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I just sat through the unbelievably awful, Transformers: The Last Knight and for the fifth time in a decade, I left the movie theater with a heavy heart. This multi-media, toy-driven brand has become phenomenally huge, and I’ve been a fan of (most) of its branching, multi-continuity presentations from the start, in particular the original comics, which taught me more about writing - good or bad - more than any classroom ever did.
But as far as I am concerned, there has only ever been one good film about the robots in disguise and that would be, The Transformers: The Movie, from 1986. An independently released animated feature that tied specifically into the contemporaneous cartoon series (admittedly also of fevered highs and lows in quality) whose chronology is sandwiched between seasons two and three. Unfortunately, expected knowledge of that series is also key to enjoying The Transformers: The Movie, so don’t rush out to watch it just because I endorsed it here! On the other hand, many fans express that exposure to that film is also what drew them into the brand to begin with, so, there you go. Now to be fair to Paramount Pictures, the monolithic studio that releases the live action (yet more animated than ever) Transformers movies (and also counts the Star Trek franchise as their other major tent pole series; but I must point out that Hasbro Entertainment Group are the toy makers that actually own this brand) I did, begrudgingly, find some enjoyment in Michael Bay’s inaugural take on the franchise, 2007’s Transformers. It was not the first time they dropped the definite article; but I nominally refer to the parts of the brand that I enjoy as "The Transformers" in a vain attempt to differentiate from these cinematic popcorn puke inducers. Transformers was skillfully made and, despite a bumbling storyline and annoying human-centric sequences (here’s farting in the general direction of Agent Simmons’ wacky misadventures with robot lubrication), featured some spectacular visuals, special effects that were indeed special (that hold up even now), a genuine sense of sci-fi mystery and wonder and highly elevated adrenaline pumping action scenes. And who couldn’t get enough of pre-psychopathic Shia LeBouf? It wasn’t my Robots In Disguise (apart from Peter Cullen being brought back to the franchise since the first time it was launched to reprise his iconic voice work for the hero, Optimus Prime). It did mangle the mythology of the brand in bizarre directions (the Allspark Cube? WTF?) yet, even I would acquiesce that the brand must transform itself for the sake of remaining contemporary and relevant to modern sensibilities; but enough pseudo-intellectualism (something the brand has never required from anyone), it was fun. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen released two years later and despite a writer’s strike that dampened it at the screenplay level, it did, and this was honestly to director Michael Bay’s credit, feature more of what made the first film work - too much more according to most critics and some fans. I dunno’, I still find it the best entry in the series. I thought the action was tighter and more cohesive and I was happy about improvements made to the design and presentation of the robot characters (with the exception of the universally reviled Autobot twins; why does anyone still complain about Jar-Jar after they’ve seen this?). I also felt the storyline was, however in minutia quantities, improved over the first film. There was still a lot of problems, including the vague mythos of the titular villain. Perhaps I was just being hopeful that this sub-franchise (it still barely resembled The Transformers as I know and love it) was at least heading in the right direction. Transformers: Dark of the Moon was next at bat, like clockwork, in another two years’ time (2011, for those keeping track). Once more directed by Bay, this film featured a storyline...no, cobbling of disparate elements...that ran in direct contradiction to everything we learned about the titular alien robot species in those first two films (how did The Fallen not detect Sentinel Prime on the moon? Oh, right, because Michael Bay thinks we all suck). Indeed, the nearly hour-long climactic battle in Chicago seemed designed to detract us from the nearly incomprehensible mish-mash of shoe-horned-in storylines present as pure filler in the first half of the film. (Even worse, screenwriter Ehren Krueger raped two of the best episodes of the original cartoon for ideas). If there were ever a film to cite “writer’s strike” as precedent for its storytelling failures, it’s this one. But also, rote acting citations must be handed out to the entire cast. Right about here, most brand fans started referring to these films as Bayformers to differentiate it from the real franchise. As a franchise, The Transformers had indeed been robust and active since the radical reinvention brought by 1996’s Beast Wars: Transformers animated series (still one of television’s most surprisingly intelligent, deeply philosophical, poignant and sophisticated science fiction triumphs)! If nothing else, the multi-million dollars world-wide success of Bayformers secured the strength of the franchise as a whole: Obsessive fans (obviously, myself included) still have contemporary G1 comics and novels to enjoy, continuous cyclic cartoon series of varying qualites, several videogames of far greater visual and storytelling sophistication than any one of the live action films (these include War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron and more recently the G1 cartoon throwback Devastation), and, as always, the ever present toys, which resource through multiple brandings such as Classics, Generations and Masterpiece to give us the characters we really want as we really love them! Transformers: Age of Extinction, in 2014, was touted as a soft reboot for the Bayformers, and was yet another slap-shod, incoherent Michael Bay directed, “things done blown up real good” movie (because, despite their faults, all of these films have turned over a gajillion dollars in profits)! Although better than the previous film, it is neither by much nor really saying anything positive about it. It turns out all of that hyperbole meant was, “We fired the old cast, but buckle up for more of the same.” Indeed many of the action scenes here were entirely inter-changeable with scenes from the first three films! Transformers: The Last Knight is now upon us. Like a plot point from the film itself it is a giant succubus here to drain the audience of intelligence, wit or energy. Why did I go to view it? Posterity, completest or sadomasochist? You remember that scene from Casino Royale where James Bond is stripped and strapped to a chair, then proceeds to get his scrotum demolished by the bad guy? That’s exactly what it’s like to watch this film! You, the viewers are Bond, and Michael Bay is LeChiffre, dangling a knotted rope in hand. As a hardcore 007 fan, I was a bit let down by SPECTRE, but it may as well be Goldfinger compared with this! Fuck, I just watched Power Rangers on Blu-Ray and it may as well have been Goldfinger compared with this (Rita Repulsa did love her some gold, as it happens). Last Knight plays as if even Michael Bay was as detached from the material as the rest of us (perhaps even more than indulgent fans, for sure). It is missing many of his trademark visuals, including loving, slow motion shots of the American flag flapping proudly in the wind, or the slow-mo “dodge the explosions while firing back at the enemy while protecting the humans while flipping around really bad ass and cool” shots. Let THIS be your yardstick: Optimus transforms into truck-mode only once in this entire movie, and we don’t get to see it, or his conversion back to robot, onscreen. The sheer buffoonery it makes of British folklore and myth…and in the same year that Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur was one of the most notorious cinematic piles of dog-pooh ever smeared across a silver screen. In a Transfomers film, this could have amounted to intriguing if it weren’t brushed aside as nothing more than, “Yes, it was the Transformers all along.” The way poor Mark Wahlberg phones in anything that isn’t a physically challenging action scene (and we know his talent level from other films, even here he barely resembles the same Cade Yeager he played in the previous film). My Lord, the indignities suffered upon Anthony Hopkins spouting lines like, “At last - it is time!” among those noted by professional critics. The third act is hard to describe, not least which is because it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever - not the ending anticlimax, mind you, but the entire third act! It is, without question, one of the most baffling, nuttiest things you will ever see in any film for a long, long time afterwards, however forgettable. Was there even a climax to this film? Beats me. All I know is it ends with Optimus spouting the exact same clap-trap that he did in the four films previous (I swear it's just a reuse of Revenge of the Fallen's final monologue) and sets up yet another sequel which can’t possibly wrap up this film’s plot...no, bizarre fever dream concoctions into any satisfying resolution. I have to wonder if Michael Bay himself wasn’t just looking for an “out” and so made this to be as messy and listless as possible, just hoping it will bomb and that he would be forced away from the franchise. It begs the question: can the franchise survive it? Really, when I got home, I just about felt like chucking my thirty three years’ worth of collected Transformers comics, games, DVDs and very expensive toys....err, adult collectibles into the garbage! Not one of the four previous films inspired such a feeling in me! Mercifully, my next visit to Target allowed me to pick up two classic G1 triple-changers (Blitzwing and Octane [as “Octone” for bizarre trademark reasons]), as well as two legends scale figures (Seaspray and Cosmos) under the Titans Return (Generations) banner and assuaged my interests in this franchise. Shortly afterward, at a Walmart, I also found Titans Return Perceptor, one of a handful of my favorite G1 Autobots! Mercifully, none of these characters were ever translated into the Bayformers universe. Where does the brand go from here? Dear Hasbro/Paramount - hard reboot - please, I'm begging you! The next film, we know, will sidestep Bayformners entirely by focusing on Bumblebee in a “solo” story. There will be other TF characters in the film, but the main focus will be one of ‘Bee’s adventures in the 1980’s, and, reportedly, he will be sporting his classic VW-bug car mode visage. Let’s hope this goes for all of the robots in the film! Sadly, I don’t know of any new console videogames (or new novels) in development, but on mobile platforms both Earth Wars and Forged to Fight are doing very well. I’m not yet a fan of mobile games, so I don’t know if I will get into them. The IDW comics are chugging along, and as long as writer James Roberts is involved, I’ll be interested. As one would expect with such a long running book, its quality sometimes flags, and now that they are mucking about with constructing a Hasbro/IDW connected universe (TF/GI Joe/MASK/etc, etc.)...yeah...cash grab. (BTW I just recently met TF artist extraordinaire Livio Ramondelli at the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con. Great guy)! I was not impressed with the last few cartoon series (Transformers: Prime had some interesting episodes, but overall was just kind of blasé and I had even less love for the aesthetic of Robots in Disguise 2015 - – both have had their own cadre of loyalist fans so I’ll try and remain open minded about whatever comes next). Even a web-series inspired by Combiner Wars (the first part of the Power of the Primes trilogy) was rather dull. For my money, Transformers: Animated (2008-2011) still remains the benchmark of a quality series that both honored the old and brought something new at the same time. On a more exciting front, as always, the toys themselves. Titans Return will soon morph into a new subline (and yet still be part of the Generations flagship) as Power of the Primes. We are not yet sure exactly what this will entail, but there is a rumor that it will be the first time Hasbro will make action figures of all thirteen members of the original Primes (only recently revealed in the overall mythos) that came before Optimus Prime. As less than half of them have been made into figures before, this is interesting to me, so count me in for that. Thanks to Combiner Wars, Titans Return, and soon Power of the Primes, I will now have most of the contemporary G1 characters, with even a few surprises (Misfire?), that I ever wanted in my collection. Soon, I will have the massive, new Titan scaled Trypticon (the TF universes’ version of Godzilla!); then, most of the characters on my checklist (yes, I do have one) will be ticked off. Masterpiece is only just getting started with Beast Wars characters (in celebration of its 20th anniversary) and once then I can pick and choose from the various lines as needed. So, while The Last Knight was alternately difficult to digest yet easy to forget - the brand is healthy. Even with the film being a reported bust (it hasn't bombed, but did fall way short of expectations in both the USA and China - two of it's most dominant markets) all the various other media remains in place and strong. Unless the next film makes the grave mistake of actually trying to follow up on it. |
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