MichaelandChrissy.com

I’ve been holding off on writing anything about the new Transformers movie until everyone had a chance to see it. I know that some people really don’t like “spoilers”, but the movie has made about $600 million world-wide by now, so all of the people that care about this have already seen it. Chrissy and I saw it on opening day on the IMAX.

I enjoyed “Revenge of the Fallen“. It had even more giant robot action than the first, but it was a little too long. I drank two huge colas (free refills) before the movie even started, so I was hurting after two and half hours. There were plenty of bits that could have been removed for time. Which parts, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

The movie could have done with less dog humping. I told some people this over the Fourth of July weekend, and inevitably I got raised eyebrows: “Why is there dog humping in a Transformers movie?” Your guess is as good as mine, but Mojo scored a recurring role with a love interest, as well as five minutes of makin’ sweet love down by the fire.

I support our military completely, but some scenes bordered on recruitment video. Michael Bay claims that no stock footage was used, that every shot was taken with real military vehicles and personnel at his whim, but it looked an awful lot like stock footage to me. About twenty minutes of it, all told, none of which had any giant robots in it.

For some odd reason, John Tuturro’s ass made a cameo in the film. He just dropped trou right in the middle of the movie, with only a thong underneath. And to add insult to injury, he then turned around. This was in closeup, mind you. If they were trying to offset the female sexuality in the movie, this was the wrong way to do it.

And when I say “female sexuality”, I mean Megan Fox. There’s actually a line in the movie: “You’re hot, but you ain’t too bright.” It’s true. The girl can’t act, but she’s hot and she spends most of the movie bending over things. The newcomer, Isabel Lucas, is arguably hotter, shows off her panties, and then turns into a Terminator.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’d rather have those scenes cut, because they were hot. Oh wait, no, the Pretender character (a robot disguised as a real person) is just lame. The gimmick didn’t fly in 1988 and it still doesn’t fly. I’d hate to see Alice the Horny Co-ed Robot go, but it just doesn’t add to the movie at all.

Who else could go? They introduce Sam’s college roommate in this one, and he pretty much just eats up screen time that could have gone to giant robots fighting. He tags along for the rest of the movie and ends up being the butt of Skids and Mudflap’s offensive jokes. It’s rumored that he’ll get a bigger role in the third movie though.

Speaking of Skids and Mudflap… I wasn’t offended by their stereotypical personalities and appearances (this happens all the time in cartoons), but many other people were. Their bad language and crude humor should have been curtailed. I love crude humor, but it didn’t work here for me. Many other Autobots had no lines at all, so what gives?

That’s about it for parts that could have been excised from the movie. Don’t even get me started on plot issues or breaking with established canon. At about two hours into the movie, when my bladder was uncomfortably full, I was wishing for a more concise story with less expositional scenes. I smiled the whole time though.

Thomas The Tank Engine had not felt “Really Useful” as of late.  He had spent the entire night looking for UFOs instead of delivering the mail for Percy, who was out of commission.  He had not even known what “energy management” was until a few days ago, but apparently Mr. Toppem Hat thought that it was very important to not waste time on the rails, noting that “our coal supplies will not last forever, Thomas!”  Thomas sadly puffed along to his next stop.

…..

“This is a waste of time, oh wise Megatron,” Starscream called while flying over the ocean along with the other Decepticon commanders.  “The only energy source on the island is a non-renewable resource: coal.  Coal can’t even be reliably or efficiently converted into energon.”  Starscream couldn’t understand why his leader would drag them all out here.  Perhaps he planned to kill him and dump his chassis out where no one would ever find him?

“You’re an idiot, Starscream.”  Starscream was easily excitable (he was already on a roll), and Megatron knew how to press his buttons.  He would play his favorite fiddle a while longer, before cutting his losses.   “The island nation of Sodor has something much more valuable than energy reserves.  There are sentient machines here.”  Starscream was too shortsighted to see the potential in these Really Useful assets.  He was dangerous in that respect.

It was relatively easy to find the ruler of Sodor.  The humans of this nation were all extremely helpful, even without any displays of overt force.  Megatron allowed Starscream to shine in this regard, as he was highly skilled at trickery.  “So you see, Prime Minister Hat, in exchange for Decepticon power technology that will run your trains indefinitely without the use of coal, we only require the locomotive engines that are no longer Really Useful to you.”

…..

“Rail Richter!  Destroy these structures to make room for my new weapons platform!”  Unlike other gestalts under Megatron’s command, the minds that made up this one were simple to the point of being childlike, easily molded, and worked very well together.  Although the individual limbs had no robot modes of their own, it was an adequate trade-off to gain such a willful engine of destruction.  The windmills fell easily to his will.

Thomas missed being on the rails of Sodor, but now he was being Really Useful once again.  The Constructicons were already on hand to build the “Auto-Buster” as soon as this portion of the island was leveled.  Who knew that being a left arm could be so satisfying?  Although he was very happy to be working so closely with his friends, it always made Thomas a little sad to hear the screams of the people when Rail Richter crushed them underfoot.

McDonalds has picked up the Transformers promotion this time around. I had mentioned to Chrissy that the new Happy Meal toys were out, and she filed it into her unlimited memory.  We were out shopping today when she casually suggested that we swing by the McDonalds.  I’m thinking that it’s almost lunch time, but I don’t really care for McDonalds (the meat is all cow lips and eyeballs).  More precisely, you don’t say no when an extremely pregnant women tells you what food she wants.

We found the nearest McDonalds (you never have to go far for one of these). We walked in, with Aiden in tow, and Chrissy orders a Happy Meal with four chicken nuggets.  Aiden loves the chicken nuggets. Then she orders four cheeseburger Happy Meals.  She looks at me and says, “What do you want?” Thinking that she must be damn hungry, I say that I’d like a Big Mac meal.  She says, “No, you’re getting a Happy Meal too.  How about a cheeseburger?”

I agree reluctantly, but then it occurs to me that she’s buying an entire set of Transformers Happy Meal toys.  I’m a little slow on the uptake.  But she not only has a mind like a steel trap, she’s very good to me (she doesn’t like McDonalds, either).  I got Optimus, Ratchet, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream and Lugnut.  The figures themselves are about what you’d expect from a Happy Meal, but the simple design fits in well with the Transformers Animated theme for most of them.  Not a bad set, as themed meal freebies go.

I have a rediculous amount of Transformers.  I keep everything inventoried in an Excel spreadsheet.  At last count, I had over 1200 figures, and that doesn’t include other collectibles such as kites, books, statues, etc.  Also, I don’t count individual figures in a set: if several figures come in one box (mini-cons, Micromasters, exclusive box sets), then they only count as one in the database.  The results will be displayed in the database below.  If my PHP skills improve, I might even be able to display the ones that I don’t have yet, or even show subsets of the database.

Since I finished BioShock twice, I decided that I should go back and finish the Transformers game. I beat the Autobot campaign a while back, but I was frustrated with the Decepticon campaign and subsequently found other stuff to do with my time. Scorponok was what did it for me — he’s slow and weak, easily the most worthless character in the game, and yet you’re stuck playing as him. With the game only 50% complete, I started playing the Decepticon levels in earnest last week.

Finishing each chapter wasn’t very difficult. The fighting is painfully simple, since the majority of Autobot drones die with one or two hits. The hard part is beating the clock, like when you have to find Optimus in sixty seconds, but he’s hiding somewhere in the city. The only way to make the game difficult is to put a timer in there, which cheapens the whole experience. I can understand the use of a timer in a mini-game, but it gets aggravating when every mission is “do x in y seconds”.

The nice thing about the Decepticon campaign is that you are rewarded for being evil. You get bonuses for blowing things up. And each boss battle is a kill. After you defeat Ironhide, there is an animated sequence where Optimus mourns the deaths of Bumblebee, Jazz and Ironhide (with the same lack of feeling that he mourned Jazz in the movie, unfortunately).

What was the last thing to go through Optimus Prime’s mind? Megatron’s mace. I’m glad that these weren’t G1 characters now, since I’d hate to see them all die like this. I don’t have the same feelings for the movie characters since I didn’t grow up with them. The last scene is of Megatron, seated in Lincoln’s throne at the Lincoln Memorial, commanding his Decepticons while Washington DC burns around them.

Chrissy and I might be the last people on earth who celebrate Sweetest Day. Sweetest Day usually falls on the third week in October, but the exact date can be unpredictable. We never really know each year until we check the calendar. Oddly, we treat this day as being almost as important as Valentine’s Day (we joke that Chrissy left me once because I only gave her a card on our first Sweetest Day).

So each year, we try to come up with something thoughtful for each other on Sweetest Day (no gift cards here!). Nothing too extravagant, but we typically go over budget. Because Chrissy loves to take pictures of Aiden, I got her a pair of strobe flashbulbs with matching umbrella stands. She loved them, and can’t wait to put them to use for Aiden’s Fall photos.

Chrissy got me large frames for my Optimus Prime and Megatron posters. I’ve had these rolled up in the closet since 2000, since they were exclusive to the 1999 Botcon (I missed that one, but I ordered the posters online when I registered for Botcon 2000). I brought my Prime poster to Rhode Island with me to Botcon 2007 to have it signed by Peter Cullen, so I was very happy to finally have a nice frame for it.

Chrissy and I drove down to Lexington, Kentucky for Botcon 2006. I signed Chrissy up for the Primus package, so we needed to get to the Lexington Convention Center by 8 PM to pick up our exclusive figures. We both got the box set and the two exclusive sets: Megatron/Waspinator and Laserbeak/Buzzsaw. As a freebie for attending, they gave us a choice of a 2006 Tigatron or a 2005 Flame War figure. Since I had Chrissy with me, I got one of each. And I got a t-shirt.