realized that I was eight years old again, and that I was in for one kickass ride.

 

 

*Unless you had my motor skills, at which point you would transform them into some sort of half-formed homunculus with its head on backwards.  And you were always losing Optimus Prime’s hands.

 

**And a million points to Peter Cullen for his ad libs as Prime, which single-handedly rescued the movie from being SRS EPIC BATTLE by keeping the Autobots as the well-meaning cream puffs they were in the show when they weren’t accidentally destroying cities. One of the best things about the movie was that Optimus Prime was freaking adorable.

Comments

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

Don't you know that Transformers are occult and will lead you into serving Satanic powers and occultic pagan religions?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

:D

I seem to recall hearing something about a few other shows, replete with helpful typefaces to point one toward the important stuff. So Transformers made the list, huh?

Just thank god it's not the ponies. Those demonic little pink ponies. Or, godforbid, their satanic Smurf friends. THAT would be a sin against humanity.

(I have to admit, fundamentalist crazies lead really exciting lives. They're almost cartoonish themselves with their conspiracies and their Perpetual Battle Between Forces Of Good And Evil. Almost makes me want to sign up.)

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

My first comment was going to be a description of how I used to steal my brother's Transformers and make them marry my My Little Ponies, and how MLP's would have improved the movie, but I decided to let it go.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Did you spot the big plush MLP in the movie? And the Furby?

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

The hell, just as bad as the guy who tried to prove evolution doesn't exist with a jar of peanut butter.

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

Peanut butter? Link plz.

Also, squee at the icon! Sigh. Daniel Jackson.

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

He is ultimate nerd sex, ye gods...

Linkie ist being here.

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I thought the bannana people were out there.

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

Skipped through the rest of the entry after reading the first couple of sentences, as I still want to see it myself and form my own thoughts without having everyone else's in the back of my skull, though I still intend to come back and read it afterwards.

On a tangential note, it made me think of this.

[(Anonymous)]

I picked up on the law of mass problem, too. Right as I was pulling out of the theater and going through the parking lot, I came across a semi-truck that I was sincerely hoping would transform into Optimus Prime, but to no avail. Then, I looked at it and went, "How the crap would that have worked?" because Optimus as a semi looked significantly bigger than the one I saw in front of the Container Store. I don't get it, in other words.

But I was still a happy, skippy fangirl during the ENTIRE movie during every single battle and flippy transformy bit.

As for the names, I attribute it to their gathering information on the internet. Kinda how in Gargoyles the unnamed gargoyles got theirs from street signs. I don't think "Brooklyn" and "Bronx" are exactly old English classics.

Ally wants a livejournal icon that says "Optimus is not teh stealth" with a pic of him on his tippy-toes while hiding from Shia's parents.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The individual names I mentioned were both central characters in the old cartoon. Which also explains a lot.

The flippy transformations were AWESOME. Expensive, time-consuming CGI is no deterrent! This movie is called Transformers; they are going to bloody well TRANSFORM.

[(Anonymous)]

My friend and I worked out the size difference between the truck and Optimus. All the Autobots and decepticons are hollow inside :D Lots of airspace. Like the lungs. Only metal. Think of it as one, gigantic transforming sponge.

Of course this doesn't make sense, either, does it? I like to think it does, though.

I want to hug one of the animators of that movie. I really do. At least they didn't cop out like the green poof in Pirates.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I doubt very much that the toaster contains powerful tentacles, tiny machine guns, and camera-shutter eyes, all of which are meant to sprout at a moment such as this. Its destructive capabilities are pretty much limited to burning your toast to a lump of carbon. Honestly, where do suddenly-evil household appliances get these components?

I don't know, but they always do.

[skadi98.livejournal.com]

"Remember the law of conservation of mass?"

Hollywood always forget it and anothers physical laws XDD

[vogtalicious.livejournal.com]

Optimus WAS adorable! I loved how ALL of the main robots had their original voice actors as well! It also injected a lot of humor, no matter how campy, which made the movie fun as well as kick ass.

Did anyone else tear up when Bumblebee was being tortured by those section 7 assholes?

[alietf.livejournal.com]

Oh hell yes. I also can't watch the part where Jazz is... um... halved.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The soundtrack sure did. ;)

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

However, if the hand was swinging when they caught the person it would work. that would change their momentum from down to the side which would allow the kinetic energy to dissipate!

Also, the law of conservation of mass is actually the law of conservation of mass and energy. So if while the Allspark was changing size downward it was emitting energy, which with a name like the Allspark I would assume it would, you wouldn't be defying the laws of physics.

I mean at one point they had a radiation reading of ONE FOUR RADS! 14! That is INSANE.