I’m a big fan of the original Transformers show. This is no secret. I’m not a crazy-go-nuts fan, I’ve never attended a bot-con and I don’t buy and sell toys on ebay. But I have re-watched the original series (which I own in its entirety on DVD) as an adult. And when I’m bored and Lauren isn’t home, I’ll put the movie in for fun.
It is not difficult for me to say I enjoy Transformers more than almost all other superhero type things, including comics. And I’m not ashamed to say I was genuinely sad when Optimus fell of the bookshelf and broke his legs off a couple of months ago….so sad that I haven’t even tried to fix it yet.
I say this to set up my personal theories on how the show Transformers impacted a generation of young men and women who are now in their mid-twenties, including myself. And, I want to set up my upcoming serious review of the movie, and what this movie means in general for this generation.
First off, Optimus in my opinion is at least the greatest father-figure off all cartoon / comics. And, at best an alien version of Jesus.
I say this because at our base, beyond even the awe of seeing a truck turn into a robot, we see in optimus Prime the loving acceptance that we all wish we had from our own fathers. He is slow to anger unless a gave injustice is inflicted on others. He is quick to forgive (even Megatron….it can be argued that he was about to let him go in the movie just before retard hot-rod jumped into the fight). He doesn’t hold a grudge. He is smart, wise, strong, brave, and never gives up when someone else’s life is at stake. Even if that means giving up his own.
Now, the slight stretch is to say that these qualities, added to his death and subsequent resurrection makes him a robot alien Jesus. He died defeating Megatron for Hot-Rod’s sins and rose again in the third season.
Now, whether my estimation of Optimus’s relationship to the Father and Holy Spirit is correct or not, it remains that he has always been the ideal father figure – turned heroic general in many of our young lives. We laughed at the dumb jokes he made with bumblebee and Ironhide, and we were nervous whenever Megatron had the upper hand, and we cried when he died, and cheered when we heard these words from him in the third season: “That’s right, I’m back, and nothing in the universe can stop me now!”
Meanwhile, we have the drunk on power terrible and very life-like father-figure in Megatron. Always criticizing, always playing favorites, always banking on loyalty through fear, rash, and easily enraged. Much like an alcoholic or military dictator.
So, needless to say, for many of us we saw a close-to-real life as possible war of emotions played out on the stage of inter-galactic civil war between two groups of robots who can change into vehicles. Sorta Ironic.
This stage created in our young minds the ideas of what the best good stuff can come from in us as well as the worst, and it was real life that re-enforced those in an almost cartoonish ironic twist of the depths of our depraved humanity.
Since then many off-shoots of this series have come and gone tainted our great memories of life ala-vehicle robots. But they were often easily dismissed with the phrase “That’s not my Optimus Prime, not THE Optimus Prime.”
But for some reason, I and many others have always known, that the translation back onto the big screen would be something different, something either unforgivable or absolutely wonderful. As if Hollywood was suddenly capable of challenging our ideals of what it means to be a person by repainting the screen with things that are most certainly not human. Maybe it was because the original movie was truely the finest piece in the whole of Transformers-dom. Maybe it was because unlike so many of our re-packaged childhood moments sold back to us at adult prices, this was distinctly eighties, and distinctively absent from the big or little screen in any “reimagined” form (only bad sequels, and the Beast-stuff) up until now.
Whatever it was, I knew the emotions would run deep, and the questions of what could be ran even deeper. That is why when Micheal Bay was announced as the director I felt literal physical pain in my chest, much like when I heard my toy of Optimus hit the floor a couple of months ago. I’m sure some of you felt similarly.
So, I decided not to think about it, and not to get too excited or too upset, and leave all judgments until the movie debuted.
And that is where I leave you with me Prequel to the review of the movie…thinking about how crazy I am for comparing Optimus to Jesus, and wondering why I idealized good and bad fathers into cartoon characters.
Next time, a more in-depth look at the movie, and how it didn’t make me want to vomit.