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Captain Invictus posted:This thread's current trajectory:
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Jul 1, 2014 00:14
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Gaz-L posted:Again, tying yourself into the knot of every single protagonist in a series that is primarily a tentpole blockbuster/toy ad being secretly the villain and mocking YOU THE VIEWER is, at best, assuming everyone from Bay, to Paramount, to Hasbro are secretly laughing at the audience. You're not presenting this as your reading, you're presenting it as THE reading, and everyone else is wrong. Which, if you truly buy that, fine, but a good comedian can 'feel' the room. If no-one's laughing at the jokes? It's the wrong set for the room, if not a bad set entirely. Sam is not 'the villain'. See, this is the kind of simplistic thinking that cripples you. Sam is simply a suburban nerd with major issues about people who are different. That's a fact - and, surprisingly, the films don't demonize him. Especially in Part 3: he tires to do good, he is extremely heroic, but he was raised very poorly. He has a ton of bad influences in his life, like Optimus and Bee. Reminder: the Autobots based their personas on Earth's media. They are literally personifications of the media that influence Sam. Optimus can project literal, immersive propaganda holograms out of his eyes. Sam's father is the one who taunts him with a Porsche, before taking him to the 'ghetto dealership' to teach him a lesson in bootstraps. The black dealership is a joke to Sam's dad, but Bernie Mac plays a character who is clearly in distress. His business is failing, and his family is abusive. It's not funny and should not be funny - Bernie Mac's acting undermines the father's racist joke. Again, this gets called out later in the film by low-class Mikaela: "when have you had to sacrifice anything in your perfect little life?" Optimus Prime: "Sam... you risked your life to protect the Cube." Sam: "No sacrifice, no victory." At the end of the first film, Sam 'learns about sacrifice' by killing Megatron. The joke is that he doesn't have to sacrifice anything. He merely risks his life, for psychopathic Optimus. He gets the girl because of this, but he doesn't respect her. He saves the world, but the world is corrupt. That willingness to risk his life for good is admirable, but he's doing it for the wrong team. Same thing with the Hacker subplot: these guys are self-styled outlaws and rebels, but they join up with the CIA at the drop of a hat. The CIA are not good people. That's the joke. Bay likes the idea of hackers, likes the troops, even likes little schweens like Sam - but he hates the things they are forced to do to survive. He hates the powers that manipulate them. I can say this with certainty because I've read the text he made. This is not so enormously complex that you must imagine a conspiracy of cackling geniuses secretly laughing at you. I just summarized it in a few brief sentences, and I'm not superintelligent. What I'm describing is basic professional competence. Your trouble is that you do not understand scriptwriting and whatnot, so basic competence seems like a magic trick. It's not. quote:(and yeesh, the Mikaela Baynes thing barely requires psychoanalysis to be creepy) Mikaela is the most sympathetic character by a wide margin, and actually gets a cool action scene when she straps Bumblebee to a truck to create a makeshift tank. She is his 'mary sue' character, if you will, but she's the one who calls Sam a little privileged dipshit. Bay named the lower-class mechanic character after himself. Written on the side of her makeshift tank? MIKE'S TOWING.  I repeat: Bay named the class-conscious character who criticizes Sam - and ultimately dumps his rear end - after himself. A team of production designers had to apply that text on the truck. It was put there deliberately, by normal humans. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 00:17
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Hey I'm still waiting to hear you opine just as laboriously about TF toys you goddam windbag.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:48
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I have opinions on toys. Titan Bumblebee represents the inherient class struggle of American society. The lower class rungs of American children do not have the luxury of getting a generations deluxe, but are instead relegated to barely painted static figures that seem to be made out of shampoo bottles. The shampoo bottles represent the inner desire for a pure, cleanly existence that is stymied by an impoverished lifestyle. As Zizek said, "I'm actually just a pseudo-intellectual that's completely full of poo poo and spew a lot of nonsense in an attempt to seem intelligent."
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Jul 1, 2014 00:52
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Gammatron 64 posted:Titan Bumblebee represents the inherient class struggle of American society. The lower class rungs of American children do not have the luxury of getting a generations deluxe, but are instead relegated to barely painted static figures that seem to be made out of shampoo bottles. The shampoo bottles represent the inner desire for a pure, cleanly existence that is stymied by an impoverished lifestyle. As Zizek said, "I'm actually just a pseudo-intellectual that's completely full of poo poo and spew a lot of nonsense in an attempt to seem intelligent." I think Dark Of The Moon Cyberverse Blackout is good.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:59
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So anywho. I snagged the Minicon Assault Team today because Target had it for $5. Imean for $10 I couldn't pass it up. Anyone else I should definitely grab up while the sale is on?
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Jul 1, 2014 01:12
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If they had others from that wave, Armada Starscream is super cool. Scoop is neat but not essential in the least, and Skywarp is great if you aim to finish the FoC seeker trio.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:15
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Blackheart posted:If they had others from that wave, Armada Starscream is super cool. Scoop is neat but not essential in the least, and Skywarp is great if you aim to finish the FoC seeker trio. Besides Starscream and Skywarp, who's the third that's getting/gotten a toy?
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Jul 1, 2014 01:16
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Rhyno posted:Besides Starscream and Skywarp, who's the third that's getting/gotten a toy? Thundercracker.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:17
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Rhyno posted:Besides Starscream and Skywarp, who's the third that's getting/gotten a toy? Thundercracker?
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Jul 1, 2014 01:18
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Thundercracker was released in an earlier wave, with Hoist. e: double beaten
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Jul 1, 2014 01:18
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poo poo, I never saw him. I don't have a single TF plane come to think of it. Maybe I'll run back after work tomorrow.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:21
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As a four-year-old, I knew the difference between a bad toy and a cool police car that turned into a robot. On my hunt for Masterpiece Grimlock recently I encountered a small child, maybe five or six years old, and his soccer mom looking at Transformers. The kid was checking each one out to see of they changed into something cool, and his mom was trying to get him to settle for one of the lovely doll ones that don't transform. He kept telling her, "Mom, but he doesn't transform!" but his mother didn't give a poo poo, she just wanted to get him out of there. Heroically, I did absolutely nothing because it wasn't my child or my place to interfere and the mom looked the type that is usually mistrustful of my type (metal band shirt, or maybe grown-rear end man in a toy store) and looked at the Legends class Optimus Prime just out of reach of the kid with good taste in transforming robots. He... didn't get the toy he wanted and a little part of me died.  My point is, kids know cool toys, who is in these focus groups Hasbro has and are they allowed to bring their mothers. CAPT. Rainbowbeard fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 01:21
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Blackout is legit my favorite character from the films. Let's talk about Blackout for a bit. As the first transformer we see, it's cool that he's basically a ghost - literally, a downed chopper back from the dead. His inclusion in the Dark Of The Moon toy-line is a neat extratextual thing. He's unkillable.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:24
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Blackout was my favorite too and indeed his cyberverse toy is the coolest version he ever got.CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:As a four-year-old, I knew the difference between a bad toy and a cool police car that turned into a robot. Heheh yeah I've seen the same thing, often just the parent though. They pick the big shampoo bottle titans, usually on the phone with someone saying "yeah, which one does he like? Bumblebee huh? Yeah I found one". It's attractive to parents and grandmas because they are big, and cheaper than the similar, smaller ones (which do transform). I see a lot of those titan figures picked up in stores. I think Hasbro knows exactly what the "target audience" for those big ugly statues is.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:27
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:As a four-year-old, I knew the difference between a bad toy and a cool police car that turned into a robot. I've been there and I have to recommend saying something. Like, just something as simple as "hey, have you seen this?" The worst thing that happens is that a person you'll never see again treats you like poo poo for trying to help. A little boost from a non-parental adult goes a long way for kids.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:30
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Blackheart posted:Blackout was my favorite too and indeed his cyberverse toy is the coolest version he ever got. Those things should be in a whole other toy aisle next to the Chinese knockoffs or the pool toys. I think Hasbro has a lab with kids testing toys in Pawtucket, but some kind of focus group BS must be taking over the results.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:31
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strangehamster posted:Those things should be in a whole other toy aisle next to the Chinese knockoffs or the pool toys. I think Hasbro has a lab with kids testing toys in Pawtucket, but some kind of focus group BS must be taking over the results.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:42
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Blackheart posted:It's OK if you just write "generations" somewhere on the instruction sheet or box? Just see what happens. The Air is thick with the scent of Sharpie and I think I gave myself a papercut. This is clearly the wrath of dark forces that punish you when you break line continuity!! 
The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 02:24
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Sam is not 'the villain'. See, this is the kind of simplistic thinking that cripples you. Sam is simply a suburban nerd with major issues about people who are different. That's a fact - and, surprisingly, the films don't demonize him. Especially in Part 3: he tires to do good, he is extremely heroic, but he was raised very poorly. He has a ton of bad influences in his life, like Optimus and Bee. ...I like the fact that you're using clearly business influenced additions as deliberate choices to support the text. Mikaela didn't dump Sam to make a statement. She dumped him because either Megan Fox is a primadonna, or Michael Bay is a sexist rear end in a top hat, depending on who you ask (and given how every movie introduces the female lead by making the viewer complicit in objectifying her, I'm not sure she's wrong, even if her ego was the reason). And of course the truck's livery was deliberate, I'm not sure what your point there is, other than the 'nothing is done by accident in film' point, which is true, but sometimes the reasons for things are as simple as "heh, she's named after Michael, it'd be neat if the truck referenced that". And I'm boggled how you can get any of that from Mac's performance. It's a goddamn minstrel show, and even, EVEN if I bought the 'satire' reading, like these movies are The Wire writ large or something, there's a very thin line between mocking characters for behaving in stereotypical or racist ways, and just having stereotypes and racism in your movie. I actually do agree that Bay, on some intellectual level, sympathises with the working joe, almost all of his protagonists (and this has to be a conscious choice of scripts by him) are working stiffs, down to Wahlberg in this newest one. I just think it's a very conservative, bootstrappy idealisation. His films tend to be about how the blue collar man steps up and saves the day, without no help from the Man. It's the Big Government strawman written in 40 foot explosions. And my point about the 'cackling geniuses' was not that it'd take great intellect to do this. It's that I sincerely doubt Hasbro would greenlight a picture where the centrepiece of their toyline is the demented puppetmaster, standing in for the worst aspects of jingoism. If you can honestly see the writers, Bay, the producers all getting together and agreeing on that as the message, I'm honestly astonished. And kind of envious, because you have a hell of a lot more faith in mainstream Hollywood than I do. And I'll thank you to not make assumptions about what I do, and don't know about scriptwriting. You can read whatever the gently caress you want into a film, if you think the material supports you. Fine. But don't presume that if someone disagrees with you that they must be stupid, that gets you nowhere. Hell, I greatly disagree with Terry van Feleday's interpretation of the films, but at least she acknowledged that it wasn't the only valid one and addressed things like the aesthetic criticisms in ways other than "Oh, guess you're an idiot who doesn't know poo poo about film  ". However, I'm done with this discussion. We may as well be watching different movies for how productive any more will be.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:27
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It's starting to resemble a Dreamwave Comic in here.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:29
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:As a four-year-old, I knew the difference between a bad toy and a cool police car that turned into a robot. This is precisely why cynicism is unacceptable. Kids are smart, and they understand things often better than an adult who says "this is meaningless garbage." That's a tactic of feeling smart by imagining everyone else is inhumanly stupid. Deceit. A kid knows immediately that the simple hollow doll is unacceptable because the appeal of the toy is in the transformation. I'm referring to the point at which the thing is neither vehicle nor robot - when it's this amorphous mass of shapes. Transformation is destructive. The basic premise is that you take a truck and tear it open, twisting it almost unrecognizably. The tension, of course, is that the destruction is meticulously pre-planned and designed. It's a toy with specific instructions on how to destroy it. What you'll find with kids is that they won't keep a transformer in either mode for long, and I believe it's because they're working against these constraints. Working with a plan is not fun. It's a puzzle you know the answer to. In Transformers 1, the genuinely best part of the film is when Mikaela haphazardly straps Bumblebee to a truck - creating exactly the sort of weird, half-destroyed intermediate form that I'm talking about. To my knowledge, you cannot buy a 'crippled Bumblebee Strapped To A Truck' toy. This simple fact defies the Pokemon logic of a collector. In Part 3, Megatron is also badly crippled, and you'll note that his toy versions don't exactly 'work' because such details as the filthy tarp are sculpted in clean, monochromatic platic. There's not much truth to materials - no dirt, because you can't sell that. Plastic is totally apt for Optimus, however. Blackout is an interesting case because his clothes aren't a disguise. The military identifies something wrong straight away, and he easily overpowers them anyways. He comes across as an avenging spirit, a near-literal ghost of those killed in action. His pilot is a hologram, presumably scanned from the dead.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:39
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Please, just shut up and go away. Pacific Rim 2 just got greenlit, you can gently caress off back to discussing in circles how that was about fascism for an additional three calendar years in CinemaD.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:42
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Why cookie Rocket posted:Sorry if this is too niche but can I run a dumb custom idea past you guys? I'm slowly but surely putting together a Classics Liokaiser, and I've been trying to puzzle out what mold(s) to use for Jallguar (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Jallguar). So far I'd been planning to use Universe Hound, but it's really more of a "can't think of a better option" choice. Jallguar has such a weird alt-mode I just can't figure out a better base mold. Any ideas? http://www.tfu.info/2010/Autobot/Armorhide/armorhide.htm
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Jul 1, 2014 02:43
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There actually was a toy of the legless Bumblebee being carried on a tow truck, except the truck is also an Autobot.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:46
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Welp they just revealed the largest transformer you can buy commercially, it dwarfs even metroplex: http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/transformers-movie-just-movie-31/buy-a-house-in-taiwan-get-transformers-stuff-180571/ It's a cooler than transforms into a table and it's marked with autobot logos
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Jul 1, 2014 02:50
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Gaz-L posted:...I like the fact that you're using clearly business influenced additions as deliberate choices to support the text. Mikaela didn't dump Sam to make a statement. She dumped him because either Megan Fox is a primadonna, or Michael Bay is a sexist rear end in a top hat, depending on who you ask (and given how every movie introduces the female lead by making the viewer complicit in objectifying her, I'm not sure she's wrong, even if her ego was the reason). You can easily write the character out of the script by saying she went to college or something. The screenwriters deliberately made her break up with Sam in a way that hurts him deeply. Bay putting his name on a truck as his cameo is meaningful, inherently. If he put his name on a toilet, that would mean something. We have Mike riding a truck labelled 'Mike' at the climax of the film. It is literally written on it. I do not think you are stupid. If I did I would not bother to address you. However, can say with confidence that you do not understand film very well if you dismiss production design choices during the climax of the film as 'meaningless'. Don't sabotage your own intelligence with cynicism. The MSJ posted:There actually was a toy of the legless Bumblebee being carried on a tow truck, except the truck is also an Autobot. Haha, it's pre-broken. This goes right back to my point about Megatron and 'authentic' dirt.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:03
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Artum posted:Please, just shut up and go away. Pacific Rim 2 just got greenlit, you can gently caress off back to discussing in circles how that was about fascism for an additional three calendar years in CinemaD. I find his insights into Transformers refreshing and your angry reactions amusing. Please, continue SuperMechaGodzilla. I don't know if I agree with everything about your reading into the films but I think there is more than enough evidence to suggest there's more going on there than most fans would care to admit. I'd like to see your thoughts on Beast Wars and it's sequel one day. Did you know that at one point Megatron erases the 80's?
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Jul 1, 2014 03:11
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Semi-related to the current discussion in the thread, but the Red Letter Media guys recently watched the first three movies... simultaneously. It's a gimmicky exercise, but it's actually pretty effective at illustrating the many, many, many problems of the movies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rfup0XKx7o Also, Peter Cullen was interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday. There's nothing new revealed in the interview, I think. Still, it's nice that he gets a little mainstream recognition. http://www.npr.org/2014/06/29/326214943/behind-optimus-prime-and-eeyore-one-mans-signature-voice
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Jul 1, 2014 03:32
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Artum posted:Please, just shut up and go away. Pacific Rim 2 just got greenlit, you can gently caress off back to discussing in circles how that was about fascism for an additional three calendar years in CinemaD. Y'all need to seriously back away from the hobby if having SMG pop in briefly to shower you with some metatextual analysis gets you this hot and bothered about your favorite merchandising vehicle. If anything beyond just a surface-level assessment of fiction is this offensive to you, then the thread title is absolutely right and Roberts really is a better writer than we deserve.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:37
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Bit the bullet and bought MP Starscream. He would be really good if his cockpit chest actually clipped in.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:41
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fygar posted:Semi-related to the current discussion in the thread, but the Red Letter Media guys recently watched the first three movies... simultaneously. It's a gimmicky exercise, but it's actually pretty effective at illustrating the many, many, many problems of the movies. On that note it also makes Galvatron's actions in the fourth film rather confusing.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:44
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ForeverSmug posted:Bit the bullet and bought MP Starscream. You bought the Coronation version, or the first mold?
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Jul 1, 2014 03:44
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Gammatron 64 posted:Likewise I feel that if Transformers 4 cut down on unnecessary scenes (i.e. the China pandering) and dropped the runtime by 30 mins to an hour it would probably be a fairly enjoyable movie. I was engaged for the first hour or so, but after that I just started getting really, really bored. I right there with you. Even the worst part of the previous films (the comedy) was toned down quite a bit in this one, but it still felt boring. Maybe its because the other films went so over-the-top that despite how much I thought they were just big dumb loud films, they were still entertaining to watch with a sense of, "I can't believe I'm hearing/seeing this in a Transformer movie..." The Dinobots are introduced so quickly and late in the film that it felt unimportant. This movie needed a lot more story though. For such a major turn of events from the last few films, for the introductions of so many other characters, there's really not explanation or origins to things that seem like they should be extremely important. All these films seem to introduce pretty major, "Oh, these have always been a thing" elements that are treated like they've been there forever, but we're just discovering them for the first time in each sequel. God, that ending scene, too... It made me think of a cheesy 70s era anime or Japanese giant robot/monster show.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:53
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The Taint Reaper posted:Welp they just revealed the largest transformer you can buy commercially, it dwarfs even metroplex:  Will the cooler be available outside of buying a god drat house?  Tighclops posted:I find his insights into Transformers refreshing and your angry reactions amusing. 3 posted:Y'all need to seriously back away from the hobby if having SMG pop in briefly to shower you with some metatextual analysis gets you this hot and bothered about your favorite merchandising vehicle. If anything beyond just a surface-level assessment of fiction is this offensive to you, then the thread title is absolutely right and Roberts really is a better writer than we deserve.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:18
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Blackheart posted:You bought the Coronation version, or the first mold? MP 11, not Samurai Starscream (who was 3, right? )
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Jul 1, 2014 04:22
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3 posted:Y'all need to seriously back away from the hobby if having SMG pop in briefly to shower you with some metatextual analysis gets you this hot and bothered about your favorite merchandising vehicle. If anything beyond just a surface-level assessment of fiction is this offensive to you, then the thread title is absolutely right and Roberts really is a better writer than we deserve. Honestly? I don't care that deeply about transformers. I like some of the comics but I don't actually collect anything about the series or toys, nor do I religiously follow everything, I like more than meets they eye and I generally enjoyed prime and that's it. What bothers me is that this sort of "metatextual analysis" is hollow and pointless. The internet does it so relentlessly that all its really proved is that you can functionally interpret any work to say anything you want it to, but only by glossing over any details that don't fit in with whatever inane bullshit the analyst wants to peddle.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:35
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Have the IDW titles gone down the shitter in the wake of Dark Cybertron? You guys don't talk about them much any more, and I never bother to catch up until I see gushing in this thread.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:53
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Roadbuster's lookin' pretty legit:
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Jul 1, 2014 04:55
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Why cookie Rocket posted:Have the IDW titles gone down the shitter in the wake of Dark Cybertron? You guys don't talk about them much any more, and I never bother to catch up until I see gushing in this thread.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:57
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