Transformers: 20 Years Later, Everything's Changed

As a kid watching Transformers in the 80s, I never thought I'd grow up to see the great Optimus Prime apologize for carelessly breaking a flower pot while the bumbling fool Starscream laid down the smack. But that's exactly what happened in Michael Bay's resurrection of the classic robots that retained little of their original charm.

It's just not them anymore

The latest Transformers movie made the same mistake that most tributes to great characters of the past make: it changed them too much. When I first saw the trailer I thought it must have been for Independence Day 2. When you think of Transformers, do you think of rampant destruction everywhere they go, even when just sauntering down the street? They were never about that. Transformers were always about the struggle of good vs. evil, the hope that humanity could learn from this struggle and correct their course, and robots that could transform into cool vehicles and other objects. The trailer didn't even let us know if the robots could talk.

Actually, we were pretty far into the movie before we found out if they could talk. Bumblebee, the lovable "little brother" of the Autobots, is the transformer with the closest ties to a human. When Spike Witwicky unknowingly buys Bumblebee as his first car, we expect to see them develop a bond that bridged the gap between the two species. Oh, except Bumblebee can't talk because his voice box was damaged. Gee, that was necessary. And when Spike is picking out his car, he doesn't choose the Volkswagen Beetle, the car that Bumblebee always epitomized. No, he picks the car next to the Beetle, which happened to be a Camaro. I guess GM's sales needed a bigger boost than Volkswagen's. Oh, and they call Spike "Sam" for some reason.

Where have all the robots gone?

Cliffjumper was missed, although I guess it doesn't really matter if Bumblebee can't talk. But can somebody please tell me why they would even think of making a Transformers movie without Soundwave? As my favorite Decepticon, I expected him to be there with his top cronies Laserbeak, Ravage, Rumble, and Frenzy. Wouldn't it have been great if the predator trying to break through the door as the people scrambled to get a signal to the Air Force had been Ravage, instead of that weird bug? Yes, that weird bug happened to be named Frenzy, but it wasn't him. Unless we're to believe that he got divorced from Soundwave, downgraded his personality, lost the pile driver arms, and turned into a weird bug. Of course.

And speaking of robots who were absent without leave, where were the Dinobots? It's hard for me to even remember the Transformers before Grimlock. All the clumsy demolishing would have made a lot more sense if the Dinobots were the ones doing it. And we got our showdown between Optimus Prime and Megatron, but what about Omega Supreme vs. Devastator? Maybe Omega Supreme had a note from his doctor. Why was Devastator just a tank? The reason the toy was so cool is because he was formed by merging the six Constructicons together (one of which, Bonecrusher, appears in the movie, but not as Devastator's left arm). Then again, it might not have actually been Devastator. He called himself such (via subtitles) in the movie, but the credits listed him as Brawl. Michael Bay says it was supposed to be Devastator and Hasbro screwed it up; Hasbro says it was supposed to be Brawl and Bay screwed it up. Guys, you might need to work on your communication…

They got some things right

I was very pleased to see Peter Cullen return as the voice of Optimus Prime. He brought a sense of continuity and realism that was desperately needed. And kudos on having Megatron voiced by Hugo Weaving, who seems to have a knack for portraying heartless non-human characters. I thought it was a good move making Megatron transform into a jet. A gun may be fun for kids to play with, but the leader of the Decepticons really needs to do more than transform and shrink into a gun for Starscream to hold (Starscream already has guns conveniently mounted on his arms anyway). And it was incredible watching Prime and Bonecrusher cruising along the 405 Freeway at 80 miles per hour, transform without missing a beat, and let the fisticuffs fly.

But not enough

Overall though, the special effects were seriously overdone, which distracted us from everything else. If they'd cut out all the pointless destruction, they would have had time to put some personality into the robots. Maybe characters like Megatron and Starscream could have been given more than just a few one-liners. Maybe the Autobots could have been more than just comic relief. Maybe Spike could have developed a better relationship with Bumblebee. As it was, I don't think people not already familiar with the Transformers would have seen a reason to care about them.

The robots didn't even feel right, their voices and appearance for the most part being far too mechanical. I don't care if Prime had 10,108 moving parts; what I liked about him was that underneath all those parts he was more or less the same Prime from the 80s. The others just seemed like aliens, barely recognizable as their namesakes. Michael Bay described himself as a non-Transformer fan, and it shows. If there's more to these imposters than meets the eye, I don't want to see it.