Category: Random

video of Soundwave breakdancing

Here is a cool video of Soundwave breakdancing — this is what you call doing the robot.  🙂  (If you don’t know, Soundwave was one of the Decepticons of Transformers lore; his Earth disguise mode was a jambox / cassette player.)

Supposedly this was initially put on YouTube in 2005, before YouTube was big, and it got to 15 million hits and crashed their servers.  I saw it back in 2004 on another site.  Think about that — at least 15 million hits, before YouTube was so popular.  That’s a lot of Transformers fans, even before Michael Bay’s “re-imagined”* the franchise for his movies.  Someone said it was made in 2002, and if so, that makes it even more impressive, because CGI was more difficult back then.

* Hey, I just found a soapbox!  I won’t go into the full rant, because I’ve done that before (and I’ve revisited it with video examples of how Transformers could’ve been better), but I will say this — the Transformers universe was very established through hundreds of cartoons and many comic books, and it was a good story with lots of backstory, many great plots, extensive character development — everything you need for a great movie.  Instead of using that, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg (yes, it’s partly his fault, too) made the movie about “a boy and his car”.  In doing so, they made Transformers be more about how a teenage boy has to save the world instead of the huge civil war going on between robots that are more intelligent than we are.  Instead of making what could’ve been one of the greatest sci-fi stories ever, with characters you admire for their principles and a philosophical side that gets you to thinking — while keeping the great action scenes, we ended up with just the action scenes and lots of explosions.  I’m not saying the movies weren’t entertaining at all, but I keep thinking what could’ve been…

how to describe this heat wave

The past few days have been so hot we’ve been trying to figure out how to describe it.  Wednesday it was 110 here with a heat index over 120, with lots of humidity.  I think that goes beyond crazy-mad hot.  Our local weathermen are running out of adjectives and phrases for the forecasts.

So we came up with a new heat scale:

* The day-star, it burns
* That ain’t right hot
* Crazy-mad hot
* Unbelievably stupid-hot
* Is this Arizona?
* This heat is inconceivable!
* Warmageddon
* Heatastrophe
* Hot Attack
* So hot that if someone says “Hot enough for ya?” you’re allowed to punch them.
* Did you replace my sweet tea with jalapeno juice?
* It feels like I’m on fire
* I’m on fire
* No really, I’m actually on fire it’s so hot

 

how Transformers CGI should have looked in the movie, pt. 2

I just updated “how Transformers CGI should have looked in the movie” because the video link had changed.  It’s been a popular post, with over 1,000 pageviews.  I also added a remixed version of the video to it, featuring music from the original series, which makes it even better.

Who is this?

While finding the video, I found a fan-made video of Generation 1 (G1) Transformers using CGI that was well done.  It’s not movie-quality, because I’m sure he didn’t have a $200 million budget.  But it gives an idea how the characters could have looked in CGI while still resembling their original design.  (Why does that matter?  You should be able to easily tell who is who.  Not only did Michael Bay remove most of their personalities, but he removed most of their unique external features, too.  They look very similar in the movies, which should not be.)  FYI, consider the video rated PG because of a couple of words and some stuff gets blown up.

I had hoped that the fourth Transformer movie would be rebooted with the new director, to have more story along with the action, but it appears that won’t happen.  Sure, the first 3 movies did well financially, but they could be so much better if the story of the Transformers was actually told instead of it being about mankind versus an alien invasion (which has been done so many times).

Let's hope not!

The Autobots and Decepticons are in a civil war, and there’s a deep story behind that which is being ignored in the movies.  The movies can (and should) keep the action sequences and big explosions, but let’s hear the story with real character development.

The reason Transformers are still around is because it has a great story with great characters.  That’s why the franchise is still going strong and we’re not getting movies about GoBots (which had some cool toys, but no story).  Some of you may not remember this, but when Optimus Prime was killed in the original cartoon movie, there was a huge outcry from fans.  (The company executives didn’t get it then, either.)  Optimus was like the John Wayne of Transformers.  In fact, the fan response was so great that the upcoming G.I. Joe cartoon movie was rewritten during production, because in it Duke was going to be killed, so they made him go into a coma instead.  Why am I saying all this?  To show that fans care about characters with personality.

watching Transformers 3 with different expectations

I saw Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon (the third CGI movie) in theaters recently, because I heard it had good 3D effects.  Also, I was curious to see what I’d think of it now that my expectations were much lower after being so disappointed with the first one.  (I skipped the second one, because I heard it was turrible.  Even director Michael Bay said it was crap.)

I had recently read a quote about watching a movie with the proper perspective:

If you watch a movie with a mindset that does not match the theme, you will always hate it. If it’s a kid’s movie …, watch it with a kid’s eye. If it’s a slapstick comedy that is supposed to be goofy, don’t look for intelligent humor. It may not always work, but it sometimes does. Give it a try. You may find yourself liking a movie that you didn’t before. ~ Dave Nelson

When the first Transformers movie was announced, I had such high hopes that it would build upon the backstory, update and modernize (only as necessary), and tell a great philosophical story of a civil war between sentient robots.  (There really is a great sci-fi background story, as well as philosophical topics.  The origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron can be compared to Xavier and Magneto in X-Men.  See “The War Within” for a great example.)  Obviously director Michael Bay tossed all that aside and made the story more about humans and explosions.

So with Michael Bay directing this one also, I expected:
* the humans to play the biggest role in the movie;
* the Transformers wouldn’t have much personality;
* character development of Transformers wouldn’t happen much;
* story would take a back seat to action scenes;
* lots of explosions;
* a number of action scenes zoomed in too close where you can hardly tell what’s going on.

So was I disappointed?  For those expectations, it was a good movie.  Compared to what could’ve been, it was disappointing again.  The 3D effect was well-done — not over-used or cheesy like many 3D movies have been.

The bulk of the story was between humans, which is missing the whole point. Transformers is about a civil war going on between intelligent robots.

There were some unexpected twists in the story, which is good and bad.  It made it less predictable and somewhat more suspenseful, but it was done by changing the backstory of some of the Transformers.  There are also a few plot points that are completely unbelievable.  I could go on and on about that, but you can read some on this page (with spoilers).

Afterward, one of the guys with me said all three movies had the same basic plot.  Sure some details changed, but it was basically the same thing.  He also noted that he had recently watched the G1 (original) cartoon episode that showed the Transformers leaving Cybertron, and that the cartoon actually explained that part of the story better than all the movies have.  That doesn’t surprise me at all!

Maybe the next movie will have a better story, since it will have a new director… He can keep the great action scenes and special effects and explosions, but just develop the personality of the Transformers and let them drive the story.  That way the new fans and G1 fans might all enjoy it more.