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Milky Moor posted:Yeah, she's interesting because you can just see her fitting in as Lockdown's lieutenant or something or a representative of the Creators as part of the story. It's also important to note that, according to the artist, they were thinking of including her at some point - hence all the other versions of her face, I guess - and then didn't. Too many evil robots? Maybe, but it's something to think about that Hasbro has not only suddenly found out that the fans want more female-gendered Transformers and that it's odd that the cynical marketing part of the film didn't just leap on that. So, they don't include any female Transformers but, over the course of the series, the robots have gone from 'they have male voices' to exhibiting male characteristics like facial hair. Robot gender isn't remaining nebulous, it's becoming more and more pronounced. Well, thanks to Terry's analysis and my own viewing of Pain & Gain, I've started to see Michael Bay as a filmmaker who's very interested in masculinity and how it is defined and broadcasted in modern American culture. Looking at all these movies, I'm starting to see the typical Michael Bay character as a man who intensely insecure in his masculinity, often believing he has abilities that society is not recognizing. (I can't say if this is a privileged "society owes me!" thing or as example of victimization by an indifferent society.) However, to solve this problem, the man tries to solve his problem by changing his branding, by projecting an image of himself as the man he wants to be (and to be seen as) in the hope that if he changes the package, he'll change the man inside. Needless to say, this never works, and only results in pain and misery for all. Most everyone in these Transformers movies seem to follow this basic archetype, as did most everyone in Pain & Gain. However there was one exception in the latter movie: Ed Harris' detective character. He had the image of a man who "made it", but wasn't concerned with maintaining his image. He defined himself through his abilities as a detective and as man who loved his wife. In fact, it's a sign of how unnarcissistic his character was that he was willing to give up his great passion to please his wife, his other passion. I think the closest the Transformers movies come to his character are Malkovich's CEO and Megatron before his murder. So with this interpretation, you could see why female transformers would be downplayed. The transformers are being built up as personifications of the unchecked ravenous American male id, so adding female ones would change all that symbolism completely. That being said, the forces acting on men are acting just as much on women, and there's probably parallels to be found for these sorts of masculine behaviors in women. Bay did experiment a bit with this with his female characters in Pain & Gain, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would think he recognized that it would be a long time, if ever, that he could create a version of Arcee as grotesque as Optimus Prime and have the audience accept it.
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# ? Jul 13, 2014 19:53 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 16:55 |
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Lord Krangdar posted:What's a series where you actually could come in on the fourth consecutive film (like, not including reboots or whatever) and reasonably expect to understand the bulk of what's going on? Land Of The Dead.
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# ? Jul 13, 2014 21:06 |
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The stories of those Dead films are not consecutive, though, right?Marshal Radisic posted:Well, thanks to Terry's analysis and my own viewing of Pain & Gain, I've started to see Michael Bay as a filmmaker who's very interested in masculinity and how it is defined and broadcasted in modern American culture. Looking at all these movies, I'm starting to see the typical Michael Bay character as a man who intensely insecure in his masculinity, often believing he has abilities that society is not recognizing. (I can't say if this is a privileged "society owes me!" thing or as example of victimization by an indifferent society.) However, to solve this problem, the man tries to solve his problem by changing his branding, by projecting an image of himself as the man he wants to be (and to be seen as) in the hope that if he changes the package, he'll change the man inside. Needless to say, this never works, and only results in pain and misery for all. Some good insights here. In the first film Mikaela Banes isn't too far off from a woman character fitting the first pattern you describe there, and Maggie Madsen is sorta the opposite (though neither is fully explored, as the masculinity themes still dominate all five films). To quote from earlier in the thread (emphasis mine): SuperMechagodzilla posted:There's some important tension between form and content to factor in, I think. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 13, 2014 |
# ? Jul 13, 2014 21:30 |
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Michael Bay on Armageddon:Michael Bay posted:It's supposed to be a joke. It's about making fun of the system. Oh my god.
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# ? Jul 13, 2014 21:37 |
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Lord Krangdar posted:The stories of those Dead films are not consecutive, though, right? Yeah, they share none of the same characters. Probably what I like about them is that there is no chronology or continuity at all.
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# ? Jul 13, 2014 21:40 |
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Is Michael Bay carrying the spirit of Verhoven? Is Transformers akin to Robot op or Starship Troopers as misunderstood initially at large only to be appreciated later? He needs to direct Arnold. I can't imagine the carnage and themes explored.
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# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:22 |
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I think Bay has a much more ambivalent relationship to his subject matter than Verhoeven does. Starship Troopers is a film relentlessly mocking fascism because Verhoeven hates fascism with all his heart and humor is the most effective and disarming weapon he could use against it. Bay's more like Zack Snyder, or Hideaki Anno -- he recognizes flaws in something he loves and is willing to explore those flaws even if the results are kind of damning. But he's not willing to back down from enjoying it. That's why all of those directors' work so often seems contradictory, or even hypocritical. It's about self-aware entanglement, not ironic distance.
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# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:37 |
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I haven't seen Pain and Gain yet but The Rock is a perfect example of this. It's about Nicholas Cage transforming from a nerdy chemist into a literal action hero, which is presented as good and correct and saves his life and that of thousands of people, but at the same time his role model is a bitter old man who destroyed his own family and spent most of his life in prison -- played by an actor who famously portrayed James Bond. And then the villains are former Marines led by a frustrated, impotent father figure. There are two ways to look at this -- the charitable one, where you might say that it's about threading the eye of the needle and finding a form of masculinity that's righteous and protective and all the other good traits associated with maleness without the bad ones just as openly on display, or the uncharitable one where you argue that the movie just wants to revel in explosions and one-liners and killing bad people because they're bad while somehow absolving itself of the toxicity it knows is present in that narrative. (To be clear, in the case of The Rock I'd definitely say it's the former. Transformers is harder to parse, though.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Jul 14, 2014 |
# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:55 |
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JediTalentAgent posted:Maybe the Autobots are 'modern' good guys. Close enough?
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 00:03 |
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Regardless of your opinion of Bay, The Rock has one of the better written/directed openings of any movie. In 3 minutes bay introduces the villains and tells you exactly why he's doing what he's going to do while the credits are still rolling and in 3 more minutes it introduces the threat and how deadly it is.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 00:42 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think Bay has a much more ambivalent relationship to his subject matter than Verhoeven does. Starship Troopers is a film relentlessly mocking fascism because Verhoeven hates fascism with all his heart and humor is the most effective and disarming weapon he could use against it. I don't really disagree with what you're saying, but I still want to note the difference betwen loving watching or filming something as fiction and just straight-up loving it. Like David Lynch loves making films about "women in trouble", doesn't mean he's actually pro- women in trouble, right? I'd like to think we all understand that difference, but then you get Film Critic Hulk writing a recent article unironically calling Bay a sociopath because of what he depicts in his movies. But yeah, the way I see these films is not far off from Starship Troopers as satire, yet Bay himself is not really comparable to Verhoeven. Verhoeven approached Starship Troopers as a satire all along and will say so outright, there's really no ambiguity there. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jul 14, 2014 |
# ? Jul 14, 2014 00:45 |
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Neurolimal posted:I actually skipped the first 30 or so pages of the thread because I wanted to talk about my experience watching Transformers 4. Sorry if this really bothers you, I'm sure she put plenty of effort into it and is probably an engaging read for people who enjoy that interpretation. Maybe if I had actually enjoyed this film I'd even go read it myself, but I didn't, so I wont. Great move there buddy. Lord Krangdar posted:But yeah, the way I see these films is not far off from Starship Troopers as satire, yet Bay himself is not really comparable to Verhoeven. Verhoeven approached Starship Troopers as a satire all along and will say so outright, there's really no ambiguity there.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 02:39 |
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Arquinsiel posted:"I am posting in a thread about a person's opinion on a franchise and do not want to read that thread. Here is why that opinion is wrong". Starship Troopers is not the source material for Starship Troopers.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 02:41 |
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According to Wikipedia Verhoeven never even read the full novel. And yeah, his film was mostly just named after the book after the script had already been written.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 02:43 |
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Also the book isn't a satire of anything; according to Heinlein's own statements he wrote the book to defend his political views and drum up support for the United States' nuclear weapons testing program.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 02:45 |
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^^^^ Have you a link to that? I've never come across it before and would be interested to see what he says about it. DoctorWhat posted:Starship Troopers is not the source material for Starship Troopers.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 02:50 |
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According to Ed Neumeier, he started writing Starship Troopers as an entirely new franchise that was to be just a dumb summer movie, in contrast to the satyrical RoboCop, but partway through a friend told him his premise was similar to a novel and he might be wary of copyright issues. So Ed Neumeier purchased rights to ST for a fairly low price just to cover his rear end, and started skimming through to lift names here and there. Along the way he realized, "my god the politics of this story are atrocious. I have to destroy this." And thus, he reworked his screenplay into the film we have today. And yeah, neither he or Verhoeven read the entire novel. However, their opinion of what they did read was quit low.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 03:42 |
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Is there a thread for talking about this dumb movie and the robots fighting, or is this the only one where we discuss Bay's intentions when that guy was under the enemy's scrotum in the second movie.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 16:28 |
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henpod posted:Is there a thread for talking about this dumb movie and the robots fighting, or is this the only one where we discuss Bay's intentions when that guy was under the enemy's scrotum in the second movie. This thread was about Terry finishing her write up of the first three movies, so the latter I guess.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 16:33 |
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Arquinsiel posted:^^^^ Should be in one of the essays in The New Worlds of Robert Heinlein: Expanded Universe.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 16:37 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Should be in one of the essays in The New Worlds of Robert Heinlein: Expanded Universe.
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# ? Jul 14, 2014 16:39 |
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henpod posted:Is there a thread for talking about this dumb movie and the robots fighting, or is this the only one where we discuss Bay's intentions when that guy was under the enemy's scrotum in the second movie. This is the only Transformers thread active in CD, the only other one is the BSS Transformers thread and maybe another one but it's in GBS (I haven't checked).
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# ? Jul 15, 2014 01:51 |
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The movies are definitely having an impact on the new market Qingdao hoarder spends [$32,000] on Transformers collection
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 03:03 |
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Bloodnose posted:The movies are definitely having an impact on the new market Dudes been working on this for more than a decade, I don't know if the movies had anything to do with it. It probably will has some effect on new people starting collections though.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 03:27 |
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Huh I guess yeah. Wikipedia says the first movie was only in 2007. Feels like it was so much longer ago than that.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 05:42 |
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Bloodnose posted:The movies are definitely having an impact on the new market It's distressing how many of those figures in the blurry distance I can instantly recognize, wow.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 05:44 |
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JediTalentAgent posted:Maybe the Autobots are 'modern' good guys. Man, that's just sad. Seeing heroes from a show I loved as a kid, who were fairly noble and good characters, turned into evil joke characters.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 05:48 |
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Dystram posted:Man, that's just sad. Seeing heroes from a show I loved as a kid, who were fairly noble and good characters, turned into evil joke characters. Yes, quite noble.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 06:11 |
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computer parts posted:Yes, quite noble. A reminder that the late Casey Kasem quit Transformers because of this.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 06:17 |
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But would people consider that a good example of the spirit of the old Transformers cartoon as a whole, or an uncommon bad creative misstep? Maybe it's just me, but it feels almost like the latter, while the Bay films sort of revel in their mean-spiritedness as a whole.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 06:26 |
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JediTalentAgent posted:the Bay films sort of revel in their mean-spiritedness as a whole. "I wanted to rub the human face in its own vomit and force it to look in the mirror." - J.G. Ballard (on writing his novel Crash)
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 06:38 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think Bay has a much more ambivalent relationship to his subject matter than Verhoeven does. Starship Troopers is a film relentlessly mocking fascism because Verhoeven hates fascism with all his heart and humor is the most effective and disarming weapon he could use against it. I think the pointless destruction of the grain elevator is key. Bay loves farmers, pickup trucks, men who work hard to feed the world, etc. But, of course, Cade is not a farmer. He dresses as a farmer, but he simply is not. He repairs old garbage 8-track players, and hopes to become the next Steve Jobs. The obsolescence theme is undeniable. Optimus fears becoming obsolete. Bumblebee fears becoming obsolete. Cade fears becoming obsolete. On top of the scene with 8-track player, you have the old projector and the bullshit about how digital IMAX 3D is superior/inferior to how things were in 'the good ol' days'. There are numerous jokes about how young people hate the elderly (see the otherwise throwaway scene where the Chinese grandmas block a hallway). The main theme is dinosaurs dying out, or making one last stand, etc. etc. The gag with the Beats By Dre pill is instantly dated. It's destined to be tossed aside by some kid who doesn't even know what it is, with an exaggerated shattering noise. In contrast to all this, being a farmer is no fad. It's eternal, and universal. That, I believe, is what Bay truly respects. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Jul 17, 2014 |
# ? Jul 17, 2014 09:28 |
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DoctorWhat posted:It's distressing how many of those figures in the blurry distance I can instantly recognize, wow. Which Optimus and Megatron is that in the bottom pictures? Those look super accurate aside from the masterpiece series to the old show.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 15:05 |
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They made a new smaller masterpiece optimus, that's probably him The Megatron is a third party figure. As is the ultra magnus on the other side of the pic (That was, incidentially, the third party figure to my knowledge)
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 15:10 |
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Bloodnose posted:The movies are definitely having an impact on the new market His girlfriend is quietly having the spirit sucked out of her body as she contemplates the future. Maybe they're married. It is too late. Doomed.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 15:53 |
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The article indeed refers to her as his wife. She's in it for the long haul. With the entire first generation cast of Transformers.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 15:56 |
I actually ended up picking up the Voyager Optimus figure and it owns bones. It's roughly in-scale to the DOTM Voyager Megatron in robot form.
VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 16:13 |
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quote:"I am posting in a thread about a person's opinion on a franchise and do not want to read that thread. Here is why that opinion is wrong". Bloodnose posted:The movies are definitely having an impact on the new market I wonder if he has any of the crazy expensive Fansproject kits that make some of the dinkier toys look way more badass: This was like, $100 dollars when it came out (probably more expensive now, since it's a niche fan store for a hobby known for crazy scalpers), split between two $50 upgrade packs, not counting the base robot as well.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 16:25 |
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Neurolimal posted:I'm kind of curious why you chose to move part of my last response to the first response like that, and also why you skimmed over the response where I admitted that it's a bit harsh of me to do this, but am doing so because there isn't another CineD transformers thread. I'l be generous and assume a lack of reading comprehension. Well I can see numerous third-party figures in there, including City Commander and Hedgemon, so probably!
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 17:13 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 16:55 |
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Neurolimal posted:I'm kind of curious why you chose to move part of my last response to the first response like that, and also why you skimmed over the response where I admitted that it's a bit harsh of me to do this, but am doing so because there isn't another CineD transformers thread. I'l be generous and assume a lack of reading comprehension.
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# ? Jul 17, 2014 17:27 |