Watched Transformer the movie two Sundays and boy! It does brought back a lot of memories. I was in high school back then when the Transformer series was first aired. It became a topic of discussion among my friends and peers. In one of those discussions, I still vividly remember old pal Jerry expressing his incredulous observation of a three – storey tall robots like Megatron (NBE1 in the movie) transforming into a hand held laser rifle or that of Shockwave transforming from a giant 20 foot robot into a hand held (by humans) portable walkman/tape recorder or that Rumble transforming from a magnetic tape into a slightly larger than human size robot. I still remember about the discussions about how these Transformers transformed from their robot mode into their vehicle mode or aircraft mode among others. In one instance, I remembered that we discussed about how Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots transformed from his trailer truck into that behemoth of beauty and power. We analyzed each detail of how the headlights of the truck became his hand and arm, where his head pop out, and where his legs came from and best of all, we always wonder where his trailer has gone to whenever Optimus Prime is in his robot mode. You see in the cartoon series, Optimus Prime always carried a trailer and it “conveniently rolled off” and out of sight every time it transformed into a robot. The significance of this observation cannot be underestimated for every Transformer enthusiasts knew that Optimus Prime carries in his trailer, his weapons and his reconnaissance support named, Roller and yet, it is out of sight 90% of the time. This simple faux pas by the animators became the subject of speculations among the youths of my time back then. I also remembered a classmate of mine, Alain who expressed great fascination about the “merged” robots in the series like the Constructicons (a group of 5 robots transforming into construction type vehicles like cranes and cement mixers) merging into a giant monster of a robot called Devastator or the Thundercons becoming Minisaurs or the Protectobots becoming Defensaur. Actually, merged robots are not new at that time. After all, we do have Voltes 5 and Voltron. However, the difference between Voltes 5 and Voltron and that with the Transformer merged bots lies in the fact while the former is composed of 5 non – transformable vehicles “volting into” a giant bot, the latter are made of 5 individually transformable vehicles. It simply behooves the imagination to figure it out how they done it. More than the bots, the storyline itself in the Transformer the series was also very much a part of our discussion back then. Who wouldn’t forget the first two episodes of the series introducing the Autobots and the Decepticons and their millennia of civil war in distant Cybertron. Oh, how could I forget that epic duel between Optimus Prime and Megatron on top of the Hoover Dam or the heroic chase of Optimus Prime trying to stop Megatron from carrying all those energon cubes aboard a shuttle back to Cybertron. And who wouldn’t shed a tear for Optimus Prime when he died in the Transformer the animated movie back in the early 90s. I know I did. It’s the first time I shed tears for a two dimensional character drawn on a piece of paper! But then again, there is the death of Superman. Anyway, that’s how the movie conjure up those memories of the old and brought us back to the days when we were still young and very much into day dreaming. But that is only where the movie succeeded, the rest of the movie is just so – so in my view. For a fact, the storyline has been changed not subtly but overhauled radically. No longer were the Autobots and the Decepticons crashed landed at the side of a volcano on Earth while on board Tellus 1, the mother ship 4 million years ago while searching for a habitable planet. Instead, Megatron crashed landed alone centuries ago in the artic circle in search of the “All Spark” and Optimus Prime came to Earth to stop Megatron. Aside from that, in the series, the ability of the Autobots and the Decepticons to transform into a particular object or vehicle is permanent and brought about by Tellus 1. Bumble Bee for example is a Volkswagon Beatle, hence the name. Yet, in the movie, Bumble Bee started out as a box type car with a dubious make and later “upgraded” into a Benz – like luxury car. Clearly, commercialization has seeped into the veins of the movie. Even so, unless you are a hard – core fan who cling to cannons, I don’t see the changes as particularly “offensive”. What I can surmise is that the writers of this movie tried to “adapt” the concepts to a more mature audience e.g., people like me who grew up watching Transformer and who until now never questioned the apparent incoherence in the logic of the concept of the series. The writers have attempted to “logicalized” the concepts and adapting it more to the reality around us. An example would be Megatron. Instead of transforming into a laser rifle of the old, Megatron becomes a “pyramidal” spacecraft. Well, I can say that the writers have partially succeeded in its attempt to “logicalized” especially in the transformation part but in terms of rewriting the entire storyline, they needed to do a lot more “convincing”. The graphics on the other hand are superb. The interface between the animated characters and the real scenes are simply seamless so much so that one actually believe that they are real life robots in the real world and not simply made of pixels. The motions are fluid and the fight scenes are great although I couldn’t imagine as to why Optimus Prime pathetically loses to Megatron in the last scene since the former is a “better” warrior than the latter and that the latter can only win if he cheated. The movie is literally fast – paced and heavily – loaded with actions leaving little to character developments. I meant aside from Spike Witwicker played by Shia Le Beouf, all the characters including Optimus Prime are as two dimensional as the paper they are drawn into. Pretty shallow in my view. What’s worst was that the movie tried to etch out a love story in an action movie! Really out of place! In spite of these shortcomings, the movie is a breakthrough in the sense that it brought to life a popular animated series, a series that has both fascinated and captivated a generation of youngsters like me. It’s about time they come up with movie like this and it’s worth to watch it. Enjoy the movies.
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