They’re making a Transformers movie, which is definitely cool for fans of the toys and the animated series—and who knows, it may make a few new friends along the way. I like it when loyal fans get what they want. Earlier this morning I saw a few minutes of the film Serenity on one of the movie channels, which was a nice send off for fans of the Firefly television show.
I never watched the Transformer series with any sort of regularity, which is weird, what with my love affair with robots and toys. I think the show became popular during a weird time in my life when I didn’t have a lot of spare time. Another thing that threw me was the similarity between the Transformer show and G.I. Joe (Go Joe!). If I came across either show while flipping around the channels it would take me a few minutes before I knew which show I was watching.
Something that bothered me about both shows was how easily they had rolled over on their backs when the Moral Majority, or whoever it was trying to make the world safe for children with sloppy brush strokes of sanctity. The bad guys never succeed in their crimes and they were never shown in a favorable light. Oh, and bullets were replaced with energy beams, and nobody ever got hurt—unless they were robots.
This same mentality was being embraced by the weak-minded primetime television creators at the same time. Stephen J. Cannell was one of the first out of the pool. Your average episode of The A-Team had more firepower than a stack of Tom Clancy novels. Everyone and their Aunt Sophie was walking around with AK-47s, but despite thousands of rounds of ammo being fired in every which direction, no one ever seemed to get hit or even grazed. Car tires would get shot out during high-speed chases, but after the cars would flip, skip and tumble down embankments, the camera would linger long enough for us to see everyone climbing out of the wreckage, shaking the dust off their clothing.
I guess if I ever take up a life of crime, I’ll track down a group of mercs like the A-Team to fight it out with. Mr. T. can be a bit crusty around the edges, but nobody gets their toes hammered flat while being pumped for information.
2 comments:
You forgot to mention that your good buddy Aaron Sowd got to do storyboards on it! ;-)
Aaron, I didn't know you worked on the movie. Good for you. The fact that they used storyboards means that they have, at the very least, a story.
Now I can't wait to see it. Does it have a shocker ending? Do we learn that President Bush is a malfunctioning Decepticon?
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