The Floating Cat

I’m taking a break from the month-long delayed BotCon posts to comment on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I initially had planned on seeing the flick, tonight Tuesday June 23 at 12:01am at San Tan Village. I had pre-purchased 2 tickets for myself and Jessica. I had planned on taking Wednesday off to recoup from the long night in line and in the theater.

My timetable jumped up a little over a day when Jessica was able to procure 2 passes to the pre-screening event being held at Tempe Marketplace’s Cine Capri, at 7pm on June 22. A co-worker of hers got the pair of tickets from a relative, who in turn won them from a contest. Knowing that I was a fan, and not wanting to use them himself; I got to see the film early.

Jessica actually got the tickets around noon on Monday, and quickly rushed over to the theater to get in line. These tickets weren’t guaranteed seats, and so we needed to save our place in line. About 30 minutes later I arrived.

By the time I got there, the line that was formed inside was 90% full with about 75 people. Some folks had been there since 6am, just waiting in line. Lots of folks had folding chairs, which spurred myself to go pick up some similar chairs from Target for $10 a piece. There were other lines for radio content winners (maybe 100 people total), but there was also a line outside that was also growing and ended up wrapping around the building. They provided water to these folks, but it was still damn hot out there and they weren’t guaranteed seats (and eventually most wouldn’t even make it in).

So Jessica and I sat there, listening to iPods and talking to folks for about ~6 hours. We had waited in tons of lines at BotCon and so this was yet another bout of waiting. I was really tired of these lines, but it was a special event and we were going to see it before the Hollywood premiere which was a nice bonus.

Once we slugged through the long wait, we were left to get the only seats we had access to: 3 rows from the front and to the far right. They were not optimum seats by any means, and in addition the entire upper middle section was roped off for press and vip’s. Regardless we had seats.

After a quick bit of routines from ASU cheerleaders, radio contests, and then a short intro from Todd McFarlane, we got to finally see the movie I had waited so many months to see.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is an interesting movie. Not great by any means, and in my opinion not as good as the first one. The shots of the robots do seem to be better framed, but there is still lots of blur and lots of debris flying everywhere. In addition there is still lots of camera shake and obscuring foreground objects.

The new Transformers they introduce are not used very well, and many are disposed of very very quickly. In addition, lots of characters seem to have multiple copies just to serve as cannon fodder. A good example is the use of the Constructicons. Great to finally see movie versions, but they are almost disposable characters like clones.

The plot is somewhat hard to follow and honestly not all that interesting. It is passable, but it could have been more. It almost seems like this movie suffered from a bad edit as you can tell bits and pieces that had been cut (and been in trailers) might have helped flesh it out further. It was still over 2 hours so it didn’t really need to be much longer.

The biggest disappointment for me was Devastator. I was really looking forward to seeing the big guy and what they would do with him, but like most others have since stated, he is wasted. From the trailers, and even the clip at BotCon, it seemed like he’d be better utilized. It is epic when he is combining together, but then he gets owned pretty easily for such a massive character. Also the humor at his expense on the pyramid is quite crude and pointless.

In fact, most of the humor is way way cruder than the first. Lots of the jokes and occasional swear words really don’t fit. Drug jokes, sex jokes, etc. I know its PG-13, but the stuff they thought would be funny was just plain dumb.

In the end, I’m glad I saw it. Not quite what I had hoped (I even tried to keep my presumptions low), and maybe it kinda fell flat because of how it was presented. The film was out of focus and our placement in the theater really made the whole experience a semi-dud. Not much too complain about though when they are free and early.

On the other hand, I’m quite happy with the toys they have released so far for the movie. In addition, I’m hoping when I see it again in IMAX the visual experience will be better.

As it stands though, I really can’t recommend the film to the casual moviegoer. Or at a minimum, I’d recommend keeping your expectations low. I like summer popcorn movies, and I’m not picky about movies having to be perfect, but the pieces just didn’t come together on this one the way they should have.

The toys on the other hand are quite awesome.

While I adore the classic Transformer Robot Heroes line of figures, I never could appreciate the original Transformers 2007 movie versions. The movie’s characters were just too complex to “cute-ify” like the old G1 gang.

I think there will have to at least be one set purchased from the new movie this go round. This adorable little movie Ravage is just too cute to pass up. I mean look at that spiked tail and hind leg missles. It’s just too adorable.

Not quite as cute as standard Robot Heroes Ravage, but worthy of a purchase nonetheless.

Here is what he looks like in the film, and here’s a bonus link to Chicken-mode Ravage.

So how did I spend part of my Spring Break last month? Why I cataloged each and every piece of Transformers stuff that I own, everything from back in 84’ to current day!

So that I had a complete listing of my stuff before Botcon 09, I pulled down every storage bin down from the attic and gathered the others from my closet. I then proceeded to transform them into robot modes and separate them by series and size. The photo to the left is the fruit on my labors after about I’d say 8 full hours of work. They just barely fit onto our kitchen table and counter. It includes every toy and statue that I own, including the few duplicates.

So once I was done with getting them into robot modes, and after a night’s worth of sleep, I just had to transform them back into their alternate modes. That process took another half-day and the photo to the right is the final alternate mode display.

A large majority of these toys, especially the old school Generation1 toys, were gifts from multiple birthdays and Christmases. They go way back to Windcharger and Sunstreaker as the original toys I received. Save for a few unique pieces, each toy was purchased back when it was available for the regular retail prices. I don’t spend large amounts of money to get individual figures or old G1 figures. These are my figures from back in the day along with recent retail purchases.

It sure was a lot of work, and although it looks like there are hundreds of Transformers strewn about, I was shocked to see the final count so small. Below is the breakdown by series.

So the total count is quite less that what I had expected, but I still have tons of different items. Generation 1, Generation 2, Classics/Universe, Movie, Animated, Robot Heroes, Mighty Muggs, comics, books, and lots of other wacky items. If you are interested, you can see the complete itemized list here. Individual and group photos of almost all of the items can also be seen by visiting the Flickr set for the collection.

Of course the collection will continue to grow with items purchased at Botcon, the final Transformers Animated toys, as well as the entire Revenge of the Fallen toys from the upcoming movie sequel.

The key to my collection is that these toys have and always will be kept out of their packages. They will be played with, transforming back in forth many times between modes. In addition, I don’t keep these toys because they are “worth” anything. I keep them because they are a part of my childhood and an extension of that childhood into my future.

Transformers for me are something that I really enjoy, and I don’t ever see myself selling a single one.

Well, it’s official as I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into my obession with Transformers. Jessica and I are set to go to BotCon 2009 in Pasadena, CA.

It’s one thing to bake a cake, it’s one thing to take tons of photos of toys, it’s an entirely different matter when you start attending conventions.

This will actually be my first convention of any type that I will have attended. Never done the comic book thing, nor sci fi thing. We did go to a small 3D photography convention during a trip through the midwest last year, but that was Jessica’s idea and quite small.

You know you are going to a big convention when:

1. There are exclusive toys
2. When said toys sell out within a couple of days
3. When registering for the convention takes several hours of faxing due to demand jamming the lines
4. When packaged admission is several hundred dollars
5. They are premiering the toys from the new movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I was lucky enough to get my form in time to get into the lucrative Thursday customizing class. Oh yeah, I get to learn how to make regular toys into custom toys. That is really gonna help with my addiction.

So for 4 days at the end of May, Jessica and I will be heading out to Pasadena to further fuel my obsession with toys from my youth. BotCon being in Pasadena this year is actually fortuitous, since we don’t need to fly to get the convention. I actually don’t think we would have bothered had we been required to fly. So most likely this will be my first and last BotCon… maybe…