The Energon Pub

I hate visiting the beach, every time I lie-down in the sand to get some sunshine these god damned Greenpeace people show up and try to shove me into the see. While doing that they sprinkle cold water over me and try to make me eat raw fish.

Now they always say that you should start a speech or something along those lines with a joke and as we've got that out of the way we can get to what this post is about.

Now I can't help but notice that right now there seems to be some kind of war going on while our beloved franchise changes. While it goes into new directions and evolves as we can see with the "movie-verse" and "Animated" (damn I will miss those chinformers) it also goes into boring old directions as we can see with "All Hail Megatron" and the "fresh and new" direction it gave the comics.
With change comes innovation but innovation goes hand in hand with failure and disappointment and that brings along hate and anger.
Now ever since Revenge of the Fallen came out, well actually even before that, the fandom split into two main groups, those that like it and those that don't. But that's OK, in fact I would be kinda disappointed if all liked or disliked it, variation is good if there were no variation we would be a collective and would loose over individuality.
But what's going on right now is totally over the top it's ridicules just plain and simply ridicules.
So ROTF gets nothing but bad reviews as the story is written badly, I admit it the story while it had a lot of good ideas and points was badly written and executed. Now I myself am far from being a perfect writer and I'm sure you'll find not just one or two grammatical or spelling errors in this article but then again I'm bilingual and dyslexic so writing wise I'm pretty much screwed. But that takes nothing away from the fact that the writing of the movie was bad while the rest of the movie was grate and awesome. Just like AHM actually, week poorly written story with a few good elements saved only by the awesome artwork - save for issue 9.
But the debate and war that's going on over it is beyond of immature and is just plain childish. Critics do their job and declare it bad while some fans go over the top and declare "MORTAL KOMBAT" on them on those that agree with them. And both sides just keep bashing each other over their disagreements and try to force their opinion on others and insult the other side based on their opinion and taste.
I myself don't care what reviews and critics say, if I'm interested in a film I watch it and judge for myself, so far 99% of the time I disagree with film critics and reviews - the last time I went and watched a film based on the opinion of critics was "I am Legend" or how I like to call it "I am Lame" - but just because you don't agree with them that doesn't give you the right to insult or attack them that also goes for the critics.

But that's not all groups start to nitpick the movie for everything, racism (lol), actors acting their roles (WTF?!) and trivial things like the mountains in Washington (OMG that's like sooo unforgivable). It seems as if bashing the movie for what it's worth has become the new "in-thing to do" like having a blog and sharing your thoughts and private feelings with the whole internet to see, pathetic really (Oh the irony that I say that while I'm doing the exact same thing).
People bash it so much that they seem not to notice the incredible work ILM and everybody who worked on design and special effects have put into it. I mean just look at the sophistication of the Transformers integration into the actual film. They pulled off camera angles and focusing the camera on certain areas of the transformers bodies that weren't there during filming.

Now I'm growing tiered of all this writing and thinking and so we come to the part about the razor blades. Truth is I sometimes cut myself with them - because I'm sometimes not careful enough while I'm shaving. I just love shaving my face with shavers that have actual razor blades on them. To feel and smell the foam while you rub it into your face, and the silent noise of the blades while they cut trough your hair damn I love it. So I bought myself a new "Gillette Fusion Stealth" for ninja-like stealthiness during shaving, your facial hair won't know what hit it!

Dead Metal

Quote of the day:

There is epic truth in this article.

Ah DM, you know it's all can be answered with a simple math problem.

(any new TF property/story + not what any particular fan wants = Ruined FOREVER)

We saw similar responses with the creation of Beast Wars, Car Robots/RID, the Unicron Trilogy.

to quote from BSG:

"All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again."

While I didn't understand the "Razor Blades" bit, I am refreshed to see an affable; clear-headed perspective on the TransFandom and the current state of affairs within. I gotta say, I love this fandom. I love that so many people are SO passionate about Transformers. I had lunch with my good friend Seibertron yesterday and we talked about this. We concluded that while Mr. Bay has absolutely NO respect for this franchise, he did what he set out to do: make a blockbuster movie that's a serious cash cow for Hasbro, DreamWorks, Paramount, and especially himself. We're pretty much guaranteed a 3rd installment, most importantly, our beloved franchise will live on a while longer in mainstream Current Pop Culture. When I look at 80's series like the Thundercats(another personal fav of mine), that preached solid morals every minute of their every episode, and see that even they didn't get the response that Transformers has gotten over the last 9-10 years, I know that TransFans are a special and POWERFUL bunch, and I'm glad to be one.

We can complain all we want but the fact remains that we have Comics, Movies, TV shows, multiple toy lines, all that keep getting more and more intricate and sophisticated(with the exception of Michael Bay's take on the mythos). We should be very thankful, and know that this will only get better. I didn't even particularly Hate ROTF... I just thought they missed the mark by a WIDE margin. But, since Money talks, especially in Hollywood, maybe Mr. Bay will come off of his "Art Film" with a new, more personable sensibility and bring it to the 3rd Transformers movie. Well, at least we can pray for that one...

...Seibertron, Seibertron. I Love this Town! Dead Metal, thanks for the article. It was a great way to spend my lunch hour.

I like the movieverse. The backstory, the characters, etc. I just don't like the movies themselves.

you know i remember posting something along these lines back when the bashing (and death threats to certain movie makers) started for the first movie. it was truth then, it is truth now. but even with all the hate, I will never forget going to botcon that year and seeing all of the fans there seem to forget thier hatred if only for 4 days, and come together as a comunity that overall all shares one common truth. love of a constantly changing franchise. We each have our favorites, and we each have ones we hate, and things wede like to see that we never do (like spudscream to battle my optimash prime) but we are all transfans.

Editor wrote:Ah DM, you know it's all can be answered with a simple math problem.

(any new TF property/story + not what any particular fan wants = Ruined FOREVER)

We saw similar responses with the creation of Beast Wars, Car Robots/RID, the Unicron Trilogy.

to quote from BSG:

"All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again."

The sad truth that must accompany that is that the ones who need to see it and learn the most from it are rarely ever the ones that actually do. The word "Passionate" was mentioned before and that leads us to the underlying cause of all the problems, unchecked emotion. I must cconfess to having felt a great deal of embarrasment over the last few weeks and also after the first movies release, for my behavior in dealing with others. Not I got so hostile defending my points but that everyone else was so emotionally invested that they failed to see logic in others views or respect their points. As a student of the fighting arts and the philosopies they embrace I try (unsuccessfully at times) to embrace the old saying "He who angers you, controls you".
Sometimes, sadly, anger itself can be so powerful that it becomes the controlling force. And to think, we are supposed to be the pinnacle of evoultion on this world. No wonder higher life-forms never make open contact with us.
Great post DM. I hope those who really need to heed your words most truly do. You certatinly got my attention.

My response to any of the conflict...
I don't care.

I'll debate and discuss along with anyone else.
But in the end it's all transformers and I'll soak it up like a sponge.

DM,

I totally agree with you. Everyone's got their own idea about what should happen in a movie, or comic series, or cartoon or whatever. Let's keep the numbers low and say 10,000 fans? That's 10,000 different opinions. One writer. At best, that's 9,999 disappointed audience members.

I think a lot of the 'hate' comes from two sources:

One, the (to my mind not implausible) feeling that the people involved in making ROTF are not really committed to the franchise. I don't know if it's unreasonable to expect that the writers/director/actors should give 100% of their attention to this project and worry about their next movie, their next role, their career, at the *end* of the day.

Me, I'm less upset that their 'vision' didn't match mine--if everyone thought the way I did, what a boring world this would be!--than that they seemed so lazy and blase about it.

Two, it's so easy to drink the h8erade. Especially on the internet. I have to admit that when I've read a truly dreadful book (I review for Amazon) there is a part of me that does kind of enjoy being just a little malicious. Of course, that's because I'm evil, and I at least acknowledge that. But generally, it's so easy to tear something down than a) to say something positive about it--you get written off as an idiot who is easily amused and b) to actually put something of your own out there that's creative that others might criticize.

Me? I'm with Siren on this one: if it's got giant transforming robots, I'm so there.

HK, DM's idea of living dangerously is razor blades; mine is eating that thing in the back of the fridge.

hellkitty wrote:Me? I'm with Siren on this one: if it's got giant transforming robots, I'm so there.

^ This. A million times.

DM, I agree with you on the arguing. There are times when it gets childish and petty, and it's times like those that people have to remember that it's just a movie or toyline at the end of the day.

I can't share your enthusiasm for razors, sadly, as I don't shave. I am one of those few ladies who likes hair under my arms and on my legs, like a soft fuzzy Wookiee

As much as I love the franchise, seeing the responses to anything "new" in the world of Transformers reminds me that the word fan came from fanatic ... but at least we are not alone, we are in the same boat as the fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings .......... I'm going to stop now before I get depressed or shot.

Please take this as a joke, as I am a fan of all those franchises. Actually writing this fine print just goes to prove that I have to prepare for the "fans."