Completely Unnecessary

It has been widely observed that I can’t enjoy movies because I insist on analyzing them. This is not true. For instance, my favorite part of Transformers was about a four frame cut of two elderly Qatarian men. They looked on blithely as seven marines were chased, guns blazing, by an enormous, scorpion robot. They both had a look that said, “Eh, I’ve seen worse.”

As usual, I laughed alone. But I did enjoy myself.

Over at The Stranger, Transformers was described as “retarded Republican-scented fascism porn”. Maybe not, but were some definite smacks of gung-ho Americanism.

Most notably - Bumblebee. All the Autobots were good ol’ fashioned GM American cars, but they beat it a bit over the head with Bumblebee. In the cartoon he was a VW Bug, but that kind of national socialist bullcrap doesn’t sit so well with America, so he’s a Camero instead. Not only that, but he actually attacks a yellow bug sitting next to him that… whatisname is maybe going to buy. American automotive engineering is aggressively superior to that of other nations.

It’s not.

But it is in this movie - there are alien robots, anything could happen.

Second - aliens attack Earth and AGAIN they’re fighting in the southwestern desert. It’s almost as if that’s where most of our ‘undesirables’ turn up. What with immigration reform being a hot topic the last few years, I can’t imagine why they’d make a movie about Americans fighting aliens in the southwest.

That being said - this movie is a bit different because the battles take place in podunk towns. I can’t remember where they said it was occurring (somewhere in Nevada?), but it sure wasn’t LA or New York, the two usual suspects for disaster fiction. Message = terrorism/immigration can happen anywhere.

A brief aside: Can John Turturro please be in every movie? Thanks.

I’m less excited about this project than I was as it was running through my head in the shower this morning. Work, class and a glass or two of wine will do that to you. Also, I’ve been reading Wonkette’s live blogging of the CNN/YouTube/Morons debate and I feel like writing in bullets instead of complete thoughts.

Which brings us to my last point, which is: I don’t consider myself hugely affected by September 11th. I wasn’t in NYC, I don’t know anyone who was directly affected - I’d feel kind of cheap to say that it ‘touched my life’. That being said (and minor spoilers, I guess), during the big fight Starscream takes Optimus Prime through a skyscraper. He’s in complete plane mode, so it’s basically a jet driving straight through a skyscraper. I was pretty upset by that image, actually. I thought it was tacky, at best. Worse, if they were using it intentionally, which they probably were. I don’t think too many Americans would have missed that one.

So Republican fasioporn? A bit. There were some complexities - for instance the bad guys were almost uniformly instruments of war. Then again, (spoilers if you’re dumb!) they were defeated by the American Army and not by the other aliens. Rah America.

It was still overly long and kind of crappy (sorry Paul - I don’t think he reads this). Seriously, cut some stuff, Mr. Editor! I do not need to watch people hunt for an object in a bedroom for half an hour! Yes, yes, it yielded numerous masturbation jokes. He he. Hilarious. Cut to the action.

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