Friday, June 30, 2006

Trans-Mars-Rover


What a disappointment. I’ve waited months to see the sneak preview to the upcoming Transformers Movie and we get something that looks like it is the teaser to another passable sci-fi action flick from Michael Bay.
Ok well, this may end up being just that, but still, this is THE TRANSFORMERS live action movie! What do we get? Half the trailer is spent setting up the premise that UK based Beagle 2 Mars Rover (totally made up) was destroyed by robots on Mars. The real Beagle 2 was not a rover but an immobile probe that was sent to Mars in 2003 by the British and was lost, supposedly when it crashed on to the surface.
What’s worse, they cut in re-enacted visuals of NASA’s famously successful Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) as it drives off its mothership before it is smacked to pieces by what appears to be Optimus Prime himself, although I could be mistaken. We get it, the MER Rovers were indeed transformable robots that were sent to Mars folded up and transformed into their working configuration on the Mars surface. Great allusion there, but Bay beats us over the head with it. After destroying the history of the Pearl Harbor attack, he has now managed to bastardize another facet of history, and a fairly recent one at that.
You know, I could have forgiven the factual inaccuracies had the trailer not spent the whole time setting up a War of the Worlds scenario of yet another imminent threat from Mars as its first big tease to the viewing public. The CG visuals were certainly stunning and the recreation of the Mars rovers on Mars was nothing short of spectacular. I would pay to watch a realistic Kubric-esque movie about Mars with those visuals. But this isn’t a Kubric film, it’s a Bay joint and he can’t even give us any action. Furthermore, I was waiting and waiting for the vintage Transformers chorus from the television series to cap off the trailer. That would be a real tease to the fans. Maybe even a close-up of Optimus Prime himself in silhouette with his eyes glowing steel blue in true Japanese anime style. Nope, we get a bad teaser that is factually inaccurate, with absolutely nothing to excite the legions of fans that grew up with this venerable animated series.
Michael Bay and Paramount... you suck!


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