After finishing my last post I had some more questions that came up. There are more spoilers for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen so be warned.

The Decepticons’ main motivation in this movie was to find a machine that can destroy a sun and turn it into Energon, the Transformers main source of power. There is a scene where Starscream shows a dead baby Decepticon and saying they don’t have enough Energon to keep their children alive. This makes the Decepticons’ cause much more sympathetic. They’re not trying to destroy the sun to kill all the humans, they’re just trying to survive. They literally want to steal a sun to feed a starving family.

On the Autobots side we never once hear one complain about not having enough Energon. Where are the Autobots getting it? The only assumptions I can make are that the Autobots have the technology to create Energon without using a sun or they have found an alternative power source so that they don’t need Energon. In either case, why has no one offered to share this information with the Decepticons in exchange for peace? Has Optimus Prime ever suggested a cease fire to work out their problems diplomatically? The Decepticons want their revenge because the Autobots are withholding life saving information and killing their people on sight.

One could argue that the Decepticons are evil and even if their Energon supply was good they would still attempt to conquer Earth, but there’s no way to know that for sure until peace talks have at least been attempted. From this perspective what the Autobots are doing to the Decepticons is genocide. Optimus Prime claims to be “protecting humans” but what he is really doing is hunting down and exterminating the Decepticon race.

This isn’t a review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, it is just several philosophical observations I made after watching the movie last night. There are going to be many spoilers here so don’t read on until after you see the new movie. I am limiting myself to the two Transformers movies since I haven’t read the comics and it’s been like 20 years since I’ve seen the cartoon.

In the first Transformers movie the Decepticons and Autobots are at war trying to get the All Spark. This is like the holy grail for space robots. A spectacular final battle wages on and there are casualties on both sides. It is war and casualties are to be expected. The sequel starts up two years later. The Autobots now work for the government rounding up stray Decepticons. Optimus Prime brings down this huge Decepticon and then, in a moment that completely shocked the hell out of me, Prime executes the guy on the spot! I am used to watching heroes like Spider-Man, Superman and Batman whom have strict “no killing” policies, so to see Optimus as judge, jury and executioner was a little unsettling.

It’s been established in the movies that Transformers are alien life forms, (we even see one being born in the new movie) with sentience and their own personalities. Maybe they don’t have the same value of life that humans do. We can’t expect every alien in the galaxy to conform to our beliefs. So let’s say the Autobots have no problem killing Decepticons and vice versa, how can we even tell the Autobots are the good guys and Decepticons are the bad guys? The answer given to us it that the Autobots are committed to preserving human life. What the hell? Optimus Prime cares more about humans than he does his own species? Maybe this isn’t totally unheard of. I suppose there are adamant animal rights activists, maybe some that would put an animal’s well being over that of a human’s. Are there any PETA members so extreme that they would kill a person to protect animals?

Back to the beginning of the second film, Optimus has this Decepticon subdued and kills him on the spot. Prime doesn’t attempt to incarcerate him or rehabilitate him. Maybe Transformers are hardwired to be either an Autobot or Decepticon and Optimus knows that no matter what he does this Decepticon will always be this way and would harm humans in the future. That would be a valid argument until about half way through the movie when the cast meets an old Decepticon named Jetfire. Jetfire had been sitting in a museum for decades, but before that he defected from the Decepticons when he found out about their plans for Earth. This proves that Transformers are capable of reform!

Based on what I’ve seen in this movie, Optimus Prime is some kind of human rights extremist and puts the safety of the human race far beyond the preservation of his own race. However, I’m sure the real reason to turn him into a murderer is that it made him way more badass and a giant robot prison would look stupid.

One more question: when a piece of the All Spark comes into contact with a device it turns the device into a Decepticon, why is “evil” the default setting for new Transformers?

I found it odd that Hollywood had to tone down Wolverine to get the PG-13 money, but the corresponding video game is full on Mature. Are any parents really going to tell their 14 year old “you can watch that Wolverine movie but you can’t play that Wolverine nintendo tape”? (I say that because all parents call video games “nintendo tapes” regardless of the system and media format).

Wolverine has always been a violent character. You don’t give a guy knives that come out of his hands and then set him up as a guidance counselor. You give a guy knives so he can use them on bad guys, and that’s what the Wolverine video game accomplishes. In the movie Wolverine would use his claws but it was edited enough to keep it PG-13 and there was no blood. However in the game there are no such restrictions. Wolverine stabs guys in the head, cuts them in half and severs limbs. The opening cutscene of the game Wolverine is more viscerally satisfying than anything that happened in the movie.

So the game looks really violent, how does it play? Good question, myself. X and Y do your basic slashing attacks and mashing both of them back and forth makes Wolverine do really cool moves. Against melee attacks you can block and counterattack which slows down time and looks impressive without getting old. The best move is targeting a guy and then leaping to him to attack. If you’re in a room with multiple guys shooting at you, you can leap from guy to guy slashing them up. Throughout the game you can buy upgrades and new abilities just like most action games.

The Final Word
Even if you hated the movie don’t pass up this game. It’s probably better as a rental because I can’t see getting hours upon hours of enjoyment out of it. If you’re not a comic book fan but you like action games you should give it a look as well.

Similar to:
God of War, Devil May Cry

I’m a couple weeks late on this but here’s what I thought. Up is an enjoyable movie. Not one of Pixar’s best but even an average Pixar movie is better than most regular movies.

Up tells the story of a old man who wishes to finally complete an adventure that he and his wife had since they were kids. It starts out with an excellent opening montage that shows the couple from kids to adults. Between this, Watchmen and Wolverine, 2009 must be the year of awesome opening montages. To get to this special canyon the old guy ties a few hundred balloons to his house and floats it there. The Mythbusters must be rolling over in their graves. A boy scout named Russell comes along for the ride. When they get there they find a rare bird they have to protect from a different old man.

The opening to the movie tugs at the heartstrings, then it turns into a kids adventure movie, then it goes overly sappy again at the end. I think they over did it a little on the sappiness. Over and over again they would make references to some tiny thing at the beginning just to get an emotional response. These are just minor complaints, the movie is still pretty good. We went and saw it in 3D but there wasn’t really a need to. It didn’t take advantage of the 3D as well as Monsters vs. Aliens and through most of the movie I forgot it was even supposed to be in 3D.

I rate this movie somewhere between “See it in Theater” and “Rent it” depending on how big of fan you are of Pixar movies.

On Friday and Saturday we went back to Magic Kingdom and Epcot to do the things that we missed. At Magic Kingdom Ashley and I re-enacted the proposal since we didn’t get any pictures of it the first time. Here are the other things we did:

continue reading "Adventures in the Magic Kingdom - The Final Chapter"

Next up was Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I was excited for this park because I watch a lot of movies. According to Flickchart, I’ve seen over 700 of them. Weatherly speaking this was one of the nicest days. It didn’t start raining until we were heading back to the hotel at night.

continue reading "Adventures in the Magic Kingdom - Part 5"

Wednesday the sun finally came out, for the morning anyway. We went to the Animal Kingdom. This was probably the park I was least excited about, because I don’t really care much about animals other than their barbequeability. But I had never been to this park before so it would be all new to me. Since the weather was nice is the morning we took as many pictures as we could. Here are the attractions we saw:

Safari
The safari was pretty fun because we got to see some giraffes and elephants and whatnot. It was just like Jurassic Park except with hippos instead of velociraptors. There’s a part where you go across a bridge and the bridge shakes. Ashley and I could hear a mother and and her young daughter in the seat behind us:

Mom: woah, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it over that bridge
Daughter: mom, they probably do that like 5 times a day

Tree People
This wasn’t really an attraction but they had this woman dressed as a tree walking around the park. She walked on stilts and used these long sticks to maintain balance. Her costume was pretty amazing. If she walked up to a tree and faced away from you, you wouldn’t even see that she was there.

Yak & Yeti Restaurant
We had our sit down meal for lunch. I can’t remember what I ate but it was delicious. I don’t think we had a bad meal the entire week. During lunch it started pouring, we were glad we had done the safari already.

Bird Show
There was a short show where they had trained birds doing tricks. The tricks were meant to imitate how they normally act in the wild. I learned that the bald eagle is no longer endangered thanks to preservation programs.

Bugs Life 3D
The Bugs Life 3D movie was pretty funny. I recommend anyone going to the park to check it out.

The Lion King Live Show
This show started out so well. They had these moving platforms with robot characters from the Lion King and they were singing songs from the movie. Then these acrobats started… acrobating and it was really cool. At that point they stopped the show because the storm outside was interfering with the power or something. I was disappointed.

Finding Nemo The Musical
This was the best show at the Animal Kingdom. There were performers with giant puppets of the Finding Nemo cast. I was really impressed with the girl who was hanging from ropes and spinning around. This is also a must see attraction.

After Finding Nemo we headed back to the hotel and ate dinner there. The rain was so bad the park looked empty as we left.

The second day we headed to Epcot. The hotel gave us buttons that said “Just Engaged.” It was kinda cool because people would congratulate us wherever we went. Unfortunately it rained the most this day, like as soon as we stepped into the park. Here are the attractions we saw…

continue reading "Adventures in the Magic Kingdom - Part 3"