Tuesday, July 03, 2007

'Autobots ... Roll Out'

Isn't it usually the case that if the villains rock ass, then the good guys tend to get lost in their shadow of awesomeness?

As much as I love Han Solo and Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader steals the cult of personality in that double trilogy.

Kind of the same with Agent Smith, but Morpheus keeps things smooth for the good guys.

Remember the Decepticons? How they could fly and they had that bad-ass symbol and Megatron transformed into the big, huge Luger smoke wagon?

I had a Decepticon sticker on my Tacoma until it wore off. I bought the Decepticon sticker (a couple years ago) because it was the only one I could find.

The thing is, I've been meaning to put an Autobot decal in its place but haven't gotten around to it. Because I don't care how cool the Decepticons are, Optimus Prime is quite simply and officially ... The Shit.

Protect.

Destroy.

Optimus Prime protects us, and when he decides to lay the wood, it's quite a thing of melodramatic beauty.

I can't say the Michael Bay "Transformers" is a fine piece of character development. It was a bit disjointed and the battle scenes kind of disconbobulated. And I'll always compare any reconstruction of larger-than-life, childhood nostalgia to how good Bryan Singer could have done it.

But Optimus Prime was the truth.

No lie.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.renegadeeffects.com/index.htm
http://www.cinefex.com/index/companies/renegade.html
Dragon Dronet and his Renegade Effects make costumes and props. Thought you'd get a kick out of seeing what they get to play at all day. Nice people. He let me have my pic taken with The Predator. To die for.
The page on the cinefex didn't let me back out of it. Worth the look.

Anonymous said...

So.......

When the fuck are you gonna come up this way and have a beer?

Rick Rockhill said...

transformers looks very cool...such a blast from the past..but oh so cool.

dan said...

thanks, eric.

i'm now going to spend the rest of my week looking through boxes of stuff, to see if i've still got my transformers, the few that i had.

captain corky said...

I hope I can persuade my wife to go and see it today. Happy 4th Eric!

Anonymous said...

surely Jazz was the coolest of cool? I'm seeing it this wknd - just about getting back into everyday life at the mo - will update next week - hope all things are cool with you man.

Rusty said...

Disconbobulated.

One of the finest ways to finish a sentence!

Cindy-Lou said...

Why does Bryan Singer do everything better?

eric said...

bryan singer understands what connects us with iconic, mythical figures. that it's something more than just the costume or superpower.

he has a real touch for honoring nostalgia and giving characters depth. transformers didn't really do that.

superman returns did. so did the first two x-men movies. when another director took over to do the third x-men movie (singer bolted to do superman), it wasn't nearly good, because tightness and characterization.

he also made "usual suspects," which speaks for itself.

Anonymous said...

Saw Transformers - they killed Jazz - I was not fucking happy with that.