As for Transformers, their first movie offered a real treat in translating cartoon fare into photo-realistic CGI, composited with live action. This was what Auto-Bots would look like if they actually existed. It’s no surprise that many people chose to see them just out of nostalgia’s sake, as I did.

There were also a few surprises that would not have worked outside of the Transformer universe. For example, I recall the human teenager Sam standing in his yard, talking with his parents through their upstairs bedroom window, while the robots each awkwardly hide from the grownups’ view.

There were also sober bits of dialogue that stay with you. When one comments “Humans don’t deserve to live. They’re always at war with each other.” Optimus Prime counters “They deserve to decide for themselves,” and “Were we so different?”

:^/ Their second movie, however, kept and repeated so many elements from the first one that it felt very much like watching the first one again. And the third offered only a few more differences than did the second. Hollywood is scared to change a good thing too much.

I found their latest offering to be a bit disappointing. They did good by adding new story ideas to the mix, but the characters were far too cliched and predicable. Maybe the strategy was to make the robots more convincing by making the humans more wooden, or something.

For my tastes, I need to know who these people are and somewhat identify with them before I’ll care what happens to them. That’s called characterization, and it’s something Hollywood is drifting too far away from.

:/