TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

Given my mother's militancy about violence, I still don't understand how I had an Optimus Prime action figure. Maybe my father smuggled it in to counter the Popples and My Little Pony.

Clearly it wasn't enough. 

[Syt]

Of course everyone had to die in the Transformers movie. Hasbro had its new line of toys ready to go.

Are you saying that commercial motivations cannot produce great art?  You commie.

[Ideologue]

I just think it's a mistake to overlook the creative explosion that took place within the running time of the Transformers movie just because, admittedly, it was founded upon a desire to sell toys.  The film birthed a sprawling science fantasy world for the Autobots and Decepticons; the ultimate motivations behind the creation of Unicron, the Quintessons, etc. matter little.  Everything was so cool.

I also enjoyed the irony of the TV commercial satire represented by the Junkions (on sale now at a Toys Backwards-R Us near you ).

[Razgovory]

Was never into Transformers.  I didn't know why alien robots would be built to look like cars and stuff.

[Eddie Teach]

I didn't know why alien robots would be built to look like cars and stuff.

Because it's cool. Duhhhhh.

[Ideologue]

Was never into Transformers.  I didn't know why alien robots would be built to look like cars and stuff.

They all crash-landed on Earth a long time ago, went into hibernation due to lack of energy or perhaps damage (I forget), and when they woke up they were surrounded by humans and our inventions.  Since they needed to venture out into our world in order to secure energy resources, they concealed their true nature by adopting robotic forms that had the ability to mimick our technology in form as well as function, e.g. cars, trucks, jet fighter planes, construction equipment, boomboxes, tapes that go into boom boxes, telescopes, guns, trains and space shuttles at the same time, and so forth.

[Syt]

I'm not sure what or against who you're arguing here, Ide.

Is the Transformers Movie a great cartoon flick for kids? Yes.
Is it art? Doubtful.
Can commercial (or other non-artistic) interests spawn great art? Just look at the masterpieces from the renaissance era, almost all of which were work for hire.

[fhdz]

Watching the pilot of The Killing. Really good.

[Ideologue]

I'm not sure what or against who you're arguing here, Ide.

Is the Transformers Movie a great cartoon flick for kids? Yes.
Is it art? Doubtful.
Can commercial (or other non-artistic) interests spawn great art? Just look at the masterpieces from the renaissance era, almost all of which were work for hire.

Fair enough.

Though of course it's art.  That's a semantic discussion of little merit, so I'll drop it.

However, fwiw, I think the Transformers movie is probably good entertainment for adults, too.  Other than being animated, I can't think of anything that separates it in quality from big live-action SF films made for general audiences, and many aspects that exceed them.  Its plot is definitely better constructed than Star Trek '09, for example; its storytelling is probably more mature than Avatar; it certainly beats any of the Bayformers spectacles by any artistic standard.  I mean, it's not dry, let alone highly intellectual, and certainly not sedate, but take away the context of the more juvenile show and the toys marketed to children and the film is not even obviously intended for young audience.

For one thing, like I said it's tremendously violent--and the violence ranges from the intimate (when Megatron kills Optimus), to the planetary (Unicron devouring worlds), to the institutional (the Quintesson court executing robots regardless of a guilty or innocent verdict).  They also swear a couple of times.  If it was for kids, it seems well-designed to destroy their innocence.

It's also interesting how the child character, Daniel, is used almost entirely just to present a scale by which to physically measure the Autobots; he has very little to do with the story, which is an interesting choice.  Indeed, the near-total lack of human characters is an interesting choice, and a very wise one I found, serving as a refusal to water down a story about alien robots with theoretically more relatable but in fact boring meatbags.  There's just enough to "humanize" Hot Rod and the other Autobots, and no more, because they realize that the fun parts involve the robots and their struggles.  I'm sure it's disproved by the show, which I haven't watched except in bits since I was a kid and which episodes I have seen lately really are rather terrible, but I have a theory that the Autobot-Decepticon War eradicated most humans in the twenty years between the end of the second season of the show (1985) and the timeframe of the movie (2005).  But either way, at least they're not cluttering up the frame with their frail and useless flesh.

[Kleves]

Star Trek Into Darkness. I wanted to like this, I really did, but... I didn't . Maybe I am just tired of the same recycled plot of [spoiler]an American - er Federation - military leader attacking his own country in order to start a war/increase military spending/etc. Admiral Robocop is evil because he wants to "militarize" Starfleet. And, as we know, military preparedness = fascism, and the aggressive foreign power dedicated to the eradication of all that is good and decent in the world is not a threat - the real (only?) enemy is the enemy within. What, did the Chinese underwrite this movie too?

Aside from that, it's a second-rate Wrath of  Khan with some pretty effects.[/spoiler]

[11B4V]

Given my mother's militancy about violence, I still don't understand how I had an Optimus Prime action figure. Maybe my father smuggled it in to counter the Popples and My Little Pony.

I seriously dont remember playing with action figures. I do remember I wanted that Matell Aircraft carrier that launched planes. Didnt ever get it.

[CountDeMoney]

I just think it's a mistake to overlook the creative explosion that took place within the running time of the Transformers movie just because, admittedly, it was founded upon a desire to sell toys.  The film birthed a sprawling science fantasy world for the Autobots and Decepticons; the ultimate motivations behind the creation of Unicron, the Quintessons, etc. matter little.  Everything was so cool.

It's because you're a product of your generation, which is substantially more dimwitted and subject to manipulation than previous generations;  you've been buffeted by dumbass Transformers bullshit since the moment you were born, from the cartoons of your infancy to your adolescent wet dreams starring Megan Fox.

[11B4V]

Watching re-runs of a favorite: Monk

[viper37]

[spoiler]an American - er Federation - military leader attacking his own country in order to start a war/increase military spending/etc. Admiral Robocop is evil because he wants to "militarize" Starfleet. And, as we know, military preparedness = fascism, and the aggressive foreign power dedicated to the eradication of all that is good and decent in the world is not a threat - the real (only?) enemy is the enemy within. What, did the Chinese underwrite this movie too?

Aside from that, it's a second-rate Wrath of  Khan with some pretty effects.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
I think the point is that he goes too far, not that he has a bad idea.
The aggressive foreign power is only dedicated to the eradication of all that is good and decent in the world as per the opinion of some Starfleet officers.  It was basically the plot of Star Trek VI, mixed with Star Trek II, with a good dose of a Deep Space Nine Episode about a foreign conspiracy that never existed but served to put the right people in the right place and have 2 starfleet ships duke it out in space.
Yes, C- for originality of the idea.  A+ for the execution of recycled ideas.  Green is popular, recycling is good, Hollywood likes that
[/spoiler]

[viper37]

Star Trek into darkness. Meh. Looks pretty, but the plot holes appear often and run deep. [spoiler] not really spoilers, but to avoid any possible bitching, the made the Klingons look weird. And masks? A culture that's built on military prowess and bragging rights wouldn't hide their faces with identical masks. [/spoiler]

BB, please don't read me at all.  Stop right there, skip over all my posts until Tuesday night.




As it was said this part of the planet was abandonned, with only the bad guy there, I figured they were 2nd rate Klingon warriors, assigned to some ungrateful duties, like planetary surveillance of a remote part of Cronos.  As such, they wore masks to hide their shame, until they could redeem themselves.

Of course, I might totally off the mark here.