Movie: Transformers

	Studios:	DreamWorks SKG, Paramount Pictures
	Release:	July 3, 2007
	Genre:
	MPAA Rating:	PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor and language

I loved the Transformers cartoon series when I was a kid. After a few seasons though, the storyline has taken so many turns and the characters have become so unrecognizeable that I have lost interest altogether. I am happy, however, that this movie is more akin to the first season despite the differences from the cartoon.

Shia LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, and he starts out like his Even Stevens character ... a real fast mouth. Megan Fox plays Mikaela Banes, the school jock's girlfriend that Sam has a crush on. She laughed with everybody else when her boyfriend was making fun of Sam, it's a real wonder she even started talking to him.

It doesn't take long before Bumblebee is introduced. After the initial disappointment that he transforms into a Camaro instead of the VW Beetle in the cartoon series, I have no problem falling in love with this character. The scenes where Sam thought someone was stealing his car, then finds himself being chased by his alien car were hilarious. No one could blame the other characters for thinking Sam was stoned. Having damaged his voice box, Bumblebee had to make do with patching together phrases from songs on the radio. I have this movie to blame if I keep humming "Baby come back!" for a month. The songs are so corny it's cool. Given the antics that Bumblee play here, I guess it's a good thing that he takes the shape of a Camaro... otherwise, I'd be thinking about how much he is similar to another animated car: Herbie, a VW beetle that recently starred in a Disney movie.


The arrival of Optimus Prime was awesome. Many of the robots here have little similarities to their cartoon counterparts. The makers however made Prime as close to the cartoon Prime as possible. That's how much this autobot gets respect. This robot is so awe-inspiring that he remains respectable despite the funny situations he finds himself in (hiding in the Witwickies' garden) or saying funny things like he learned English from the world wide web. At the other end of the spectrum, Megatron does not look anything at all like its cartoon incarnation. To emphasize that his group, the decepticons, are the opposite of the autobots, they have total disregard for humans to the point of flicking them away like disgusting insects. A number of the decepticons are already land based vehicles though, compared to the cartoon's season one where decepticons were planes (to contrast with the autobots being cars).


If the comedic situations here cater to children, the action on the other hand earns its PG-13 rating. The opening, which was set in a US base in Qatar, already had merciless action. The climax is awash with explosions, racing, and demolished transformers littering the streets, and soldiers running around the city.

The ending allows for a second Transformers movie, what with Starscream escaping, Scorponok burrowing under the sand in Qatar, and Optimus Prime beaming out a signal to his "brothers" at the end of the movie to inform them where he is. I find it funny that Mikaela is kissing Sam while they are lying on the hood of Bumblebee. Seriously, wouldn't you find it awkward to be kissing your girlfriend on top of a sentient car with three other autobots standing nearby? It's like having a threesome with Mikaela and Bumblebee while Ratchet, Ironhide and Optimus Prime look on.

Things of note: aside from the Official Transformers site and its offspring Cybertron site, Transformers has a MySpace account, and you can visit a facility in Second Life called Sector Seven.

GM has its own Autobots Rollout site that features the autobots that transform into GM vehicles (Bumblebee, Ironhide, Jazz, and Ratchet).

If you have watched the movie, you already know how much a pain in the Autobots' ass Sector Seven is. If you're a big fan of Transformers, you may already have visited the sites that revolve around the Sector Seven angle. If not, read on.

There is an official Sector Seven site, and the active passwords are deceptibot, codeblack, gravesen, and byebyepowers (takara83, thefirst7, nbetwo and fwiffo are now deactivated). Each password will bring you to different sites with the idea that each password brings you to the desktop of a different Sector Seven agent. Some links have the same content, others have more content. The movie presents Sector Seven as a secret government agency, and you will find that data on this site is not straightforward ... often employing codewords and not so obvious links to movie clips and other stuff.

To complete the illusion, there is a Stop Sector Seven site (which also has its own MySpace site). This site is supposedly set up by people who believe that Sector Seven and its activities must be exposed. The members include Sector Seven agents who have defected - these agents supposedly owned the now deactivated passwords to Sector Seven's site.

A fan has created a mirror site to Sector Seven, and made it to look like Agent X's desktop. The password is Megaman. It collects the various info available on sectorseven.org and calls them intercepted data. Being a fansite, it is not always easy to access perhaps due to bandwidth problems.