TRANSFORMERS
NEWS

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
TRANSFORMERS REVENGE OF THE FALLEN MOVIE REVIEW TRANSFORMERS - 2007 Original poster July, 2006 UPDATES

THEY ARE COUNTING ON YOUR IGNORANCE!
DON'T LET THEM DOWN!

I found a trailer for a new TRANSFORMERS movie on the Internet. Yep, they are going to make another movie.

Now I really like the Transformers (love is too strong a word), the whole Monster Robot mythos, why, they're more than meets the eye! Yet in the 1980s, the animation was about as crappy as it gets - one step up from Clutch Cargo garbage. But the story?

Wow!

Though some episodes veered off the story arc into insipidville, overall it was amazing that anyone would have even bothered to write such a compelling and complex story. Especially for a cartoon that, essentially, existed only to advertise toys (Go Chocobots!).

The original series gathered together a large body of top writers that included Marv Wolfman (creator of BLADE), David Wise (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series), Len Wein (creator of X-MEN and SWAMP THING), Paul Davids (ROSWELL TV series), and more. This is why TRANSFORMERS as an animated series has endured long after the toys fell in popularity. Suddenly it was the show keeping the Hasbro line alive, not the other way around. The eventual TRANSFORMERS: The Movie, which could have been crap, soared as well.

Now the director who brought you hyped up scifi crap like ARMAGEDDON (so bad I don't know where to begin) and THE ISLAND (last year's tanking crapfest), directs TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE (bereft of colon), with a barrage of writers whose exciting scifi credits include THE ISLAND, THE CORE, and CATWOMAN (sarcasm, yes).

Watch the Trailer.

Then ask yourself, "Why does the Beagle look like the Mars Rover?"

This is the Beagle 2.
It lands, unfolds (if we're lucky), and has a mechanical arm to scoop and analyze soil.
It doesn't "Rove".

I mean, if you are going to raise a $175 million plus budget, and sell your picture to an audience who would even know anything about the Beagle or Beagle 2, then shouldn't you at least have a cursory knowledge about it...

... as well?

And if you are going to sell your movie to people who don't know a damn thing about Beagle or Beagle 2 (like the makers of this movie), then why even bring it up in the first place? Those people wouldn't know the Beagle 2 from a Hush Puppy shoe.

And yes, this is the same Hollywood that is always publically crying about how red state America jest ain't all that smart!

Boo Hoo!

Now for all I know, Director Michael Bay and movie studios Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks didn't even make the trailer. It could have been made by some smaller media company or CGI House that was contracted to do the job. And Michael Bay has proven himself wonderfully adept at directing profitable movies when those movies feature superstar actors with a huge built-in audience who would liekly win the box office no matter what director was hired. But someone at those studios gave this incredibly ignorant trailer the green light and whoever made it is bag of hammers stupid! I mean, the mystery as to what may have happened to Beagle and Beagle 2 (both, folded, were about the diameter of a large pizza pan), has long been an Internet joke.

What Happened to the Beagle? A popular INTERNET JOKE.

Everyone who would know anything about the Beagle (A British and esa endeavor) would know that what they are looking at in the movie trailer is the NASA Mars Rover (a NASA / U.S.A endeavor), so the entire trailer is just about as stupid as it gets. Anyone who was remotely curious about the Beagle, might even do an Internet search on it, which would turn up thousands of Beagle images - none of which look like the Mars Rover they've got in the trailer. This means that the people who made and are promoting that trailer are either pretty damn stupid and ignorant, or they think their AUDIENCE is pretty damn stupid and ignorant. AND they are counting on enough stupid and ignorant people paying money at the theater to bet the $150 plus million dollars this film cost. Now for all I know, the reasoning behind this flick is, "Hey, its just a movie (costing enough money to build a skyscraper). Audiences don't care if we get our premise right, the story right, the action right, or even if it makes any sense! What matters is the special effects! Because special effects alone and nothing else has ALWAYS sold a movie!"

Which is, of course, dead wrong. What audiences REALLY don't care about is if a $175 plus million dollar Hollywood movie tanks at the box office and loses a fortune. Don't let Paramount and Dreamworks lose a fortune on their stupid, ignorant bet! Support the mind bogglingly ignorant (but wealthy) by watching TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE - or at least listen to these people when they tell you about global warming and who the "Intelligent Choice" for president should be*.

UPDATES -

Dec. 10, 2010

Did Michael Bay just apologize for 'Transformers 2'?
Admittedly, Bay doesn't blame himself for Fallen's failures — it's a bit strange to hear a director whose budgets regularly top $150 million to say the words "it wasn't fair to me"
- EW

Dec. 6, 2013

Michael Bay hits back at claims he apologised for Transformers series
"No I did not 'apologise' for any of the Transformers movies," says Bay on his official blog. "I did not say I shot the last three movies 'less cool' than the new fourth instalment."
- GamesRadar

This article copyright 2006 and 2013 E.C.McMullen Jr.

Return to Movies