My official condemnation of the film

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Clay
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My official condemnation of the film

Post by Clay »

Part of a larger essay for a directed study credit. I was writing about how pre-existing things are adapted for film, whether serialized like comics and tv shows or static things like books and plays.

It might make more sense if I post the rest of them, but anyone here should understand the transformer bit anyway.

Clay Wyatt
Directed study – adaptations in film
Part 5: Transformers 2

Revenge of the Fallen came to theaters as the required sequel to the 2007 success of Transformers. More akin to The Dark Knight and Iron Man than Streetcar or A Doll’s House because of the serialized nature of source material, the adaptation process was likewise more comparable to a free association of ideas as to what exactly to put on screen. The franchise’s premise comes pre-loaded with several thematic grooves, given that it involves mechanical aliens who shape-shift to adapt to their new environs. However, the finished film contains almost no theme at all apart from LOUD. One specific character inclusion provides an excellent illustration for all of the wasted potential.

The film includes in its finale the giant Devastator, a rough equivalent to King Kong. Unlike the ape, Devastator itself is comprised of a number of relatively smaller robots (each being some sort of industrial construction vehicle roughly the size of a house to begin with). The very idea raises some interesting questions uniquely suited to character exposition in fiction: what happens to the individual minds when they are merged? If one component robot is resented by the others, does the composite personality become self-loathing? The idea of the robot gestalt is also intriguing thematically. The combination is quite literally teamwork given corporeal form. So, with all of the questions Devastator’s inclusion brings, how is it used in the film?

The answer is entirely ineffectually, if spectacular. Devastator’s two accomplishments in the movie are to clear some debris away from a MacGuffin and to facilitate a testicle joke with dangling wrecking balls (the inclusion of a Porsche or Ferrari afling could have at least made the joke funny). To say none of the questions of the preceding paragraph are addressed or even acknowledged is an understatement. The lead villain shows up shortly after Devastator’s death and displays a knack for levitating debris, planes and tanks meaning that Devastator’s one objective success is really not a major factor for the progress of the finale. Indeed, Devastator never even directly threatens any of the main protagonists. Devastator is pure spectacle in the most grandiose sense: he could be edited out of the film entirely while hardly affecting the outcome. For all of the years of work the animators spent, and for all of the interesting questions it could have raised, Devastator’s screen time is unfortunately nearly as empty as the live action shots in which the CGI was pasted.

Of course, Devastator is but one example of such wasted potential. While the people doing the grunt work of the film did an excellent job of bringing mechanoid aliens to life, the larger scope of the film seems to have been diminutively settled at live action footage with robots in it. That is why Revenge of the Fallen is a poor adaptation of the source material. It manages to take on the appearance of its source material while simultaneously stifling it, offering nothing really worth making a movie about.
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electro girl
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Post by electro girl »

Cool. I love essays on Transformers, I've done one on Animated for Media studies and one on Henkei Hot-Shot for art theory. I really like what you've argued as it's both true and sort of an anti-troll if that makes sense?

Good stuff.
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Post by Chris McFeely »

I don't think... ANY fiction has actually touched upon the themes you suggest the movie could have wrung from the combiner concept. They're in the combiners' BIOS, but... yeah, I'm genuinely having trouble bringing to mind a comic or cartoon episode that actually used them in practise, except maybe that one time Starscream pointed out Bruticus was just standing there (referring to the note in his tech specs about how he was useless without direction) in "B.O.T." Certainly, I don't think any stories or plot points within a larger story were ever structured around them, or used them in any succesful dramatic fashion. Could they have been done? Could they have been done WELL? Well, yeah, anything possible. But you can hardly specifically accuse the film of being a "poor adaptation" of the source material on THAT basis, when none of the source material has done it either (that's not to say it ISN'T a poor adaptation, but I'm just talking about this particular point). Combiners have only ever been used for spectacle. Heck, all I wanted from Movie Devs was for him to roar "PREPARE FOR EXTERMINATION!"
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Clay
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Post by Clay »

Chris McFeely wrote:Well, yeah, anything possible. But you can hardly specifically accuse the film of being a "poor adaptation" of the source material on THAT basis, when none of the source material has done it either (that's not to say it ISN'T a poor adaptation, but I'm just talking about this particular point).
You misunderstand my point. Part of the conclusion was that to make a film a good adaptation, you make it a good film so that the material can stand on its own in a new medium. Point-for-point translation from the cartoon renders Devastator rather pointless.

Adaptation isn't merely about grafting the cartoon into a movie; it's about making the movie work on its own. In the case of transformers, that meant exploring some new ideas to make something like a combiner worth including on any level other than spectacle. They didn't do any of that, hence ROTF is a poor adaptation of the property into narrative film.
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Post by Savannahtron »

Hum/150 UoP?
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Post by fantomdranzerx »

Very well written; perfectly describes Devastator's role. :up:
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Post by Rurudyne »

fantomdranzerx wrote:Very well written; perfectly describes Devastator's role. :up:
True.

In light of this part of the essay, except for the dying bit, the utilization of Devastator somehow brings to mind Baldrick's description of the Ghost of Christmas in Blackadder's Christmas Carol: "Oh! By the way, I forgot to mention: when you were out there there was this enormous ghostly creature come in here saying 'Beware, for tonight you shall receive a strange and terrible visitation.' ... I just thought I'd mention it...."
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Post by Nevermore »

Condemnation? Why?

Accusation, lies...

If for honesty you want apologies, I don't sympathize.
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kupimus aka(clocker)
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Post by kupimus aka(clocker) »

I liken the two movies to chocolate. They are both just pure fun, but other than fun you are not going to get anything else out of it.
Let this be thy final lesson monster, no man is e'er defeated till his last breath is drawn! And e'en THEN, 'tis most unwise for the victor to assume the battle is ended, for with god and man, a war is ne'er over till the ultimate wrong is set aright and the final villain is DONE!
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Post by inflatable dalek »

I'm glad it's official at last.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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kupimus aka(clocker)
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Post by kupimus aka(clocker) »

I liken the two movies to chocolate. They are both just pure fun, but other than fun you are not going to get anything else out of it.
copyright.me

thats right its official
Let this be thy final lesson monster, no man is e'er defeated till his last breath is drawn! And e'en THEN, 'tis most unwise for the victor to assume the battle is ended, for with god and man, a war is ne'er over till the ultimate wrong is set aright and the final villain is DONE!
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