#but then I used my feminist brain and decided that wasn’t very realistic
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Bayverse: Treating These Movies with More Dignity than They Deserve or Contain, Because I’m a Goddamned Professional - Part One
TRANSFORMERS (2007) - UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN TEENAGERS THAT I DIDN’T NEED TO SEE
So.
This is a little different than what I usually do.
Clearly.
God, how did we even get here?
Oh, I remember.
The date was September 17th, 2020, and I was in a stream with nine or ten other people watching the first Bayverse Transformers movie. Why we were watching it doesn’t particularly matter- sometimes you just gotta watch garbage so you can refresh your palate for the good stuff, I suppose. Also, a couple of folks wanted to make goo-goo eyes at Blackout’s rotors.
...It’s not my thing, but I’m glad they’ve got something to make the journey worth taking.
I made some sort of comment about only using my brain for this blog’s content, and someone (you know who you are :)) suggested that I take a proper look at the film. Being who I am, I immediately latched onto this idea, despite it being technically outside of what I write about.
And then I quintuple-downed, because winners don’t quit.
Good to know that my BA in Film Production wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Fun fact, I broke my television trying to watch Transformers for this. I think the universe was trying to stop me, by making me perform surgery on electronics, and also aggravating my carpal tunnel.
This movie came out when I was 13, and it was the first Transformers thing I saw after Cybertron. Yes, the anime one. No, not the one that’s objectively terrible.
Anyway.
How did I feel about Transformers when I saw it the first time? Well… it was okay. I liked the robots. I thought Mikaela was pretty, not that I knew what that meant back then. I watched it a few times, if only because my oldest younger brother kept renting it at Blockbuster. It was fun.
Now I’m older, and wiser, and know feminist theory, so my opinion is less “this exists” and more “blind, murderous rage”.
Our film opens up with some claptrap about the Cube™, a MacGuffin of ultimate power that allows the Transformers to create worlds in their image and populate them. Which means this is how they reproduce.
It always comes back to baby-making, doesn’t it?
The narration goes on about how the Cube™ is very powerful, and some folks wanted it for good, and others for evil. The criteria for being “good” and “evil” isn’t established, and I’m not exactly sure how one would define such a thing, when all the Cube™ does is create life, but, well, we’ve only just begun. Maybe we’ll get some answers later on.
Haha, I doubt it.
So, the Cube™ is the catalyst for our 4 million year war this continuity, and that sucker was lost in the shuffle a while back. This is a problem, because, again, the Cube™ is how the Transformers reproduce. Now everyone’s in a mad scramble to find the thing so their species doesn’t die out.
Three guesses as to where it ended up, and the first two don’t count.
Smashcut to the shit nobody cares about- the humans. We see an Osprey fly over the Qatar desert, carrying a buttload of American soldiers. We get a taste of some good old-fashioned xenophobia, as several soldiers mock a guy for not speaking English and loving his mother’s cooking, going full “funny haha gibberish language” on him. We’re two and a half minutes into the film, and I already want to stab something.
Ed Sheeran breaks into the conversation, I guess because he was feeling left out, revealing that he is the New Yorker stereotype of the film, for some reason. The fellas ask their captain, Lennox, what he’s looking forward to most about getting home from their tour, and he reveals himself to be a family man. While he’s been away, his wife had a baby, who he hasn’t so much as held yet. His men respond by mocking him.
For loving his child.
We’re three minutes into the film, and the toxic masculinity might actually make me have an aneurysm.
The Ospreys land, the lads disembark, and we get a snapshot of what downtime during deployment looks like to Bay. There are a lot of kiddie swimming pools involved. Two men play basketball. We watch multiple men take outdoor showers. A young Qatari boy brings Lennox a camelback water pack with a smile on his face. This lets me know that he’s a prop and not a character in this film. I can’t wait to see how many horrors he’ll be put through to simulate pathos.
We get a shot of a helicopter flying over the desert, one that the US military doesn’t recognize as their own. They send a couple of planes to check it out, and said planes get their shop wrecked. The helicopter is revealed to be the same ‘copter that was shot down several months prior. That’s… not good. Ghost helicopter?
No. Not at all, actually.
Lennox gets on a video chat with his wife and daughter, who is wearing one of the most ridiculous baby outfits I’ve seen in a hot minute. And I used to work in childcare, so I’ve seen a good amount of those. The writing implies that normal bodily functions are unladylike and therefore undesirable… in an infant… and that’s when all hell breaks loose, thankfully saving me from more of Bay trying to make me give a shit about these characters.
The helicopter lands, we get a shot of the mustachioed pilot, who glitches (gasp), and the line “have your crew step out or we will kill you” is uttered.
Not even trying to hide the nationalism, are you?
This film hit theaters in 2007, when the xenophobia from 9/11 was still heavy in the air of the general populace, so things like this were more tolerated, and in fact approved of. Of course, it’s not like America has really improved on that subject, or ever really had a point where we weren’t terrible about it, since we live in a world where the military-entertainment complex exists.
See, the Department of Defense and a good chunk of American entertainment industries have a little deal going, and have for the last few decades, and it goes like this: The DoD will allow the use of their vehicles, personnel, and bases, or the likenesses of such, for free, in exchange for their operations being shown in a positive/morally justified light. This is why you never see the armed forces portrayed in a way that makes them out as anything less than heroes- nobody would be able to afford the sets/likenesses without the DoD’s aid. This is also why you see straight-up advertisements for the military branches on televison, in cinemas, and online, and why both the Army and Navy have flirted with having Twitch channels.
It’s all a ploy to get you to join the military, kids. It’s propaganda.
But enough about that, it’s time for our first transformation sequence!
We get a lot of moving parts with this, since it’s realistic CGI in a live-action movie, and it still holds up. It’s hard to tell what’s actually happening, but it, if nothing else, feels alien, surreal, and horrific to behold. They even included the original sound effect in the cacophony, which is nice.
Our ghost helicopter reveals itself to be a Transformer, not that we get that terminology at any point in this film. This specifically is Blackout, a Decepticon. The soldiers start firing on him the moment he starts transforming, then are surprised when the thing they started shooting with several guns retaliates. This is the point where everything ever in this military base explodes, brilliantly and repeatedly, because it wouldn’t be a Bay film without it. There’s a lot of shouting and bright lights, and I’m positively certain that a great deal of people died during this fight.
It’s just a shame that I don’t care.
Blackout rips the top off of a building like it’s a tin of anchovies, and then snags all the hard drives he can, downloading everything. This is a problem, but it seems like nobody was prepared for a giant alien robot hack-attack, because in order to shut down the power to the servers, you need to be able to unlock the breaker box, and no one seems to have the key. They solve the problem with a fire ax.
Lennox is leading the Qatari boy through the base towards safety. I should mention that it’s night now, and several hours seem to have passed since the Ospreys landed, so I don’t know why this kid is still here. He’s got, like, a house and family to go home to.
We get some more tank-throwing action, Sergeant Epps almost gets flattened under Blackout’s foot, then the movie decides it’s going to try to make things more interesting by having each shot cut flash, for whatever reason.
Someone shoots Blackout with a rocket launcher, I think, and this is the point where he throws his tiny little man off his back to go do his job. Yes, Blackout’s got a baby, and that baby is Scorponok, his symbiotic pal who likes to dig into the ground and be a sneaky little bastard.
Blackout blows up a ton more military equipment and personnel, and then it’s time for another smashcut.
Now we’re in high school, just like all those dreams I’ve had where I’ve forgotten my homework. This is where we meet Sam Witwicky, our main character, and also the stand-in for our target demographic. He’s insufferable, and I don’t like him. Mikaela Banes, our love interest, is also present in this scene, but we don’t get to know about her character for, like, another 20 minutes, because who gives a shit about women, right? They’re just props, right?
Right???
RIGHT??????????
RIGH-
Sam is presenting on his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, for his family genealogy report, in front of a class containing maybe three actors who are age appropriate.
I know child labor laws are a good thing, and that hiring adults to play teenagers is just the lay of the land, but I swear some of these students look like they’re old enough to be on their second mortgage and third kid.
Anyway.
Archibald Witwicky was an explorer, one of the first to traverse the Arctic circle, and apparently his crew was made up of folks from 2007, because I swear the clothing for a few of these dudes isn’t period-appropriate. We get a seamen joke, because of course we do, and a sextant joke, because of course we do. Sam is also hawking all this crap he’s brought in for the presentation, because he is a little bastard who has no idea what his peers would want to buy, or really how to relate to them at all. He’s selling these “priceless” artifacts so he can get a car. Mikaela finds this charming, for some fucking reason. Also, her boyfriend is weirdly stroking her shoulder blade with his knuckles the whole time this is happening, and I hate it.
Archibald Witwicky went mad after his expedition, talking about an “ice man” so often that his family ended up locking him in a mental asylum, likely to be forgotten about. Which is sad. But we won’t be getting into the medical mistreatment of the mentally ill in Bayverse, now will we? That’s just Too Deep™.
Sam’s teacher didn’t very much appreciate having his class be turned into an episode of Antiques Roadshow, but still gives Sam an “A” on the project, despite it being a very poor report that lasted all of two minutes. I suspect the teacher has tenure, and therefore no longer gives a shit about academic integrity. This “A” means that Sam’s father will buy him a car.
Which is nice, I suppose, if I gave a damn.
Sam’s father, Ron, picks up his son in a car he probably bought at the crux of his midlife crisis, in a green that reminds me of a school gymnasium floor, then plays a prank on his child by pretending to pull into the Porsche dealership. Sam isn’t getting a Porsche, which is good, because he doesn’t deserve one. As Sam gripes to his father, a yellow Camaro drives by oh so conspicuously. Wonder what’s up with that.
Instead of the Porshe dealership, they head over to the used car lot, which is being run by Bobby Bolivia, who spends his time yelling at his employees and wanting to murder his mother. Sam is incredibly ungrateful about the fact that his dad is helping him get a car, even though it’s his FIRST car, and nobody gets a nice one the first go around. Or, at least, they shouldn’t, given the statistics about accidents with young drivers.
“No sacrifice, no victory” is uttered by Ron, which is the family motto, or so he claims. Archibald Witwicky said the same thing when he had multiple people dying trying to get to the Arctic Circle, so there’s precedence for the phrase, but we’ll see how it holds up throughout the film.
Bobby Bolivia shows Sam and Ron the cars he has for sale, and Sam is immediately drawn to the yellow Camaro in the lot, though there’s a small problem- it’s too expensive for what he and his father agreed to. Also, nobody knows where the hell it came from, so paperwork might be an issue. When Bobby tries to show Sam the yellow Beetle they have right down the line, everything explodes, because this is a Bay film, and fuck the original material this movie was based on. Bobby lets them have the Camaro for a lower price, suddenly fearful of whatever strange powers have just visited his place of business. “The car picks the driver” is suddenly more than a bullshit line to spout off in order to sell cars, and I’m certain that’s shaken the poor man.
Over in Washington, D.C., the Secretary of Defense prepares to address just what the hell happened in Qatar, lamenting on how young the audience he’s going to be speaking to is. In particular, he’s referring to the two dweebs and the hot chick sitting in one of the rows. All the women in this movie who aren’t someone’s mom are made up to be very pretty. And not even in a realistic way.
But we’ll get to that in a bit.
So, the military network was hacked. That’s bad. Nobody knows who did it. That’s also bad. The only lead the US has is a soundbite, which is the signal that hacked the network.
Everyone here at the briefing is going to be helping to figure this mess out. This is great, if you like looking at Rachael Taylor for a few seconds at a time, and can compartmentalize hard enough to make that worth the effort of watching this godforsaken film.
Back at the Witwicky household, we meet Mojo, a chihuahua with a cast that doesn’t seem like it’s actually doing anything. I wish he was the main character instead of Sam.
Sam arrives home from the dealership, and says “alright, Mojo, I’ve got the car. Now I need the girl.”
As if ownership of a person is something to aspire to.
As if women are property to be owned.
As if women aren’t people, but rather commodities.
We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.
We’re introduced to Judy, Sam’s mother. She’s shrill, and annoying. This is by design, because none of the women in this film are actually people, but rather archetypes to bounce off of the male characters.
Sam and his father have a moment of what some might consider banter, then Sam gets huffy with his mom over gender roles for the dog. I, for one, think Mojo looks positively dashing in his bedazzled collar, and to hell with whatever Sam says to the contrary.
Sam drives off to go be a misogynist, with the promise to be back by 11PM.
Over in Qatar, the soldiers and that little boy are running from the attack on their base, as Lennox’s wife watches a public announcement on the matter back at home. The Secretary of Defense lets us know that we’re at DEFCON Delta at this point. Lennox Jr. cries, and all I can think about is how they probably pinched that baby to make that happen. They pinched a baby for Transformers (2007).
The soldiers in Qatar talk about shit they have no idea about, Sergeant Epps going on about somehow having been able to see a forcefield around Blackout through his super special binoculars. I don’t know how, or why, he knows this. I don’t know anything anymore.
Ed Sheeran has his doubts about this whole thing, and Lennox is also present in the scene, because I guess he’s important. Through a bit of dramatic irony, Fig- the guy everyone was making fun of for being bilingual at the start of the film- says that this probably isn’t over, as the shape of Scorponok shifts through the sand just beyond them.
Epps is having a minor crisis over the fact that Blackout saw him, but we don’t have time for that, because we’ve got to get to cover. The lads decide to head to the little Qatari boy’s house. Again, I wonder why he was at the base at all, considering that it seems like they’ve been traveling for a good portion of the day.
Back with Sam, he’s picked up his friend Miles, and together they’re going to a lake party. Are they invited to this party? Yes, but also no. It’s public property though, so it should be fine. As they park, Sam notices that Mikaela is here, which is great for him.
Mikaela’s boyfriend, Trent- whose name I had to look up- is a massive tool, and starts pestering the two boys for daring to exist in his airspace. Miles climbs a tree. I’m glad he’s having fun, at least. Sam makes a joke at the expense of people with brain injuries, and this for some reason? Warrants a shot of Mikaela making the blank “pretty girl” face? In response?
Mikaela saves Sam from becoming a wet stain on the grass, which is very kind of her, and more than Sam really deserves. Trent, his boys, and Mikaela start to head off for another party, to get away from Sam and his tree-loving friend. Mikaela offers to drive, and Trent says that she can’t handle his truck, because she’s a ~girl~. This causes Mikaela to ditch him, and start walking home.
The script knows enough about misogyny to know that this would be a nice “take that”. Michael Bay, however, likely fails to see why everything he did with said script involving this character is a goddamned problem.
Because Mikaela, bless her heart, has a lot of problems.
Let’s start with the outfit: a croptop, a jean skirt that BARELY covers her ass, and a pair of wedge heels that are at least four inches tall. On a character that is, at oldest, freshly 18.
Look, I’m all about self-expression and the freedom to choose how you dress for yourself and yourself alone, but this clearly isn’t that. This is a character, not a person, whose wardrobe was designed for the straight male gaze. She’s wearing fucking STRAP HEELS to the lake. This is about oogling. This is about reducing a whole-ass person to the same status as a piece of meat. In fact, who was on wardrobe for this? I’d like to have a few words with-
A woman? Okay, well, what else has she worked on?
You can’t be fucking serious.
ANYWAY.
Miles just called Mikaela an “evil jock concubine.” I don’t like Miles anymore.
As Mikaela walks down the road, strutting hard enough that I’ve got sympathy pains in my hips, the radio in the Camaro turns on, playing “Drive” by the Cars, and giving Sam a hell of an idea; he’s gonna drive Mikaela home, so she doesn’t have to walk the 10 miles to her house. Why he knows how far she lives from the lake isn’t addressed.
Sam kicks Miles out of the car and goes to give Mikaela a ride, which she accepts after a bit of self-deliberation, and also him making an ass of himself. The shot here is framed with Sam like he’s a normal-ass person, and Mikaela from her breasts to the top of her waist. Because of COURSE it is.
She hops in the car and then goes off about her taste in hot guys. Which is weird, and out of left field. Sam is about as confused as I am, then continues to make a fool of himself. This is his nature as a person. Mikaela has no idea who Sam is, even though they’ve gone to the same school for the last 10 years and have multiple classes together. And the fact that she was staring him down all through his genealogy presentation. And at the lake.
This movie isn’t very well thought out, I feel.
It’s at this point the the Camaro turns the key on itself and starts to sputter out and die, as “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye pops on the radio.
I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid.
I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid with a girl who didn’t even know his name five minutes ago.
I don’t like how this car knows what sex is.
The Camaro breaks down on a cliff, and Mikaela hops out to work on the engine, and also to get the hell away from Sam’s sputtering.
As Mikaela admires the sweet engine in this Camaro, showing off her knowledge of cars, we get several shots of her from her breasts to her thighs, while Sam is treated like an actual person. Don’t bother trying to play it off as an artistic choice, Bay, this is blatant horndogging. This adds to NOTHING, other than my ire.
Sam says more stupid shit, and Mikaela, who must be the nicest fucking person in the world, just tells him to fire up the engine so she can try to sort out the problem. Then he asks why she goes for jackasses like Trent, and she decides that she’s hit her limit for today, opting to walk the rest of the way home. Good on you, Mikaela. Don’t take Sam’s bullshit.
Sam, realizing that he’s put his foot in his mouth for the 80th time today, pleads with his Camaro to do him a solid and work, and this actually works out for him. Great. Sam, victorious, once again offers Mikaela a ride, which she, once again, takes.
He drops her off without further incident, and she thanks him for listening. Even though they didn’t really talk that much. I dunno, maybe they had a super deep conversation offscreen. Mikaela asks Sam if he thinks she’s shallow, because clearly all women need approval from the men around them, and Sam says that there’s more to her than meets the eye.
Which made me groan aloud.
Anyway, she gets inside without a problem, and Sam professes his love for his new Camaro for allowing him to talk to a girl. Or at least talk at her.
Back in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon National Military Command Center, we’re making weirdly racist calls on who hacked the military.
Up with Air Force One, a conspicuous boombox transforms into a robot, and then runs off to hack shit. The President of the United States requests some snack cakes. A flight attendant goes down to storage to retrieve said snack cakes, and finds that boombox in the elevator with her. Considering this is Air Force One, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse, and we don’t think here.
The flight attendant brings the boombox down with her and places it on the counter as she goes to get the presidential snack cakes. The boombox immediately disappears. Now, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse-
The flight attendant opens up the snack cake package, for some reason, and drops the cake on the floor. She then proceeds to eat it, and then act shocked when it tastes like floor. There’s a robot in her fucking line of sight, and you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing-
She leaves to go feed the President floor cakes, and our little robot friend gets to work stealing government secrets. He, if nothing else, looks pretty cool doing it. He’s a very pointy lad.
Back at the Pentagon, Maddie- Rachael Taylor’s character- can hear the hacking. This sends everyone into a panic, because, well, that shouldn’t be happening. The hacking noise is a direct match to the one from Qatar, so that’s obviously a problem.
Back on Air Force One, our little robot friend is looking for “Project Iceman”, which he very quickly finds, and downloads everything they’ve got on it, and also plants a virus. The process seems to be… doing things to him. It’s weird. This movie is weird.
The Pentagon cuts all the system hardlines, stopping the process, but it’s too late- he got what he wanted, just about. Two security personnel come into the room, and the robot kills them both with some spinning blade disc nonsense. Air Force One is forced to land for the safety of everyone on-board. More security detail comes in to deal with the little bastard, but he transforms into a boombox and sits on a shelf to avoid suspicion. Now, you’d perhaps expect-
With the plane grounded, our robot is able to walk his little ass over to a cop car. And when I say walk, I do mean walk; this fucker is in multiple folks’ line of sight and nobody notices a thing. When he enters the car, he’s greeted by the mustachioed driver- the same driver who was operating the helicopter at the beginning of the film. This mustache man is a holographic avatar, one that’s being used by all the Decepticons.
We get our first real taste of Cybertronian language, as our robot- it’s Frenzy, his name is Frenzy- lets everyone know that he’s found a clue to the location of the AllSpark, and, through the power of the internet, knows where to find the guy who’s gonna give them what they need.
Three guesses to who it is, and the first two don’t count.
Back at the Witwicky household, Sam’s car does a runner in the middle of the night. Sam, horrified that his property is being stolen, pursues on a bike, screaming at his dad to call the cops. Sam also calls the cops, as he tears through the neighborhood.
The Camaro breaks into an abandoned building, Sam follows, and we finally get a shot of our audience appeal character. Sam watches in disbelief as a giant yellow space robot shines a beacon into the sky, then makes a video on his flip phone recording the experience. He apologizes to his parents for owning pornographic magazines, and goes to face his probable demise.
However, death does not come from above, instead manifesting itself as two of the strongest junkyard dogs in the known universe, who break their brick-inlaid chains to get at this little dip of a man. Sam is chased through the yard, climbing on top of a couple precarious oil drums, even though there’s a ladder, like, right there. The Camaro rolls in, scaring off the dogs, and Sam bolts, throwing the keys to his ride at his ride. When he gets outside, the cops have arrived, and immediately arrest him.
Back with the US government, the Secretary of State is having a conversation about all the bullshit that just went down with Air Force One. He and his fellow cishet old white men discuss their options, until Maddie comes in to set them straight on some of the facts. They act all indignant about it, because women can’t be smart, right?
Right???
RIGHT??????????
RIGH-
Anyway, we get a weird little deflection of Maddie’s role in everything, because a woman is nothing without the men around her, then she brings up the point that the bullshit that happened on Air Force One went down in just a few seconds, which isn’t something that anyone can actually do. She brings up quantum mechanics, which everyone blows off as nonsense- not that I wouldn’t as well- and theorizes on a DNA-based computer, which is technically a thing, if not trapped in the realm of speculation. It’s at this point that the Secretary of Defense tells her to come back when she can back these wild claims up, and isn’t just clearly spitballing.
And then he snaps his fingers at her, and any point he might have had leaves my brain so I have more room for being enraged.
Back with Sam, we’re at the police station talking to the cops. His dad is here, and Sam is trying to explain that his car is a dude. Even though he took at a video (one that was likely crap, given how quickly he spun his phone around to show off what he was seeing) the cops, understandably, don’t believe him. Then one of them, not so understandably, starts… threatening Sam? With his sidearm? And daring him to try something? This isn’t any sort of statement on the corruption of American law enforcement, it’s just bizarre.
Back in Qatar, our soldier buddies have found a telephone line, and are going to try to use it to get in contact with the rest of the world. It’s just too bad that Scorponok’s decided to make an entrance, and knock said telephone line the hell down. Ed Sheeran has next to no reaction to this, despite it happening maybe ten feet behind him. Fig speaks Spanish, and Ed Sheeran makes a point to be an asshole about it.
Scorponok is about to stab Lennox with his very pointy tail, when Epps notices- finally, someone with peripheral vision- and starts shooting. Then everyone starts shooting, kicking up enough sand to blind themselves, as Scorponok scuttles away, buries himself, then reappears behind Ed Sheeran.
Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.
The others bolt, not wanting the same to happen to them, and for the fourth time I wonder just why the hell this young boy was at the base in the first place.
Off in the distance, the community of a nearby town wonders just what the shit is going on out in the desert. Our soldiers run into the town, and everyone gets their guns and start firing on Scorponok, who retaliates, because why the hell wouldn’t he?
Lennox demands that the young boy take him to his father, and proceeds to borrow his phone. As shit goes down outside, we have a sort-of gag where Lennox is trying to contact the Pentagon, while a telemarketer tries to get him to buy a phone package. In order for this call to go through, he’s going to need a credit card. This is where the well-known “pocket” scene comes from, as Lennox searches Epps’ pants for his wallet as he fires on Scorponok. It’s probably the best-written thing in this whole film.
With the credit card acquired, Lennox finally gets through to the Pentagon, and tosses Epps the phone so he can talk. Maybe he’s got anxiety about speaking on the phone, I dunno.
Scorponok shows off his disregard for historical architecture, blowing up several buildings, and the US government just watches this all go down. One of the actors in this scene looks like my dad, and it trips me up every time he’s on screen. Anyway, now the Pentagon knows about the giant space robots running around in Qatar. They send over some air support about it. All this manages to do is piss Scorponok off.
So they try it again.
This time it works, sort of.
At the very least, he’s left now.
Tail fell off, though.
Also, Fig’s been grievously wounded. The others, for once, don’t make fun of his native language while they help him hold his blood inside his body.
Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s looking to prove that the bullshit that’s been going on is of the sci-fi variety, and in order to do that, she’s going to need a little outside help. She takes the information from the Pentagon, slaps it into an SD card, hides that shit in her blush compact, and then runs out the door to Glenn Whitmann’s house. Or, rather, his grandma’s house.
Glenn is a hacker, and shouldn’t be seeing anything that Maddie’s brought him, but everyone knows that confidentiality is for nerds, so whatever.
Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s immediately been caught. It’s almost like slapping the military network onto an SD card maybe wasn’t such a hot idea.
But what do I know?
Glenn takes a look at the soundbite and figures out that there’s a code embedded in the thing in about two seconds. Good to know our tax dollars are being well-spent on the US military, that some dude in his jammies can figure this shit out faster than a whole team of analysts. They figure out that “Project Iceman” is involved with this somehow, and also the existence of Sector Seven.
It’s at this point that the FBI busts in. Good. I kind of want Maddie to go to jail for this, because she was about as stupid as she could be handling the situation.
Glenn’s cousin goes through a closed glass door- don’t worry, it’s tempered- and there’s a weird cut before that exact same shot continues, and he’s tackled into the pool. There was no reason for that to have happened, but here we are.
Back with Sam, we’re treated to him in his boxers, shooting basketballs in his room. He goes into the kitchen, where Mojo is standing on a stool. It’s a very tall stool, the sort you sit on, and he’s just… there. I don’t know how he got there. There’s no one else in the room besides Sam, and I know he didn’t put him there.
Clearly this must mean Mojo is God, and being on that stool is his divine will. I will be approaching the rest of the franchise with this in mind, because it’s clearly the only answer.
Our merciful Lord Mojo jumps up on the kitchen counter and begins growling at something through the window. Sam looks out… the opposite window… to find that his Camaro has returned to him, and is less than thrilled about it, to put it lightly. He drops a jug of milk- luckily it was mostly empty, given the sound it makes when it hits the floor- and gives his buddy Miles a call. You remember Miles, don’t you? If you don’t, it’s fine, because he reestablishes his quirkiness with a single shot, as he sits in a swimsuit and bathes his huge-ass dog in a kiddie pool, and answers the phone with a headset he just happened to be wearing. He must get a lot of calls during Dog Washing Hours.
After giving us one of the most intense voice cracks I’ve ever heard, Sam books it out of his house, hopping on a bike to escape his murderous Camaro. He’s not seen the thing commit any murders, mind you, but he seems pretty convinced that it would do the job, given half a chance. Also, this isn’t the bike he rode the night before; that one is likely being chewed on by those strong-ass junkyard dogs. No, for some reason, the Witwickys have a pastel pink girl’s bike, with the fun little handle tassels and the basket and everything. As far as I can tell, Sam is an only child, and if you think Bay’s going to allow for a teenage boy to have the vulnerability to own a pink bike, you’ve not been paying attention for the last 48.5 minutes.
The Camaro gives chase, rolling after Sam on his bike at a brisk 7 MPH down the friggin’ sidewalk, one of the only scenes in this travesty of a film to actually get me to crack a smile. Sam races through town until city planning puts a stop to him, through the magic of using chunks of cement to decorate the mulch around their trees. He crashes his bike, faceplants into the concrete in front of Mikaela, and promptly dies, thus ending the film.
No, he doesn’t die. I just told a fib. I’m sorry.
Instead, he does a flip and lands on his back, likely receiving a concussion, in front of Mikaela and her friends. Her friends laugh, because everyone hates Sam, as they should, and Mikaela says that what he just did was “really awesome.” Don’t try to be nice, Mikaela, this is Sam we’re talking about; you could stick the dude in the freezer overnight and he still wouldn’t be even remotely cool.
Sam gets back to the whole “running away from a car” deal, and Mikaela decides that this is the sort of thing she’d like to do with her day, so she ditches her friends in the middle of their scheduled Burger King™ time to go see what the hell Sam’s on about.
As Sam is chased by the Camaro who is being chased by Mikaela on her motorized scooter, a cop becomes involved, tearing through the streets to join this ridiculous game of tag. Now, we’ve seen two different flavor of cop so far- the mustachioed avatar cop car that picked up Frenzy from the airport, and the dude who threatened a teenage boy with a gun after accusing him of being under the influence of drugs. Either way, I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Sam.
Sam’s cornered himself under one of those really wide bridges where people can park their cars, which wasn’t terribly smart, but it’s Sam, so this is about par for the course. The Camaro manages to miss him, but the cop car does not. Sam is actually pretty cool with the cops being here, as if they could do anything about “Satan’s Camaro.” I guess he didn’t see the decal on the side of this car that says “to punish and enslave…”
Sam attempts to approach the car for help, and gets clotheslined by a car door for his troubles. He hits his head on the pavement, certainly exasperating the brain injury he received not ten minutes ago. Still, he continues to try to talk to the holographic avatar through the windshield, revealing that the bike he’s been riding is his mother’s. Mystery solved, I suppose.
The cop car doesn’t much appreciate being slapped on the hood, and begins to rev violently at Sam, threatening to run him over several times. Then it explodes into being a robot. Sam, who’s seen a lot of really weird shit in the last 24 hours, nopes out of the situation. It’s at this point that I realize he’s wearing a shirt for the band the Strokes. I don’t know why that stuck out to me, but it did. Guess my brain needed something to latch onto during all this.
Sam is running as fast as his little legs allow, as our newest robot friend takes up a leisurely jog to keep pace. Then he kicks Sam. He kicks Sam’s body like the football. This, of course, instantly turns Sam into a bag of jelly and kills him, thus ending the film.
No, he doesn’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.
Sam somehow survives being punted by a giant metal leg and lands in the windshield of a car that doesn’t turn into a robot. Then he gets yelled at by the cop car. This is Barricade, a member of the Decepticons, and Sam’s got something he wants. Or, should I say “LadiesMan217” has something he wants.
LadiesMan217 is Sam’s Ebay username. This is both stupid because no teenage boy existing beyond the year 1985 would have ever called himself that, and also because it’s just stupid.
Barricade wants the glasses Sam presented for his genealogy report, and he wants them NOW. Seeing as the thing he wants is for sale, and nobody had been bidding on it, one would wonder why Barricade and his associates didn’t just try to purchase them like upstanding citizens. Perhaps Decepticons don’t understand the concept of money, or perhaps they don’t have a stable address to have the glasses shipped to. Or perhaps nobody considered that angle when the script was being put together. Who can say?
Sam gets back to running away from Barricade, we see where Mikaela got to, and the two of them collide. Sam rips Mikaela off of her scooter, and they both fall to the ground. Mikaela, who did not buckle the clasp on her helmet, asks Sam what his fucking problem is. Then his problem shows up, and they take a very long time to get up so they can run. So long, in fact, that the Camaro has to swing in to save them. After much pleading from Sam, Mikaela gets inside Satan’s Camaro, and the two of them are whisked away to safety. Barricade pursues, and then the butt rock starts.
There’s a lot of screaming and yelling, the Camaro busts through a window and several shelves in an abandoned building, there’s some drifting, and then suddenly it’s nighttime. Barricade somehow got in front of the Camaro, and is circling like a shark. The Camaro locks the two teenagers inside itself, though I suppose they could climb out through the still-open windows if they really wanted to. The Camaro cuts the engine off, then cuts it back on and bolts for the exit, and this somehow tricks Barricade long enough for them to get past.
The Camaro dumps Mikaela and Sam out one of the doors and then transforms into that yellow space robot we saw a bit ago. It’s Bumblebee! Nearly an hour in, and we finally get a proper look at the little bastard. I guess that’s what happens when you spend the first 20-something minutes on being xenophobic and appealing to the focus groups that think it’s fine sexualize high schoolers.
Bumblebee- no, he’s not introduced himself yet, but I just can’t keep calling him “the Camaro” anymore- comes out of his transformation ready to square the fuck up. Barricade throws himself at Bumblebee, they roll around on the ground for a bit, then things start sparking and exploding, because this is a Michael Bay film. Frenzy jumps out and starts chasing down Mikaela and Sam, while Bumblebee and Barricade murder death punch each other. Frenzy manages to grab Sam by the ankles, drag him to the ground, and rip his pants off. Not sure how that happened, considering he’s still got his shoes on.
While Sam’s busy being chased by a sentient pile of safety pins, Mikaela’s taken it upon herself to be proactive about her survival, and is raiding a nearby building for power tools. She sprints out holding an electric jig saw and saves Sam by decapitating Frenzy. If you know anything about Transformers, then you know this doesn’t actually kill Frenzy, but good on her for being a badass. Why couldn’t Mikaela be our main character again? Oh, right, because she’s a ~girl~.
Sam punts Frenzy’s head, like, 50 yards, which seems like something he shouldn’t be able to do, given that he’s a massive weenie, but there you are. With that out of the way, Sam takes Mikaela’s hand and they run off to go watch the giant robot fight. The bottom of Frenzy’s head turns into a spider and he crawls his way over to Mikaela’s purse. He’s gonna steal her gum, the fiend!
Mikaela and Sam have, unfortunately, missed the giant robot fight, which means that we, as the audience, have also missed the giant robot fight. Which is unbelievably stupid, seeing as everyone who has ever watched this movie came for the GIANT GODDAMN ROBOTS.
Mikaela asks just who the hell the yellow robot is, I guess because she’s finally had a second to process what the hell’s going on. Sam claims that he’s a super-advanced robot, “probably from Japan.” Whether or not this is a reference to the Japanese origins of the original toy line isn’t clear, though somehow I think it’s more xenophobia. Sam also makes the claim that if Bumblebee had intended to hurt them, he would have done it by now. This is quite the jump from a few hours ago, when he was calling the poor guy “Satan’s Camaro.”
Sam finally, finally asks Bumblebee what his deal is, and we get our first taste of the Bayverse Bumblebee Gimmick. The Gimmick here is that, due to an injury to his vocal processing, Bumblebee cannot communicate through traditional means, i.e. speech. Because of this, he instead strings together sentences by flicking through the radio frequencies and choosing key words. This can lead to some interesting audio design, like describing his fellow Autobots to “rain down like visitors form heaven, Hallelujah!” because a radio sermon fit what he was trying to say best.
This gimmick is one that has been used in other pieces of Transformers media, at least in part. Bumblebee is unable to speak traditionally in Transformers: Prime, and instead communicates in beeps and clicks that his teammates can understand, but not so much the humans, save for Raf. In Bumblebee (2018), the idea was used whole-cloth, with the injury resulting in his inability to speak happening on-camera within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the idea of “expressing oneself through music” being introduced by his human companion Charlie Watson.
All in all, I rather like the idea going on here; it’s an interesting part of his character that opens up for a lot of interesting and creative moments.
It’s just too bad it was introduced in fucking Bayverse.
But yeah, anyway, the other Autobots are coming to Earth. Shit’s gonna be lit.
Bumblebee turns back into a Camaro, and Sam uses the power of FOMO to get Mikaela to go in the car with him. We get a shot of Barricade fucking dying on the side of the road. Frenzy murders Mikaela’s phone, and then steals its identity, including the little bejeweled heart stickers. Good thing Mikaela remembered to go get her purse, otherwise he probably would have felt very silly doing that.
Mikaela refuses to sit in the driver’s seat, seeing as she now knows Sam’s car is sentient, and sort of feels weird about this whole thing. Sam suggests that she sit in his lap instead, as the camera angles to give us a peek at the cup of Mikaela’s bra. When asked why the hell she should do such a thing, Sam says it’s a concern about her safety, given that the middle console of the car does not have a seatbelt. Sam either fails to recognize that seatbelts going over two layered bodies won’t save either of them in the event of a crash, or he’s just trying to make an excuse to have a pretty girl in his lap.
Given what movie this is, I’m going to guess it’s the latter.
Mikaela has a similar line of thought, but scoots over anyway, saying that the seatbelt line was a “smooth move”. It wasn’t, but if I picked apart every single bad line Sam had in this film, I’d be here all day.
Mikaela questions Bumblebee’s taste in alt-mode, which offends him to the point of dumping both her and Sam out in the street and driving away. He returns, moments later, as a sleek new Camaro, that I’m sure some car aficionados would call “sexy.”
Bumblebee’s alt-mode is a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, of which there were none during the time of filming. It was put together for this movie in roughly five weeks. Sam is blown away by the fact that he now owns a car that does not currently exist in his universe. Mikaela is impressed, or at least she would be, if women were allowed to show that emotion in a non-horny way in a Bay film.
Judy doesn’t count.
As Bumblebee breaks into yet another restricted area, we get a shot of the Earth from orbit, as several objects rocket towards the planet. Sam and Mikaela watch the Autobots burn up in the atmosphere, and Mikaela tries to hold Sam’s hand as they do, and it’s at this point that I have to address how much I hate these two’s dynamic.
I don’t give a single solitary shit about this romance, because A) it’s poorly written, B) Mikaela could do infinitely better than Sam, C) I dislike Sam so very much, D) Mikaela, who is a way more interesting character, got placed on friggin’ love interest duty because ~girl~, and E) it’s useless padding to try and make me care about what’s happening here, and I just DON’T. I do NOT care about whether these two get together or not.
We see the Autobots crash-land, three out of four of them causing massive amounts of property damage and possibly killing at least one person. Their stasis pods crack open, and they each climb out, completely naked and in desperate need of clothing to hide their shame. With a quick scan of nearby vehicles, they’re once again decent to be seen in public.
Bumblebee drives the kids out to what I can only assume is the warehouse district he sent that beacon out in, as our collection of good guys finally come together at long last. A massive Peterbilt semi-truck stops directly in front of Mikaela and Sam.
We’re over an hour into this film, and we’re just now getting to the quintessential Transformer, Optimus Prime himself.
In the original cartoon, Optimus’s alt-mode was what’s known as a cabover truck, one where the cab- where the driver sits- is seated directly over the engine. These were popular during the days when maximum truck-lengths were much shorter than they are currently. This is why when you look at height charts for Optimus over various continuities, his G1 cartoon counterpart much shorter than his other iterations.
Modern trucks are longer, and don’t need the cab to sit on top of the engine to save on space. The designers chose to use a Peterbilt to make sure that Optimus would have an imposing stature when compared to his fellow Autobots.
Because heaven forbid we not have heightism come into play in this film.
Our Autobots transform, and say what you will about these bastards being visually incomprehensible, the transformations themselves are cool as hell. My personal favorite is Jazz’s, where he does a cool windmill into his root mode.
Optimus crouches like he’s looking at a cool bug on the sidewalk and addresses Sam by name. He doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela, which I find to be a bit rude, but whatever. He then introduces himself as the leader of the Autobots.
Peter Cullen is back as the voice for Optimus Prime, sounding wonderful as always. He almost wasn’t brought on for this project, because Michael Bay didn’t want him. If the fans hadn’t thrown a hissyfit, who knows who we would have gotten to be our space dad for the next hour and a half?
This is actually an issue that’s recurred several times in the last few years, and not just with Cullen; Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron, as well as many other Transformers, has been refused roles within Transformers properties. In general, this is because both Cullen and Welker are union actors, and Hasbro would prefer to hire sound-alikes than pay more money for the originals. This isn’t to shame the non-union actors, goodness no, just to merely point out less-than-fantastic business practices.
I realize there have been a lot of tangents, but you have to understand that I am suffering as I do this.
Optimus then introduces his team- there’s Jazz, whose first line is “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”, Ironhide, who incorrectly quotes Dirty Harry, and Ratchet, who calls out just how obnoxiously horny Sam’s character is. We also finally get Bumblebee’s name.
Mikaela asks the very good question of why the fuck the Autobots are here on Earth. Optimus explains that the AllSpark is here, and they’ve got to get to it before Megatron does. He then goes on to explain who Megatron is, stating that he “betrayed” the Cybertronian empire.
No, how exactly he did that isn’t addressed. We’ll just have to take Optimus’s word, I suppose.
If you’ve sussed out by this point the the AllSpark and the Cube™ are the same thing, congrats! You win. Megatron followed the AllSpark to Earth, where he promptly was neutralized by the cold of the Arctic circle. This was 110 years prior to the events of this film, and where Archibald Witwicky came in to the story.
When the expedition was happening, Archibald fell through the ice during a collapse, and ended up finding Megatron’s frozen body in an ice cave. He went poking around on this strange metal giant, and ended up activating Megatron’s navigation systems, which imprinted the coordinates of the AllSpark onto Archibald’s glasses.
Don’t ask how that works, it just does.
So, the Autobots need the glasses, so they can find the AllSpark before the Decepticons do, so those guys don’t use it to build an army out of Earth’s machines, which will destroy humanity.
Sounds simple enough, let’s go get that vision correction device!
Back with the military dudes, everyone’s taking a gander at the tail that Scorponok left behind. They theorize that the metal that makes up these giant murder-robots reacts to extreme heat, but elaboration on that point will have to wait, because the tail has begun to flail. They quickly strap it down, then call the military to let them know to strap anti-tank guns onto anything that’s going to be approaching any giant robots.
Meanwhile, in an interrogation room, Maddie and Glen have been left to sweat a bit. Glen takes to stress-eating, while framing it as a psychological tactic to subconsciously prove his innocence to the FBI.
This is a fat joke, with the added nasty layer of Glen being a black man about to be interrogated by one of the most intimidating white cops I’ve seen in a hot minute.
Glen immediately folds, pinning all the blame on Maddie, and claiming that he’s been a perfect angel his whole life. We get some weird purity culture out of him, before Maddie lets the FBI know that she needs to talk to the Secretary of Defense, NOW.
Over at the Witwicky household, Sam’s parents are watching the news, trying to find out what all those loud crashes were about. Optimus Prime drives down their residential street, the rest of the gang in tow, then they all park to wait for Sam to go get the glasses.
For about 20 seconds.
Sam has to physically hold the door shut to prevent his father from coming out and seeing several very tall robots from outer space tip-toeing around his freshly-landscaped yard, I guess because they got antsy. Optimus plods around on the grass and breaks a fountain, and our benevolent god Mojo comes out of the house, assuredly to smite the leader of the Autobots.
Mikaela runs onto the scene, and Sam chastises her for not controlling the robots who didn’t even acknowledge her existence, outside of pointing out Sam was sexually attracted to her.
Mojo pees on Ironhide’s foot, which prompts Ironhide to threaten to shoot the creature. This is why Ironhide isn’t getting into heaven. Sam, one of Mojo’s chosen few, claims that the mortal shell of his god is seen as a beloved pet by many humans. Sam runs into the house, before Mojo can incur his divine wrath on the Autobots.
While Sam goes to get the glasses, the Autobots decide to do a little peeping on the house, watching his parents watch TV. Sam tears his room apart trying to find the glasses, and Optimus thinks that it would be helpful if he brought Mikaela up to help look. It’s at this point that I realize that Sam has an utterly bizarre fish tank.
I mean, legitimately, what the fuck is this? No filter, no plants, might not even have any rocks on the bottom. Is this a comically oversized bong Sam threw a couple fish into? What the fuck.
Mikaela starts looking for the glasses, running into what is likely a box of porn mags, then they both look out the window to find that the Autobots have decided to hide in plain sight by transforming... in the middle of Sam’s backyard. Amazing work, gentlemen.
Sam finally convinces the Autobots to go sit in the alley and wait, only for Ratchet to run into a power line and trip into a greenhouse. The resulting impact is interpreted as an earthquake. Judy does not have the reaction one might expect from someone who’s lived in California for at least ten years.
Ratchet’s fine, by the way.
The power cuts out, and Ron goes up to check on his son, because he’s at least a halfway-decent father. Ratchet’s shining a light to aid in the search for the glasses. Sam’s parents notice this bright light, and bang on Sam’s door to see what’s up.
Sam quickly hides Mikaela and then attempts to salvage the situation, answering the door and trying to control the narrative. Unfortunately, Ron is far too inquisitive for Sam to do this, and then Judy asks if Sam was masturbating.
Judy, is privacy just not a thing to you? Because if not, it really ought to be.
She keeps going with it too, trying to come up with code words, until another one of the Autobots trips and causes Ron to panic again, climbing into Sam’s ancient claw-foot bathtub to protect himself. He looks out the window to check on his beloved yard, lamenting that the earthquake tore it up.
Ironhide is strongly considering killing Sam’s parents. Optimus tells him that they don’t harm humans, and also begins to wonder if he made a mistake bringing this guy along.
Back in Sam’s room, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Sam is an absolutely terrible liar, and Mikaela reveals herself, if only to prevent Judy from trying to talk about self-pleasure again. Of course, now she gets to be subjected to both of Sam’s parents objectifying her, so this might be a lose-lose situation.
Sam is reminded that his backpack is in the kitchen, just in time for the government to show up at his house. Mikaela makes a comment about Judy being nice. I suppose on a surface level, yes, being told that you’re gorgeous by someone’s mom is nice. I do have to question the context that compliment took place in, however.
Sam’s about to hand the glasses over to the Autobots, when someone rings the doorbell. It’s Sector Seven, and they’re here to talk to Sam about his stolen car being part of an issue involving national security. Ron and Judy are more concerned about their yard being torn up, Judy yelling that they “need to get their hands off [her] bush.”
We still have another hour of this movie.
The agent leading this mission asks Sam to come with him for questioning, which his parents are very much against. Mojo also voices his displeasure, but it would seem that Agent Simmons is not a follower of the Tenets of Mojo. Sam gets geigered, and his readings are high enough for Sector Seven to take him and everyone in this house into custody.
As Sam and Mikaela are riding in the back of the car, Simmons brings up Sam’s Ebay account, and also the phone video he took of Bumblebee earlier in the week. Mikaela is rather unimpressed with Sam at the moment, probably because he’s gotten her arrested. She still tries to help him out though, because she really is just the nicest fucking person on the planet.
Alas, the combined efforts of these two teenagers isn’t enough to fool the long arm of the law, especially when it’s a branch of said law that deals with extraterrestrial activity. Simmons threatens to lock up these literal children for life if they don’t start talking. Mikaela isn’t taking the bait, so he goes after her father’s parole hearing instead.
Yep! As it turns out, Mikaela and her father stole cars to get by, and she’s got the record to back that claim up. Simmons calls her a criminal, then says that criminals are hot. Mikaela looks like she’s about to cry, and I don’t blame her in the slightest.
Optimus, I suppose because his dad senses were tingling, takes the opportunity to place his leg in the road for the car to run into, then grabs said car like an unruly cat and lifts it until the roof rips off due to stress. The agents in the other cars pile out and point their guns at the giant space robot. The rest of the Autobots quickly relieve them of their weapons.
Optimus notes that Simmons doesn’t seem surprised that a bunch of giant robots just took all his guys’ guns, and demands that he exit the vehicle, posthaste. Simmons obliges, after a bit more prodding. Mikaela undoes Sam’s handcuffs, and he gets fucking pissy about it, as if this girl he’s had a grand total of three (awkward) conversations with should have told him something as personal as “hey, so my dad’s in jail and I’ve been to juvenile detention.”
Luckily, she doesn’t let him get away with it, calling him out as the spoiled, self-centered, privileged little shithead that he is.
Of course, we don’t get any sort of real acknowledgement from Sam, having to move on with the plot. Perhaps, if we hadn’t spent the last hour and 20 minutes faffing about on drivel, we could have had Sam get an actual moment of self-reflection, and potentially even character growth. However, this is Bayverse, and everyone knows that personal accountability is for fucking sissies.
Mikaela and Sam ask several questions, but get no answers from Agent Simmons. And then Bumblebee pees on him.
I hate that I had to write that. I hate it very much.
Anyway, I don’t know why that had to happen, but it did, and I’m nothing if not thorough.
Optimus tells Bumblebee to cut it out, and with that the Sector Seven agents are cuffs and left on the side of the road. Mikaela orders Simmons to strip, as punishment for threatening her father, then cuffs him to a street lamp.
...Yes, that does sound like a bizarre sexual fantasy, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately for our teen heroes, they forgot to confiscate everyone’s phones, and Sector Seven knows what’s up, thanks to the power of speakerphone. More cars and a couple of helicopters show up basically immediately, and the Autobots decide it’s time to dip.
But not before Ironhide fires off a pulsewave into the ground that causes a five-car pileup.
Optimus, I suppose because he knows he chose a ridiculously flashy alt-mode that is in no way practical, just picks the kids up in and places them on his shoulder like a couple of parakeets, then takes up a leisurely jog to get away from the eyes in the sky. He runs through the city, racking up what is likely millions in property damage, as the helicopters pursue. He passes by a “Legalize LA” billboard, which feels odd to see, given what movie this is.
The ‘copters somehow manage to lose Optimus, despite him being relatively slow, and having a notable radiation level that they’ve been using to track him. He hides inside the scaffolding of a bridge, only for Mikaela and Sam to slip off of his polished body to their deaths, thus ending the film.
No, they don’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.
Bumblebee snatches them up just before they hit the ground, the impact of his metal body catching them at 75 mph, killing them instantly and ending the film.
Nope, that doesn’t happen either.
Mikaela and Sam are fine, some-fucking-how, but Sam’s dropped the MacGuffin glasses. The helicopters swing back around, having noticed the sound of a car crashing into the ground and the screams of two whole adolescents. They break out a fucking harpoon gun and fire on our kid appeal character.
Repeatedly.
They wrap up Bumblebee in a series of cables, as he screams like a moose. Mikaela and Sam are held at gunpoint by what is honestly far too many dudes, and are then arrested for the second time in ten minutes. Bumblebee is smoked... because he’s a bee? Sam, not liking this one bit, finds the strength in his weenie body to push a cop off of himself, run at one of the dudes with the smoke guns, throw him to the ground, and then start smoking him. He’s immediately tackled, but points for trying.
Sam and Mikaela are placed back into custody, and the rest of the Autobots regroup with Optimus to see what the plan is. Optimus says that they can’t save Bumblebee without hurting humans, so I guess Bumblebee is just a POW now. Well, at least they got the glasses. That’s cool.
Back at the Pentagon, things are getting dicey, as the other world powers are starting to suspect that something’s up. The Secretary of Defense is approached by a man with a mustache and a briefcase. He’s from Sector Seven, but the Secretary gives not a fuck about mysterious organizations. All the computers in the room suddenly go down, the virus from earlier working its magic- only this time, the blackout is global.
Mr. Mustache opens his briefcase, while explaining that Sector Seven is something known as a “special access” sector of the government, which is why nobody’s ever heard of it; it’s beyond top secret. Commissioned by President Herbert Hoover 80 years prior, it deals with alien life.
When the Beagle 2 spacecraft was lost on the way to Mars in 2003, the mission was declared a failure. This was a lie. The Beagle 2 recorded several seconds of Mars before being crushed to death by a Transformer. This tidbit is pretty funny, given that the Beagle 2 was rediscovered on Mars in 2014, seven years after this film released. Not a terribly mysterious death anymore, is it?
Comparing the footage from Mars to the footage from Qatar has Sector Seven thinking that these are the same species. Which they are. God, it’d be so fucked up if there were two species of giant robots in this film.
Mr. Mustache theorizes that because the Transformers now know that they can be harmed by human weaponry, they’re being proactive about their safety and shutting down all forms of communication technology with that virus that keeps popping up. It’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan for humanity.
Mr. Secretary tells his guys to try going analog with comms, breaking out the short-wave radios, to tell their ships to return home.
Over at an Air Force base, Lennox and the gang have landed, only to be scooped up by a bunch of dudes in suits.
Back with Maddie and Glen, the two of them have fallen asleep in the interrogation room, Maddie still wearing her friggin’ four inch pumps as her legs are propped up on the table, crossed in a way that seems rather uncomfortable. Glen gets to sleep like a normal human being, with his head resting on his forearms. Why this place doesn’t have a holding cell for these situations is beyond me.
Mr. Secretary comes in to bring Maddie on as his advisor. Glen can come too, I guess, considering he’s the one who actually figured out the sound file virus.
We get a little military glorification, and then it’s revealed that Mikaela and Sam, as well as Maddie and Glen, are aboard this helicopter. Their paths cross at last. Our heroes are transported to the Hoover Dam, where Bumblebee is also. They are still smoking him.
Meanwhile, the Autobots are figuring out where to go, with the power of Archibald’s glasses. Ratchet, who I guess is omnipotent, senses that the Decepticons have also figured out the location, and that this is going to be a race against the clock. And I mean, he’s right, but the phrasing is a bit odd.
Jazz wants to know when they’re going to save Bumblebee. Optimus says that they aren’t, and that Bumblebee’s sacrifice is noble, and that he would want the Autobots to leave him and complete the mission. As this is said, we get another shot of Bumblebee getting smoked and trapped in a lab. Yep, this is totally what he would want. He absolutely signed up for this, giving himself up to the government and not at all fighting like mad to not be captured.
I don’t think Bayverse Optimus actually knows what martyrdom is, which is bizarre, given that it’s a major trait in a lot of other iterations of the character.
Ironhide isn’t even sure why they’re bothering to save humanity, given that humans are violent and awful, his point being hammered home as Bumblebee is tortured for scientific reasons. Ironhide seems to have forgotten that Cybertron has been at war for literally millions of years. Optimus has faith in humanity, however, stating that we’re “young”.
And then he says that he’s going to end his own race, by destroying the Cube™, which is how they reproduce, because that’s the only way to end the war.
Which is arguably one of the most hardcore fictional applications of eugenics ever conceived.
Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.
We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.
Optimus then proves that he does, in fact, know what self-sacrifice is, stating that, if all else fails, he’ll shove the AllSpark into his spark, which will destroy them both. He’s pretty chill about it, too.
Up on top of the Hoover Dam, Frenzy has fallen out of Mikaela’s bag.
Mr. Secretary is also at the Hoover Dam now, as is Lennox’s team. Oh, and Agent Simmons, who is thankfully wearing pants. He offers to buy Sam a coffee, as repartitions for threatening his family, arresting him, and being a complete creep to a teenage girl. Sam gives not a fuck about caramel macchiatos with extra foam and chocolate drizzle, however. He only cares about his car.
Mr. Mustache, who is also here, needs Sam to spill the beans on all these friggin’ giant robots that are running around. This is where Sam realizes he has the upper hand for once, and he starts making demands. One such demand is having Mikaela’s record scrubbed clean, which is an actually very nice thing for him to have done for her. We’ll see if his intent comes to fruition. For now, it’s time to talk about Bumblebee.
We get a shot of all these folks heading into the secret base hidden inside the Hoover Dam, and it’s at this point that I notice that Maddie’s shirt is basically see-through.
Inside the Dam, we see that Sector Seven′s been keeping Megatron this entire time, keeping him neutralized with cryo-stasis since 1935. Cryopreservation was invented in the 50′s. This isn’t a nitpick, I just thought it was a neat little fact.
Megatron being on Earth has resulted in most modern technology. This sort of plot point always bothers me, because it takes away agency from the entire human race. We didn’t use our own ingenuity and work ethic to advance society, we plagiarized from a more advanced species. I dunno, it just rubs me the wrong way.
We get the part of the movie where info is hashed out, so that everyone is on the same page, Sam spouting off Autobot propaganda. We can forgive him for this,considering he’s 16, and no one is immune to propaganda, especially when they have zero way of doing their own research to form their own opinion with.
Sector Seven also has the AllSpark, kept in the room next to Megatron’s, like the chumps they will soon find themselves to be. It’s about ten stories tall and the reason the Hoover Dam exists. With so much concrete suppressing its alien energies, surely no one will ever find it!
Except for Frenzy, who came in through a mouse hole. Whoopsie-doodle!
The AllSpark zaps the nasty little man, restoring his body with its weird MacGuffin powers. Frenzy tells all his coworkers that he found what they were looking for, and everyone starts heading over.
Maddie asks Mr. Mustache what exactly he means by “energies”, perhaps worried that this whole thing has been some elaborate ploy to get her to invest in magic healing stones. Mr. Mustache brings everyone into a testing chamber, since the best way to explain how the AllSpark works is through a demonstration.
There’s a big fish tank in the middle of this testing chamber, in which Agent Simmons places a donated device from the crowd- Glen’s Nokia phone, specifically. Simmons makes a geologically-confused comment. When this is pointed out by Maddie, Mr. Secretary hushes her, simply saying that Simmons is a strange man. The tank is locked down, and then the show starts.
Cube™ energies are shot into the tank, and the phone explodes into life, transforming into a gorilla-shaped gremlin creature. Happy birthday, little dude!
Little dude starts shooting at the tank walls, cracking the glass until Simmons pulls the trigger and ends it. Happy deathday, little dude!
The Decepticons are making tracks towards the Hoover Dam, but Starscream- yeah, he’s in this now, don’t worry about it- arrives first, because he is a very fast jet. He transforms, showing off his ridiculous Dorito body, and fires on the base’s generators. The resulting explosions can be heard all the way down in the testing chamber, and Mr. Mustache calls upstairs to see what’s up. Looks like Megatron may be getting warmed up, seeing as his ice bath has been cut off. Lennox asks if there’s an arms room in Sector Seven, which sort of feels like asking a bakery if they have any flour.
Frenzy has entered the room that houses the controls for the cryo-stasis and set that whole system to “no, thank you”.
Mr. Mustache runs through the base, screaming for everyone to get to the Megatron chamber. Off in the distance, the Autobots approach. Could probably used some fliers on your team, huh Optimus?
Back with Frenzy, he’s decided to just straight-up raise Megatron’s core temperature directly. Hope he doesn’t do it too fast; rewarming hypothermia victims recklessly can do some serious damage.
Outside of the base, Lennox and the boys are loading up with weaponry, along with what’s the entirety of Sector Seven′s cannon-fodder department. Oh, and all the main cast. Yep, just got a couple of teenagers chillin’ in the munitions room.
Sam wants Simmons to take him to his car- he hasn’t used Bumblebee’s name in a hot minute, not sure what’s up with that- even though Simmons is currently busy loading a very large gun. Simmons doesn’t want to do that, because he’s got no idea if what Sam mentioned earlier is even true, and he doesn’t want to pin the fate of humanity on a single Camaro. Lennox takes this opportunity to tackle Simmons, despite likely not knowing that Bumblebee is one of the “good guys”. A Sector Seven guy very much doesn’t like that, and points a gun at Lennox, which prompts all of his guys to also start threatening folks with guns.
Mr. Mustache walks in on the scene, but doesn’t do anything, since he isn’t armed and knows better than to tangle with someone who’s packing. Simmons tries to intimidate Lennox, because he must have missed the day of boot camp where they tell you that guns kill people. Lennox is fully committed to shooting this dude in the lungs before Mr. Secretary suggests he give the people what they want, before things get ugly.
Simmons takes everyone to the robot torture department of Sector Seven, where they are still smoking Bumblebee. Geez, you’d think they’d have something in place for if they ever came across another giant robot after Megatron, but I guess not. The gang gets everyone to stop smoking Bumblebee, which allows him to stop moose-screaming and strongly consider murdering everyone involved with his forced captivity. Unfortunately, revenge with have to wait, as we’ve still got to deal with the AllSpark, and the fact that the Decepticons are here.
They take Bumblebee to the AllSpark, where he makes direct contact the thing, causing the AllSpark to transform, compacting itself down into a far more reasonable size that Bumblebee can carry in one hand. It doesn’t seem to weigh more than a grown adult, if his body language is saying anything. I’d make a joke about the conservation of mass being ignored, but since this is Transformers, I can’t really say much. Conservation of mass doesn’t exist for this franchise.
Bumblebee would really like to get this show on the road, and Lennox agrees, quickly formulating a plan to get away from Megatron and taking the AllSpark to Mission City, which is relatively close to their current location, so that they can hide it there.
Lennox, I know this plan is a first draft, and we don’t have a ton of time for revisions, but the whole point of building a whole-ass dam around the Cube™ was because it was very difficult to hide, given its magical MacGuffin powers. Regardless of this flaw, Mr. Secretary agrees. Lennox also asks that the Air Force be involved in this, I guess because the U.S. military wanted more screentime.
Of course, that whole “global blackout” thing is still going on, so we’re going to have to get creative with how we’re going to contact the Air Force. Mr. Secretary and Simmons make a break for the WWII-era radio Sector Seven has, while Lennox and the boys head out to shoot things, and Mikaela and Sam hop into Bumblebee with the Cube™.
This is about the point that Megatron wakes up. The first thing he does is introduce himself, which I thought was very polite of him. Then he breaks out his flail and starts bashing shit around. Not so polite, that.
Over with Bumblebee, we’re shown that the AllSpark, all-powerful object that can create life and is the whole reason this conflict is even happening, is just chillin’ in the back seat by itself. It’s not even buckled up.
Megatron escapes the base, and it’s actually super easy. He just transforms, goes through the tunnel, and he’s free. I feel like we could have at least attempted some security measures for in case the cryo-stasis failed, given that we’ve had this dude in containment for the last 70-something years, but okay.
Starscream comes over to say hi to his boss, not that Megatron gives a shit. He just wants to know where that fucking Cube™ is. When Starscream tells him that the humans have it, Megatron makes a comment about how Starscream has failed him yet again. This is their first interaction in this movie, and Starscream’s been in the story for a grand total of five minutes at this point. I know that this is a reference to their dynamic in just about every installment of the franchise up to this point, but it doesn’t feel earned in the slightest. Even if it’s going to be expanded upon in future sequels, this is a shit-tier way to set their (awful) relationship up.
Not that anyone should ever bank on getting a sequel anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Megatron tells Starscream to retrieve the AllSpark, and then we cut over to the radio plotline. The radio, which is so cobweb-covered I feel like Sector Seven needs to have a serious discussion with their custodial staff, has its nobs and buttons fiddled with by Simmons until it crackles to life. But where are the microphones? Everyone starts looking for the mics, as Simmons pushes Glen into the seat, I guess because hacking modern computers and using Depression-era radio tech are similar enough.
Maddie asks Glen if he can hotwire a 90′s-era computer to transmit a tone through the radio, so that they can send a Morse code message to the Air Force. Which sounds ridiculous to me, but I don’t know enough about radios or computers to know if that sort of thing would be possible. Maybe it’s fine. Or maybe it’s Hollywood bullshit. Who knows?
Back over with Bumblebee, we get a bunch of car commercial shots, of both him and the other Autobots. Aww, the gang’s back together again! Nobody tell Bumblebee that Optimus was completely cool with leaving him to his fate.
Optimus and the gang whip around to join the convoy, and everyone makes their way towards Mission City.
Back at the radio subplot, someone’s bangin’ on the door, trying to get in. The others try to block the intruder, while Glen does his hacking stuff. Mr. Secretary breaks a case and pulls out a gun that’s about as old as he is.
Glen gets the computer working, and Mr. Secretary gives him the Super Secret Military Codewords™ to use to talk to the Air Force. While he does that, Simmons finds a flamethrower and starts burning Frenzy as he attempts to enter the room. The Air Force receives the message for an air strike. Oh, goody.
Over with the convoy, it appears that the Autobots and Lennox’s boys are being pursued by the Decepticons. It’s difficult to tell, seeing as the cameras have gone full Bay-mode, but I’m guessing that’s what’s up. One of the Decepticons flips over a minivan, likely killing a family of five. another causes a multi-car pileup.
Bonecrusher transforms, then Optimus transforms. Bonecrusher iceskates across the highway, slamming into a bus so hard it just straight-up explodes. He is on fire. He tackles Optimus, and they proceed to fall off the side of the raised highway they’re on. Then they beat the shit out of each other, until Optimus decapitates Bonecrusher with his arm-sword.
Yeah, space dad is a little intense in the Bayverse.
Back at Sector Seven, Frenzy’s decided to leave the door alone, and instead is crawling through the ventilation shaft. Mr. Secretary and Simmons fire off shots into the duct above them, as if bullets would do anything against this nasty little pile of needles.
Frenzy bursts through the bottom of the duct and crash-lands into a glass case, taking cover behind a pillar and fires on the humans on the other side of the room. While this shootout is happening, Glen receives a response from the Air Force, just in time for Frenzy to accidentally decapitate himself with one of his own spinning blades of death. This time, he does not survive losing his head.
The Air Force will be sending fighter planes to Mission City, and to establish this, we get several shots of what some might call “military porn.��
Over in the city, the convoy has arrived. Lennox hands several short-wave radios over to Epps, telling him to use them to direct the Air Force when they arrive, so they can take the AllSpark... somewhere, I guess. Above, an F-22 zooms across the sky. It is not one of the Air Force’s F-22s.
Ironhide recognizes Starscream, and gets ready to throw down. Bumblebee grabs a nearby Furby truck and hoists it up to use as a shield. This marginally works, as the missile that hits the truck doesn’t immediately kill him, though it probably did all those Furbies inside.
The resulting explosion throws all the humans around, Mikaela getting weird heaven lighting as she lies unconscious on the pavement. Sam gets it too, though, so I suppose I can’t complain too much about this particular shot. They touch hands. I really wish that I could take this moment of vulnerability as being anything other than an attempt to set up a romance between these two teens who have known each other for maybe half a week. This movie has so starved me of genuine human interaction I'm jumping at the smallest of scraps.
Bumblebee actually didn’t get out of that missile-strike unscathed, his legs having been blown off. All those Furbies died for nothing. Tragic. Sam asks Bumblebee if he’s alright, and immediately tells him to get up. Sam then remembers that Bumblebee’s legs are off, so he yells for Ratchet.
Over with Lennox and Epps, they’ve realized that the plane they saw wasn’t one of theirs. Which, you know, has already been established, but points for getting caught up, fellas. Sam is crying and still telling Bumblebee to get up. Bumblebee is dragging himself across the pavement and whimpering. It’s awful. Where the fuck is Ratchet? This is basically the only reason he’s in this film, and he’s nowhere to be found.
The actual Air Force calls on the radio, asking for their location. Brawl, who is a tank, starts firing on Lennox’s gang. Jazz and Ratchet race through the city streets. How they were separated from the rest of the team is anyone’s guess.
Sam takes a little sit on the pavement to be with Bumblebee, while Mikaela decides to problem-solve and heads for a nearby tow truck. Bumblebee hands Sam the Cube™ because, as the designated protagonist, it’s his job to handle it in the climax of the film.
Ironhide is shot at several times by Brawl, narrowly avoiding being hit each time. This, of course, means that the people he drives by in this shot are almost assuredly dead, since they’re right next to the explosions. He transforms and does a flip, as the film goes slow-mo on a shot of a woman in a low-cut dress watching him flip. She screams. Ironhide screams. I scream, though probably for a different reason.
Jazz jumps on Brawl, managing to kick off a couple pieces of kibble before Brawl grabs him and throws him into the side of a building. Ironhide, Optimus, and Ratchet descend on Brawl, and so does Lennox’s team, Brawl losing a hand and getting thrown into his own building as a result.
Mikaela breaks into the tow truck and starts to hotwire that shit. Wow, a relevant back story that culminates in her being able to save the day, thus completing her arc and staying on-theme for her character. Why isn’t Mikaela the protagonist again?
Oh, right, because ~girl~.
Megatron lands in a nearby alleyway, and Ratchet, knowing this dude is bad news, tells everyone to head for the hills. Jazz isn’t fast enough, however, and gets shot for his troubles.
Mikaela drives the truck over to Sam, who is still sitting there with the Cube™, and tells him to get his ass in gear.
Jazz gets taken to the top of a nearby building and is ripped in two by Megatron, who acts like a bird of prey the whole sequence. Down on the ground, Brawl is starting to get back up from his smackdown. Blackout appears on a nearby skyscraper. Things are looking grim for humanity.
Mikaela and Sam hook Bumblebee up to the tow line as Lennox approaches them. Sam has left the AllSpark out of his line of sight, like a fool. Despite seeing this, Lennox still gives him the flare to let the military know where to pick up the AllSpark. Doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela. He tells Sam to head for the white building with statues on top of it and set the flare on top of the roof. Lennox can’t leave his men, because he’s the head of his operation. Why he can’t send literally anyone else who isn’t a 16 year-old boy isn’t made clear.
Sam really doesn’t want to do this, probably because he’s a child, but Lennox has recruited him to the military against his will, so he must. Lennox then attempts to make Mikaela leave for her own good, but she tells him to fuck off, because she’s gonna save Bumblebee. Clearly, this is a win for feminism.
Epps radios the choppers coming from the Air Force to let them know they’ll be picking up a package from a teenager, thus locking Sam into the job. Ironhide and Ratchet vow to protect Sam from the Decepticons on his way to the pickup point. Not one single person has pointed out how fucked up this is.
Sam starts to run off, when Mikaela stops him to let him know that she’s glad she got in the car with him roughly an hour ago. They don’t kiss goodbye, which, honestly? Good. This fucking movie hasn’t earned that. Sam for sure hasn’t earned that, even if he did clear her juvie record. No word on that having actually been done, by the way. Sam never got confirmation, and I feel like he’s not really the type to follow up on things.
Brawl fires off some shots and makes things explode. Ratchet and Ironhide provide cover fire as Sam sprints down the road. Yep, they’re making this idiot WALK to the pickup point. Sure hope the elevators are working today, otherwise this is going to take forever.
Sam carries the AllSpark like a football, and in a better movie, this would have been foreshadowed by Sam having actually been a football player prior to the events of the film, perhaps removed from the team for some character flaw he’s since grown from/accepted. However, this is Bayverse, and well, men don’t have to justify their existence in the story with things like themes and having even an ounce of thought put into their character.
Back with Mikaela, Lennox has refused to learn her name, calling her “girl” as he screams at her to get Bumblebee hooked up to the tow truck. Which she was already doing when he got here. Lennox, dude, you’ve got a daughter now, you’re super extra not allowed to treat women like this.
Optimus Prime pulls through an alleyway and crashes into a pile of garbage. I can forgive him being late, seeing as he is a big rig, and probably had to take the long way into town so he didn’t get stuck in too-low tunnels. Don’t worry about how we briefly saw him during the Brawl take-down. This is his for real entrance into the climax.
He whips around and transforms, ready to throw the fuck down. Megatron spots him from his perch and descends.
Y’know.
Like a vast, predatory bird.
Megatron shoots at Optimus in his alt-mode, and Optimus catches him like a frisbee. Unfortunately for Optimus, it would appear that the horsepower on a Cybertronian flightcraft is hella intense, and he’s carried away. The two of them crash through an office building, then roll around in the streets punching each other in the face, debating the worth of humanity as they do so. Wish I actually gave a shit about either of these people, but alas! The film spent most of its runtime objectifying women and insulting minorities. I know nothing about Optimus, and even less about Megatron.
Megatron transforms his arms into a laser gun, and Optimus does the same. They shoot at each other. Optimus gets thrown into a building, then lands on the sidewalk below, definitely crushing a dude underneath him, but I guess we didn’t check that the shot was clear for where the CGI was gonna go, so he’s fine.
Sam’s still running through the streets, while Blackout murders, like, so many people behind him. Starscream lands in front of Sam, running into roughly 30 cars as he skids to a halt. Ratchet and Ironhide fire on him, as Sam takes a breather behind a car. Starscream transforms and blasts off. He was here for about 15 seconds. Sam begins running again.
Megatron is now following Sam, because he wants that Cube™. Sam is hit by a car- not an evil one, just a regular car- and trips. The impact makes the AllSpark activate, which grants several machines in the vicinity the gift of life, including the car full of bitchy women that just hit Sam, who are upset that hitting a human being might have scratched the paint.
I get it, you hate women, can we PLEASE stop beating this dead horse?
Sam finally gets to the pickup building, which turns out to be abandoned and fenced off. Good thing the gate was open, otherwise things could get really complicated. He heads inside, Megatron crashing through a floor-to-ceiling window shortly behind him. Megatron makes the claim that he can smell where Sam is. I’m going to choose to believe that he isn’t lying here, since Ratchet did something similar earlier.
Sam finds the stairs, and Megatron calls him a slur.
He doesn’t, really, but the voice modulation certainly makes it sound that way.
While this is happening, Mikaela is driving the tow truck down an alley, dragging Bumblebee behind her with the tow cable. She stops for a moment to have a short breakdown, seeing as she is a teenager in what is currently a warzone.
Sam is still running up the stairs. Outside, the military shoots at one of the Decepticons. It is, of course, doing absolutely nothing to the giant metal space robot. Mikaela concludes her moment, looking back at Bumblebee, who gives her the okay to keep going with dragging his ass across the pavement. She whips the truck around and tells Bumblebee “I’ll drive, you shoot.”
Mikaela then proceeds to speed down a main road of this sizable city backwards, running into cars and more or less shoving Bumblebee along to his destination.
The military has finally realized that their efforts have been pointless, but it’s okay because Bumblebee is here with his superior firepower. Bumblebee proceeds to shoot Brawl in the chest, which kills him. After this, he tries to act cute, lifting up his battle mask in a very “did I do that?” way, as if he’s not the same guy who ripped Barricade apart earlier.
Sam, meanwhile, has finally reached the top of this dilapidated building. Helicopters are approaching his location, but will they make it to him before Megatron does? Honestly, I’d be more worried about Starscream on the building just due East.
Sam is just about to hand the AllSpark over, when Starscream fires at the ‘copter, causing it to crash and nearly chop Sam to pieces. Optimus Prime runs towards the scene, on a roof that I refuse to believe could actually support him. Megatron punches thought the roof from the bottom and asks Sam some philosophical questions. Sam can’t answer, given that he’s hiding on the edge of this building, his flimsy grip on one of the angel statues being the only thing keeping him from falling.
Megatron tells him to give him the AllSpark, and in exchange he might not kill him immediately. Sam tells him to fuck off, and Megatron flails the chunk of building he was hanging on to, causing Sam to fall to his death, thus ending the film.
I’m lying to you. Michael Bay is making me into a liar.
No, Sam is, instead, caught by Optimus, very likely breaking several ribs on impact. This is the point where I realize that they’ve given Optimus fingernails. Sam clings to him like a baby koala, as Optimus parkours down the sides of two buildings, Megatron in pursuit. Megatron actually lands on Optimus 2/3rds of the way down, causing the both of them to fall onto the pavement below. How Sam survives this is a mystery.
Megatron recovers from the fall first, flicking a human away from him for having the audacity to exist in his space. The flicked person hits a car, and is almost assuredly dead. At least, I sure hope so, given that this is the director cameo by the Bayman himself.
Feminist icon Megatron?
Feminist icon Megatron.
Optimus comments on the fact that Sam almost fucking died to get the AllSpark out of dodge, and we get the return of “No Sacrifice, No Victory”. Which, I mean, I guess he’s allowed to say that, since he’s actually had to do something that warranted it. His dad doesn’t get to, though.
Optimus then tells this teenage boy, who has already had a hell of a day, to kill him by shoving the AllSpark into his robot-soul-heart, should he be unable to defeat Megatron.
I dunno, I just feel like it’s a bit of an ask.
Sam climbs off of Optimus so the Prime and Megatron can rumble. He runs through the ruined infrastructure of the city, so he’s less likely to be crushed. Optimus tells Megatron to square the fuck up, stating that “one shall stand, one shall fall.”
Then he gets ragdolled around a bunch, so maybe he should have saved the talk for later in the game.
The military is running around some more, stopping in an alley to see Blackout transform to root mode. Yes, the goo-goo eyes were indeed made by several members of the watch party that started this whole thing. People went wild for Rotor-Cape Johnson.
The fighter jets from the US military are arriving in a minute. Epps warns them to aim for the robots that aren’t evil. Lennox and the gang spread out, reminding each other to aim for the underboob, since Transformers’ armor is weak there. Epps marks Blackout with a little green light, which Blackout almost immediately notices. Blackout fires on the military.
Lennox has stolen a motorcycle and is driving through the streets to circle back around and jump off of the bike, sliding on his back to shoot Blackout directly in his underboob. Wonder what his uniform is rated for for road rash.
Sam is watching as Optimus gets his ass handed to him. Up in the sky, Starscream commits identity theft, and then attacks the Air Force. The Air Force can multitask however, and light Megatron the fuck up. Sam has, for some reason, come out of hiding, and Megatron uses this to his advantage, trying to take the AllSpark from him.
Optimus tells Sam to put the AllSpark in his chest, but Sam has a better idea. He shoves it into Megatron’s chest, which has been basically shot open at this point. Megatron makes a Space Invader noise, convulses a bit, then falls over dead.
Congrats on your first murder, Sam.
Optimus tells Megatron’s corpse that he got what was coming to him, then implies that they’re brothers. What flavor of brother isn’t established, but neither was basically anything between the two main faces of the franchise in this film, so it’s fine.
Ironhide walks up holding the two halves of Jazz. Optimus informs Sam that he now has a life-debt to this child. Whether or not Sam is absorbing any information at this point is up in the air. Mikaela shows up, with Bumblebee in tow.
In tow.
In tow-
Sam stares at her blankly. Mikaela stares back, making the pretty girl face. Man, what a great dynamic these two have.
Jazz is dead. That sucks. Optimus is handed his corpse to hold, while he thanks his new friends for helping out.
Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.
Sam is obviously shocked by the fact that Bumblebee is British able to talk now, since not talking has been his whole thing up to this point. Optimus doesn’t let it phase him. Neither does Ratchet, despite having been working on Bumblebee’s throat injury for centuries at this point.
Bumblebee wants to stay on Earth with Sam. Optimus is just like whatever. Sam agrees to have a sweet Camaro from outer space.
Optimus pulls what is left of the AllSpark out of Megatron’s chest. I’m sure that’s not a setup for potential conflicts, not in the slightest.
Over in Washington, D.C., the US President has ordered Sector Seven be terminated, and all the Transformer corpses be disposed of. And by “disposed of” they mean “thrown into the ocean.” Dang, sure hope Earth signed some sort of agreement with the Transformers so that they never come to Earth again. You know, just be proactive about our galactic safety.
The Linkin Park kicks on, as Optimus gives us our bookend narration, telling us what the Autobots plan to do now that their race is at a genological dead end. As he does, we see Lennox reunite with his wife and child, who I had genuinely forgotten were in this movie.
Optimus is pretty chill with Cybertron dying out, because now they know about Earth. We get a shot of Sam and Mikaela making out, a shot that becomes more and more horrifying the further they zoom out, because they’re making out on top of Bumblebee. Who they KNOW is a sentient creature at this point.
And then it gets even worse, because the shot changes, and oh hey! Turns out that the rest of the Autobots were just chillin’ off to the side while this went down. Optimus continues his monologue, just walking around in his root mode as he tells all of Makeout Point how they’re “robots in disguise” now.
The monologue is actually a transmission he’s sending out into space, inviting any of his leftover pals to come kick it on Earth with them, because Earth is pretty cool.
And that’s where they leave us.
IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.
So. Bayverse 1. A film showcasing xenophobia, misogyny, and toxic nationalism. It’s rough. Is it the worst film I’ve ever seen? Not even close, but it’s bad, and it was a huge deal at the time of release. Everyone was seeing it, everyone knew the actors and robots, everyone had a scene that they liked. Everyone was exposed to Bayverse, and as a result, a lot of people entered the Transformers franchise thinking that it was all like this.
And really, how far off would they have been in 2007?
When a franchise refuses to introduce female characters until years after being established, when all those female characters have the exact same body type, when a franchise hires misogynists to write stories, when it allows shit like “Prime’s Rib!” to be published- no wonder Michael Bay was approached to direct.
What a mess.
--------------------------
COMING SOON:
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - MEGAN FOX I AM SO FUCKING SORRY
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - WILL YOU JUST STAY DEAD
TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (2014) - SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW
TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) - ACTUALLY, FUCK CONTINUITY
#transformers#bayverse#part one#maccadam#Hannzreads#Hannzwatches#text post#long post#film analysis#off topic
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Real Rip-Offs!: Fate: The Winx Saga
It’s the infamous show that takes the magic of Winx and flushes it down the toilet! May contain spoilers.
Where the frick do I even begin with this? Like what the hell!?
Like everyone else, when I saw the teasers and trailers for this I wasn’t too thrilled with the whole thing, but I decided I’ll give it a watch and boy...this is bad. Really really bad! Omg! Not very long into the first episode and already I wanted to turn it off! I usually get that feeling within maybe the second or third episode of a show but no! This was bad even from the beginning.
Let’s put a side the blatant obvious issue with replacing Musa and Flora’s race, which Captain Marvel kinda already did that. She was black for a while then they made her white again. No one gave a dang but okay. Priorities I suppose. But this series does things that fails already on arrival.
First, we’re introduced to Bloom AFTER she finds out her powers. Yup! We’re just thrown in there like Mummy Returns, she’s like boop! We’re there! Right after a farmer gets killed by something called a “Burned One” right at the beginning! A blatant shadow monster you only end up seeing in the distance in the shadows. When I first played the episode, I thought I accidentally played an episode of Goosebumps at first and I mean it in that sense. It wasn’t scary, it was pathetic! Are You Afraid of the Dark had more nightmare fuel and that show was on Nickelodeon!
The dialog already dated! Bloom actually says the word “mansplaining” and is already a total b@#$ to Sky and they haven’t even dated! Gosh, at least when Bloom had troubles with Sky they at least established they’re dating! Despite the whole “feminist” agenda, Bloom is a freakin moron and needs to be saved by Aisha and a teacher. The whole use of smartphones, at least in the older series, they made up their own tech so the series could take place at any time.
Let’s not forget the wonderful, unique personalities of each of our favorite girls (except Techna) has been replaced with “troubled teen with parent/social issues”. Like every single girl in this is awful! There’s no good guy to root for!
Like I don’t expect teens to be happy all the time. I suffer mental health problems including anxiety! I know that depression isn’t about being sad all the time either! I have friends who have it! My teen years weren’t the greatest and I wouldn’t relive those years either. However, even with all that, the way this show depicts emotional troubles and mental health, it makes it seem like if you’re not troubled all the time and you’re not moping about your problems more often than not, you don’t have mental health issues or emotional problems!
There’s taking light of it where characters don’t seem to face real issues and then there’s over exaggerating it and this does just that. It over exaggerates what teen life and mental health is like.
Not to mention, but none of the characters seem likeable cuz again, there unique personalities were replaced with “troubled teen”. You don’t even to know their names. The only thing that sets them apart is the reason why they’re miserable and the boys, don’t get me started with them. Just a heartthrob with no brain that has to back down when a girl gets mad at them cuz girls can’t be strong unless the man backs down to let her be. Which is the opposite of what that whole girl power agenda is.
News flash, a woman isn’t strong if they run into danger without a brain. Like they don’t need to be super smart but at least know how to think on their feet. That’s what old Bloom did at least and a woman isn’t strong if the man has to back down for her. What made Mulan (1999) a strong character was cuz the guys didn’t back down on her. She had to learn to fight and never gave up on it. Same with Bloom and the other girls of the old series. They fought a long side the dudes and saw them as equal. They didn’t use “mansplaining” cuz girls and guys were equal.
There’s also no comradery. I get that in the first episode, the Winx weren’t that close yet in the old series, but they at least weren’t mean to each other. They at least were chilled with each other, were polite with one another and thus would already be comfortable around each other. You could be friend any of the old girls and get a long with them fine. Had any one treat me the way these new girls did back in my day in school, I wouldn’t have befriended a single one! Everyone’s so riled up in their own personal problems and they just act mean that, even when they’re trying to sympathize with each other, it all comes across as insincere.
I get teens can be mean. I wasn’t always nice either but not this mean. Everyone gets so offended and that’s the thing. The boys get a long with each other fine. The girls always act like they’re ready to slit each other’s throat and already to mope about something or get mad about something. So basically this is the stereotype of what people think feminism is. Girls are total emotional which is somehow a personality, “so much better than the boys” and the guys are laidback idiots with “duh” as a personality.
I was even shock that the replacement for Flora “Terra”, nearly kills Riven by hanging him by vine. Like, she down right tries to kill him! That’s attempted murder, yet it’s brushed a side for whatever dang reason! Flora wouldn’t do this, not even to her enemies! She would get mad but she would never use her powers against someone that clearly wasn’t an enemy and even then, she wouldn’t go that far. If murderous tendencies counts as strong, the people who made this show and the people who agree with that scene, need serious therapy!
Flora was strong cuz she was kind. She used her abilities to the best of her own, stood up even when she was scared and showed kindness to even people being mean to her. That takes a lot of skill and to some that’s “unrealistic”. Well you know what? It is realistic! I know people who do their best to avoid conflict and always stay kind cuz kindness is a rare thing!
Now and I know people who attack people for hating Terra cuz they believe it’s body shaming if you do, but no! I don’t like Terra not cuz she’s not skinny. I shame on her cuz she like her I would say friends but more so they’re enemies under the same roof, are stereotypical “my life is bad or it isn’t perfect so I must act like a rude, stuck up brat and mope around a lot” and for showing that murderous tendencies = edgy and strong, which is dangerous. Sure, it was a quick moment and but I’m with Riven, he could have died and who knows, what if Riven had asthma or other breathing problems, Terra doesn’t know!
I also watched where Bloom finally gains her wings and the effects for that is so bad, even the effects for Power Rangers are more credible despite this series being a “adult version”.
This series is just bad! It’s not even fun kind of bad. All the characters are either mean or stupid or both, you can’t root for them. No one has a personality outside edgy, stupid or troubled teen. Has dialog and themes that make it dated on arrival. The school and settings are uninspiring. The effects are down right pathetic! The outfits are ugly! Not even as a teen would I wear stuff like that and I wore some tacky choices. I’m a 90s girl, I had tacky stuff but man! Bloom half the time looks like she’s wearing curtains from a haunted mansion and not even from the Haunted Mansion. More like a frumpy, sad knock off version of the movie.
Yeah, this series is the worst! It’s not even just the controversial stuff that makes it bad. It’s just all around bad in everything it gives! I can’t even stand watching a single episode. It’s so bad I don’t even want to use pictures or screenshots of it for this review! I give Fate: The Winx Saga 1 out of 10 stars! I would give it 0 if I could! Just don’t bother! Watch the old Winx and World of Winx cuz those two series for kids are surprisingly more adult than this piece of crap!
Now excuse me while I go enjoy another episode of Aikatsu Planet! At least that show is fun to watch and the characters don’t make me want to slap them!
Also for my rip off reviews I don’t read the notes usually. You can reblog, rant at me and call me whatever, but you’re writing to no one so have fun! If you like this show more power to you! Not everyone wants to worship it though!
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35 / “is that my shirt?” :D
A coincidence turns out to be a curse and a blessing for Deputy Nic.
Nicolette Raylan was getting extremely tired of John Fuckface Seed’s Wile E. Coyote bullshit.
He had won their game of cat and mouse fair and square twice now. A zig when she should’ve zagged and a bliss bullet to the collarbone was one thing. The Tree Incident was another. But this?
After she escaped her current predicament, she was going to help those PAs murder Guy Marvel. Forget about the hammer or screwdriver they had suggested, she was going to do it with her bare hands.
He had a fucking film set off in a heavily wooded area in the Valley.
Or, she had thought it was heavily wooded, except every tree in a twenty foot radius was fake, there was a disturbingly realistic rock wall as a backdrop, and like some sort of fucking idiot, she had walked right through it, thinking it was just part of the Valley.
Except it wasn’t. It was one of his sets. One of his abandoned sets. Because John had apparently taken it over, chased everyone away and set up traps. Stupid ones, like some cartoon rope noose thing that caught you around the leg and yanked up so you were dangling from a branch.
Who the fuck did that in reality?
Well, that’s what she got for responding to a distress call that sounded fishy to begin with. ‘Someone’ had seen a hiker fall off a cliff near the edge of the Valley and couldn’t get to them from ‘wherever they were.’
She could just make out the outline of a crash dummy a few feet away lodged behind a rock. Because of course John had the fucking money and too much time to just have one laying around for just such an occasion.
She had never been one for science in school, so she figured any more than ten minutes of hanging upside down was going to be an issue. She figured she had been hanging, contemplating life and its unfairness for five- it was time to make the fucking call. She lifted the radio from her belt, switched to the channel she hated that she knew by heart by then, and pressed the talk button. “Asshole,” she sighed into it, “Come get me,” she found herself requesting for the second time in a matter of months, because that was her life now, apparently.
“Deputy!” John purred in that fucking way of his after a few moments. “I’m a little… caught up at the moment. But I imagine you’re… not far off from that, either.”
She rolled her eyes at his snicker. “Oh, fuck you.”
“Ah-ah. Play nice or I won’t play hero.”
“ ‘Hero’ aint your type.”
“Neither is leaving an adversary I’m admittedly fond of to a very unpleasant death, and yet…”
“Just get here.”
“You’ll have to make it worth my while.”
“I’m not blowing you, if that’s what your asking.”
“You know what I’m asking, Deputy.”
She heaved a sigh. “Greed. And Pride, I guess: A couple of years after the whole dad fiasco I was a very angry teenager who was really, really angry at the world and for some reason my brain translated that into ‘steal those really expensive shoes in the mall.’ Made it out of the mall no problem, got home, decided I hated the shoes, kinda liked the whole adrenaline rush. Kept them as a trophy.”
“Would’ve have taken you for the thieving type.”
“Wasn’t. The stealing didn’t sell me, the adrenaline did. Took me a few years to realize it. Either way, there’s one confession. Come get me.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
By some miracle, only Nicolette’s legs had started to go numb by the time she heard a car speed up the nearest road, said car’s door slamming shut, someone humming that stupid Vera Lynn song, and then an appreciative whistle. With an annoying amount of effort she brought her arms back up in order to pin the back of her T-shirt up and closer to the waistband of her jeans. She tucked the end in to her shorts for good measure. “Our deal’s still good, Assh-”
“Such language,” was John’s only reply off to the side and behind her.
She suddenly jerked in place and could tell he had undone whatever the trap was. She had the brief moment to pray to whatever higher power was still around and rooting for her for the asshole not to catch her and give him the ego boost of the century before she fell and hit the ground hard- except it wasn’t the ground. It was a gym mat made to look like ground. Because fuck Guy Marvel. It didn’t change the fact it hurt like Hell. She groaned. “Thanks for catching me,” she hissed.
John smirked. “I’m ‘not the hero type’, remember?”
Nicolette raised a certain finger and flinched against the sunlight streaming into her face- until it abruptly stopped and she kept her eyes shut, unwilling to see the satisfied smirk she was sure was on John’s face.
“Now, Depu- is that my shirt?”
She cracked one eye open and was at least rewarded with John’s face being the absolute picture of bafflement. It was the most welcome change yet.
But oh, right.
She glanced down at the Adderon logo on the T-shirt that it only just occurred to her she had taken from his Ranch when she had captured it a few weeks prior.
Great. Because obviously getting caught by the weird guy who had a Thing for her while apparently in his attire when he was probably the possessive type was just what she needed.
“In my defense I didn’t know it was yours. I just needed one that fit and was comfortable and not pretentious considering you tore my favorite one.”
John eyed her up and down like a meal. “ I’d offer to buy you a new one, but, that would err on the side of greed. It is, however, a very attractive look on you.”
“Pride and lust, dick.” If he was going to file every single thing she did under a sin, she’d damn well do the same.
“Says the girl running around and playing hero in a skimpy little shorts and shirts. I mean, is that even practical for your profession?”
Nic was torn about the fact that he had the decency to say that and not ‘woman of your profession.’ The bag of dicks had some semblance of being a feminist. Go figure. “Got you distracted enough, didn’t it?”
“I’m always distracted by you, Deputy.”
“Oh fuck you, you line-using fuck.”
John sighed dramatically. “Must you always resort to name-calling?”
“For you? Every damn day.”
There was suddenly the sound of a helicopter approaching, and Nic panicked until the helicopter drifted into view he helicopter’s paintjob was littered with pink and grey and not the telltale tan of the enemy.
And then, even better, from the loudspeaker on the chopper:
“Hey, John! Addie Drubman here. Now, as much of a crime as it would be to riddle your pretty face and tight little bod with holes, that’s my and the rest of the county’s hero you’re ogling right now, so laying off would be greatly appreciated. Blood red ain’t Nikki’s color.”
John scoffed, sent an irritated look at the helicopter, then backed up. “This isn’t over.”
“Never is.”
“I’m waiting!” Addie called again.
John waved her off before giving Nic one last once over. He disappeared into the treeline after a while.
Addie landed Tulip, and Nic got inside. The pair waited a few more minutes to ensure he was gone, then took off.
“Where to, Darlin’?” Addie asked.
“That one’s Ranch. I just found a really stupid advantage.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
A closet raid, one week and a stupid idea to walk along the river between John and Jacob’s regions when the latter was pissed later, Nicolette took an arrow to the shin and blacked out.
When she came to, she found herself in one of those damned chairs again and in front of the projector screen. The room was even dingier and dirtier than the last. Christ, was every single sibling upping the dramatics?
There was a set of footsteps from beside her, and then Jacob strolled into view. “What did I tell you… about being weak?” he began, all gravelly and intimidating, as he did- and then stopped short upon taking her appearance- and wardrobe in. He squinted, then looked back at her. “Is- is that John’s shirt?” he asked, easily an octave higher and probably the most confused-sounding he had been in years.
Oh, she was going to have fun with this. And if she had to play mindgames, as easily disprovable as they were, she was damn well going to do it. “Yes it is!” she announced, and offered her best convincing, was-just-up-to-no-good grin. “Wanna know how I got it?”
#John Seed#Deputy Nic#Johnnic#now I wanna do this same prompt for Grant#CAN MY BRAIN STOP#foofygoldfish
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Song Girl - Part 23 - Sungjin Fan Fiction
Song Girl Masterlist
Part 23 - February 2015
Summary: real life fluffy moments as Sungjin struggles to get into songwriting.
Sungjin had lost track of how long he’d been staring at his guitar and the blank sheet of music. It felt like hours of sitting there, drowning in thoughts but realistically it was probably twenty minutes.
But that was long enough for Jae to be leaning into his field of vision with a cocked eyebrow. And he could feel Wonpil staring at him, too.
“I don’t pretend to be a lead songwriter.” Sungjin said evenly.
Junhyeok snorted. “You’re the one with the relationship and the issues, shouldn’t you be?”
“I wanted to be a singer, I didn’t come into this planning to play guitar and write music.” Sungjin snapped.
“Yet you couldn’t dance.” Junhyeok continued, a devilish expression on his features.
“He wasn’t the only one. I’m all bones and limbs. No flexibility or fluidity.” Jae said quickly.
Wonpil was silent.
“I’m going for coffee, text me if you want something.” Sungjin blurted as he stood abruptly. Junhyeok puffed petulantly. Wonpil’s mouth opened but nothing came out. Jae sighed inaudibly. Brian was cramming for a test with headphones in, ignorant to everything happening around him.
Once he was outside, in freezing air, Sungjin felt like he could breathe again.
He was just heading to the coffee place when his phone buzzed with a call, not the texts he was anticipating.
“Hey love,” He said after seeing Ella’s face on the screen. He tried keeping the despondent tone out of his voice but he wasn’t successful.
“Oh, something is up huh?” She said. Her voice was light and cheerful. Unlike him, she’d had a good day. For a moment that lightened his own heart - she’d been downtrodden all too often recently, but he was still despondent. And now his bad mood was about to dampen her first good mood day in weeks.
“Just...song writing.” He said, shoving his free hand deeper into his pocket.
“So...something I can probably not help you with, unfortunately.” Her voice was lower now, sadder.
“You can distract me. What’s up?”
He tried to imagine her in that moment. It was early evening, so she’d probably just gotten done teaching a class, and given that she had just sounded happy, it was a good one. Her hair would be up, most likely in a bun, and there would marks on her nose from her glasses. She would be walking home, or wandering through a store for the necessities for dinner.
“Well, do be honest I wasn’t expecting you to answer.” She said with a laugh, just one. “But I thought we could start thinking about...Valentine’s day.”
“Let me guess, you are currently staring at a display of chocolate?” He could hear the din of shoppers now.
“What do you want?” She asked after beat. She had decided to ignore how he read her mind.
“Aren’t you supposed to know what I want by now?” He said, a smile spreading over his face.
“I study psychology but I am not granted the power to read minds. Right now you probably want inspiration for a song. But I still cannot read your mind. I will not be making you chocolate. I nearly destroyed the kitchen trying.”
She was talking fast again - it meant she was thinking faster than her mouth.
“Obviously I want the most expensive guitar in the world.”
“No.”
“Wow, way to shoot me down.”
“I am not made of money.” The smile was back in her voice, and this time, it was there because of him, which was the least he could do after making it drop out of her voice a minute ago.
“Which is such a shame, then maybe you would pay for dates.”
He didn’t notice he was doing it but he was getting onto the bus.
“I offer!”
“I’m not going to let you pay for dates.” He said chuckling. “What kind of man would that make me?”
“An arguably more feminist one, but I do pay for all the food I make you and that you eat at my place.”
“I don’t need a lecture on the patriarchy, love.”
“A) everyone does and B) yeah, fine, you definitely don’t need one today. I doubt it’d help with the writing. It’d be weird if you all did a girl power, feminist rock song.”
“Says someone who loves ‘bubble gum’ pop.”
“It is happy music! I’m not claiming sophisticated taste. My favorite movie is Harry Potter and my favorite feel good movie is just about anything regularly featured on ABC Family, which also includes Harry Potter.”
“My little fan girl.”
“I am not ashamed, just sometimes embarrassed. Anyway, Valentine’s Day.”
“Hmm...we could go back to the skiing place, hot springs but that’s probably expensive.”
“We could just hole somewhere in the city.”
“...aren’t you the one constantly lecturing me about the population density of Seoul?”
“I am more used to suburbia and I miss it.”
“I wouldn’t mind holing up with you.”
His feet carried him off the bus.
“We can be like mole people.” She said with a laugh, bringing a smile to his face.
“Bake for me, something decadent and chocolaty.”
“I will bake for then, but you have to help.”
“I can help.”
“Perfect, and I have something in mind.” Now she was moving in the store, the other voices rose and fell as she passed other patrons.
“Of course you do, my brilliant girl.”
“Yes, please compliment my brain.”
“It has many beautiful fissures, lovely lobes.”
On the other side of the line, she snorted with laughter. “Sorry!” She said speaking in an embarrassed voice to another shopper but she kept giggling.
“You know, if I had known complimenting your brain would make you react like that…”
“Oh stop, and now you are officially distracting me from your own Valentine’s day gift.”
Above him, a bell rang as he opened the door.
“Did you finally make your way to the cafe?” She said teasingly.
“Something like that, I have a craving.”
“If you say chocolate I will run over to you.”
“Hmm, something sweet that’s for sure.”
“Oh please say the magic word.” She used an exaggerated, breathless voice.
“You shouldn’t use that voice in public.”
“There was no one around.”
“So shameless.”
Finally, he’d reached his destination. Now everything was better.
“If I am shameless, you probably reap the benefits.” She muttered.
He didn’t reply, instead just wrapping his arms around her waist from behind.
“Well hello,” She said, without turning around. The call was ended as she leaned back into his chest. His nose was in her hair. It smelled like her, sweet and minty with a touch of takeout food.
“Sorry to sneak up on you.” He whispered, speaking into her bun. Her hands ran over his arms, comfortingly.
“You’re not going to rape me.” That much she was thankfully sure of.
“Nope, just hold you.” He kept whispering.
“What’s up?”
“Just...a long day…”
“So you are here to…?”
“I think I needed to see you.”
“...Aren’t you supposed to be in training?” She whispered.
“Just song writing...Brian is studying anyway and I just...couldn’t think straight.”
“Is everything ok?” She asked, turning back to face him. Her brows knit in concern over her soft, brown eyes. Tension left his body, melting away. Now that he was with her, could see her, everything was better. Brighter.
“You shouldn’t worry about it.”
“I worry about everything, it’s a full time job.” A fun spark flashed in her eyes.
“I needed inspiration.”
“So you stalked me to a grocery store?” She said elbowing him gently. A big smile was spreading over her face.
“You can choose to see it as romantic rather than creepy.” He said finally releasing her. She shook her head, chuckling to herself.
“Oh we don’t want to get into a discussion about what is creepy versus romantic. Movies and cultures have warped my perspective and I am still unraveling it. But sure, I’ll see this as romantic this time.”
How could he ever hope to explain this feeling? A burning, freezing sensation poured down his spine. His stomach tightened, twisted, rose, sank, flipped, and flopped. He felt lighter, at peace, complete. It was beautiful, blissful. He knew he was lucky to be with someone so brilliant.
“Earth to Sungjin?” She said waving a hand in front of his face before slipping it into his.
“Sorry, ready to leave? I’ll walk you home and head back.” He did have to go back but he wanted to bask in the light she gave off to him for a bit longer.
“Yep. You are going to be so impressed with this!” She said with an even bigger grin.
“You are in a silly mood, aren’t you?” He asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes, and it seems like you could loosen up.” She said before starting to check out her supplies.
“I can be goofy.” He said under his breath.
“You still only tolerate pizza.” She countered.
“Pizza has nothing to do with goofiness.”
“It does in my head.”
“I think that might be a flawed conclusion.”
“Shh. You called me brilliant, remember?”
“Brilliant people are capable of mistakes.”
“Brilliant people tend to conceptualize failures and mistakes as lessons and challenges.”
“Growth mindset. I remember.”
She paused, a flush spreading over her cheeks. “Ok, that was a turn on.”
“Huh?”
“Just you saying that made me very physically attracted to you.” The blush on her cheeks was deeper but it was only just reaching his cheeks. At least they had stepped out of the store and the cashier couldn’t hear them.
“You need to explain.”
“Hmm A) you remembered something I said to you over a month ago, B), it was something to do with psychology, and C) I think there was an element related to your tone.”
“So that’s the kind of dirty talk you like?” His heart thumped in his chest as his mind spun with ideas for a later time.
“I guess?” She said giving his hand a squeeze. “Something you should remember.”
He was going to miss her. Her brilliance, the feeling of her skin, her warmth, against him, her smile, her bright eyes. Her leaving would be like the sunset in Antarctica, signaling the beginning of months of darkness. He wanted to keep her, his sun.
He was pulled out from his melancholy spiral by a sensation against his cheek.
“You stalk me, then neglect me, are you sure you’re ok?” She brushed his cheek softly, wiping away the chapstick her kiss had left on his skin.
“Lost in my own head.” He supplied but she frowned.
“That’s supposed to be my thing in this relationship.” Her thumb gently, comfortingly, ran over his hand.
“And now you know how it feels to watch your mind float away, leaving me unable to reach you.”
“You were trying to teach me a lesson?” She was, in a word, unimpressed.
“No, but I did think it was a witty reply.”
“Don’t make your stand-up debut yet.”
“I’m already worrying about one type of debut. Plus, I’m already blocked.”
“I did offer for you to read my angsty high school poetry. Maybe it could give you inspiration.”
Sungjin wrinkled his nose while she grimaced.
“I mean it is terrible poetry, I will admit. For a class I made this whole collection all about “my winter” about the period after a guy I was seriously close to, my first kiss, moved away.”
“And it will be in English. And, call me crazy, but I’m not interested in reading my girlfriend’s poetry about another guy.”
Her impish grin reappeared, sending a nervous wave through his stomach. That usually meant she was going to manipulate him, wrap him around her finger. Most times it was so he could take care of a spider, or when she was turned on and interested in a little something-something.
“Would you read poetry I wrote about you?” Her voice was nearly-sultry, and her hand warmer in his.
“Yes, if you wanted me to.” He said without thinking.
Her facade dropped as she laughed.
“Sad to say, I’ll probably write poetry when we…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. He knew just from the darkness that moved over her.
“...I think I’ve got some ideas for writing after seeing you.” He said as her building came into view. The end of the line for that night for them. He had to get back to songwriting for the others.
“Ohh… Am I your muse?” She teased, that light returning in her eyes.
“A little bit.” He said, a smile playing with one corner of his mouth.
She got that petulant look again. The one that made her look younger, naive, like a child whose toy had been taken.
“You are a definite source of inspiration.” He continued, an impish glint entering his own eyes.
“...I better be.” She muttered as she opened the building and held open the door for him.
The rode the elevator up in silence. He plotted ways to spend just a little bit more time with her. She wished he could stay.
He stayed with her up to her door and into the apartment, setting down the bag of groceries as he stepped in. All he had to do was keep his shoes on - if he took them off, he’d never leave.
Next to him, Ella tugged off her wool coat, undid the thick scarf around her neck, and shoved her gloves into the coat pockets before kicking off her boots to reveal thick, fuzzy socks. At that, he had to smirk. She constantly joked about her [literally] cold feet.
A beat later and her arms were around his neck, pulling down his hood so her fingers could tangle themselves in his hair. He unzipped his puffy coat and her body curled against his, no longer separated by inches of down.
“I won’t ask you to stay.” She whispered. Her bright, brilliant eyes fixed on his. “So three minutes?”
“Love, I take more than three minutes.” He whispered, kissing her forehead. His fingers had found their way to her waist. Her body shuddered with the sudden cold contact.
“Just kiss me.” She replied after rolling her eyes.
That he was happy to do for as long as his conscience would let him. He wanted to steal a piece of her sunshine. He wanted to burn in her light. He wanted everything he could get. He would happily go blind staring at her glow.
He had so much to be thankful for with her in his life. Still, there was thing he was the most thankful for...
His sun was still bright, near-constant. It still filled his sky.
But the days were getting shorter. Months of darkness were coming.
#GUESS WHOS BACK#HAHA#I almost ended it on winter is coming but I figured I'd hit the metaphor home enough#song girl#day6 scenario#sungjin fan fiction#sungjin#sungjin fanfic#sungjin fan fic#day6#day6 fan fiction#day6 fanfic#day6 fan fic#park sungjin#mine#fan fiction#fan fic#fanfic#imagine#scenario#day6 imagine
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Sawkill Girls (Review)
Sawkill Girls
by Claire Legrand
Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep.
He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.
Who are the Sawkill Girls?
Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.
Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.
Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.
Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.
Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.
REVIEW:
I think I first saw this book on booktube? Or maybe it was bookstagram and I was very intrigued by the cover and then, I went to Goodreads like a good girl and found out more about it. I wasn’t sure if it was my kind of book but then, recently, I went on an e-book spree and bought it. I am so glad I did.
“Come for a while, reads the sign at Sawkill’s ferry dock, and stay forever.”
This was first Claire Legrand book and what a smashing introduction to her writing and imagination! I should mention that I read it in a single day and it was simply because I couldn’t really put it down and leave it. It just wasn’t possible for me. So, I read on, there were moments when I was really left wondering ‘What the hell is happening in this book? Am I ever gonna really understand?’. That was in the beginning but as the plot evolved and more mysteries unfolded, I could really see what was happening and then, I literally couldn’t put it down.
“Decades of dead girls. Poor girls and rich girls. Black and brown and white girls. All of them Sawkill girls.”
Sawkill Rock, a lovely place full of lovely people and lovelier woods but it holds a history of sadness and horror. Girls have been going missing and assumed dead far more often than people might feel comfortable with. No amount of search parties or wish-making is able to help them find the girls. They just vanish and never come back. The way Claire Legrand describes the island and the people just makes me wish I was there. Almost. Considering everything else, I would rather not, you know?
“Tragedy had touched Sawkill, again and again and again, but after each girl’s disappearance, once a respectable amount of time had passed, everyone seemed to stop caring.”
There are three main characters, all of them, heartbroken in their own way. Marion, a young woman who has lost her father and is trying her best to make sure that her mother and her sister are alright in the face of such loss. She hasn’t really had the chance to grieve for her father in the same way as her family because she’s become the rock that carries them forward. She is also plus sized and whose sexuality I wouldn’t want to define but she likes girls? Then we have Zoey, she’s black and sort of on the asexual spectrum and has had a tough time since she lost her best friend to island just like untold number of girls. Her father is the town sheriff and she has a really good relationship with him that is tested as the story progresses. Lastly, we have Val, who belongs to one of the most prestigious families on the island and who has some pretty dark secrets which are damaging not only the island but her too. She has had relationships with guys but she is also attracted to girls. Her sexuality isn’t quite defined and I wouldn’t want to.
There’s also a few more secondary characters two of which I am not even how to describe but one of them I can happily talk about. Grayson. Zoey’s ex-boyfriend who is best friends with even after the break-up. He’s a precious bean and I was so happy whenever he was the page. Seriously. Such a bean. There’s the island itself, yes, it’s a character with feelings and thoughts and strategies. The Rock has its own role to play in the whole mystery and the parts are written so well that sometimes I just read them again for the sake of it.
“What I’m saying is that girls hunger. And we’re taught, from the moment our brains can take it, that there isn’t enough food for us all.”
This book, along with the horror and the fantasy element of it, also deals with how girls are viewed and raised and pitted against each other in littlest of ways. How they are generally underestimated without much conscious thought, it’s just almost default thought process sometimes and that speaks volumes. It also deals with how people, even people who know better, sometimes can’t help their thoughts. It dealt with the asexuality spectrum in a way that felt realistic. Because even when people understand, there are times when words leave lips that aren’t well-thought out or deserving but are only the after effects of emotions. Those words are unforgivable and yet, we are shown how those things can happen. Ace-phobia is very much real and very different from homophobia but just as important and I am so glad Claire Legrand addressed it in such a way.
This book is very feminist and I am glad for it, it shows three very different girls from different backgrounds who are trying to deal with loss and grief and life in general in their own way. They are brought together because of tragedies around them and are then almost made part of the cult and sacrificed but they change the cliche. I had and still have mixed feelings about the cult shown in the book, the way the men are shown to be very one-dimensional and almost too offensive. I understand that was the way they were supposed to be and one of the members did have doubts and decided to be better but on the whole, I wanted a bit more flesh? More personality. I understand that they were supposed to represent the entitlement that men have enjoyed for far too long but well, something didn’t sit well with about that, hence the four stars and not five.
“You are mighty. You are one, and one, and one.
You are fragile. You can move mountains.
You are breakable. You will never break.
This power is mine. And now it is yours, too.”
Another problem with the book was the main villain, the Collector. Initially, I was really intrigued and frankly, that was one of the reasons I couldn’t put it down but near the end of the book, I was left a bit disappointed? I mean, the way it all worked out even with the background information we got about the Collector. I was…sort of not in awe. Also, the ending. It’s not that I didn’t want a good ending but the way the plot had moved in the last few chapters, I had sort of got my closure near the end and then to read the actual ending. It was…not bad? But not what I would have expected from all that happened in the book so far, you know?
However, overall, this book is really good. I am seriously so, so glad that I picked it up. Claire Legrand’s writing is so good and the atmosphere and the aesthetic of the whole book just made it so easy to get lost in it. I would definitely be on the lookout for her next works and I want to read Furyborn too! If horror and fantasy along with some gore is your thing, then you should definitely pick it up. There are some trigger contents and if you are uncomfortable about the following things then probably don’t pick it up. Violence, grief, loss of a loved one, gore, parental abuse, sexual abuse, blood, bleeding, talk of miscarriage, animal death, descriptions of murders, etc.
#books#booklr#bookish things#bookish thoughts#bookishfeatures#bookworms#bookworm#books and libraries#books and reading#books and literature#book photography#sawkill girls#claire legrand#horror#fantasy#lgbtqia#lgbtq#ya#young adult#literature
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Porn Stars, Lovers and Wives:
How Women See Pornography
Aaliyah, a twenty-five year-old
pubic relations manager from Houston, likes pornography and approves of it, though her appreciation wasn’t instantaneous. Her earliest exposure was on homecoming night in high school. A friend’s date had a porn video and, feeling kind of bored, the group decided to watch it together. “To us, it was gross,” Aaliyah says of the reaction among the girls. “The camera was right there up close and we didn’t see anything but the sex act.”
In college, Aaliyah discovered more appealing pornography. At the large Texas university she attended, groups of female friends would gather to watch a porn movie in their dorm. Mostly, they thought it was funny. Sometimes they would e-mail pornography back and forth just for laughs, though now they all have careers and use work computers, they abstain. These days, Aaliyah looks at pornography on her own, about once a month––online, on cable or on DVD. She likes movies that have a story; there has to be “a point” to the film. But most are primarily geared toward guys. She considered many to be too low budget; many plots are terrible; black porn in cheesy. “I like it when it’s realistic,” she explains. “I don’t like things like bondage or very aggressive sex or anything I feel is demonising women. That’s just brutal. I would never watch anything like that.”
Aaliyah usually watches when she’s not dating anyone. A practicing Southern Baptist, she would like to get married and have kids some day, but lately she’s had no love life at all. “There’s nobody to date,” she laments. Watching pornography alone may be fun, but it only increases her desire to have sex and to meet someone. “I’m very strict about the type of guy I want,” she says. “The kind of guy who would make a porn movie isn’t the educated kind of guy I want to be with.” Not all men are into porn, in her opinion, perhaps just 70 percent. “No way did my father have porn in the house,” she says. “My mom would have killed him.” Aaliyah figures men still use pornography more than women do––maybe 30 percent of women watch. Her best friends all look at it. But in Houston, the churchgoing people she knows have a negative view of pornography. Some of her friends from church would probably be offended if they knew she indulged. “A lot of people think porn is a bad thing,” Aaliyah says, “but I think there’s nothing wrong with it.”
Traditionally, women have seen something wrong with pornography. It was considered low class, uncouth, “dirty.” Society encouraged women to frown upon porn and to berate ––albeit futilely–– their men for using it. Or to turn a blind eye on their boyish digressions. Women certainly weren't expected to look themselves.
Pornography used to be just for the boys. 1953, the famed Kinsey Report on American sexuality found that users were almost exclusively male. During the 1970s, however, women moved beyond the de facto position of “Don’t ask, don't complain.” Feminists began to stake claim on the issue. They regarded the women working in the industry with compassion, lamenting a system that valued women more for their boobs than for their brains. Such women were typically exploited, underpaid, and had all too frequently suffered from sexual or emotional abuse. The problem, many women concluded, was with pornography an exploitative industry that not only harmed the women who worked in it but affected all women—and the solution was to get rid of it. Other feminists took a different route, declaring that pornography shouldn’t be eradicated––it should be improved. Liberation, they claimed, meant securing labor rights and health standards for porn stars and prostitutes (whom they preferred to call “sex workers”). Pro-porn feminists battled it out with anti-porn feminists while most men observed the catfight in delight or ignored it altogether.
And then it was all over. By the following decade, the feminist debate over pornography retreated to academia and the legal arena. In popular culture, women’s magazines rarely discussed pornography. During the early 1990s, it was unusual to run across an occasional mention of erotica. Those who continued to question pornography were labeled “feminazis” and “radicals” by some groups, or “right-wingers” and “bluestockings” by others, depending on the political agenda and persuasion of the name caller. Together, the message was clear: “Stop whining.” Having never properly addressed the feminist quandary over porn, women’s roles in using and producing pornography were no longer subject to debate.
Instead, in recent years, women's magazines regularly discuss pornography from a new perspective: how women can introduce it into their own lives. While many women continue to have mixed or negative feelings toward pornography, they are increasingly told to be realistic, to be “open minded.” Porn, they are told, is sexy, and if you want to be a sexually attractive and forward-thinking woman, you’ve got to catch on.
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