Cross Circuits
If by now you didn't know, I hate what's been done to my beloved Transformers on the big screen. In the first movie, they took Jazz from being a cool cat, a real smooth dude who loved Earth culture and turned him into 50 Cent. Then they stripped Bumblebee of his voice for 90% of the movie, and spent that missing time by focusing on the fleshbags rather than what you're supposed to: the epic battle of giant robots.
Now in the second movie, they've turned Skids and Mudflap into hick wanna-be hip hop poseurs and pretty much went full throttle on the Megan Fox quotient.
The upside to my hate is I'm not alone. As of right now, Rotten Tomatoes is reporting a 21% favorable review rate, and one reviewer in particular was blasted by Roger Ebert for writing a ridiculously favorable review of the new film.
Honestly, what I don't understand is how Star Trek's reboot was careful and methodical in going about making an adaption, so as to appeal to both fans and casual moviegoers alike, and it hit it out of the park. Spielberg (who is absent this time around as a producer) claimed he was a fan back in the day himself, and yet, both movies stray so far from the core basics of the franchise it becomes an entity altogether different--literally unrecognizable from the original idea. Bay is given free reign to butcher and hot-weld back together what had been good and feasable designs of vehicle to robot into SoHo kitchy scrap that's supposed to be art.
Which is why I would ask that if you're even remotely interested in seeing where it all started, check out the new re-release of the original animated series from Shout Factory. They're good people, and did a nice job on the whole package. Put a disc on your Netflix, or even just check out some clips online. The series, while simplistic in it's storytelling and occasionally questionable animation quality had ten times more heart. Better yet, check out the original Transformers: The Movie, a fully animated tale from 1986, out on DVD as well. It actually holds up 23 years after it's released.
Anyways, I'm going to get back to drawing more Optimus. He's a lot of fun to draw.