My opinion has transformed

June 26th, 2007

So I wrote earlier this month that the new Transformers movie was doing nothing to arouse my inner geek, and I meant it. A friend insisted I should stop overanalyzing things like the probably quality of the story. I should just relax and just enjoy the summer blockbusteryness of a tentpole franchise destined for sequels.

No thanks.

It was hard to say why I wasn’t excited, until an article in this month’s Wired summed it up for me. Spielberg: good. Robots in disguise: good. Michael Bay-ification of a childhood touchstone: scary.

Then I saw this clip of Optimus doing battle. And while it sports all the substanceless flash and sparkle that marks the worst of Michael Bay’s moviemaking “skill,” it nonetheless promises about sixteen flavors of awesome. My inner geek has perked up his ears.

But THEN I heard something that put me over the top.

Optimus Prime will be voiced by none other than Peter Cullen. Who’s Peter Cullen, you ask? I’m not surprised. But Peter Cullen is the man who voiced Optimus back in the original 80s cartoon. (The discerning might also recognize his distinctive deep tones as Cindar from Visionaries, Eyeore in a lot of Winnie the Pooh adaptations, or Venger from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.) Evidently campaigning from fans won out, and everybody’s favorite battlebot will sound as he is meant to be sound. Awesome. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see the standard Hollywood trick of star-studding the voice cast of animated characters on a picture like this. But as much as I love Bruce Willis, I wouldn’t want to hear him telling the Autobots to “Roll out!” (I’m sure producers were equally happy that they would need to meet Peter’s going rate, as opposed to Bruce’s.)

Nope, there is one and only one proper voice for this character. When an alien robot crash lands on earth and is reprogrammed to alter his appearance into that of a semi truck, it only makes sense his processors would approximate a gravelly southern drawl.

Suddenly, my inner geek is considering lining up on July 4th, and taking me with him.

3 Responses to “My opinion has transformed”

Robby Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:50 am

Michael Bay is still directing the movie though. I’m not saying he can’t direct action (because he certainly can), it’s just his style of constantly moving his camera gives me motion sickness. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it.
Plus, Optimus Prime has flames on him.

Robby
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screenwriterguy Says:
June 27th, 2007 at 4:59 am

I hear ya, Robby. That was my initial complaint about the promos for the movie. Even if flames on Optimus was a good idea, which it decidedly is not, lame flames like the ones they’ve chosen is still horrible. Well, here’s hoping the reviews come back positive and there’s a summer movie out there worth seeing.

screenwriterguy
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Seth Says:
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:53 am

I still agree with your earlier assessment on the design of the transformers. They have all these spikes and such which seem a) completely unnecessary, b) distracting, and c) fugly. It’s sad to pay that much money on good CG that looks ugly not because of the CG but the person who designed the thing. And, not to get all over analytical or anything, what would a monstrous robot want with long spikes of metal that could get bent and then screw up the ability to transform, etc. In the end, though, they’re just ugly and that’s why I don’t like them.

Still going to see the movie, though.

Seth
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