I’ve been seeing lots of commercials for the new Transformers and I have to say, it looks pretty balls. Michael Bay is a known hack, so I feel a sizable chunk of my childhood has been heisted by some Pearl Harbor making huckster. Transformers was about Autobots fighting Decepticons. It’s not some stupid human survival story, which from the trailer, seems to be the way it’s being skewed. There were barely any humans involved in the original cartoon, yet they’re promoting this movie like it’s Independence Day. Another thing that’s bothered me is the design of the characters. They all seem so ridiculously complicated. The genius of the original series, and the associated toy line, was that the toys easily transformed from car, gun, ghetto blaster etc. into an awesome robot in seconds. These new characters seem more inspired by Gundam toys or Super Shredder from TMNT 2.

Optimus Prime was already plenty cool. He didn’t need some dumb-ass flames to modernize his look. Megatron was an awesome gun and not a metal chicken. The whole point of the cartoon was to sell toys, and even at 8 I knew that. Making these ridiculously complicated so that they can’t even make toys that they don’t even mildly resemble the character they represent is pretty stupid.

So when Transformers hits theatres on July 4th, I think I’ll be taking a pass.