I've made it no secret in the past that my thoughts on the live action Transformers movies has changed drastically after watching "Bumblebee" in theatres (review here, incidentally). After going back and rewatching them, they have just become a cacophony of noise and irritation, an assault on the audiences intelligence and patience as a means of pandering to the lowest common denominator demographic. I may hold the first film close to my heart as my introductory point to the franchise, but that still doesn't excuse the lazy writing, the shoddy direction, the blatant sexism and racism on display, the lack of focus on the title characters, and the ever present aura of cynicism and contempt for a franchise that has changed and evolved since it's inception in the 1980's. In short, the movies are bad and Michael Bay should feel bad.
With that said, one could make the case for the third film, "Dark Of The Moon", as the one that could be salvaged amidst the myriad of awful dialogue and concussion inducing narrative if they make a simple change that could fix most of the issues with the story. And that change revolves around the main villain; not Megatron or any of his Decepticons, but Sentinel Prime.
As revealed by the mid-point of the film, Sentinel had made a deal with Megatron to get their hands on the Space Bridge pillars to summon an army of Decepticons to Earth and enslave the human race, eventually culminating in their main goal of bringing Cybertron to Earth's orbit and using the human populace to rebuild their planet.
Straight away, let's ignore the stupidity of using humans to rebuild Cybertron and not the energy sources that Earth has at it's disposal, as well as how this is basically a less coherent version of "The Ultimate Doom" from the original cartoon that Bay claims is the dumber version of the story. Rather, I want to address Sentinel Prime himself; specifically his characterisation and why it doesn't work within the framework of the film.
Essentially, by assuming the control of most of the Decepticon forces and overthrowing the Earth with his Space Bridge technology, Sentinel had no real reason to betray the Autobots. The deal that he had made with Megatron essentially means that ol' Buckethead surrendered his forces to the Autobots, which Sentinel could've told the other Autobots about so that they had the advantage. Would they've been on board with Sentinel enslaving mankind? No, but that's where the conflict should lie. They should be rebelling against Sentinel for this disregard of the morals that the Autobots supposedly uphold and trying to undermine his plan. Questions can then be raised about how much of what Sentinel taught Optimus was genuine or was all a ploy on Sentinel's behalf to have the younger Prime carry on his legacy. Automatically, Optimus has a much more interesting character conflict than "We take the battle to them".
But ultimately, that's not the change that I want to propose with DOTM and the character of Sentinel Prime. To properly set this up, let's actually break down his characterisation and what we could do with that.
As shown in the film, Sentinel Prime is callous towards other forms of life, with his goal revolving around returning Cybertron to it's Golden Age and fixing the planet. He is also seemingly a scientist and an inventor, having created the Space Bridge pillars and is the sole Transformer who can control them. He is ruthless, cunning (or would be if it weren't for this stupid plan), emotionally detached from everyone around him, and uses the methods that he believes is the most logical to achieve his end goal.
Now, with that characterisation in mind, remove the name "Sentinel Prime" from the equation. Try to think of someone; another character within the the 36 year long history of the Transformers franchise who fits the description I just presented. Who else do we know, from every story in the Transformers universe, is ruthless, cunning, emotionally detached, is a scientist and inventor, achieves his objectives via logic driven action and whose main goal is the preservation of Cybertron and its inhabitants above all else? On top of that, who do we know from that description who also happens to be in the movie and was pushed as a major part of it despite the end result?
Right away, you should already know the answer, and it's the character that I feel got a shorter end of the stick than Optimus and Megatron in terms of big screen representation. And thus, we finally arrive to the change. The main villain of the movie should not have been Sentinel Prime, but instead, my personal favourite Decepticon of all-time;
The main villain of DOTM should have been Shockwave.
Now, this really shouldn't be surprising to anybody who has even a bare bones understanding of the character, but it would be pretty presumptuous of me to assume that everyone automatically knows Shockwave's deal within the various pieces of Transformers media. Thus, for those who aren't overly familiar with the character, Shockwave is typically depicted as the Decepticons head scientist and was given the duty to safeguard Cybertron in Megatron's absence. From there, the depiction of character often varies between a Megatron loyalist and a cruel schemer seeking leadership of the Decepticons. One common trait remains through most of his appearances in media, however; his unwavering devotion to pure, ruthless logic.
Ergo, when it was originally announced that Shockwave was in line to be the main villain of DOTM, I was excited to see how it would be done. And with rumours arising that actor David Warner was in line for the role, it was all the better, as Warner's portrayal of Sark in the film "Tron" was Corey Burton's inspiration for when he was cast as Shockwave in the original cartoon. Heck, I'm one of the few people who'll defend the final design he had in the film.
Granted, the only elements we had to tell this was Shockwave was the singular eye and the arm cannon, but it was still an awesome design nonetheless. Just throw in some purple and remove the mandibles, and you have a perfect live action Shockwave design.
Unfortunately, what we got was little more than something that looked like the character, but barely resembled him in any meaningful way. He was simply a snarling, constantly angry sounding monster who did next to nothing and only had a single WORD of dialogue. And with how much he was pushed in the marketing and the way that they kept proclaiming that he was the central antagonist, it thus made it all the more irritating when he got killed off after roughly 5 minutes worth of screen time. In short, the studio had lied just to bank on the people who loved Shockwave just so they could make more money. It was shameless.
Therefore, I am doing this not only as someone who appreciates clever writing and storytelling, but as someone who feels that there was a grave missed opportunity with this character. Starting off right away, Shockwave will replace Sentinel Prime as the main villain. This not only removes the need for another character who looks identical to Optimus, but also allows for an opportunity to create a story focused around a plan that only someone as cruel and efficient as Shockwave can think of.
Having Shockwave be the one who creates the Space Bridge technology not only fits his common role as the head Decepticon scientist, but also acts as a callback to how he used Space Bridges in the original cartoon to transport Energon to Cybertron as well as allow Megatron to cross over easily if the need ever came up. It will also showcase how Shockwave, in this iteration of the character, is a balance of raw strength and unrivalled intellect, which is apparently how his character bio describes him. This personality is otherwise never present in the final film, nor is any semblance of independent thought or characterisation beyond another scary looking robot for the soldiers to attack.
On another note, I think audiences would also be receptive to a simpler design than what was shown on screen, one that was a good blend of realistic looking machinery and the original animation model. Thus, something along the lines of his design from his brief cameo in "Bumblebee" would be better suited for the character.
As for casting, it would be pretty obvious to cast Leonard Nimoy as Shockwave, namely due to the obvious connection that Shockwave has with Spock from "Star Trek" and the fact that the latter was the main inspiration for the latter. That said, however, I think it would be cooler of we had David Warner in for the voice instead because of how his performance influenced Corey Burton. Their voices are similar enough so that fans wouldn't be annoyed that it wasn't Burton in the role.
With all of that said, however, it still leaves the question; how would substituting Sentinel Prime with Shockwave change the overall story? What plan would Shockwave come up with that will make sense for the character and still fit within the Transformers movieverse without contradicting that has come before?
That is a discussion for another time.
But until then, what other ideas do you guys have for what Shockwave's plan could be? Be sure to leave a comment letting me know what you think, as well as what you think of the idea for the rewrite. Otherwise, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would share this on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as following me on Twitter; I'm @MediaHood23. Also be sure to check out my YouTube page; Media Hood Reviews. I know it's been a while since I uploaded on there, but I'm trying to get back into the groove of things and I've been meaning to make more videos for a while.
So until next time; this is Callum Lewis, the Media Hood, asking you to wash your hands and keep safe!
No comments:
Post a Comment