I’ve also stumbled upon some news somewhere before about a live-action Robotech movie being in the works, as well as one for Astroboy.Sounds exciting… though, maybe not as exciting for me as when I heard that a live-action Transformers movie was going to be made more than a year ago. That’s when I got hooked on Seibertron.com.
I’m not a fanboy, though I’m probably near the edge of being one. I still remember watching Transformers in the 80s as a kid and drooling over the toys that were being advertised every time it’s aired (the same goes with Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and G.I. Joe).
I’ve got only two Transformers toys which my parents bought me (which I still have, by the way)… an Insecticon (I already forgot its name) and the Corvette (Stingray, I believe, is what it’s called but I have the Japanese version which is red colored and not blue as it was in the American version of the cartoon). I got them not because of endless nagging but because of passing in the quarterly school exams. For my brother and I, that was the only way to get something we wanted. But getting passing marks in the major exams didn’t give us license to demand for what we wanted. We had to wait for an offer. If no offer came, well, life went on. That’s because we were made to understand early on about money matters. Get the connection?
Hmmm… that reminds me of the time when, as a grade school student, I gathered all the old (Manila Bulletin) Panorama Magazines I could find in our house and cut out all the application forms from the advertisements of insurance companies thinking that I could help my parents get more money if I filled out and mailed those forms. All I could understand from those advertisements that time were the numbers, and they had BIG numbers printed in BIG BOLD fonts. I thought those companies were giving money away! That was the time when I was still clueless about what bouncing checks were. By what they’re called in the local language, I thought they really explode.
Anyway, going back to my original topic… I think I have one up there somewhere…
The excitement I felt for the live-action Transformers movie actually came not from being a Transformers fan, but rather out of my curiosity about how they were going to make it realistic and believable. Like how Optimus Prime would transform in the “real world” without having a gaping hole on his back (as he did in the G1 toy which I was able to play with only once at my brother’s rich friend’s house).
I was a bit disappointed when I found out that the movie was not going to be faithful to the original cartoons as far as the robots and cars were concerned. But all the changes that were done were, I think, understandable and acceptable (at least after I saw the making of the movie).
I almost got influenced by the nay-sayers into bad mouthing Michael Bay when I was following the movie’s progress. But when I finally saw the movie on the big screen, I can’t find anything about it that is worth thrashing (being honest to myself). The opening narration (by Peter Cullen) was particularly powerful for me, not for what was said but for how it sounded. For me it felt like hearing something, or someone, from my past.
There are still a lot of haters out there, but as far as I’m concerned, I like the movie quite a lot. So much so that I asked my sister-in-law, who’s living in the States, to buy me a copy of the two-disc special edition DVD release. And after watching the movie for the second and third time on DVD, I only have praises for it, more so for the technical side of it (behind-the-scenes). I have yet to watch the movie with the commentaries track.
Having all that said, I doubt the upcoming G.I. Joe and Robotech movies will have the same effect on me as the Transformers had. For one thing, although I have watched the G.I. Joe cartoon regularly as a kid, I can’t seem to remember anything about G.I. Joe that’s as memorable as Cullen’s voice in Transformers (except for the plain white Storm Shadow who was my favorite toy for a very long time). Also, IMO, the G.I. Joe movie might just come out like any other war movie(?). Well, maybe if they use the same opening theme and sequence, I’d probably change my mind somewhat. As for Robotech, well, I wasn’t a regular follower of that, I only watched it whenever nothing else was on. I’m sure a lot of people out there are saying that I’ve missed a lot, and I agree. So, as far as these two movies are concerned, I’d probably just take them for what they are now (or will become when and if the movies do come out) and not relate them to their past incarnation.
For Astroboy, well, I just hope they’ll stick to his original appearance.
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