More than Meets the Eye? But so much met my eye!
For some time now, TransFormers: A Michael Bay Film has been both hopeful and troublesome for me.
I've gone through trailers, sifted a few contradictory leaks, glimpsed half-viewed models, and overall tried (in the absence of much) to balance in my head my concerns over a very bizarre exposed-pistons redesign against TF:AMBF seeming to be a fairly faith port, story-wise of What Has Gone Before (there's a good-guy faction led by a Big Freightliner voiced by Peter Cullen, a bad-guy faction led by a silver bucket-headed robot named Megatron and his jet lieutenant Starscream, and they fight on earth over an artifact that can give life to Transformers. Along the way an Autobot disguised as a yellow car befriends a human boy.)
But even with the gobs of money thrown at this, the direct participation of Hasbro (who would not, we would think, allow what will likely be a major development for one of their core brands go under in crapulence, for they would shoot themselves in the foot for at least 18 months -- and what would they port over then? Kiss Players?), even with talents such as Hugo Weaving, Jon Voight, and and John Turturro on board -- well, Michael Bay has a very scattershot (Scattorshot?) record as a director, and Orson Welles was in the 1986 animated movie. So what guarantees can any fan-since-1985 have?
Well, thank MTV for this little bit of chase-and-battle-footage involving Optimus Prime and Bonecrusher.
...
...
...
holy crap.
Well, if nothing else, it proves that Bay will deliver some big old rock-em sock-em Transformer action. This film may not be a soul-searching tragedy, it may not give us a glimpse into the souls of machines that were built to fight and dream of more, but it will, at least, be fun.
And, y'know, just so people know where I stand, if I had made a TF film, the designs would have been more like the animated series, but I also would have had a loving shot of Defensor being shoved backwards into a (evacuating) office building. Make of that what you will.
I've gone through trailers, sifted a few contradictory leaks, glimpsed half-viewed models, and overall tried (in the absence of much) to balance in my head my concerns over a very bizarre exposed-pistons redesign against TF:AMBF seeming to be a fairly faith port, story-wise of What Has Gone Before (there's a good-guy faction led by a Big Freightliner voiced by Peter Cullen, a bad-guy faction led by a silver bucket-headed robot named Megatron and his jet lieutenant Starscream, and they fight on earth over an artifact that can give life to Transformers. Along the way an Autobot disguised as a yellow car befriends a human boy.)
But even with the gobs of money thrown at this, the direct participation of Hasbro (who would not, we would think, allow what will likely be a major development for one of their core brands go under in crapulence, for they would shoot themselves in the foot for at least 18 months -- and what would they port over then? Kiss Players?), even with talents such as Hugo Weaving, Jon Voight, and and John Turturro on board -- well, Michael Bay has a very scattershot (Scattorshot?) record as a director, and Orson Welles was in the 1986 animated movie. So what guarantees can any fan-since-1985 have?
Well, thank MTV for this little bit of chase-and-battle-footage involving Optimus Prime and Bonecrusher.
...
...
...
holy crap.
Well, if nothing else, it proves that Bay will deliver some big old rock-em sock-em Transformer action. This film may not be a soul-searching tragedy, it may not give us a glimpse into the souls of machines that were built to fight and dream of more, but it will, at least, be fun.
And, y'know, just so people know where I stand, if I had made a TF film, the designs would have been more like the animated series, but I also would have had a loving shot of Defensor being shoved backwards into a (evacuating) office building. Make of that what you will.