Growing Up Transformers
In my review for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen I wrote:
Growing up, I was fascinated by machinery and form. As a young boy, like most boys, I really liked trucks and construction. Monster trucks, bulldozers and heavy farm equipment fascinated me, and I always loved cartoons and characters. When the two met, and I saw a tractor-trailer semi transform into a robot, that was it. Ever since, I’ve been collecting Transformers toys — I have ones that I received as gifts when I was four — and I still look forward to the new figures coming out now. I’m sure a therapist could explain the true, and possibly disturbed, reasons I hold onto and collect these toys, but for me, it reminds me that no matter how old I get, I never have to really grow up.
I thought I’d write a quick post to show you a what I was talking about. Here are a couple photos from when I was young. The first one is above, the other below the jump.
In the first one, I’m probably around five years old, maybe six considering the room I’m in, and you can see I have a few Autobots. This is how the madness started.
The second one is a photo I found while looking for the first one. I’m probably around three in this one and I wanted to share it just in case you couldn’t picture me rollin’. Continued »
Transformers 2 Review: Face-Ripping Robot Action!
I have an undying love for all things Transformers. As I’m writing this, hundreds of figures adorn shelves in my office, Generation 1 DVD sets sit on my bookshelf, the animated movie poster hangs over my desk, and Optimus Prime and Megtron leer at me from the sides of my monitor. I love these things. I can’t say exactly what it is that makes Transformers so significant to me. I know that besides my Care Bear (Cheer Bear specifically), Transformers are the first toy I can remember being excited to play with. Like all children growing up in the 80s, I had Dukes of Hazzard toys, Ninja Turtle figures and LEGOs, but was something about these shape-shifting aliens that I enjoyed more than any other toys. I even made my own Transformers out of LEGOs!
Growing up, I was fascinated by machinery and form. As a young boy, like most boys, I really liked trucks and construction. Monster trucks, bulldozers and heavy farm equipment fascinated me, and I always loved cartoons and characters. When the two met, and I saw a tractor-trailer semi transform into a robot, that was it. Ever since, I’ve been collecting Transformers toys — I have ones that I received as gifts when I was four — and I still look forward to the new figures coming out now. I’m sure a therapist could explain the true, and possibly disturbed, reasons I hold onto and collect these toys, but for me, it reminds me that no matter how old I get, I never have to really grow up.
Okay, enough about me. I just wanted to warn you the the so-called “review” below might not be totally subjective.
Fallen News: Excerpts Of Excerpts
The Transformers Live Action Movie Blog posted some excerpts from two articles posted by USA Today and Yahoo! Movies about some of the major characters in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. Things are going to start picking up news-wise since we’re now under the “three-month till release date” mark.
Here is an excerpt of some of the news:
Ravage and Soundwave
“In the spirit of ‘more than meets the eye,’ Ravage isn’t just lethal because of his sharp teeth,” says screenwriter Alex Kurtzman. “There’s actually another skill set Ravage has that didn’t exist before, so there’s going to be a surprise for fans.” …his role will be similar to the 1980s cartoon and Hasbro toy — the ultimate spy.Ravage doesn’t turn into anything. But Soundwave will appear, again serving as an evil communications expert but this time in the form of an orbiting space satellite.
And Ravage, as before, won’t speak like the other Transformers. “We wanted to stay true to the idea that Decepticons who take visual clues from beasts maintain that,” says Orci. “It would be strange to have a talking jaguar, or a scorpion with an English accent.”
Insecticons
“We have big guys, some little guys. We have a lot of littler ones, too. Little weirder ones,” Bay says. Like the Insecticons, which were giant bugs in the original series and Hasbro toy line, but are now tiny creepy-crawly infiltrators.Jetfire
As in the original, this fighter plane crash-landed on Earth a long time ago, and he will become a reformed Decepticon now fighting for the humans. His alternate form is the SR-71 Blackbird, the outdated but still-sleek Cold War spy plane.“He’s old, craggy, forgetful … doesn’t work very well. Can’t transform very well, because he’s very geriatric. They get stuck with him a lot,” Bay says. “He knows the plan of the bad guys, but he forgets all the good parts of the plan.”
The Twins
“Some of the junior Transformers are just dumb,” Bay says with a laugh. “But it’s great for kids because they’re like the Little Engine That Could. They’re (screw)-ups, but they get really heroic at the end.”Arcee
Arcee is the only female and turns up as Megan Fox’s hot-pink motorcycle. Co-screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci say she was in an early draft of the first movie. “But we felt we needed to win the audience over before asking for that suspension of disbelief: a feminine alien robot,” Kurtzman says.The Fallen
The Fallen is an ancient robot, sort of the Transformers’ version of Lucifer. He’s one of the original robot aliens, and his defiance and arrogance led to his banishment into another dimension. The screenwriters say that The Fallen holds the key to life on both Earth and Cybertron, the Transformers’ home planet.The Doctor
A smaller, but no less malevolent Decepticon is known as The Doctor — a spider-like droid that transforms into various implements of torture and has a not-so-nice encounter with star Shia LaBeouf.Devastator
These seven robots — Scavenger, Scrapper, Hightower, Longhaul, Rampage, Overload and Mixmaster — transform into construction machinery, but also link up with one another to form one gigantic robot stomper named Devastator.
Soundwave, Ravage and Devastator interest me the most. The first two because I really think they’re going about the way they look and act in the right way, and Devastator just sounds bad ass. I’m curious to see how Demolisher (the huge, wheeled guy from the Super Bowl trailer) is not part of Devastator. Also, I think “The Doctor” is going to be called “Scalpel“.
Hail Him! Again!
Laura and I moved into the new place three weeks ago and we’re just now getting settled. Of course, one of the first things we did was make the trip to IKEA and buy a crapload of stuff that is absolutely necessary. Two of those things we tables that I’m using as my new desk and they completely rock. I finally have the ability to not only place my scanner and new printer — used from Jeff — near my iMac for once, but I also have room to spread out a little more. All that’s left is to build some shelving so that I can surround myself in toys while I work, and I’ll be all set.
I also received my new Wacom tablet in the mail last week, but because of the many minor projects and trips I’ve had to make for the new house, I haven’t even had time to open the box, let alone mess around with the tablet itself. I’m still working on my ideas for a Starscream mural for my room as well as compiling as large a selection of sketches that I can use to practice with the tablet. I posted a quick 20 minute sketch of another idea with this blog. He’s supposed to be flying, but I ran out of room on the paper for the air thrusts on his feet.
I listened to the podcast by Scott Kurtz of PvP today and learned a lot more than what I thought I knew about the proposed Orphan Works bills that are being talked about in the House and the Senate. I sent one of the form letters from this site to my Congressman, Senator and Governor and though I got a pretty standard response, I think by contributing this way, hopefully as a group, we can get this stopped. If you haven’t already, please use one of these form letters to let your political leaders know that you oppose the Orphan Works bills. You don’t want the creators of art to be stripped of their copyrights nor have their creations used without their permission. And if you do want that, I hope you find yourself staring into the many eyes of a Deep Crow.
All Hail…Starscream
I’m throwing around ideas for a mural I want to do in my new office. I’m thinking of a Starscream portrait or art piece, and I really want a version of “King Starscream”. Too bad he only got to be king for about three minutes of the animated movie before he was obliterated by Galvatron.
It’s hard to do sketches at work though — mostly because I rush them — and I end up with some wonky proportions and whatnot. (His legs look a little small and if I could redo that left hand about fifty times, I still don’t think I would get it the way I want.) It’s a good start though, and definitely something to throw into the practice pile for when I get my tablet.
It’s kind of scary to share these raw sketches, since I’m not used to showing anyone anything until I’m completely finished with a piece.