More than just a "toy movie"...

It's been almost a week since I saw Transformers, and I'm still kind of in awe as to how they pulled off the special effects.

Here's a story from Popular Mechanics that gives a brief behind-the-scenes perspective of what went on at Industrial Lights and Magic to make Optimus Prime and Bumblebee look so incredibly real. Considering most rants about the movie criticize the absence of more robot scenes, it makes sense that adding more Transformers action to the movie would have been mighty complicated, and probably pretty expensive:

When that crucial "in-between" involves over 10,000 hand-modeled parts pulled out of actual autobody — as Optimus Prime did (his old-school toy had a mere 51 components) — there's a bit more filling in to do. "It's hugely complicated," says visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar. "It's no different than going out and machining these parts [in a real car]. Every one of those things has to be connected and travel in the right direction when an animation occurs.

And for more perspective on the making of Transformers, Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Michael Bay. Credit Steven Spielberg for having the vision to see that a Transformers movie could be really cool. Even after Bay agreed to take on the project, it sounds like he still wasn't quite convinced when he started filming:

I just thought it would be from kids to, you know, to 20-something whatever. The first day on the set I'm working with all these guys in the military and I was apologizing for the movie. Forty-something guys. I was like, ''Okay guys, I know this sounds really stupid, but there's a 40-foot-tall robot over here and it's going to flip and land right here.'' They're like, ''Which robot? Is this Starscream?'' I'm like, how do these guys know that? And I realized, oh my God, it's a lot older than I thought.

He also hints that he'd be up for doing a sequel. Hopefully, they'll bring back Shia and not get too crazy with overloaded special effects.

And taking advantage of all the Transformers windfall? Cartoon Network, who will debut a new cartoon next spring.

Feeling like a kid in a toy store again...

Giant f*ckin' robots! That was Michael Bay's unofficial tagline for Transformers, and that's exactly what he delivered, exclamation point included. You'd had to have been a hermit to not have felt the bombardsdment of hype and advertising for this film. This blog even added a few posts on the topic. So with me being in between jobs, and my wife showing absolutely no interest in watching this movie, I went and caught the first showing of Transformers today at noon. I had my reservations of a Bay-helmed adaptation of this project, but I've got to admit that no one blows up stuff and catches it on film like Michael Bay. Adding Steven Spielberg to the mix as executive producer, too, made me a bit more comfortable that bringing the Transformers to the big screen might actually work.

To summarize the plot in a nutshell, Sam Witwicky (Shia Labouf) is a teenager on the lower rungs of the social ladder who desperately wants to get his hands on his first car. The beat-up Camaro that he finds turns out to be a robot named Bumblebee, part of an alien race of transforming robots at war over the search for a cube of ultimate power called the All-Spark. Sam, unwittingly, holds the map leading to the cube and becomes wrapped up in the battle against the Decepticons as he, with the help of the Autobots, fight to save Earth.

So what did I think of it all? In one word--awesome. Yup, you read that right. I thought Transformers was awesome. I can't even believe I'm using that word to describe a Michael Bay movie, but his distinctive over-the-top style fit perfectly with big ol' robots battling out on the silver screen. Perhaps I should be thanking George Lucas and Industrial Lights and Magic instead, because the special effects were just seamless. Never in the movie did I think that the Transformers didn't look real.

Even on an emotional level, I felt something, which is odd considering that this is, again, a Michael Bay movie. Typically, he uses human storylines as an excuse to essentially show some stylized music video within the movie, but here I thought I got just a faint connection between Sam and Bumblebee by the end, and that's an accomplishment. I mean, really, who thought Bumblebee was cool back when you played with the toys? I only remember him because he was the cheapest one in the store. After this movie, though, you'll think he was the coolest Autobot of them all. Maybe credit should be given to Shia Labouf for giving the audience a viable human connection to all that was going on in the movie or perhaps it was just nostalgia for the old cartoon from the 80's, I don't know. I mean, when we're actually introduced to the rest of the Autobots for the first time, I actually got giddy. Peter Cullen reprising his voice-over roles for Optimus Prime? I think I got chills.

Obviously, there's some things not to like in this movie. The generic musical score by Steve Jablonsky is pure over-the-top Michael Bay, and ends up giving me flashbacks of films I'd rather forget. Some of the dialogue, although it didn't have me cringing in my seat and feeling embarrased to even be sitting in the theater watching, was a bit corny. Characters, other than Sam, weren't well developed at all. We only get a glimpse of the relationship between the Autobots, and even less about the Decepticons. Even when Megatron is finally revealed, we never really grasp his level of ultimate evil, so the showdown between him and Optimus Prime doesn't carry the sense of urgency that it does to be considered a real climax.

But all those things are minor when you consider what this movie is--a summer blockbuster popcorn flick. To expect Oscar-worthy drama would be raising the bar for a film based on a line of toys, for Pete's sake, way too high. This movie was a spectacle, pure eye candy, and still a lot of fun.

Finally, I didn't mention anything about the non-technological eye candy. I learned two things about women while watching this movie:

1. Male computer nerds will always look just like that--male computer nerds. Overweight, messy hair, goattees, appear to have not bathed in a couple of days. Hugh Jackman in Swordfish is perhaps the only time this hasn't been the case. Female computer nerds, however, will always be smoking hot. Always. Any movie. However, they'll usually have a piercing or tattoo to signify that they're smarter than they look.
2. No matter what they tell you or what you read, remember this--women dig fast cars.

**** (out of *****) although I don't know if I'm giving it high marks because its the only movie of the summer that's lived up to the hype, or if I'll still like it this much after a second viewing. Speaking of which, I already found a pirated copy streaming over the internet tonight. Maybe I'll watch it again right now! ;-)

GIANT F*CKING ROBOTS ARE COMING!

I'm not sure which summer blockbuster is getting more overexposure, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer or Transformers. 20th Century Fox went as far as releasing special quarters with the Silver Surfer on the back that got them in trouble with the U.S. Mint.


Personally, I like old school tactics, like t-shirts with profanity on them:


You can actually buy that t-shirt for around $30 which will be donated to charity, although they fail to tell what the charity actually is.

In other Transformers news, many of you have probably already heard that Mute Math released their version of the Transformers theme song on their Myspace page. There was another version leaked out on the web, though, which I think was by Linkin Park.

Neither of these, however, compare to the classic song "The Touch" from the original Transformers animated movie:



Actually, I think Dirk Diggler from Boogie Nights does an even better rendition:

OK, I'm getting even more jazzed about this...

I only hope my excitement doesn't peak before the actual movie comes out like I think it sort of did for Spiderman 3:

Michael Bay, Transformers. Yeah, the idea is growing on me...

I never watch American Idol. NEVER. Last night was an exception, though, only because I was too lazy to change the channel or even turn the TV off. My payoff for enduring an hour of Ryan Seacreast? A 30 second trailer for Transformers, complete with a rather cool glimpse of Starscream. Let's hope they ditched his whiny voice from the cartoon:



UPDATE: Actually, this trailer is even better.