Ch-Ch-Changes

So, I dropped my son off at school this morning, and could barely get past anyone. The corridors were crammed with gaggles of mums yakking and gossiping. I tried to get past with my three-year-old daughter, and they wouldn't move. I said, loudly, "Excuse me," but that only seemed to draw them closer together into a more impenetrable wall. They would not budge a sodding inch for us. It meant that I had to barge past. I hate having to do that, but if people will be rude and ignorant, you're left with little choice. It's the last thing I sodding well need at this time of the year, hordes of ignorant bastards squatting in your personal space. At least the slow-moving people on the high street are actually moving, albeit imperceptibly, not forming some kind of unpleasant tracksuited barrier reef. Gangs of people barely acknowledging your existence, and making things difficult for you when you do... it was almost like being back at school myself.

When I was at school, aside from a love of comedy, the ZX Spectrum and drawing, I loved Transformers. I did my best to keep quiet about it, but it was always there. I've been a fan since it started in 1984. It was when I was in my twenties that other fans started coming out of the closet, or 'lapsed fans' jumping on the bandwagon. A lot of those people fill message boards, claiming to know everything about it, but their 'knowledge' is a few cartoons and the 1986 animated movie. But it's so much deeper...

That's one of my drawings of the Decepticon, Astrotrain. If the only thing you've ever seen of Transformers are the live-action movies, he may look a little out of place, which is something I'll come back to. The original backstory of Transformers was created by Marvel Comics, specifically by Denny O'Neill (who named Optimus Prime) and Jim Shooter, with Bob Budiansky taking over and naming Megatron and others. The cartoon was produced independently of the comics, taking the basis of the story and taking it in its own direction. The Marvel comic is what I loved though.

The once-peaceful planet of Cybertron is dragged into civil war, and the Transformers race is divided into two factions, the peace-loving Autobots, and the evil Decepticons. The planet was so ravaged by war, it was shaken from its orbit, and into the path of an asteroid belt. A team of Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, construct a craft called the Ark, launching to destroy the oncoming threat to the planet. Megatron and a team of Decepticons follow them, board the Ark, and a fight to the death ensues. Realising he has an opportunity to get rid of Megatron's threat once and for all, Optimus Prime sends the Ark on a collision course with a lifeless planet they've drifted near. The Ark crashes, killing everybody on board. Four million years later, a volcanic eruption revives the ship's systems, and it sends out a satellite to survey the planet. It sees what it understands to be life forms, and relays the information back to the ship, which begins reconstructing Autobot and Decepticon alike to resemble the indigenous people, to enable them to move around in plain sight. However, it had never encountered organic life before, nor had the Transformers, so they were given the ability to resemble cars, jets, communication devices and weapons, all devices of the humans who had evolved during that time. The war continued on modern-day Earth, both factions seen as a threat.

So, that's he basic backstory. I think that would have made a brilliant movie.

But this is what we had instead. On the right is my drawing of Megatron as he appeared in the comics, and on the left, the product of Hollywood committee. They are supposed to be the same character. On the original Megatron, you can spot clues in his robot mode as to what he transforms into. The movie Megatron on the left is a garbled mess.

I won't go into the storylines of the two live action movies here, but suffice to say it bears absolutely no relation to the original. The comics had soul, believable characters in both factions, politics, charisma, death and loss. Optimus Prime was a brilliant but flawed leader, Megatron an unstable, dangerous megalomaniac, delving more into psychosis and schizophrenic tendencies as the series progressed. There were power-struggles aplenty, with Shockwave, a monocular Decepticon who lived by logic, a constant thorn in Megatron's side, with one or the other leading the Decepticons on various occasions after successful coups on both their parts. The British writer, Simon Furman, tied in events of the animated movie (other than that, the comic and cartoon remained entirely separate entities), bringing Megatron's future self, Galvatron, back in time in a massive story arc that lasted over 2 years and left many characters dead, with a rift in time and space threatening to wipe out the entire planet. It was truly epic stuff. You had defectors, traitors, and deep characterisation. The Decepticons were not the snarling monsters that they are in the films. They had their own motivations, traits, character strengths and weaknesses. Michael Bay's movies have turned them into insectoid generic drones.

Before the first movie came out, I joined Don Murphy's message board. He's one of the producers of the films. The board was pretty standard as far as Transformers message boards go; plenty of 'proper' Transformers fans and genuinely lovely people (for the most part), and the standard bandwagon-jumpers and lapsed fans were all there, ones who had never read a comic in their lives, but thought that the cartoon from 1984-1987, with its reset-button-at-the-end 20 minute episodes, Autobots as celebrities and emo-leader Rodimus Prime in series 3 was the be all and end all of the franchise. They're the ones who always demand that characters from the animated movie be included in the live action films, but know nothing of Time Wars, Matrix Quest, the Decepticon civil war, Carnivac's defection from the Decepticons following the murder of his best friend, Cyclonus being decapitated by Megatron 20 years before his creation which led to the rift in time and space being opened, Optimus Prime's guilt over condemning the people of Earth to the Decepticon threat, Shockwave's brutal attack on an oil rig which left a young woman crippled, the Legacy of Unicron saga, the bounty-hunter, Death's Head (who ended up being one of Marvel UK's biggest stars in his own spin-off material), Autobot medic Ratchet being horrifically fused at the molecular level to Megatron, Dinobot Hunt, the Autobots losing faith in Optimus Prime's ability to lead, Impactor getting killed by thwarting an assassination attempt on Emirate Xaaron, and Grimlock's brutal reign when he became Autobot commander. In 332 issues of the UK comic, and 80 monthly US issues, a rich tapestry was created. Forever looked down upon by comic book readers as 'just a toy tie-in', and seen by Marvel themselves as a children's title, it was far from it.

Speaking of Grimlock, he and his Dinobots were vastly different to their animated counterparts. The cartoon fell into the clichéd "big characters are dumb" motif, even going so far as to have a completely different origin story for them (they were built in the cartoon by Ratchet and Wheeljack because Optimus Prime thought it would be cool to have robot dinosaurs, but in the comic, they were part of the Ark crew, revived after the crash and sent by the ship to stop Shockwave who had followed them down, and they were left dormant for 4 million years until they were rediscovered). Comics Grimlock was a stubborn, brave, dangerous anti-hero, fiercely loyal to his Dinobots. It's due to his portrayal in the comics, in particular Simon Furman's portrayal of him, that he is a fan favourite.

Back to the message board... One of the co-writers of the live action movies, Roberto Orci, was a board member. Prior to the first movie, he asked fans for suggestions for "Easter Eggs" to put in that fans would appreciate. Hundreds of suggestions were thrown his way. Being a fan of the comics, and realising that the comics would probably be overlooked, I suggested that Megatron use the word "fleshling", which he used in the comics to describe humans. It was a word that was never used in the cartoon. Lo and behold, he used my suggestion (I sent him a private message to ask if it came from my suggestion, and he confirmed it). Although the film completely did away with the Marvel origin, having them arrive in comet form with no ship, I was happy to have had one minor little thing to do with the film. What I wasn't happy with was that they had turned the Decepticons into growling monsters and gremlins. I, and many others, argued the case for including the Ark in the film, but his response was that they're beings that turn into vehicles; why would they need a spaceship? My argument was that I could theoretically swim to Australia, but I wouldn't be able to. I would need a vehicle of some sort to complete the journey. That fell on deaf ears. I was hoping that by the time of the second movie, I might be able to convince him to get G.B. Blackrock from the comics into the film. He was very much a Tony Stark-type character, and one of the Autobots' only human allies (in the comics, the Autobots and Decepticons were all seen equally by humans, and equally hated). To be fair to Mr Orci, he did listen, and took the idea to Michael Bay. I waited for a response. Finally, he came back, and said that "Michael thinks it's too cartoony". Then, on saying that, Bay introduced these particular elements to Revenge of the Fallen:

The Twins were an invention of Bay for the film, and are universally hated by Transformers fans, with shocking dialogue and cartoon faces. It's an embarrassment. Further puerile rubbish were Devastator's wrecking-ball testicles and the cringeworthy wank jokes and dogs shagging. After years of trying to convince people (and sometimes succeeding) that Transformers was not the brain-dead waste of time kid-fodder that many perceived it to be, in one fell swoop, Bay set back any progress made, from which there can be no recovery. Whenever any non-fans talk in derogatory terms about Revenge of the Fallen, I have to struggle to convince them that it bears no resemblance to anything that has come before. I mean, every other movie version of something bears at least a passing resemblance to the source material.

Whenever I see Spider-Man, any of the recent Batman movies, Hellboy or Iron Man, I feel like weeping. Why is my franchise so unlike the others? Why do they all get fairly faithful adaptations, especially in looks, and mine is full of fucking Bionicles and masturbation jokes? There has yet to be a faithful Transformers film, but it won't be until the franchise is rebooted like the Batman films were. The characters bear absolutely no resemblance in looks or personality to the originals. It's 25 years old this year, so there should be some kind of celebration. I don't feel like celebrating at all. I've stuck with it over 25 years, and for the first time in quarter of a century, I feel somewhat embarrassed by it. Not ashamed, not ever ashamed, just betrayed. I once wore the badge of being a fan proudly, despite people's reactions to that. Now, I don't know how to feel. There is so much wonderful material over the past 25 years, from the storylines I mentioned above to the superb Beast Wars: Transformers animated series (which wonderfully incorporated cartoon and comic continuity), but it's frustrating that most of the general public know nothing about them, basing their sole mocking knowledge on Bay's explosionfests. I can take solace at least that it's not only Transformers that it happened to. Poor GI Joe.

Here's probably the best bit from the 1986 animated movie:

Still, the Transformers cartoon had great opening titles, and was generally entertaining to watch, just annoying for a comic fan like me not seeing Simon Furman's sweeping epics being animated. If you ever do decide to take a look at Transformers beyond the movies, read the old Marvel comics written by Simon Furman (and avoid the horribly fanfiction-esque comics made by Dreamwave in the early 2000s). If you absolutely have to watch the cartoon, watch Megatron's Master Plan, which was admittedly great (and quite dark for a 1985 cartoon). You absolutely must watch the Beast Wars episode, Code of Hero. Beautifully written, and utterly tragic.

I'm angry at the fact that characters I grew up with have been pissed all over by Hollywood. I really wish that people could see why I love Transformers; it's unlikely when they're not going to read the graphic novels and watch all three seasons of Beast Wars and its layers upon layers of story arc. Perhaps one day, Hollywood will come back to the franchise, and remake it in the way it should always have ended up on the big screen. It's survived dozens of reboots and remakes over the years; I'm sure it could survive one on such a huge scale. It's a franchise based on characters who change by their very nature. If the Hulk can get rebooted so quickly after its first film, I'm sure these guys can too.