Click to embiggen.

(Please excuse the shoddy workmanship. I spent FOREVER trying to get the Transformer bits to "bulge" out of the jacket, ultimately painting it all by hand with my trackball. Robot bulgy bits are HARD. By the time I got it halfway bulgy I just didn't have the heart anymore for the boring "make it not look like ass" part. I'm pretty pleased with how I was able to "pose" Optimus, but saddened that you can't really tell after I covered him all up and painted all over him. Optimus source. Optimus re-posed.)

Transformers was AWESOME. My treehouse has long been adorned with a "He-Man Michael Bay Haters Club" banner, and I was one of the many naysayers the past year saying how lame it was going to be. Luckily I realized not long ago that it'd be pretty hard even for Michael Bay to ruin a story about a boy and his car saving the world, and that my feelings towards him really shouldn't affect my enjoyment of this movie. It didn't.

Some highlights:

• Hearing Peter Cullen's fantastic voice coming out of Optimus Prime one more time was awesome. I was worried it'd be Bruce Willis or Tom Hanks or something. Score one for "if it ain't broke."
• Bonecrusher skating down the freeway after Optimus Prime like an Olympic speed skater (I used to be a rink rat, and must say that the body language and motion was perfect.)
• The REAL Bumblebee parked next to the new Camaro "Bumblebee 2.0"
• The Camaro severely smashing the bug as a big F U to vee double-u
• Hulk Hogan as Megatron. "Give me The Spark, brother!" (ok, not really. It sure SOUNDED like him though... I had to suppress a giggle every time he was on screen)
• The gag with Bumblebee's broken voice modulator kept getting more endearing rather than cliche
• Autobots debating eliminating the parents due to sheer irritation was pretty good, as was the whole "hiding the robots from the parents" sequence. This is interesting to me because had you asked prior to me seeing it, I would have listed this as something I'd deem "stupid." My preconceived ideas apparently get the better of me more than I know.

Some lowlights:

• Frank Welker was sorely missed. Hugo Weaving is a great voice actor, but in future, please refer to "if it ain't broke."
• D pointed out the mother of-all-plot-holes: that everything after the first act was unnecessary due to the fact that the Decepticons could have just bought the glasses off eBay in the first place, saving all that hassle of chasing things, blowing things up, etc. Though, I suppose then there'd be a bidding war with the Autobots, who clearly must've been aware of the eBay situation as well, having sent Bumblebee to protect Sam in the first place.
• The big city battle was pretty mind-bending. I couldn't keep track of anything. What did Megatron transform into?
• Just what the crap was the POINT of the whole Aussie hacker / videogame nerd storyline? That could have been excised and no one would even have noticed. One unbelievably hot chick is enough for a movie, right?
• Why the crap do the Autobots look all beat up with missing paint and blast marks, only to transform into perfectly spotless vehicles? This makes no sense.

All in all, this is one of the best "Giant robots kick the scrap out of each other / Boy and his car save the world" movies I've ever seen. I could have done without all the backstory and mythology, though, as well as the hot Aussie hacker and her DDR-playing friend -- but those things couldn't sway my opinion either. My childhood was not raped, and I found it to be a very enjoyable movie.

[still typing with only one hand, please forgive the mess]

last week, a trailer appeared on the internet, giving us the first look at some of Optimus Prime's facial animation from Michael Bay's upcoming fanboy opus.

as predicted, all the fanboys have gone nuts over it. ""he has /lips/?? gay," was the collective scream of the blogosphere.

also as predicted, Paramount made everyone take down the video.

also as predicted, Michael Bay has released a statement saying that wasn't real movie footage, that the footage in qestion was an early animation test that some "foreign trailer editor" spliced in. shades of Hulk all over again.

if you havent seen the footage, i've presented it here in reduced-framerate animated gif format:

already Bay and Paramount have taken action reworking animation footage in response to the outrage on the internet.

i have managed to dig up a still of the new changes the've made, and the results are pretty drastic. in order to avoid the wrath of Michael Bay, i'm only going to link to it, but here you go:

as i'm sure you'll agree, this new change has a much less "cartoony/videogame" feel to it, and will surely be loved among the fans.

If you grew up on the 80's and/or have any kind of fondness in your heart for either Star Wars or Transformers, I'd strongly urge you to just go ahead and quit reading right now. What I'm about to show you, courtesy of my action figure collection, is quite possibly the wrongest toy in existence. I'm not kidding: I can't think of anything more wrong.

The following images may disturb sensitive eyes; viewer discretion is advised.

Click for full size

Click for full size

Click for full size

Click for full size

Click for full size

I wish I was kidding. The Millenium Falcon, complete with tiny Han and Chewie figures, transforms into a giant Chewbaca robot and giant Han Solo robot.

"Transforms into a giant Chewbaca robot" is one of those phrases I could have gone my whole life without saying, but no, Hasbro has forced me to do it. I've had this thing sitting since Christmas, debating whether or not to share it with the world, but decided that I simply had to.

Anguished cries about murdered childhoods ought to be directed to Hasbro, not to me. I'm just the messenger. The very perturbed messenger.