Look, I know that if I’m actually questioning the plausibility of the Transformers movies and cartoons, I’m probably over-thinking it. But seriously, if they’re supposed to be these ageless interplanetary robots and stuff that go way back to pre-history and come from some other planet or whatever, how come they’ve obviously been designed to transform specifically into contemporary models of cars, trucks, planes, etc., from the planet Earth? It seems to me that doesn’t quite jive with the whole “timeless robots from another world” thing, if you know what I mean.
I realize that the first Transformers movie cheated and dealt with this issue as though they can transform into whatever they want simply by taking a reading of it or whatever, as seen when Bumblebee looked at a new Camaro and became the newer model after beginning the film as a 1970s model Camaro.* But when you actually look at the robot version of the Autobots, they are clearly made out of the parts for whatever they morph into when they are the car, truck, whatever they are when they’re incognito, so what the hell? They can just change every little piece of themselves to whatever they want, whenever they want to? So then, why bother to still have all the headlights and front grille and wheels and tires and stuff on the robot versions of themselves? I mean, seriously: WTF?
* That, by the way, was one of the best and most successful uses of product placement I’ve ever seen! I don’t know if it ended up selling any cars for Chevrolet, but that was very well thought-out, so kudos to whoever thought it up! But unfortunately, the same mind did not go into the television advertising for the Chevy Camaro itself at the time of the first movie's release, which was just this lame campaign where they had CGI show the car sit there and transform back and forth, etc., which is really stupid, because the actual car doesn’t do that, and so it’s kind of false advertising.
I thought the ad should have been like this: A few of the Autobots in their robot forms stand on a freeway in the desert (so much of these movies seem to take place in the desert!), and then Bumblebee transforms into the Camaro, sits there for a second while the camera gets a few great shots of the car, and then he peels off down the road. So one of the Autobots says: “Show off!” Then another one says: “How come he gets to be a Camaro?” And then Optimus Prime says: “Jealous?”
For me, that would have said it all, and used the Transformers franchise in a good way to make the car itself seem cool (which it is), without trying to make it seem like something it’s not, or simply being lazy and letting CGI do all the work, which they did in the actual ads from around the first movie’s release. There are some better ones for the Camaro now that it’s 2011 and they’re on Transformers 3; but still, they mainly show the car as Bumblebee, and don’t show it being an actual car.
Here’s an example of the kind of ad I was talking about for the Camaro I didn’t like:
And here’s an example of a newer one that gets it right, finally (although I still like mine better):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OOr692Up8
The problem with that ad is it shows the Camaro in a shot driving next to a car that is cooler-looking than the Camaro is, and that's never a good idea in a commercial.
The problem with that ad is it shows the Camaro in a shot driving next to a car that is cooler-looking than the Camaro is, and that's never a good idea in a commercial.
