Transformers
I don't know that I'm going to worry too much about spoilers, as I think most people have had a lot longer time to go see it than I have, and it's been out here for a month.
I have mixed feelings about this movie. It was neither a good adaptation of the original story, nor a good movie if you ignore the original story. IMDB claims that the original transformation sound was used a few times in the film, but I swear I didn't hear anything but a barely recognizable, slowed-down imitation. That was THE coolest sound if you were a kid growing up in the 80s. I've heard they lost the original sound recording, but I'm sure they could get a hell of a lot closer.
Having Optimus Prime say comedic lines is one thing, but when they consist of half of his lines, that's lame. Admittedly some of the transformer fights were pretty wicked, but they spent so little time with the actual transformers and so much time with a dorky kid and a girl with indestructible cosmetics or a bunch of bad actors in fatigues failing to be killed by the massive shrapnel and explosions thrown at them repeatedly. Bleh. I never saw the point of Spike the in the original series, and this is Spike to the nth degree. I also wish the transformers had looked more transformer-ish.
There were some laughs, some cool effects, a fair amount of head-scratching, and a sense of lost childhood pleasures (for me, anyways). Even if I'd never seen a Transformer episode in my life, I think this movie's awkward, overly-convoluted storylines and very awkward characterization would have killed it for me anyways. Thank Gackt that they got the original voice of Optimus Prime back to do it (apparently they auditioned the voice of Megatron, too, but his voice had "aged too much". Hmph. Well, at least Hugo Weaving is actually a very good voice actor . . .)
I'm going to have to track down the animated movie and make myself feel better :p.
I have mixed feelings about this movie. It was neither a good adaptation of the original story, nor a good movie if you ignore the original story. IMDB claims that the original transformation sound was used a few times in the film, but I swear I didn't hear anything but a barely recognizable, slowed-down imitation. That was THE coolest sound if you were a kid growing up in the 80s. I've heard they lost the original sound recording, but I'm sure they could get a hell of a lot closer.
Having Optimus Prime say comedic lines is one thing, but when they consist of half of his lines, that's lame. Admittedly some of the transformer fights were pretty wicked, but they spent so little time with the actual transformers and so much time with a dorky kid and a girl with indestructible cosmetics or a bunch of bad actors in fatigues failing to be killed by the massive shrapnel and explosions thrown at them repeatedly. Bleh. I never saw the point of Spike the in the original series, and this is Spike to the nth degree. I also wish the transformers had looked more transformer-ish.
There were some laughs, some cool effects, a fair amount of head-scratching, and a sense of lost childhood pleasures (for me, anyways). Even if I'd never seen a Transformer episode in my life, I think this movie's awkward, overly-convoluted storylines and very awkward characterization would have killed it for me anyways. Thank Gackt that they got the original voice of Optimus Prime back to do it (apparently they auditioned the voice of Megatron, too, but his voice had "aged too much". Hmph. Well, at least Hugo Weaving is actually a very good voice actor . . .)
I'm going to have to track down the animated movie and make myself feel better :p.