Transformers: Age of Extinction

Posted on June 26, 2014 at 5:59 pm

The script for the new Transformers movie is basically: Noise. Explosions. Chases. Guy-on-guy fighting. Transformer-on-Transformer fighting. Brief pauses for father-teenage daughter conflict, father-boyfriend of the teenage daughter conflict, paranoia-inducing rogue government operatives, paranoia-inducing megalomaniacal one-percenter, and a flicker of a robot existential crisis. Then back to the noise, explosions, and massive PG-13 destruction, meaning more damage to buildings than people or giant robots, though one of the human characters does get incinerated early on. Repeat. Repeat again.

Yes, this movie is nearly three hours long. That’s a lot of robots. It is long, and it is loud. The primary focus is the special effects, including the use of the first-ever IMAX 3D camera (though the credits reveal some post-production 3D work as well). The depth of the frame is impressive.

That’s expected and it is fine. The special effects are better than the non-special effects moments, which come down to 1. Exposition, which makes very little sense, 2. Banter, which is weak, and 3. In-jokes about sequels and product placement.

The special effects are excellent. And I can’t help it, I still love to see cars turn into robots and robots turn into cars. This time there are even Transformer dinosaurs!

Somewhere among the robots, there’s an all-new human cast in this fourth Transformers movie, again inspired by the Hasbro toys and the animated television series. Mark Wahlberg takes over the lead as Cade Yeager, broke inventor and overprotective widowed dad of a 17-year-old daughter (Nicola Peltz as Tessa). His specialty is “making junk into different junk,” and he has a barn that serves as his lab/repair shop. He buys a beat-up old truck that turns out to be none other than alpha-bot Optimus Prime (again with the deep and resonant voice of Peter Cullen). The problem is that since the massive destruction of Chicago in the last movie, which we recall as Cade drives by billboards that say “Remember Chicago,” the consensus in the human population is that all Transformers have to be eliminated.

A government operative named Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) is leading a black ops program to rid the planet of all Transformers, regardless of whether they are autobots or decepticons. He refuses to give any information to a clueless and ineffectual White House Chief of Staff (Thomas Lennon). And he plots with one-percenter Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), an inventor/multi-billionaire sort of cross between Tony Stark and Donald Trump.

So the injured Optimus Prime and his friends are the target of attacks by a business mogul, a government agency, a sort of bounty hunter, and the decepticons, including a sort of re-animator version of Megatron. That means a lot of collateral damage back in Chicago and in China as well, though the cities are not as well differentiated as the robots and that is not saying much. While there seem to be references to current debates about immigration and terrorism, the themes are less overtly political (or dramatic) than a random assortment of words selected for their emotional charge.

Notoriously unreconstructed Michael Bay directs as though it is the first iteration of the Transformers, back in the 1980’s. The racial and gender stereotyping is only slightly less clunky than in earlier installments, which means that the autobots represent various ethnic caricatures for no particular reason and Cade calls his daughter’s Irish boyfriend “Lucky Charms.” It also means that despite the almost infinite budget for the film, apparently there was not enough to pay for enough material to clothe teenage Tessa. No matter what she wears, for some reason there is always a lot of skin showing. There are various sexist comments (jellyfish are compared to women because they are “erotic and dangerous”) and an ooky discussion of why it is not statutory rape when a 20 year old has sex with a 17 year old (the 20 year old in question helpfully carries a copy of the Texas “Romeo and Juliet” law in his wallet, along, I hope, with other protection as well). The politics of the movie are as incoherent as the fight scenes; in both, it is not always clear who the good guys are supposed to be. Basically, everyone is bad except the autobots and their human friends. And the movie is bad except for the robots.

Parents should know that this film includes strong language (s-words, b-words, one f-word), suggestive discussion of teen sex and teen pregnancy, extensive sci-fi action-style violence, constant peril and chases, some characters injured and killed (one burned to a crisp) and widespread destruction and explosions, references to genocide, some disturbing images and scary creatures, some ethnic stereotyping and alcohol (intrusive, if self-mocking, product placement).

Family discussion: What mistakes have turned out well for you? Why was it important to Cade to turn junk into something useful? Why did Attinger insist that all Transformers were bad?

If you like this, try: the other “Transformers” movies and the television series, and “The Iron Giant”

Star Trek Continues

Posted on June 21, 2014 at 8:00 am

If you’ve ever seen Trekkies and the sequel Trekkies 2 or William Shatner’s The Captains or the affectionate tribute to the super-fans, Galaxy Quest, you will appreciate the Kickstarter-funded new series “Star Trek Continues,” created by uber-Trekker
Vic Mignogna.

Here’s the first episode:

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Top Sci-Fi Movies

Posted on June 11, 2014 at 8:00 am

A strophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, star of this week’s DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, may be critical of the science howlers in some sci-fi movies, but he gave Giant Freakin Robot a list of his sci-fi favorites.

I like big-budget science fiction films. My list, with two exceptions, bears this out. I want science fiction films to stretch the talent and imagination of visual effects experts. And the film above all else should create a vision of the future we either know that we don’t want, or know that we do.

I was glad to see the original 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still on his list. And of course I expected 2001: A Space Odyssey, which seems to have inspired the title of the TV series. But I did not guess the one he said was his favorite. Be sure to check out the whole list–all are worth seeing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaxSxEqKtA

Edge of Tomorrow

Posted on June 5, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Are there moments you would like to relive, so you could make a different choice?

It’s a universal fantasy that has played out many times in books and films. It can be a gift (About Time). It can be a curse, though a curse with some benefits that could involve saving the world, personal growth, and falling in love (“Groundhog Day,” “Source Code”). In “Edge of Tomorrow,” Tom Cruise plays Major Bill Cage, a slick military officer who stays far away from the fighting by handling press relations for the global effort to defeat mechanical spider-y aliens called Mimics. A general (Brendan Gleeson) wants to send him to the front to get footage of the battle. Cage’s usual smooth patter fails to dissuade him, so he tries blackmail, which so infuriates the general he is demoted and sent to the front, not to shoot movies but to shoot Mimics. He gets hollered at by a Kentucky non-com named Major Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton), thrown into a exo-skeletal fighting suit, and dropped from a plane, where he gets killed. End of story.

Except that it isn’t. Cage somehow has been caught up in a time loop that keeps bringing him back to that rude awakening in Farell’s division. Like a video game character, when he gets killed, the system is reset and no one but he remembers that it has all happened before. Over and over, he repeats the same actions. No matter what he does, nothing changes until in the midst of battle he meets up with the war’s most decorated soldier, Rita (Emily Blunt), who looks him in the eye and says, “Come find me when you wake up.”

It feels like a nightmare, but it is not. To explain more about what is going on would be to spoil some of this highly entertaining film’s best surprises. Director Doug Liman and editor James Herbert are terrific at using the re-sets to add energy to the storyline rather than bogging it down. They use different angles and pacing to help us keep it all straight, even though sometimes we follow Cage back to his original starting point and sometimes we join him well into another foray, not realizing until just the right moment how many tries it took him to get to that point. Liman deftly plays the rinse-and-repeat familiarity for both us and Cage as comedy and as thriller as needed. Big props to the creature designers, too. The Mimics are like lethal tumbleweeds made of razorblades, moving at hyperspeed.

Cruise describes himself on Twitter as “running in movies since 1981,” but growing up in movies is something he has done just as often. He is just right as the slick and callow advertising man turned press relations officer who has to find a way to stay alive and then find a way to save the world. Blunt is excellent as the battle-worn veteran. As Cage has to find his inner soldier, Rita has to ask herself whether she can let go of hers, lending just enough emotional heft to the storyline to keep the story moving forward even when the events are repeating.

Note: the DVD release is renamed “Live Die Repeat”

Parents should know that this film includes constant sci-fi/action-style peril and violence with scary aliens and many characters injured and killed. There is some strong language including one f-word.

Family discussion: What did Cage learn about himself by repeating the same day? Why didn’t he tell Rita about the helicopter at first?

If you like this, try: “Source Code” and the graphic novel that inspired this film, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Interview: Legion of Leia Founder Jenna Busch

Posted on June 2, 2014 at 3:55 pm

I’m a huge fan of Jenna Busch, co-host of Most Craved for CraveOnline. She co-hosted ‘Cocktails With Stan’ with the legendary Stan Lee and she’s written for sites like Zap2it, After Buzz TV, Fanhattan, Screen Crave, Inside Horror, Huffington Post, AOL, Popeater, Newsarama, JoBlo, Blastr, UGO, IGN, Moviefone, SheKnows, Coming Soon, Screen Junkies, Famous Monsters and Geek Week and Inside Horror. Her own site is Girl Meets Light Saber. I’m very excited about her new initiative, the Legion of Leia, to provide more support for girls as characters in and creators of comics and sci-fi. Many thanks to Jenna for answering my questions about it.

What is the Legion of Leia and where did it come from?

The Legion came out of a conversation a dear friend of mine and I had over dinner, right after the cast of the new Star Wars film was announced. I’d written a blog post about how disappointed I was in the lack of female cast members and posted a picture of myself dressed as Princess Leia as a little girl. She showed me one of herself and said, “I bet most of the women we know have a picture like this.” Part of the blog post was about how sad it was that a fan base as full of women as this one wasn’t going to be represented. Star Wars and its female fans have been around for decades and we’re not exactly quiet about it. I remember playing Star Wars with my girlfriends as a kid and having to change the gender of characters so we could all play. I was frustrated that my six-year-old niece is going to have to do the same thing, while my nephew will have a ton of characters to play.

The thing is, I didn’t just want to wag my finger. I wanted to do something positive to support women who create the things we genre fans love, inspire young women who want to be a part of this creation, give fans a place to talk and let the world know how many of us there actually are. On May the 4th (Star Wars Day), I started a Twitter handle (@LegionofLeia) and a Facebook page for the Legion and asked my friends to change their social media profiles to a picture of Princess Leia to support women in Sci-Fi and I was overwhelmed by the response. Not only did they do it, but a ton of celebrity women joined, from Buffy, Husbands and Once Upon a Time writer Jane Espenson to actress and reality star Adrianne Curry to the voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ashley Eckstein.

Since then, the support has only grown. I’m humbled and honored by the attention we’ve gotten and I want to take it further. We’ve started a website (LegionofLeia.wordpress.com) and began doing weekly profiles of women working in the industry and our new writer Sabina-Lissette Ibarra has been doing Sci-Fi Women Friday pieces for us, spotlighting a new female character we love each week. The plan is to host art and fiction contests, post advice from women who’ve made this their career, bring more writers on board and showcase women, both known and behind-the-scenes.

What was your first fangirl passion?

There were two, around the same time. Star Wars, without a doubt. I mean, I have two lightsabers and a Boba Fett helmet in my trunk! You know, for emergencies. I loved the fact that the Princess really didn’t need saving. Heck, I would put my hair in buns, find my white jeans and a while shirt (or a bed sheet if we were doing the final scene from A New Hope) and use a stick as a lightsaber. I even made her necklace from the last scene out of string and tin foil!

The other one was the Pern series from Anne McCaffrey. I loved Lessa, her powerful Dragonrider heroine, as well as Menolly, the young girl who ran away because she couldn’t live without music, despite the fact that women weren’t allowed to be Harpers. (I actually went into musical theatre because of her!)

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

Okay, so I told you about the musical theatre part of my career, but before I became an entertainment reporter, I was also a makeup artist. Halloween is my favorite holiday! I’ve been Leia, Rogue, and every sort of fantastical creature I could come up with. Fairies, dragon ladies, water sprites (with my hair covered in conditioner so it looked wet) If it involved face and body paint, I did it. I actually dressed as Cersei Lannister for Cupcake Quarterly for their geek pinup issue!

Who are your sci/fi-superheroine favorite characters and why? Your favorite writers/artists?

As I said, I’m a fan of Anne McCaffrey. I also adore Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Katniss Everdeen (I love the books and the movies), Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, Aeryn Sun from Farscape, Buffy the Vampire Slayer — I guess what they all have in common is that they don’t need anyone else to save them. They do it themselves. As far as artists, I’m a huge fan of Cat Staggs and I hope to get to work with her one day! I also love Janet Lee’s work. In fact, I brought Return of the Dappermen (which she won the Eisner Award for) on G4’s Fresh Ink when I was guest hosting and she saw it. I kind of gushed. Then we ended up working together on a piece called “Ladybird” with co-writer Rachel Pandich in the comic anthology Womanthology.

Are female fans accepted as equals by geeks and fanboys?

That’s a hard one to answer. I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded, even as a kid, by fanboys who never give my gender a second thought. There are many, many guys out there who support women who love this stuff. In fact, I lost count of the men who supported the May the 4th event. I heard so many stories about their wives, girlfriends and daughters who love the genre and it was absolutely wonderful. On the other side, there are certainly guys who either have issues with fangirls or hold them to a different standard. For instance, I frequently see and hear about women who say they love, let’s say, Batman. They’re immediately quizzed about every single tiny detail of his history and told they’re not real fans if they don’t know something, where a guy is less likely to hear that. I’ve talked about this before, but there was an incident in a comic book store I was doing a podcast at, where a woman had just seen Thor, the movie. She told the guy at the counter that she’d seen it and didn’t know where to start with Thor comics. He laughed at her and told her that just because she thought Chris Hemsworth was hot, that she wasn’t a Thor fan. Things are better than they were, but it’s still an issue.

What do you think about the plans for the new “Star Wars” movie?

I’m thrilled to see Luke, Leia and Han back and I absolutely loved the creature in the J.J. Abrams video. I’m so happy that they’re doing a lot of practical effects. As I said, of course I’m disappointed in the fact that there aren’t more women in the cast. I hope they’ll be adding more.

What indicators do you have that more female stories and characters are being developed?

Well, actually, I think there aren’t enough. I hope that will change. We’re still seeing one “token” women in a cast. Avengers, for instance. Or Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I mean, Lois is in there, too, but as far as superheroes, there’s just Wonder Woman. That said, we’re certainly seeing more than before! I think that, the more the industry realizes that there is a huge female fan base out there, the more we’ll get.

Womanthology is a good example. We did a comic anthology (created by Renae DeLiz) with art, writing, penciling, etc., all by women and it exploded. I think our goal was $30K and we ended up with $109K on Kickstarter. The industry was shocked! Not only do women love to read comics, but we create them as well! I still get chocked up talking about this, but when I was at Comic Con, right after it was published, a little girl pulled on my pants leg. Tiny little thing. She asked if I was in the book. When I said yes, she asked if she could hug me. Her mom told me that she loved comics, but didn’t know that girls could make them. That’s what I want to change.

Is television a better place to find strong female characters than comics or movies?

I certainly think so. Look at things like Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Once Upon a Time, Game of Thrones (and yes, these women are strong, despite their situation), Orphan Black and Arrow. There are more characters and time to develop them, which sometimes keeps studios from classifying a show as something as “for boys” or “for girls.” Sci-Fi is certainly on the forefront in terms of strong women (and by strong, I don’t just mean women that “act like men,” but women with a complete character) and worlds that are populated the way our world is. They often have a realistic split between men and women, gay characters, trans characters, people of color … imagine that!

Which comic book heroine deserves a starring role in a feature film?

I’m holding out for a Ms. Marvel film. I have been for a long time. Also, after David Goyer’s terrible comments about She-Hulk, I’d love to see her get one!

Does today’s generation of tweens and teens have a better range of sci-fi/superhero female characters to choose from?

Absolutely, but we have a long way to go. We certainly have more, but they’re often marketed to us all as “badass sexy chick,” doing the “butt pose” in posters. And if she can’t “soften” or fall in love, they kill her off. Now, I have absolutely, positively no issue with sexuality, nudity, love or anything of the sort. There is no reason at all why they shouldn’t be sexy, in love or own their sexuality. In fact, quite the opposite. But there is a difference between someone owning their sexuality and using it in any way they wish, and that being their only justification for being there. I’m just saying, write characters, not caricatures.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Oh, I live in Los Angeles, so it’s definitely Force Push so I could move the other cars out of my way in traffic. (I did say I was a Star Wars geek.) Or maybe flight, so I wouldn’t have to deal with a car at all.