Transformers

Went and saw Transformers with family and friends last week. My take: blown away. I am still just pumped by the overrunning excitement of that experience (late show: 9:30 – 12:00 midnight). Not only was it a real stepping stone to take some time and connect with my family through an entertainment experience like that (because it’s something we haven’t done together in a long time), but also there’s something in being able to watch dreams of your childhood come to life on the big screen, with a bunch of cinema magic in the mix. An added feature of seeing transformers was that I noticed in myself more maturity in my analysis of the world around me; in other words, it was fun to think about what I had just seen critically and to personalize the analysis by looking inward at what the experience meant to me. It was really great to see that my intellectual development is something that has branched out to other areas of life. So, what a deal!

Transformers was a great movie, not just a great movie-going experience. So, it would be fruitful to think about why this was the case. What made this movie so good? The science fiction aspect certainly has its benefits. Also, one cannot leave the Transformers experience and, after thoughtful analysis, conclude that this was a simple set of interactions going on, that it was the perfect film; rather, the movie proved more complex and multi-faceted with its own problems. I will consider both of these perspectives, the pros and cons, in more detail.

Again, in the best light, Transformers was really great. I think this has its foundations in an interesting story relating concepts involved in my imagination and play as a child, the action (graphics and sound) were incredible, the cars and techie stuff were cool and relevant to the times (new versions of fighter planes and beefy automobiles), comic relief was well-placed, and the movie’s underlying themes were provocative yet open to interpretation (thinking parents would get more out of this movie than good ole’ fashion good guys vs. bad guys, shoot-em-up, save the world stuff).

On the other hand, the film was not without its faults. After taking a reality check on the drive home from the theater, I realized this film had many difficulties. I will provide a few examples. First thing, the boy-girl story was unrealistic.

Megan Fox and Shai LaBoeuf (sp?) in Transformers.

Also, the alien robots (transformers and the other bots) took on distinctly human-influenced physical and emotional forms so as to be palatable to the human audience, which seems weird given this may be viewed as taking away from the “alien” nature of the story line. Another problem was that the audience was left without closure in some spaces; for example, some parts of the plot, which wove through several group’s stories (e.g., the computer hacker people and secretary of state), were dropped, never to be fully resolved in time and space on the screen (at one point in the movie, they just never show these characters again). In a skeptical context, certain claims in the story were never substantiated (e.g., the sector seven commando played by the guy from the Adam Sandler films used an unknown technology to knock out a small robot created from the black guy’s cell phone using power from “the cube,” but this was never explored or explained further by virtue of the timing of the Megatron invigoration). Furthermore, the whole autobot back story may be viewed as too short and or too shallow for the tastes of some moviegoers altogether. In other words, showing more of the whole cube’s story might have been fruitful. Also, what did it do in pre-war autobot society, why did it survive the transformer planet’s destruction, what was its power used for, etc.? Last but not least—and I could go on—the parent scenes and hottie girl’s “juvie record,” as in police record, stories could easily have been left out. Given these substantial lists of problems, one would be tempted to think the movie sank; however, the experience of the moviegoer, if like my own and potentially even acknowledging plainly each of these faults, tells a different story, a story of success, a story of entertainment and enjoyment. So, even though the problems could have fatally injured other films, for some reason this wasn’t the case with Transformers.

I conclude with reflection on the major themes of the movie. One cannot help but leave the cozy chairs, popcorn, and soda cups, not to mention THX surround system, of AMC theaters without having come away with two, maybe three essential themes of the film. I give several possibilities: (1) the failure of “I-know-more-than-you-do” and “rules-and-bureaucracy” leadership (i.e., big US government and national security, typical parenting issues) (2) the idea that the greatest achievement, the greatest good and virtue is sacrificing for a good cause—others, something bigger than yourself (e.g., the fate of the planet or the fate of the good guys, the autobots in this case), and (3) the idea that there is more to life than what you think, "more than meets the eye." I also thought it was cool how the autobots considered themselves living creatures, with humans representing more primitive species (don't get it, but interesting nonetheless).

Maybe, you'll hear more about this later...