posted
I didn't want to disrupt the Obama thread with a response to this statement, so I've started a new Thread.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The Transformers are bigger than Jesus.
Perhaps it is because I am old enough to blaim the Transformers for introducing the idea of usings cartoons as an excuse to aire a 30 minute long advertisement for a pre-existing toy. Perhaps it is because I saw the transformers movie on an overfull, delayed airline flight (A bit redundent, eh?) Or perhaps its because I lack a Y chromosome.
But for whatever reason, I simply cannot understand the popularity of the transformers. Don't get me wrong, I understand the popularity of toys that can tranform from robots into other cool mechanical things. What I can't understand is how anyone on the planet can tolerate the cartoons, let alone how this was spun into a movie.
I mean, this is THE STUPIDEST science fiction premise ever. A god like super race of Robots that transform into cars, helicopters, trucks and stuff. Seriously.
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If it helps any, I was making a joking reference to the famous Beatles comment. If confronted, I was planning on saying I meant physically bigger. There's no way Jesus is the size of a Volkswagon, let alone a Mack truck.
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quote:I mean, this is THE STUPIDEST science fiction premise ever. A god like super race of Robots that transform into cars, helicopters, trucks and stuff. Seriously.
A mysterious superbeing created everything and no one really knows for sure he exists because no one has ever seen him and he routinely threatens his creations with eternal suffering?
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How do you compare the stupidity of a concept like transforming cars to say, some form of teenage mutant ninja turtle, multi-coloured robots piloted by some kind of ranger, or people led by a captain with rings of environmental power? Best to let these things be.
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quote:A mysterious superbeing created everything and no one really knows for sure he exists because no one has ever seen him and he routinely threatens his creations with eternal suffering?
1. This does not accurately describe any religious or science fiction premise I'm familiar with. Perhaps you could give a source?
2. I'd find your premise even stupider if the mysterious superbeing had the form of a mack truck.
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My recollection is that the Transformers didn't tranform into recognizable "brands" like Mack Trucks and Jeeps until after they came to earth and "scanned" these objects.
The idea that a race of robots could evolve is not too out-there and has been done many times. The idea that robots could mechanically reconfigure themselves to take on shapes optimized to different tasks is also not too out there, as far as science-fiction stories goes.
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Isn't the basic premise of the traditional Christian deity that God -has- revealed himself to his servants? And that he wants his creations to choose him so they -won't- have eternal suffering?
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Isn't the basic premise of the traditional Christian deity that God -has- revealed himself to his servants? And that he wants his creations to choose him so they -won't- have eternal suffering?
Except, depending on the tradition, he has revealed himself to very few, especially in contemporary times. It's always a chosen one/few way back in the day.
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quote:A mysterious superbeing created everything and no one really knows for sure he exists because no one has ever seen him and he routinely threatens his creations with eternal suffering?
1. This does not accurately describe any religious or science fiction premise I'm familiar with. Perhaps you could give a source?
It's not supposed to be an accurate representation, any more than "A god like super race of Robots that transform into cars, helicopters, trucks and stuff" is an accurate representation of the Transformers series.
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Like said in the first post, I get the toys. What I don't get is why 8 year old boys would sit and watch this idiotic TV show instead of getting together with friends, fighting battles with their own transformer toys and making their own exploding sound effects.
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quote:It's a robot! And a car/plane/etc.! And they fight!
Really, what's not to love?
The story line?
The story-line for the cartoons was about par for a kids TV show in that era. For the movie? Meh, it wasn't awful for a science-fiction blockbuster, but I did think the movie fell flat in several areas and I was, on the whole, disappointed.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: It's not supposed to be an accurate representation, any more than "A god like super race of Robots that transform into cars, helicopters, trucks and stuff" is an accurate representation of the Transformers series.
I admit, my familiarity with the transformers story line is limited to what I saw in the movie. I've never been able to watch more than about a minute of the cartoon. As best I can tell, the story line in the cartoon is basically irrelevant. Whats important is lots of robots, cars, planes, explosions, fighting and such.
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quote:Originally posted by Zalmoxis: Clearly, you were never an 8 year old boy.
As it happens, I JUST watched this movie for the first time this past weekend and while I was also definitely not an 8-year-old boy, my husband was and he even loved the Transformers cartoon and the original cartoon movie.
And actually, I liked the old stuff, even if I didn't love it like a little boy.
Both my husband and I agreed the recent movie was crap. What makes it worse is its absolutely unbelievable popularity. Even people who had never seen transformers as a child, girlfriends of mine, said it was a good movie.
The action sequences were difficult to follow and the plot was beyond stupid. I'm sorry, but I think the moment that clinched it for me was when the British blond chick who was working for the U.S. government made some EXTRAORDINARY leap in logic and claimed that because computers were getting hacked quickly there must be Transformers out there. (She said it differently, but that's basically the gist of what she said.) I mean, her mouth was moving and words were coming out...I can only assume that we were supposed to be too preoccupied with her cute blondeness to notice what those words actually were!
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I'm watching the Transformers movie right now - I borrowed it from the library and figured (correctly) that my husband would love to watch it (again). Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I admit, my familiarity with the transformers story line is limited to what I saw in the movie. I've never been able to watch more than about a minute of the cartoon. As best I can tell, the story line in the cartoon is basically irrelevant. Whats important is lots of robots, cars, planes, explosions, fighting and such.
Given that the toys and the movie are based on the cartoon, and you've seen only "about a minute" of the cartoon, do you really feel you can draw any reasonable conclusions about how stupid the series may or may not be?
A pretty significant portion of the Transformers stories took place in a Marvel-published comic book as well.
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Sounds like pretty much every action movie to me, except the humans aren't nearly as emotionally complex as robots.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... why 8 year old boys would sit and watch this idiotic TV show instead of getting together with friends, fighting battles ...
They can do both.
Even better is if they can get together with friends, fight battles, AND watch the TV show at the same time. The idea is to maximise the amount of time spent on Transformer related activities Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Meh, it wasn't awful for a science-fiction blockbuster, but I did think the movie fell flat in several areas and I was, on the whole, disappointed.
The story line for the movie was average in most respects but in my opinion it fell flat on its face because the basic premise of "alien superbeings that turn into cars" was just too far fetched for me to willfully suspend my disbelief. I can't imagine anyone who wasn't enamored of the cartoons as an 8 year old child thinking the story wasn't right out stupid.
As for the cartoon being par for its time -- we're talking about the cartoon that pioneered the whole era of creating cartoons to market toys. Was it the worst of that genre, probably not but it was the first so its not to hard to blame it for the very existence of the whole lame genre.
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It lost me when the transformers stumbled around the lawn, wrecking the place and making all kinds of noise, when they were supposed to be stealthily searching for an artifact necessary to save humanity and their race. I mean come on. These are robots that can transform into common vehicles. Why not just park on the freakin' street and wait?
It lost me again when one of the robot "peed" on a government agent with coolant.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Like said in the first post, I get the toys. What I don't get is why 8 year old boys would sit and watch this idiotic TV show instead of getting together with friends, fighting battles with their own transformer toys and making their own exploding sound effects.
So this thread is really about how you don't understand eight-year-old boys?
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quote:Given that the toys and the movie are based on the cartoon, and you've seen only "about a minute" of the cartoon, do you really feel you can draw any reasonable conclusions about how stupid the series may or may not be?
You've got your history backwards there. The cartoons were based on the toys, not vice versa.
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quote:As for the cartoon being par for its time -- we're talking about the cartoon that pioneered the whole era of creating cartoons to market toys. Was it the worst of that genre, probably not but it was the first so its not to hard to blame it for the very existence of the whole lame genre.
Transformers - 1984 He-Man - 1983 GI Joe - First premiered in 1983, and later went into full production in 1985
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I admit, my familiarity with the transformers story line is limited to what I saw in the movie. I've never been able to watch more than about a minute of the cartoon. As best I can tell, the story line in the cartoon is basically irrelevant. Whats important is lots of robots, cars, planes, explosions, fighting and such.
Given that the toys and the movie are based on the cartoon, and you've seen only "about a minute" of the cartoon, do you really feel you can draw any reasonable conclusions about how stupid the series may or may not be?
A pretty significant portion of the Transformers stories took place in a Marvel-published comic book as well.
Then perhaps you can explain to me what's wrong with my summary of the premise behind the Transformers.
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I'll repeat again that I was very disappointed that the transformations in the movie, when watched frame by frame, did not turn out to be mechanically feasible. It was a freakin' morph job.
Also, I believe the autobot lubricated on the G man.
I did like John Tunturro as the G man, though.
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I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Frist, robots are awesome, especially ones that transform into other awesome things. The show is going to have that aura of awesomeness.
Second, it's not really science fiction. It's mythology of a sort. Mythology of this sort generally isn't all that plausible, but that's not the point. You need to accept some basic premises, outrageous as they may actually be, to get it.
It's not about plausibility and it is often not much about plot (this is often just a Maguffin). It's about themes. It symbolizes things that the audience can relate to and that they connect with.
Boys aren't looking for plaubile premises or well made plots. They are looking for things that are awesome and they are looking for stories whose themes and characters speak to them.
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quote:I'll repeat again that I was very disappointed that the transformations in the movie, when watched frame by frame, did not turn out to be mechanically feasible. It was a freakin' morph job.
The same thing happened on the old cartoon.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Like said in the first post, I get the toys. What I don't get is why 8 year old boys would sit and watch this idiotic TV show instead of getting together with friends, fighting battles with their own transformer toys and making their own exploding sound effects.
So this thread is really about how you don't understand eight-year-old boys?
Nail. Head. Hit.
Personally, I didn't have my own transformer toys, although I coveted them tremendously.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Frist, robots are awesome, especially ones that transform into other awesome things. The show is going to have that aura of awesomeness.
Second, it's not really science fiction. It's mythology of a sort. Mythology of this sort generally isn't all that plausible, but that's not the point. You need to accept some basic premises, outrageous as they may actually be, to get it.
It's not about plausibility and it is often not much about plot (this is often just a Maguffin). It's about themes. It symbolizes things that the audience can relate to and that they connect with.
Boys aren't looking for plaubile premises or well made plots. They are looking for things that are awesome and they are looking for stories whose themes and characters speak to them.
Then maybe they should have left it as a cartoon.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Like said in the first post, I get the toys. What I don't get is why 8 year old boys would sit and watch this idiotic TV show instead of getting together with friends, fighting battles with their own transformer toys and making their own exploding sound effects.
So this thread is really about how you don't understand eight-year-old boys?
No, I pretty much understand the mentality of 8 year old boys. Heck, I even pretty much understand why 2 year olds like Barnie.
But when 2 year olds get to be 8 year olds, they recognize how stupid Barnie is. We are never going to see someone try to make a blockbuster movie about Barnie or the Teletubbies hoping to bring in all the people who loved those shows as kids.
Well the premise behind Transformers is just out and out stupid. I recognize why that doesn't bother 8 year old boys. What I don't understand is why anyone would over the age of 8 could stand it.
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I watched transformers way past the age of 8. And while I didn't have any of my own transformer's toys, I also coveted them greatly.
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quote:Boys aren't looking for plaubile premises or well made plots. They are looking for things that are awesome and they are looking for stories whose themes and characters speak to them.
If you had left it at, boys (or children in general) don't care about the plot, themes and characters. They just like the awesome mechanical stuff and the basic good guys versus bad guys fighting stuff -- I'd understand.
But what are these themes and characters in Transformers? How is it that these themes and characters speak to little boys?
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Frist, robots are awesome, especially ones that transform into other awesome things. The show is going to have that aura of awesomeness.
Second, it's not really science fiction. It's mythology of a sort. Mythology of this sort generally isn't all that plausible, but that's not the point. You need to accept some basic premises, outrageous as they may actually be, to get it.
It's not about plausibility and it is often not much about plot (this is often just a Maguffin). It's about themes. It symbolizes things that the audience can relate to and that they connect with.
Boys aren't looking for plaubile premises or well made plots. They are looking for things that are awesome and they are looking for stories whose themes and characters speak to them.
Then maybe they should have left it as a cartoon.
The premise of many, many movies fall into the same category. If you are only looking for entertainment that has realistic premises, you are going to have a severely limited range to look within.
There are types of stories that carry with it the implicit (and sometimes explicit) idea that "Hey, these are the things that are possible in this sotry. Just accept it and everything will go fine."
If you are going to impose hard science fiction constraints of plausibility on these stories, you aren't going to like them. Other peopel don't insist on this and acn enjoy them a great deal.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Then perhaps you can explain to me what's wrong with my summary of the premise behind the Transformers.
The basic plot summary (with possible errors, it's been a long time) of Transformers is: race of sentient machines evolve on the planet Cybertron. Two competing political factions, the Autobots and Decepticons, escalate their differences into a war that lasts millions of years. After so many years of war, the energy resources of Cybertron are finally dying out. The Decepticons discover Earth and, determined to harvest the resources for their own, mount an attack. The Autobots, determined to not let the Decepticons rape an inhabited planet, leap to Earth's defense. The cartoon's first season revolves around the various ploys attempted by the Decepticons to utilize the energy of the Earth and defeat the Autobots.
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Rabbit: It really seems like you're going on the offensive here. The implication seems to be that anyone over the age of eight who likes Transformers must be an idiot. If you don't understand the appeal, that's fine. But that doesn't mean you need to criticize those who do.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Then perhaps you can explain to me what's wrong with my summary of the premise behind the Transformers.
The basic plot summary (with possible errors, it's been a long time) of Transformers is: race of sentient machines evolve on the planet Cybertron. Two competing political factions, the Autobots and Decepticons, escalate their differences into a war that lasts millions of years. After so many years of war, the energy resources of Cybertron are finally dying out. The Decepticons discover Earth and, determined to harvest the resources for their own, mount an attack. The Autobots, determined to not let the Decepticons rape an inhabited planet, leap to Earth's defense. The cartoon's first season revolves around the various ploys attempted by the Decepticons to utilize the energy of the Earth and defeat the Autobots.
OK, but the basic premise is still that this race of godlike superbeings evolved in some distant time and place which are giant robots that can transform into cars and stuff. And I just find that to be the stupidest premise in any of the science fiction I've read or seen.
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Rabbit, You don't understand the audience that you are talking about and, honestly, it doesn't look to me like you want to.
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quote:If you had left it at, boys (or children in general) don't care about the plot, themes and characters. They just like the awesome mechanical stuff and the basic good guys versus bad guys fighting stuff -- I'd understand.
That's the sort of thinking that pumps out crap with "awesome" stuff packed into it and then wonders why it fails.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Frist, robots are awesome, especially ones that transform into other awesome things. The show is going to have that aura of awesomeness.
Second, it's not really science fiction. It's mythology of a sort. Mythology of this sort generally isn't all that plausible, but that's not the point. You need to accept some basic premises, outrageous as they may actually be, to get it.
It's not about plausibility and it is often not much about plot (this is often just a Maguffin). It's about themes. It symbolizes things that the audience can relate to and that they connect with.
Boys aren't looking for plaubile premises or well made plots. They are looking for things that are awesome and they are looking for stories whose themes and characters speak to them.
Then maybe they should have left it as a cartoon.
The premise of many, many movies fall into the same category. If you are only looking for entertainment that has realistic premises, you are going to have a severely limited range to look within.
There are types of stories that carry with it the implicit (and sometimes explicit) idea that "Hey, these are the things that are possible in this sotry. Just accept it and everything will go fine."
If you are going to impose hard science fiction constraints of plausibility on these stories, you aren't going to like them. Other peopel don't insist on this and acn enjoy them a great deal.
I don't actually like hard scifi and I am perfectly willing to suspend some disbelief, but you have to give me SOMETHING. Let's take X-men for example (not the third one). It was very enjoyable to watch. Plausible...hell no! They throw in some mumbo jumbo about DNA and evolution but if you set that aside, you've got a great movie with some decent action about outcasts struggling for acceptance and about the fear people have of things that are different - more powerful.
Then you have Transformers. I couldn't even follow the action sequences. They were gibberish to me. I kept asking my husband what was going on and he said he wasn't sure either. The cool robots were overshadowed by the plight of some frankly uninteresting humans whose story lines got off to a very slow start. The writers never made me care and so I had nothing left to do but to complain about how stupid and awful the "science" was.
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They're making more of the cartoons also.
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