Dirty Weekend on Cybertron, Part 1
You know what's sexier than a handsome, bespectacled dandy in a waistcoat?
A handsome, bespectacled dandy in a waistcoat doing a spot-on impression of an alien robot samurai velociraptor.
Yes, I do have a point, and no, that comparison didn't just emerge straight out of my diseased imagination. For you see, I spent this past weekend at Auto Assembly.
Auto Assembly is Europe's largest Transformers convention. (Considering that the franchise is mostly in English and Japanese, it's not like we're getting a lot of competition from, say, Poland, but I digress.) It is also an entire weekend of full-on, hardcore nerddom like you would not believe. It is the only place where I've ever worn a "Robot Revolt" t-shirt to a party, and experienced the embarrassment of having turned up in the same outfit as someone else. :)
Most of the convention takes place in a single room, lined with dealers' and artists' tables, and with a constant stream of old episodes running on the big screen between panels. I don't collect Transformers toys - in fact, it's a conscious decision not to do so, because once I did, I'd have to get ALL my favourite characters so that I didn't leave anyone out, and then I'd be broke and surrounded by useless plastic pointy things. But that did nothing to diminish the lure of the dealers' tables, because man, I bought so many comics. ALL THE COMICS IN EXISTENCE I have bought. If I can fit this lot into my suitcase if/when I go to Nigeria, I'll have a full year's reading material right there. (I'm catching up with the current series, which is wonderfully dark and character-driven, but I also picked up quite a few older comics cheap.) So, now I'm broke and surrounded by imminent papercuts. But I have my pride!
It was a little tough at first to get people talking, as a lot of folks tended to stay in their groups, and I think I may have scared some of the lone attendees - I kind of went full-on American on them ;) - but by Sunday, everyone had loosened up enough to have the kind of cracktastic pick-up conversations you can only have at fan conventions (like an in-depth dissection of the voice of my favourite character in the latest series, the gorgeous combination of an insinuating hiss with just a touch of a growl :)).
Highlights of the weekend my entire summer:
- First, there was the opening ceremony, with the parade of special guests - comic writers and artists, screenwriters, voice actors - all cheered on by screaming fans. Most of the guests greeted the crowd with some kind of Transformers joke (the voice actors doing lines from their most popular characters), but one really stood out. And I'm faintly ashamed of this. You see, even nerds occasionally draw lines in the sand, and I've always felt a little bit smug towards those sad people who learn to speak Klingon. I mean, I'm a nerd, but I'm not a ludicrous nerd, right?
Yeaaaaaah, that was before one of the comic artists at Auto Assembly bounded up to the front of the room, looked out solemnly across the audience, and said, "Bah weeb gra na weeb ni ni bong."
And I was one of the five hundred people gleefully screaming back, "Bah weeb gra na weeb ni ni bong!"
So, yeah, I greeted a dude in a made-up robotic language. Imma just slink over here and join the guys dressed up in Klingon armour, m'kay?
- The weekend included, not only a panel, but a couple of live episode commentaries with David Wise, one of the most prolific writers from the original 1980s cartoon. Now, I've read interviews with some of the writers on the old cartoon, who've basically said, "Look, it was a stupid show about robots, I just banged out some trash and handed it in, who cares?" And that's their right, but it was really refreshing to listen to Wise, who's been writing animated shows for more than thirty years, clearly loves it, and remembers a wealth of interesting details about the (often wonderfully dark and twisted) scripts he wrote for Transformers.
It was cool hearing about the process of writing for an animated show. It's one of the few situations when the writer is also, essentially, the director; apparently, many amateur screenwriters make the mistake of thinking that they have to specify every shot and angle, when that's the director's job in a live-action movie. For a cartoon, however, the writer IS the one deciding exactly how each scene is "shot". Wise was also surprisingly positive about writing for a toy-based franchise, saying that it only got restrictive towards the end of the series. In the beginning, it just meant a huge box of potential characters to play with. His writing process seemed to boil down to a) Pick character, and b) Break character. :) "Who's this guy? Tracks? Okay, it says on his toy bio that he's stuck-up; I know, let's bring him right down to the street and have him getting carjacked!"
One thing I really loved was Wise's take on Optimus Prime: "I love him, even though he's exactly the kind of character I hate - the big, perfect hero." That's pretty much exactly how I feel, and I wasn't able to put it nearly so eloquently. Wise is not nearly as fond of the Decepticons; he thinks their shared obsession with power makes them a less varied crew than the Autobots. I don't agree, but I can see his point, and I also loved his view of Optimus as a guy who's gritting his teeth, barely managing to hold this disparate band of misfits - most of whom aren't warriors by nature - together on a strange planet.
I also appreciated his response when one of the audience members asked him for advice for writers who have trouble finishing projects. He looked her right in the eye, grinned, and said, "PANIC." Then he explained how he used to finish scripts - by waiting until the last possible moment and riding the adreneline rush - and how, eventually, you can work out ways to induce that rush in your normal writing routine, without having to waste all the time right up to the deadline first.
Wise's live commentaries were amazing to watch. Over twenty-five years later, he still remembers what he was trying to do with each story, why he chose individual lines, where exactly the editors changed his scripts. I especially loved getting his take on one of his most well-known episodes, called "War Dawn", which provided the very first origin story for Optimus Prime. Apparently, Wise hadn't intended to tell Optimus's origin at all. He'd created a story about a new team of Autobots who idolised the Decepticons for their power and flair, and who then got sent back in time to the beginning of the war, and witnessed Megatron and company casually massacring a group of innocent workers. (He mentioned that the story was partly driven by his horror at how kids were idolising Rambo in the then-new movie, just because of the character's strength, even though he was, in Wise's words, "a fascist".) It was only towards the end of the writing process that Wise thought, "Hey, what if one of the workers who was attacked is rescued and rebuilt - as Optimus Prime?" However, the series editors made a decision that still annoys Wise to this day: Wise had intended for the other two victims of the attack to die, in order to underline the Decepticons' brutality. Without telling Wise, the editors changed the script to confirm that at least one of the other two victims was also successfully revived, being rebuilt into another established character. And ever since, fans have bugged Wise by asking him who the third victim was rebuilt as. Wise's faux-tantrum over this was pretty hilarious: "Dead! Dead! Dead! He was rebuilt as DEAD!"
Other moments of David Wisean awesome:
- The first night, they showed the original 1986 movie - which, believe it or not, I'd never seen. Now, I knew most of what happened in the movie going in, because references to it have penetrated the whole Transformers universe to such an extent. It was a little like hearing a famous speech in its entirety for the first time. There will be bits you can rattle off by heart, but it's fascinating to see how it actually all fits together. Watching the movie in that atmosphere made for a slightly bizarre first time, because it felt like going to a Rocky Horror screening. For a while, I'd been picturing finding some uninterrupted Saturday, sitting down with a bowl of popcorn, and crying my eyes out over this film, and this was... not what I'd had in mind. That said, after a little while, I REALLY got into the experience. I found myself chanting the more famous lines along with the rest of the crowd, and whooping and cheering at certain points - not just at the most dramatic moments, but at little points, like the part where someone says "shit" because the creators wanted to bump the rating up to PG. :) (You'd think that a popular character burning to death screaming a few scenes before would have jacked the rating up, too, but Transformers has always had fun with the ratings loophole that says violence against robots doesn't count as violence.) The nerdgasm moment, however, came early on, when Optimus Prime, in his glorious, probably-what-God-sounds-like voice, intoned, "I must stop Megatron, no matter what it takes." He transformed into his truck mode... he started barrelling through the middle of the battlefield, scattering Decepticons left and right... the strains of a familiar 80s power ballad started up...
... And in perfect unison, several hundred nerds burst out singing, "You got the touch! You got the powwwwwerrrrr!"
Oh, God, we're hopeless, aren't we? But: It. Was. Awesome.
And yes, I still cried watching the movie, because shut up. :)
- One of the convention's guests of honour was the brilliant and endearing David Kaye.
David Kaye is my favourite voice actor. He is also, I must admit, unfairly hot in person. Like, UNFAIRLY hot. The picture doesn't do him justice. I've seen a few photos of him from his early Transformers roles, back in the day, and it seems he's one of those people who's sort of inoffensively good-looking at twenty-five, but smoking hot at forty. May we all have such luck. :)
Kaye was just having such a wonderful time that it was infectious. He held a panel, at which he talked about how he got into voice acting ("Class clown. I was always getting in trouble for doing impressions of my classmates. I would end up standing in the hallway, making friends with the janitor.") and about the key to getting into the voice acting business ("Never grow up. I'm serious. Never. Grow. Up."). It was also really cool hearing his thoughts on his most well-known Transformers role, Megatron. (Confusingly for new fans, Kaye wasn't the first Megatron in the 1980s cartoon, nor was he Megatron in the live-action films; however, he's played the role more often than any other actor, doing so in five separate series - not seasons; series!) According to Kaye, "I based that voice on a mix between Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, and a dragon." :) He even talked about how Megatron's style of discourse owed a lot to classical Greek dialogues, and to Shakespeare (in a "look how influential Shakespeare is, his work has even seeped into modern cartoons" kind of way, not an "oooh-look-how-deep-I-am" kind of way). But I think my favourite moment was when he left the stage. There was a boy of about eight or nine in the front row who'd asked a question earlier, and Kaye stopped for a second to smile and ruffle his hair. I've never seen a kid light up so completely. :)
Although there was also the point when a man made a particularly high bid in the charity auction Kaye was running, and Kaye responded fervently, "I love you." Then, a little flustered, he added, "But - like - you know - like -" while making what I can only assume is universal sign language for "straight platonic bromance". ;)
A handsome, bespectacled dandy in a waistcoat doing a spot-on impression of an alien robot samurai velociraptor.
Yes, I do have a point, and no, that comparison didn't just emerge straight out of my diseased imagination. For you see, I spent this past weekend at Auto Assembly.
Auto Assembly is Europe's largest Transformers convention. (Considering that the franchise is mostly in English and Japanese, it's not like we're getting a lot of competition from, say, Poland, but I digress.) It is also an entire weekend of full-on, hardcore nerddom like you would not believe. It is the only place where I've ever worn a "Robot Revolt" t-shirt to a party, and experienced the embarrassment of having turned up in the same outfit as someone else. :)
Most of the convention takes place in a single room, lined with dealers' and artists' tables, and with a constant stream of old episodes running on the big screen between panels. I don't collect Transformers toys - in fact, it's a conscious decision not to do so, because once I did, I'd have to get ALL my favourite characters so that I didn't leave anyone out, and then I'd be broke and surrounded by useless plastic pointy things. But that did nothing to diminish the lure of the dealers' tables, because man, I bought so many comics. ALL THE COMICS IN EXISTENCE I have bought. If I can fit this lot into my suitcase if/when I go to Nigeria, I'll have a full year's reading material right there. (I'm catching up with the current series, which is wonderfully dark and character-driven, but I also picked up quite a few older comics cheap.) So, now I'm broke and surrounded by imminent papercuts. But I have my pride!
It was a little tough at first to get people talking, as a lot of folks tended to stay in their groups, and I think I may have scared some of the lone attendees - I kind of went full-on American on them ;) - but by Sunday, everyone had loosened up enough to have the kind of cracktastic pick-up conversations you can only have at fan conventions (like an in-depth dissection of the voice of my favourite character in the latest series, the gorgeous combination of an insinuating hiss with just a touch of a growl :)).
Highlights of the weekend my entire summer:
- First, there was the opening ceremony, with the parade of special guests - comic writers and artists, screenwriters, voice actors - all cheered on by screaming fans. Most of the guests greeted the crowd with some kind of Transformers joke (the voice actors doing lines from their most popular characters), but one really stood out. And I'm faintly ashamed of this. You see, even nerds occasionally draw lines in the sand, and I've always felt a little bit smug towards those sad people who learn to speak Klingon. I mean, I'm a nerd, but I'm not a ludicrous nerd, right?
Yeaaaaaah, that was before one of the comic artists at Auto Assembly bounded up to the front of the room, looked out solemnly across the audience, and said, "Bah weeb gra na weeb ni ni bong."
And I was one of the five hundred people gleefully screaming back, "Bah weeb gra na weeb ni ni bong!"
So, yeah, I greeted a dude in a made-up robotic language. Imma just slink over here and join the guys dressed up in Klingon armour, m'kay?
- The weekend included, not only a panel, but a couple of live episode commentaries with David Wise, one of the most prolific writers from the original 1980s cartoon. Now, I've read interviews with some of the writers on the old cartoon, who've basically said, "Look, it was a stupid show about robots, I just banged out some trash and handed it in, who cares?" And that's their right, but it was really refreshing to listen to Wise, who's been writing animated shows for more than thirty years, clearly loves it, and remembers a wealth of interesting details about the (often wonderfully dark and twisted) scripts he wrote for Transformers.
It was cool hearing about the process of writing for an animated show. It's one of the few situations when the writer is also, essentially, the director; apparently, many amateur screenwriters make the mistake of thinking that they have to specify every shot and angle, when that's the director's job in a live-action movie. For a cartoon, however, the writer IS the one deciding exactly how each scene is "shot". Wise was also surprisingly positive about writing for a toy-based franchise, saying that it only got restrictive towards the end of the series. In the beginning, it just meant a huge box of potential characters to play with. His writing process seemed to boil down to a) Pick character, and b) Break character. :) "Who's this guy? Tracks? Okay, it says on his toy bio that he's stuck-up; I know, let's bring him right down to the street and have him getting carjacked!"
One thing I really loved was Wise's take on Optimus Prime: "I love him, even though he's exactly the kind of character I hate - the big, perfect hero." That's pretty much exactly how I feel, and I wasn't able to put it nearly so eloquently. Wise is not nearly as fond of the Decepticons; he thinks their shared obsession with power makes them a less varied crew than the Autobots. I don't agree, but I can see his point, and I also loved his view of Optimus as a guy who's gritting his teeth, barely managing to hold this disparate band of misfits - most of whom aren't warriors by nature - together on a strange planet.
I also appreciated his response when one of the audience members asked him for advice for writers who have trouble finishing projects. He looked her right in the eye, grinned, and said, "PANIC." Then he explained how he used to finish scripts - by waiting until the last possible moment and riding the adreneline rush - and how, eventually, you can work out ways to induce that rush in your normal writing routine, without having to waste all the time right up to the deadline first.
Wise's live commentaries were amazing to watch. Over twenty-five years later, he still remembers what he was trying to do with each story, why he chose individual lines, where exactly the editors changed his scripts. I especially loved getting his take on one of his most well-known episodes, called "War Dawn", which provided the very first origin story for Optimus Prime. Apparently, Wise hadn't intended to tell Optimus's origin at all. He'd created a story about a new team of Autobots who idolised the Decepticons for their power and flair, and who then got sent back in time to the beginning of the war, and witnessed Megatron and company casually massacring a group of innocent workers. (He mentioned that the story was partly driven by his horror at how kids were idolising Rambo in the then-new movie, just because of the character's strength, even though he was, in Wise's words, "a fascist".) It was only towards the end of the writing process that Wise thought, "Hey, what if one of the workers who was attacked is rescued and rebuilt - as Optimus Prime?" However, the series editors made a decision that still annoys Wise to this day: Wise had intended for the other two victims of the attack to die, in order to underline the Decepticons' brutality. Without telling Wise, the editors changed the script to confirm that at least one of the other two victims was also successfully revived, being rebuilt into another established character. And ever since, fans have bugged Wise by asking him who the third victim was rebuilt as. Wise's faux-tantrum over this was pretty hilarious: "Dead! Dead! Dead! He was rebuilt as DEAD!"
Other moments of David Wisean awesome:
- Interviewer: "The device you created for this episode is pretty nightmarish. I mean, it's a machine that rewrites your free will." Wise: "In America, we call those Republicans."
- "There are many rules to comedy. The first, I believe, is, 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.' But the second one is, 'Pissed off is funny.'"
- The first night, they showed the original 1986 movie - which, believe it or not, I'd never seen. Now, I knew most of what happened in the movie going in, because references to it have penetrated the whole Transformers universe to such an extent. It was a little like hearing a famous speech in its entirety for the first time. There will be bits you can rattle off by heart, but it's fascinating to see how it actually all fits together. Watching the movie in that atmosphere made for a slightly bizarre first time, because it felt like going to a Rocky Horror screening. For a while, I'd been picturing finding some uninterrupted Saturday, sitting down with a bowl of popcorn, and crying my eyes out over this film, and this was... not what I'd had in mind. That said, after a little while, I REALLY got into the experience. I found myself chanting the more famous lines along with the rest of the crowd, and whooping and cheering at certain points - not just at the most dramatic moments, but at little points, like the part where someone says "shit" because the creators wanted to bump the rating up to PG. :) (You'd think that a popular character burning to death screaming a few scenes before would have jacked the rating up, too, but Transformers has always had fun with the ratings loophole that says violence against robots doesn't count as violence.) The nerdgasm moment, however, came early on, when Optimus Prime, in his glorious, probably-what-God-sounds-like voice, intoned, "I must stop Megatron, no matter what it takes." He transformed into his truck mode... he started barrelling through the middle of the battlefield, scattering Decepticons left and right... the strains of a familiar 80s power ballad started up...
... And in perfect unison, several hundred nerds burst out singing, "You got the touch! You got the powwwwwerrrrr!"
Oh, God, we're hopeless, aren't we? But: It. Was. Awesome.
And yes, I still cried watching the movie, because shut up. :)
- One of the convention's guests of honour was the brilliant and endearing David Kaye.
David Kaye is my favourite voice actor. He is also, I must admit, unfairly hot in person. Like, UNFAIRLY hot. The picture doesn't do him justice. I've seen a few photos of him from his early Transformers roles, back in the day, and it seems he's one of those people who's sort of inoffensively good-looking at twenty-five, but smoking hot at forty. May we all have such luck. :)
Kaye was just having such a wonderful time that it was infectious. He held a panel, at which he talked about how he got into voice acting ("Class clown. I was always getting in trouble for doing impressions of my classmates. I would end up standing in the hallway, making friends with the janitor.") and about the key to getting into the voice acting business ("Never grow up. I'm serious. Never. Grow. Up."). It was also really cool hearing his thoughts on his most well-known Transformers role, Megatron. (Confusingly for new fans, Kaye wasn't the first Megatron in the 1980s cartoon, nor was he Megatron in the live-action films; however, he's played the role more often than any other actor, doing so in five separate series - not seasons; series!) According to Kaye, "I based that voice on a mix between Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, and a dragon." :) He even talked about how Megatron's style of discourse owed a lot to classical Greek dialogues, and to Shakespeare (in a "look how influential Shakespeare is, his work has even seeped into modern cartoons" kind of way, not an "oooh-look-how-deep-I-am" kind of way). But I think my favourite moment was when he left the stage. There was a boy of about eight or nine in the front row who'd asked a question earlier, and Kaye stopped for a second to smile and ruffle his hair. I've never seen a kid light up so completely. :)
Although there was also the point when a man made a particularly high bid in the charity auction Kaye was running, and Kaye responded fervently, "I love you." Then, a little flustered, he added, "But - like - you know - like -" while making what I can only assume is universal sign language for "straight platonic bromance". ;)