Hewkii Inika

........because honestly, who after a hundred years of being in a cryosleep frozen coma, wakes up saying "I am Megatron!!!"? Really, why are they fighting this guy?! He's greeting all the new faces he sees, he's not being antagonizing at all! In all seriousness, it's not awesome because of the corniness of the line, and the hamminess of the way Hugo Weaving delivered it. And it was trying TOO hard to be awesome, but as I said in my previous blog, I can't take a PG-13 movie seriously when all of its other incarnations have been for little kids, and it shows in the way its presented.

Please elaborate, Janus. I explained why I thought Transformers' graphics were somewhat good at best and mediocre at worst, so I'm curious to see your point of view on it.

No, but cartoony doesn't either. Thanks, Admiral Alex Humva.

This article has absolutely nothing to do with the overall quality of the films. That was already discussed in my previous blog entry. Although there is ONE thing I'd like to add to it, though: people have been repeatedly telling me that it's a movie about giant robots based off a toy series, so therefore I shouldn't expect much. While that is true, that is also no excuse for the quality of a film. The Dark Knight, for instance, is about a guy in a cape and a batsuit with a clown as a nemesis. Sounds pretty much just as silly as giant robots to me, but Dark Knight was still a masterpiece. So saying I shouldn't be expecting any less from Transformers because of its corny concept is not a valid argument, and from what everyone was telling me about the Transformers movies, I pretty much expected another Dark Knight when I first saw them. Boy, was I disappointed. Anyways, that's not the main point of this article. The point I'd like to discuss is one of the most overrated aspects of the Transformers movies: the graphics. Before I saw the first movie, I kept hearing many, MANY people say how the graphics of Transformers looked so realistic it was like they actually had the robots on the set with the actors. And when there was a MAJOR ruckus after it lost the Academy Award to Golden Compass for visual effects, I was pretty much expecting the best graphics ever. All the hype about how realistic these robots looked, plus each one having about 10,000 CGI pieces each that all shape and reconfigure when they transform, just kind of built up my expectations. The result? While the graphics of Transformers aren't BAD, and in fact sometimes rather impressive, all those robots are still obviously CGI in my opinion. Their proportions are too cartoony for them to look at all realistic, and sometimes they're too colorful, thus they don't really blend in the drab, realistic environments very well. Their transformation animations were sometimes rather neat to look at, but when they were in their homonoid forms, their animations were often somewhat stiff and sometimes very jerky. The prime (pun not intended) examples of this are when Optimus Prime and the Fallen duke it out at the end of Revenge of the Fallen, especially during the moments leading up to the now classic internet meme line, "Give me your face". It looked so fake my eyes nearly bled. The forest scene in Revenge of the Fallen was also rather jarring. The real trees and grass doesn't really mix well with the bright, colorful, and very jerkily animated robots. Another example of when the graphics were too cartoony and too fake-looking to be realistic was in the first movie when Optimus Prime and Megatron fell down that giant building after Optimus caught Sam and said "Hold on to the cube!" I would be fine with this, and probably wouldn't write a rant about it, if everyone had acknowledged the graphics were, at best, about as good as every other summer blockbuster out there, and certainly not anything special. But no. Presumably the Transformers fans all went nuts saying how these robots looked SO FREAKIN' REAL, and how they would sweep away the Oscars when it came to visual effects. I kept hearing people say how they felt like they could touch those robots, how the actors were safe with all the robots, and where they got the money to build highly-realistic robots to act along with the actors. I even heard rumors about how Devestator melted an ILM computer when rendering it in the second one. Look, the rendering of a model, no matter how complex it is, doesn't melt a computer. The thing that melts a computer is overheating, and pretty much all rendering goes at the same consistent speed, no matter how complicated or intricate it is. It might take much longer to do it, but it wouldn't overheat a computer to the point where it'd melt. If it did actually melt, it's the poor quality of the computer rather than the complexity of the graphics. As for why Transformers lost to Golden Compass for the Visual Effects award, I think it's because of the way each movie presented their graphics. Both were about the same quality when it came to visual effects. But Transformers took its CGI quality and shoved it in our faces, with panoramic, in-your-face shots of them transforming in long, complex shots showing all the intricate detail. Golden Compass, you see, didn't try so hard to show off its graphics: instead, it kinda just flowed it with everything else, and SHOWED us how complex and realistic it looked rather than TELLING us by shoving it up our tails. Imagine it like this: what if you're grading a first-grade science project, and the two top students have equally good projects and good experiments. But while one of them is loud and obnoxious about how great his project was, another simply just showed us how great it was, and let it speak for itself, and kinda just went along with it. Really, which one would you pick for the winner? That's all I've got. Again, this is all opinion, but I kinda had to let it out after seeing across the internet so many complains about how the Academy Awards snubbed Transformers. To be honest, with its incredibly poor critical reception and being EVEN MORE obnoxious about its graphics, I'd be surprised if Revenge of the Fallen even gets nominated.

Oh, that's the only possible way I can't like this movie, right? Never mind opinion or my preferences in plot quality over explosion quantity, I'm just looking at it wrong! Ah, that makes sense! If I looked at it the way I'm supposed to, I would LOVE this movie like it was the greatest piece of art since the Mona Lisa! That makes perfect sense! Heavy sarcasm aside, can't you just accept the fact I don't like something you like and move on? You could argue the same thing about me, and why I would post this at all, but remember, it's not like I just posted it for no reason, I was pressured beyond belief about how wrong I was that I didn't worship this movie like everyone else, thus I wrote it in my defense.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

Jeez, you don't have to take my opinion so seriously. Sure, it's about alien robots and hot chicks and explosions. But the way I looked at it, they were REALLY trying to make it epic. And looking at comments of a lot of other people about this movie, I hear things like "it was the most epic movie EVER!" or "It has to be two hours long, it's more epic that way." So they seem to think it's epic, and that's who I'm directing this too. And I highly doubt they used real human blood for the movie. There are makeup artists for a reason.

You know, it's funny you're trying to convince me that there isn't a lot of CGI, or at least not the main focus, in the Transformers movies by saying "oh, the only thing that's CGI in it are the Transformers themselves". Dude, they're the ENTIRE FOCUS OF THE MOVIE. It's like trying to convince a vegetarian to eat a hamburger by saying the only part that's meat is the actual burger. Doesn't work.

True. I'm not forcing people to hate these movies. I just wanted a safe place to show my views of them without being flamed endlessly and cluttering other topics.

Hey, I had fun writing this. I'm a writer. More writing for a writer is always appreciated. And 5 pages is NOTHING compared to what I should've done. Oh, and WCX, you're right, and that's exactly the problem. People are enjoying it for all the wrong reasons. That's not really the sign of something good, IMO.

If that made any sense at all, I might make a witty retort.

Well, after many arguments with persistant fans, I've decided to not clog up their topics and instead post the way I feel about Transformers in this blog entry. So here you go. The 2007 Transformers movie and its 2009 sequel are just further proof that the quality level of modern cinema has lowered drastically. They're nothing more than special effects showcases (I don't even think the CGI is that good, but that's another story) that rely on explosions and hot girls to attract teenage boys. They're incredibly corny, they take themselves far too seriously, and they masquerade themselves with powerful music, slow-mo shots and overly long running times as something far more epic than they should be. They have weak main plots, so they have to rely on pointless subplots and excessive build-up to make themselves 150 minutes long, because apparently 90 minutes (which is a more appropriate length for movies like this) just isn't epic enough. They also apparently forgot they're adaptations of children's cartoons and toys, because they also have random and completely unnecessary sexual humor and language (Revenge of the Fallen had six, count 'em, SIX implied uses of a certain curse word that has no place in any movie, let alone a movie like this). I'll explain all these points in turn, and back up my points with truthful evidence so people don't just think I'm a troll. This is gonna be a LONG blog post. I said at the beginning of the second paragraph that these movies are proof of the decaying quality of cinema. Remember back in the 70s, 80s, heck, even the early 90s, where directors didn't have CGI to do everything for them and had to rely on other methods that required brains? I remember watching a documentry devoted entirely to how Steven Spielberg did the famous melting faces scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He said that modern directors (such as Michael Bay) are lucky, and had CGI to do this kind of stuff for them, while older directors had to figure out other ways to do effects like that. They put a LOT of work in a five-second shot of their heads either shrinking, melting, or exploding, and it was chilling. When I first watched Raiders of the Lost Ark (I was about 13, I saw it late), no one ever told me about that scene, so I had NO warning. Obviously I could barely sleep that night. It was that well-done. Movies like Transformers rely ENTIRELY on CGI and nothing else, and since CGI is so easy and so easily marketable, they don't have to have a good story or well-developed characters. One could say that there have always been movies like this, that rely on special effects and nothing more. But you know what? They're not the ones that are remembered. There was an old Disney live-action movie called the Black Hole, which had very sophiscated special effects for its time, and was very intense (in fact, it was the first PG-rated Disney movie ever). But it had a pretty weak plot, so of course, no one remembers it now. I'm sure you've never heard of it before you read this. Now, there are exceptions, such as Close Encounters of a Third Kind, which rely on special effects and have weak plots. But there's one reason that movie's remembered: Steven Spielberg, perhaps the best director of all cinema history, was at the helm. It didn't have a good plot, yes, but the rest of it was so well done you forget about that. Transformers isn't the same way. Michael Bay can do two things pretty well: special effects and camera shots. This was evident in his earlier movie, Pearl Harbor. It had a weak plot and weak characters, and was overall not that great of a movie, but DANG, it had some good special effects, and some of its cinematography of the WWII planes coming down was so good that even George Lucas admitted watching it for inspiration of the opening space battle in Episode III. Transformers does those two things pretty well as well, but the rest of the movie, including the plot, is so poorly done that I guarantee you twenty or thirty years from now people will forget these films ever existed. The characters, especially the Autobots, are all alike, and I nearly turned off the first movie the first time I watched it during the climax, because quite frankly, I didn't care one bit about what was happening and who would win. The Revenge of the Fallen climax is much the same way, only about twice the length and twice as repetitive. Explosions and hot girls was my second point. That's another thing that Transformers relies on to market to teenage boys. Revenge of the Fallen actually set a record for the most explosions with the actors on set. You can tell with its climax. It was like they tried to hide the fact that there was absolutely no plot behind countless huge explosions. Call me crazy, after all I am a teenage boy myself, but I do like more than explosions and hot girls. I'd like a plot behind those explosions and giant robots beating the crud out of each other. And Megan Fox may be cute, but they used her as a freakin' marketing tool. That's just sexist. I lost count how many times the camera panned around her, ogling her looks, in Revenge of the Fallen. Sort of like how the camera pans around the giant robots when they transform. That reminds me, I read a hilarious review of Revenge of the Fallen where they said there was a whole cast of robots in the movie, like Optimus Prime, Megatron, Jetfire, Megan Fox, etc. I laughed out loud, because it's true. The gal cannot act. Another point about this is something that just baffles me. You'd think the explosions, giant robots, and the hot girls would just appeal to teenage boys, right? I saw the lines of people waiting to see Revenge of the Fallen in theaters, and it was EVERYBODY. Boys, girls, kids, adults, you name it. I don't get it. I guess people just want explosions and giant robots and no plot, even girls. That completely destroys the ideas I had of what girls like in movies. Might have to remember that when I go on a date... Now, them being corny, taking themselves far too seriously, and masquerading (I love that word) themselves as something more epic, all these points go hand and hand. To show my point better, I'll start this argument by saying I have no problems with the Transformers franchise as a whole. It's just the new movies I don't care for. The reason why is that the old cartoons knew exactly what they were: things for kids. That's how Transformers started: Hasbro wanted something that would appeal to children. I'm sure that in the early 80s when Transformers started, they had no intentions of turning them into "epic" PG-13 summer blockbusters. And thus, they built on it being appealing to children, with giant robots turning into various vehicles, corny plots, names like Allspark, Megatron, Autobots, and so on. None of that stuff really works for anyone older than eight or ten. Then sometime in 2005 or whenever production of the new movie started, someone decided that it would work for people older than ten. It doesn't. I watch these movies, and I laugh at times that are supposed to be serious, simply because I just can't take these things seriously. A bunch of robots that turn into cars and trucks? A villian named Megatron? A cube that turns machines into more giant robots? An alien robot who wants to destroy the sun? Call me crazy for thinking that doesn't work for a PG-13 movie. The filmmakers obviously think it does, and they obviously think slow-mo shows with the sun blaring in the camera and epic music work for something like Transformers. For someone with maturity higher than a ten year old, it doesn't. The climax of Revenge of the Fallen particularly comes to mind. They tried so freakin' hard for it to be cool, but it simply drowned itself with its repetitivity. There's only so much you can do with giant robots and explosions, so it's just forty minutes of the same type of action, over and over again. I was ready for the climax to be over when it was less than halfway through. And that brings up the next point: the movies' lengths. This is something even fans of the movie have sometimes complained about. 150 minutes is just too darn long for a movie about giant robots and explosions. But apparently they need it to be that long (I guess 90 minutes or something more appropriate just isn't epic enough), so they added tons of pointless subplots, such as the Scorponok plot in the first one and that whole Alice/Pretender junk in the second. This makes me ask a simple question: Why, Mata Nui, WHY?! Long movies are long because they have to be, otherwise they drown in their length and become boring. The Lord of the Rings movies had to be long because they had so much plot to cover, and if they had stayed even more true to the books, they'd be far longer. Pirates of the Caribbean (at least the first and the second one, the third one's a different story) had a lot to cover, and most of the plotlines were necessary and added more to the story. But movies that are really long and don't have enough plot to be that length just slow way down and make the viewer feel like most of the movie could've been cut out and it wouldn't have mattered the slightest. King Kong is a non-Transformers example. It had a different problem than Transformers, in that it didn't add pointless subplots, but it did drag out everything to make itself three hours. That made the beginning and the ending rather slow and boring, although the middle part is really good and fast-paced, so that almost makes up for it. Transformers, the entire movies feel long and dragged out, and filled with pointless subplots, presumably because they didn't have enough plot to work with. Yet they somehow felt the need to make the movies at least 150 minutes long. WHY?!?! There ARE good movies out there that around 100 minutes long or less. Most of the Pixar movies, which are generally regarded as masterpieces, are around that length (with the exceptions of Cars and Ratatouille). And not just kids' movies. 10,000 BC, the first Spider-Man, the Mummy movies, Poseidon, and other PG-13 action movies are each less than 2 hours long if you don't count the credits. And with the exception of Poseidon, they all did pretty well (or amazing the case of Spider-Man) at the box office. So you CAN make good movies without making them super-long. But Trasnformers is still 150 minutes long, and what a long 150 minutes it is. But I guess we can expect that from Michael Bay, whose earlier movie, Pearl Harbor, was 183 minutes of long, drawn out scenes and weak subplots. And my final point is the fact it’s forgotten what it originally was: a franchise for people 10 and younger. Now, I’ve seen two types of fans of the new Transformers movies. The first type I call the Epic-ers, who say that the new movies are so gosh-darn epic and so gosh-darn amazing, and deserve to be with movies like the Dark Knight, the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and even the Godfather in terms of greatness. And the other type I call the Cheesers, who say that the new movies are cheesy and dumb, but that’s the beauty of it, and believe they’re not supposed to be great or epic, just two and half hours of mindless fun. However, the Epic-ers and the Cheesers are both wrong. The Epic-ers are wrong because, well, just look at the concept: giant robots named Megatron, Bumblebee, and other dumb names, and lots of explosions. Doesn't sound epic to me, it sounds like a mindless action flick. And the Cheesers are wrong because they seem to think the movie was MEANT to be silly and mindless. If you look at all the evidence, I really don't think that's the case. They have Michael Bay as a director, who's directed attempting-to-be-ultra-serious stuff like Pearl Harbor and the Island, and two screenwriters who've written things like Alias, an early draft of Watchman, and even the new Star Trek movie. Heck, the second movie brought in an additional screenwriter, who’s written things like the Ring, Blood and Chocolate, Brothers Grimm, and Scream. We're any of those attempting to be mindless and silly? No, they were trying to be ultra-serious. And that's what they were trying to do with the Transformers movies: make them ultra-serious and epic. That's the biggest flaw of the Cheesers: they can't see what the movie was trying to be. But you see, it isn't silly NOR is it epic, mainly because it tries to be both. The new Transformers movies have severe cases of mood whiplash. At one point, there’s an “epic” battle going on between the army and a race of robot aliens, and at another point, it’s some geeky guy dealing with hundreds upon hundreds of bad sexual jokes and language. Did the filmmakers really think it was necessary for that panther-like Decepticon to do that thing to Megan Fox's leg, and what's more, do it TWICE?! Did they really think it was necessary to put six unfinished F-words and a bunch of finished swear words in a movie based off a bunch of kids’ toys? Honestly. Now, mood whiplash is a problem in itself, but both of the things it whips between are definitely NOT for kids. And c’mon, people, it’s Transformers. Every incarnation of the franchise has been for kids beforehand. Every one. And suddenly they decide to make it for an older crowd. Now, I don’t usually have a problem with this if it’s done right, such as in the Dark Knight, which took the Batman story, which was previously really cheesy and corny, and made it ultra-serious. But it worked, mainly because they did it right, and also because Batman didn’t start out as something for kids, but for mainly teenagers in the comic books. Heck, I’d probably take a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle PG-13 movie more seriously than Transformers, because the turtles actually started out in very adult comic books where they swore, drank, and killed rather brutally. If you don’t believe me, look it up. Transformers didn’t do it right, because of the mood whiplash, and because it NEVER wasn’t for kids beforehand, so it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Bottom line, the new movies suck, and are completely overrated pieces of garbage, for all the reasons that I explained, and more. If you’re willing to argue with me about any of this, shoot me a PM. I’m always welcome for a debate.

Jim Cummings can also have a very menacing voice, just look at him as Cortez in the Road to El Dorado.

Okay, my old blog was garbage, so I'm completely redoing it. I've got a better idea of what I want to do now, instead of doing pointless gibberish. So, where to start? Well, I'm Hewkii Inika, and I'm a writer. Really. I finished a trilogy that, combined, is almost half a million words. That's about the same length as Harry Potter 1, 2, and 3 combined, if not a bit longer. So I'm pretty proud. For the past few months, though, I've been debating on what to write next. I have an idea about three space probes from Earth going to Mars sometime in, say, the 2020s, searching for signs of life. Not only do they find life, but they find that the surface of Mars is dominated by red rock-like creatures (so we can't see them from space, and they hide from our earlier robots we sent there), and the other type of Martians live underground, and the rock-like creatures use them as slaves to build an empire. Despite not being built to do such a grand task, the three space probes (scientists gave them a personality similar to a teenager, so they could make their own decisions) decide to help crush the rock-creature empire and set the slave Martians free. I have ideas for almost thirty Martian creatures, so I've got it pretty planned out. Sound any good? As for my game-developing life, I'm working on an RTS engine and perhaps redoing the Kolhii game, making it a much bigger game. That's pretty much it, though. So, that's my first entry to my new blog. So long, everyone.

Funny! You need to try to see if she likes goldfish. Maybe next time I come over, I'll bring some Goldfish over.