“The Transformers! More than meets the eye!
Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons!
The Transformers! Robots in disguise!
The Transformers! More than meets the eye!
The Transformers!”
~ ‘Transformers Theme Song’, by Anne Bryant and Ford Kindler
from the Transformers (Generation 1) animated TV show, 1984
I was chatting with some friends the other day and the conversation turned to a problem someone was having with his car’s gearbox. My eyes glazed over. I explained that my only interest in cars would be if they should happen to change into robots…
Flashback to the mid 1980’s. My parents divorced, a tumultuous time in any young person’s life, no doubt. Despite that, one of my fondest ever memories is of waking up at a ridiculously early hour of each Saturday morning when staying with my father and tuning the TV to Channel 10 and The Early Bird Show, with Darryl Cotton and Marty Monster. My very favourite cartoon featured on the show was Transformers, to the point where I used to sit by the TV with a tape deck and record the audio of the show and re-listen to them over and over again. I knew several episodes, as well as the 1986 animated movie, off-by-heart. Watch that movie with me sometime: you’ll hear the dialogue coming from me as fluently as from the speakers.
Flash-forward to June 28th, 2007. I was at the local Cineplex, waiting to realise a dream that I, like many other fans of my age, had been awaiting for most of our lives - a live action Transformers movie. Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Michael Bay, the movie has to date grossed nearly US$710M worldwide and spawned enormously successful sequels in 2009 and 2011. I was tremendously excited. While Michael Bay’s movies had largely failed to set the critical world on fire, he was clearly a world class visual auteur, and I longed for him to be equal to the task.
As is his wont, Bay produced three bombastic pieces of cinematic nonsense with these three films. There is a clip on YouTube which compares potential critiques of his storytelling style with that of the ballet or opera. The argument goes something like this: If one claims that it’s somehow justifiable for the so-called fine arts to eschew such storytelling elements such as a logical plot, believable characters, and realistic dialogue in favour of an exhilarating spectacle, then the same argument is equally valid for the more low-brow, popular arts. The critics who sniff self-importantly at those who contribute to the many millions of dollars flooding through cinema multiplexes worldwide can be dismissed as mere snobs. Stephen King has made similar claims against the literary ‘elite’ in his 2000 book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (which, as I’ve mentioned before, partially inspired this blog).
It seems a reasonably valid argument on the surface, but proves somewhat specious. The fact is that a great many filmmakers have indeed managed to span the divide between special-effect laden spectacle and intelligent, thought-provoking and inspiring plot and story in creative ways. For recent examples, the films of Christopher Nolan come immediately to mind. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is likewise a blockbuster series of movies of rare quality. However, It does bear remembering that the initial Transformers cartoon was nothing more than a vehicle for advertising a creative new line of toys, so perhaps expecting more from these movies is a bridge too far.
Visually, Bay’s Transformers films are nothing short of stunning. Few in modern popular cinema makes use of light like Bay does. One imagines his crew meticulously setting up and waiting all day for one shot of a few seconds, where brilliant beams of of sunlight are captured that highlight and frame his actors and actresses just so. Likewise, his special effects are extraordinarily intricate, some of models of his robotic characters consisting of literally thousands and thousands of individually designed and moving parts. Battle scenes are his symphony, his players weave an elaborate dance as they pummel, slice and blast their way through each other in pursuit of a belaboured plot device or fanciful McGuffin. This has sometimes been likened to a child mashing his toys together in mock combat, many claiming that Bay’s tendency towards lightening quick edits produces nothing more than a vertigo-inducing blur. It is a fair point, but I personally find Bay’s visual style a perfect match for the subject matter.
The first two of Bay’s Transformers films have a place on my DVD shelf (with a space reserved for the third) and I have dipped my toes (and feet and ankles and etc.) into the chaotic waters of the films many times since acquiring them. Each of the three movies has significant flaws, with Bay himself retrospectively dismissing the first sequel (Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, 2009) as a poor movie, but I enjoyed the films. I’m glad they were made. There’s a part of my inner-child that giggles with glee while drinking in the extravagant clashes of the robotic titans that arrested my imagination so completely as a young boy. The financial success of the films (combined worldwide box office of over US$2.5B so far) also owes a debt to its ability to appeal to new, young fans as well as re-capturing the imagination of older ‘kids’ like me, complete with our disposable incomes and desire to reclaim our youth while bringing up young families of our own.
Next week, I will put my ‘fanboy’ hat on and delve into more specific issues that I have with the films and the creative choices the filmmakers made. Make sure you tune in, right here.
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