War Journal Entry number 666 - something terrible
My brain is still not my own, and is continuing to annoy me. The stress of moving is only adding to my general anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed, as well as my inability to concentrate on a single thing at once.
Bah!
I figured out, I believe, why some fans react so loudly to the movie adaptation of their favorite thing -- it's because movies are what the average person knows. For the most part, and for most things, the average person is more familiar with the movie version of something than they are with the novel, comic, or video game upon which it is based. Therefore, some fans will loudly protest the thing when it doesn't match to what they like, so that they are not misjudged for it.
Admittedly, some fans are just raving idiots that will complain for the sake of complaining if any detail is changed from the original because they don't have anything better to do. Plus, they're raving idiots.
But take for instance, oh, Transformers 2. I think everybody that knows me knows I'm a big fan of Transformers, and have been since I saw the very first episode when it first aired in 1984. I take every chance I can get to insult Michael Bay and the crap that he has put to screen... because I don't want people to think Transformers is all about shallow characterization, sexist and racist portrayals, crude frat-boy style humor, and giant explosions. I don't want people to think that that is what I like and feel so fanatical about.
One of the hallmarks of Transformers is that every character gets a well thought-out bio, that there is a large variety of different characters with different motivations, and they themselves often have cross-motivations which cause personal conflict. You have characters like Grimlock, who ends up on the good guy side not because he believes in protecting the weak, he actually despises anything he sees as weak, but because he despises anyone that abuses the weak even more. So he's a "good guy" because of how much he loathes the bad guys. You have characters like Thundercracker who is on the bad guy side because that's where his friends went, and though he does believe in some tenets of the Decepticon way, he finds the wholesale destruction and slaughter of beings that have no fighting chance as a stain on all Decepticons' honor. You have characters that struggle with their roles as a protector and a warrior. You have hero characters that are haughty and arrogant. You have characters on both sides that consider themselves artists and scientists, and are just waiting for the conflict to end so they can get back to their "real" lives. Transformers is a rich tapestry of interesting characters... and the average person has no idea of this because of how poorly written these films are.
Also, Transformers has a history of equal treatment. In the very beginning was a Transformer that talked "black" - the original Jazz was voiced by Scatman Crothers. And he was never the butt of any jokes. On the contrary, he was very respected, he was very capable, and he was Prime's go-to guy for important missions. The real Jazz was a far cry from the crude and ineffective version shown in the first Bay film, and nothing like the ghetto-bot twins of the second film. Aditionally, in the Beast Wars series, there was Tigatron, voiced by Blu Mankuma (sounds similar to James Earl Jones), who was also respected and on the same level as everybody else. There are a number of other Transformers characters that were voiced by black voice actors, and they were consistently treated no differently than the rest.
(OK, yes, there were some racist stereotypes in the eighties series. Casey Kasem left the series due to the highly overblown portrayal of the character Abdul Fakkadi, dictator of the made-up Arab state Carbombya (pronounced car-bomb-ee-ah, get it?). I'm going to blame the Reagan administration. The series, and the rest of Transformers in cartoons and comics throughout the years, have more examples of positive portrayals then they do of negative ones.)
The Transformers also has a history of featuring female Transformers, though how a robot can be either male of female escapes just about everybody. Still, these characters were continually shown to be the equals of the ones voiced by male actors. And though the most famous of them, Arcee, was in an insulting pink color, she never once screamed like a girl. The Beast Wars series, where the Transformers were actually techno-organic in nature, is a more logical place to find female Transformers. And there we have Airazor and Blackarachnia, two characters that were again treated as equals to the rest. Hell, Blackarachnia not only had a bad-ass battle rep, but she also got a high share of story time and a significant arc of characterization over the course of the series.
On second thought, I'll accept the "giant explosions" of the Bay-experience as part of the Transformers mythos --- at 1:10 is an image that is forever seared into my brain as one of the coolest fucking things ever put to film.
Bah!
I figured out, I believe, why some fans react so loudly to the movie adaptation of their favorite thing -- it's because movies are what the average person knows. For the most part, and for most things, the average person is more familiar with the movie version of something than they are with the novel, comic, or video game upon which it is based. Therefore, some fans will loudly protest the thing when it doesn't match to what they like, so that they are not misjudged for it.
Admittedly, some fans are just raving idiots that will complain for the sake of complaining if any detail is changed from the original because they don't have anything better to do. Plus, they're raving idiots.
But take for instance, oh, Transformers 2. I think everybody that knows me knows I'm a big fan of Transformers, and have been since I saw the very first episode when it first aired in 1984. I take every chance I can get to insult Michael Bay and the crap that he has put to screen... because I don't want people to think Transformers is all about shallow characterization, sexist and racist portrayals, crude frat-boy style humor, and giant explosions. I don't want people to think that that is what I like and feel so fanatical about.
One of the hallmarks of Transformers is that every character gets a well thought-out bio, that there is a large variety of different characters with different motivations, and they themselves often have cross-motivations which cause personal conflict. You have characters like Grimlock, who ends up on the good guy side not because he believes in protecting the weak, he actually despises anything he sees as weak, but because he despises anyone that abuses the weak even more. So he's a "good guy" because of how much he loathes the bad guys. You have characters like Thundercracker who is on the bad guy side because that's where his friends went, and though he does believe in some tenets of the Decepticon way, he finds the wholesale destruction and slaughter of beings that have no fighting chance as a stain on all Decepticons' honor. You have characters that struggle with their roles as a protector and a warrior. You have hero characters that are haughty and arrogant. You have characters on both sides that consider themselves artists and scientists, and are just waiting for the conflict to end so they can get back to their "real" lives. Transformers is a rich tapestry of interesting characters... and the average person has no idea of this because of how poorly written these films are.
Also, Transformers has a history of equal treatment. In the very beginning was a Transformer that talked "black" - the original Jazz was voiced by Scatman Crothers. And he was never the butt of any jokes. On the contrary, he was very respected, he was very capable, and he was Prime's go-to guy for important missions. The real Jazz was a far cry from the crude and ineffective version shown in the first Bay film, and nothing like the ghetto-bot twins of the second film. Aditionally, in the Beast Wars series, there was Tigatron, voiced by Blu Mankuma (sounds similar to James Earl Jones), who was also respected and on the same level as everybody else. There are a number of other Transformers characters that were voiced by black voice actors, and they were consistently treated no differently than the rest.
(OK, yes, there were some racist stereotypes in the eighties series. Casey Kasem left the series due to the highly overblown portrayal of the character Abdul Fakkadi, dictator of the made-up Arab state Carbombya (pronounced car-bomb-ee-ah, get it?). I'm going to blame the Reagan administration. The series, and the rest of Transformers in cartoons and comics throughout the years, have more examples of positive portrayals then they do of negative ones.)
The Transformers also has a history of featuring female Transformers, though how a robot can be either male of female escapes just about everybody. Still, these characters were continually shown to be the equals of the ones voiced by male actors. And though the most famous of them, Arcee, was in an insulting pink color, she never once screamed like a girl. The Beast Wars series, where the Transformers were actually techno-organic in nature, is a more logical place to find female Transformers. And there we have Airazor and Blackarachnia, two characters that were again treated as equals to the rest. Hell, Blackarachnia not only had a bad-ass battle rep, but she also got a high share of story time and a significant arc of characterization over the course of the series.
On second thought, I'll accept the "giant explosions" of the Bay-experience as part of the Transformers mythos --- at 1:10 is an image that is forever seared into my brain as one of the coolest fucking things ever put to film.
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