Transformers, then and now

Last week, I watched the Michael Bay Transformers movie for the first time with some friends who are huge fans. Much to their (and my) disappointment, I thought the movie was awful. I don't think this is because I had inappropriate expectations - we're talking about a movie which portrays a war between giant sentient alien robots who turn into helicopters and semi trucks. I didn't expect much from the bits of the movie whose sole purpose is to provide, for example, a semi-plausible segue from a battle with a forty-foot subterranean scorpion robot to a scene in which a giant rollerblading humanoid robot shoulder-tackles its way through a surprisingly flammable cargo truck. Those bits, though, which could literally have been replaced by thirty seconds of a banana singing "let's go out to the snack bar" without impacting the action scenes, were so awful that they managed to ruin the movie for me.

As I wrote above, I came to the movie with a very, very low bar with regard to story and characterization. Michael Bay saw my bar, lying there on the ground, and he got out a shovel and tunneled right under the thing. Almost every writing choice took the easy shortcut of substituting (often racial) stereotype for characterization. Especially the black characters, though not as bad as I understand I can expect from the sequel, seemed universally there to provide the kind of comic relief that can only come from essentializing brown people. Even one of the Transformers (Jazz) is 'black', and his only contribution to the movie is to breakdance for a few seconds, utter "what's crackin', li'l bitches?" and then do nothing of importance until the final scene, in which he is the only Transformer killed.

The movie treated women with about as much subtlety. Only two important characters are female. One is played by Megan Fox, whose entire purpose seems to be to strike suggestive poses in scanty clothing while the camera panned slowly over her sweat-beaded body, then to fall in love with the main character for no evident reason. The other woman actually gave me a bit of hope - she's a computer hacker, intelligent and played with the closest thing to a personality the movie granted a female. Unfortunately, at some point the writers didn't need the B-story she was involved in to advance the main plot any more, and so she simply vanishes from the remainder of the film without explanation.

So yeah. Could have been better. Let me say this about Transformers, though; if you like action movies, it's probably worth watching just for the battle scenes. There's a shot, for example, where a robot is taking out a pack of fighter jets by chasing them down in jet form, repeatedly transforming back into humanoid form to punch them out of the air. The misogyny and racism that pervades the rest of the movie is too much for me to recommend that you rent or buy it, though.

The final verdict: pirate it, and skip all the scenes without robots.

Bonus material: Long ago, I watched the first episode of the original Tranformers half-hour toy commercial television series. I loved that show so much, and it's still a lot of fun to watch, especially for the writing. It's so hilariously bad in places that I can't imagine the writers weren't doing it to amuse themselves. At the time, I collected the following choice quotes:

"There's not enough energy in these conductors to last a cortex!"

"Hang on to your crankshaft, I'm shifting to overdrive!"

After the Decepticon ship has been like ten feet behind the Autobot ship for the last five minutes. "Detectors report: we are being followed!"

"G-forces... they're dragging us... down!"

The Decepticons have been walking for hours past a repeating background containing piles of rocks, finally stopping near one such pile. Says Megatron: "Stop here. These rocks will serve as our base of operations."

Having stolen about six gallons of crude oil. "We've done it, we've done it, we've got the energy! We can go back to Cybertron!"