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Nerd Alert! September 5, 2006 A Tale of Two Primes I can't say I'm not interested in Michael Bay's live action Transformers movie next year. Optimus Prime fighting Megatron in a major motion picture sounds pretty good to me. Nostalgic devotion to Transformers: The Movie aside, I outgrew Transformers more than half my life ago. I'm not a "Transfan" like I hear the die hard fanboys are calling themselves. I don't give a shit about the movie adhering Generation 1, Targetmasters, Head Masters, Head Givers, Beast Wars, or Armada. I just hope Bay makes a good movie. I thought the initial concept pitch from a while back of "a boy getting his first car, which happens to be a Transformer" sounded like a good hook, but just about everything I've seen or read since then hasn't jived with me. That especially includes the leaked draft of the screenplay floating around the Internet. I read it over the weekend and I don't think it's very good. Essentially, this Transformers movie is a rehashed hodgepodge of scenes from Independence Day, Armageddon, Godzilla, Bad Boys, and Herbie: Fully Loaded. Hell, the sequence where the boy gets his first car, which turns out to be Bumblebee, is very similar to Lindsay Lohan meeting Herbie in Fully Loaded. However, Transformers is 10 months away and they're still in the middle of making it so I'll save my complaining about the actual movie until after I see it. The complaining I want to do today involves the concept design of the robots. The robots look terrible. They just look really fucking ugly. Compare and contrast Optimus Prime as designed for the Transformers movie with the beloved "Generation 1" version of Optimus Prime.
Which of the Optimi looks cooler? Answer: the original. There's no comparison. The movie Optimus is really ugly. Pug fugly ugly. Every time I see it, I think, "Ugh." The kind of "Ugh" that forces out a really contentious dump. Movie Optimus is this ungainly sinewy thing that looks like some sort of mechanical insect standing upright. In fact, this insect-looking alien robot is sort of reminicent of a certain alien robot insect from another sci-fi movie, General Grievous:
Optimus probably won't be coughing up its robot lungs like Grievous was in Revenge of the Sith. Another problem I have with the movie robot designs is the robots don't look like they are built for fighting. Optimus Prime's design is carried through to Megatron, Starscream, Ironhide, and the rest of the robots in the movie. They don't seem like they can slam into each other and smash into things without falling apart. Mostly though, movie Optimus Prime just doesn't look very heroic or inspiring, especially when compared to how sleek, simple and impressive the original Optimus Prime design is. I understand better than most the problems and choices that have to be made when adapting any cartoon or comic book concept into a workable live action format. All's I'm saying is the robots they came up with are fucking ugly and they should have done better. This seems a lot like Godzilla 1998. The original Japanese model of Godzilla is a good looking creature, kind of handsome in its own way. The Godzilla in the shitty Hollywood version is a stupid-looking cross between an alligator and a T-rex, and it inspired and pleased nobody. It seems like this Optimus Prime is rolling down that very same path. Maybe the movie next summer will be good, maybe not. If so, that's fine, a good Transformers movie would be nice. If not, fuck it, another couple hundred million down the tubes on a loud, ungainly movie few will love. Either way, there'll be some ugly looking robots asking ten bucks a gander next fourth of July.
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