More Than Meets The Eye (Yes I know it's Cliched)

So before I start I have to say first of all; wow, it was an entertaining movie, and though there were some questiobale and debatable scenes, (as Ali will confer), overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now the back story to lead to the movie.

For about two really kick-ass years, Optimus Prime was the man. I mean, the ultimate hero. He was the star of this half-hour animated series, which bloody cynics called cartoons, where with his Autobots they fought the evil Decepticons led by the very bad-ass Megatron. (Which is pretty much as cold-war influenced as you can get). This combination of Rubik’s cube like changeable ability along with the coolness of K.I.T.T. was everything every boy wanted, and had to have. (I certainly did). One has to also look back at the rivalries of that day and age; I mean you had Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael of Wham!, you had Olivia-Newton John and Jane Fonda, Steve Wozinak and Steve Jobs and of course, Optimus and Megatron. (The fact that they were brothers is only all the more epic in its creation).

In about the 1960’s, G.I. Joe was born. (“A real American Hero!”) It was then when boys could have not dolls, but “action figures”, and was when Joe was this kick ass tough guy loner 12 inches tall who was ready to bust heads open if need be to get the job done. Things were going well, but in the 70s the price of oil was rocketing, and the toys at that time were made of vinyl, a petroleum product. After much deliberation and thought, they relaunched the G.I. Joe line in 1982, where all these new figures, tons of them, were easily poseable, stood about 4 inches tall, and had all this awesome gear that an NSA agent would kill for. It took off like anything, especially with the bad guys, Cobra, which was a vast terrorist conspiracy. In 1984, Hasbro, the parent company bought brand rights from some generic Japanese toys that had one unique thing about them, they transformed from regular vehicles into robots. The rest, as they say, just blew everyone away. I still remember vividly waking up early in Singapore and running to the television to catch that Saturday morning’s episode of Transformers, and imitating that “transforming” sound.

Transformers made such an impact that in early 2001, a National Guardsman in his 30s from Ohio legally transformed his name to Optimus Prime.

Now that, is seriously devoted.

What was also unique about Optimus from many other heroes is that in 1986, he died. He died in the name of righteousness and fight for what was right. That left a big hole in many boys’ hearts. In July 2004, Steven Spielberg announces that there’s going to be a live-action make of the cartoon, which myself definitely included, just blew heads off. Would it be good? Would it be people inside plastic suits? Would it be really cheesy and just suck? After seeing so many of childhood comics and heroes I remember, Daredevil, Catwoman, Ghost Rider, just get destroyed by the ego of the director, I was very, very wary on making my comments on the film. When I heard Michael Bay was directing, there were uproars in message boards and people freaking out all over the place. Now that, I really don’t get. I mean, the guy made Armageddon and The Rock. And those movies were definitely in the high-octane department with just a tad of action thrown in.

Now I understand maybe the concern fans had. I guess in some way growing up with Transformers makes fans (myself included) want to watch not just an action movie or relive simple nostalgia but maybe we’re looking for redemption, as men. We want to watch a kid’s movie to grow up all over again, where not only are they giant robot fights, but our childhood idols treated respectfully.

Now for the movie, I don’t want to give much of the really cool scenes away, as I really feel you have to watch it, and definitely on the big screen, but I have to talk about one which probably sums up for me the movie’s direction. Now down a packed freeway Bumblebee, (Autobot which originally was a VW Beetle), which is now a souped up Camaro, is flying down the road with our human heroes, Shia LaBeouf, (very cool actor you can catch in Disturbia and apparently now also in the Indiana Jones sequel), and generic hottie, Megan Fox. Now Optimus Prime, in semi mode right behind them whilst Bonecrusher, an evil Decepticon minesweeper is following just meters behind. Now there’re all barreling down the road at about 150kms an hour, and here’s really where my brain wishes it could slow things down a bit, Bonecrusher transforms into his bipedal robot form the size of a 4 storey building.

He then proceeds to (without a single pause and seamlessly) start rollerblading (you REALLY need to see it to understand it) through the traffic, smashing through cars like they were matchsticks. Prime morphs too into massive robot mode, and digs his massive blue feet/wheels into the grinding asphalt changing course. They both smash and collide together in this massive impact that shudders jaws, where they tumble down over the concrete head of the overpass to the road below, where Prime smashes a fist the size of a Hummer into Bonecrusher’s jaw. I mean, that scene alone, was worth the admission.

What was interesting that I read was that Industrial Light and Magic’s effects team, used 5,500 rendering processors and almost 280 terabytes of disk storage to full capacity! Madness! Now there’s some slight changes in the movie that is not the same from the cartoon, for example, Megatron is not a gun, and Frenzy, which was that awesome Decepticon that was a cassette tape, is now a boom box; due to physics restrictions. Optimus Prime is also a hog-nosed semi, only due to weight-mass orthodoxy that informed it would have to be of that design for Prime to stand 30 feet tall. And yes, Optimus Prime has lips. No comment.

All in all, the movie is something maybe all the boys inside men need. We waited with anticipation and bated breath for the Prime to return. For when Optimus says “One shall stand, one shall fall”, we believe him. Because without Optimus, we’re stuck with whiney Spider-Boys, Tao sprouting Kung-Fu Christs in designer sunglasses and metrosexual pirates dancing around. Because in 86 he died protecting us and fighting for good, and nothing’s really been the same since. Because these days, maybe the real men left are giant robots, and we need to remember that.