Do We Need Another Transformers Movie?

You got the touch! Stan Bush here, and you're

about to transform and roll out, only on the

Geekcast Radio Network. This is Optimus Prime,

and you're listening to all things Transformers.

If you've got an issue, here's its issue. DJ

Valentine, he doesn't have a wife or a girlfriend,

but he clearly has issues. That guy has definitely

got some issues to work out. DJ Valentine? Man,

that guy has issues. Clearly has a number of

issues. Clearly has issues. Multiple issues.

DJ Valentine has issues. DJ Valentine has issues.

Hey kids. I'm certainly DJ Valentine and I certainly

have issues. This is what they call in the biz

a pilot or a proof of concept or shot in the

dark. A while back my friend Mike Blanchard of

the GeekHacks Radio Network, Mikey B is what

I call him. Never call him that. Mike had joked

around with me and said it would be a great idea

if the powers that be at GeekHacks Radio would

just give me a show where I just rant on stuff.

That's incredibly flattering of a joke that was

and as incredibly interested as I was to do that.

I never thought it would happen. People promise

me things all the time. I'm still owed a second

date with Nikki Blake from the 12th grade, but

I'm starting to think that might not happen.

Straining orders are a difficult thing to break.

However, after several years and several empty

threats of litigation that I've levied at the

GeekCast Radio Network about giving me the show,

they were jokingly promising me, They have finally

called my bluff, as it were, and said, in no

uncertain terms, by that they meant, show me

what you got in a segment first, then maybe,

if you don't get us cancelled, we'll possibly,

perhaps, give you more time. So for those who

don't know me, I am a geek, and as about as cool

and on -branded parlance and as knowledgeable

an expectation that moniker implies, film and

TV are the things mostly in my wheelhouse, but

As someone who grew up as an only child during

the 80s, the recent 20 years Hollywood has mined

for IP content from my childhood kind of makes

me an unintentional pseudo -expert of the current

entertainment times. Some things make me happy,

some things I have issues with. Those issues

I'd like to expand upon further with this tentative

platform I've been given and perhaps lend some

illumination to some of them and, most importantly,

work through whatever psychological damage these

things have inflicted on me. Here's something

I think spawned from emotional and psychological

scarring, leading me to a mere question I posit.

Do we need another Transformers movie? Now don't

misunderstand me, I love Transformers. It was

the apex of cartoon excellence for me when I

was a kid. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream,

the animated film that I've seen so many times

I can recite all the dialogue from memory more

confidently than the pledge of a friggin' allegiance.

I lapped it up like a puppy come home from a

summer walk, and yet I think... I think it's

a dead franchise. Or a franchise that makes me

wish I was dead. Look, it sounds like I'm being

hyperbolic, but it's apropos since my issues

with Transformers films are mainly due to the

captain of hyperbolic, Michael Bay. Michael Aloysius

Bay. No, I don't care if that's not his real

middle name. Michael Bay killed it. I take it

back. Bay didn't kill it. He didn't just. He

turned it. Like Kirsten Dunst in Interview with

a Vampire. A child vampire, stunted from ever

evolving, growing, broken and ruined, foiled

from ever enjoying her full potential of being.

Interview with a Vampire. Good movie. No, no,

no, no. Maybe that's not exactly an apt description.

The Decades Decades of poor, nonsensical, gross,

racially insensitive, overtly misogynistic, wildly

inconsistent explosion porn that is the Transformers

films is akin to the guy in the small group traveling

the countryside during a zombie apocalypse who

got bit but hides his infection from the group

and then finally turns and bites the plucky kid

who gave the group a sense of camaraderie and

hope for the future. leaving the group suddenly

horrified and saddened that that plucky kid is

now just a ticking time bomb to becoming a flesh

-eating monstrosity, leading to their own introspection

and self -realization that there is no future,

no hope, no way out, just a deep, never -ending,

lifeless, vacant abyss of sorrow and nothingness.

Little morbid, huh? That's how I felt watching

the first Transformers film and Revenge of the

Fallen and Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction

and The Last Knight. Transformers is a franchise

in which the sickness of Baham only got exponentially

worse and then that sickness spread to the plucky

kid. That plucky kid being bumblebee a film which

had its problems, but still showed what a good

decent and offensive Transformers film could

be but But that sickness that bite had already

taken hold and the public was already horrified

and saddened in the film bombed Now we have a

new Transformers film coming out rise of the

beasts Likely gonna pick the bones of the Transformers

Beast Wars series like a vulture with a tapeworm.

Do you think? They're going to follow the example

of the underperforming bumblebee. Or go back

to gynecological upskirt slo -mo scenes of hot

women draped in Budweiser lace underwear shot

during golden hour. Or unfunny rapping buck -toothed

robots who don't read so good. Or robotic testicle

flashing and urination fetish jokes. Or odd scenes

of a neutered Optimus Prime being lectured to

by unaffected government characters with inconsistent

eye lines played by out of place Oscar winning

actors and historical figures who might as well

have a sign on their face that says, yachts don't

pay for themselves. Poor story where the Transformers

are background players in their own fucking movie

led along by the hand by whichever CW slash Big

Brother contestant slash K -pop star that's hot

enough to jump up enough interest in the Asian

market. Because the previous films that utilized

those ingredients Made more money than a film

that seemed to actually give a shit about the

lore and the IP they were adapting Then I can

hear you in the back. Yeah, yeah you optimistic

casual film person But DJ rise of the beast is

directed by Creed 2 director Steve Cable jr.

It's gonna have his vision on it. I make a bitch

shut up if you think paramount Paramount the

same company that just finished taking a nine

episode season -long dump on the Halo franchise

for no other reason than to piss people off,

or handing over creator freedom to a guy who

slept walked his way through a rocky spin -off

sequel, you might be the one who's infected.

So my original question stands, do we need another

Transformers movie? If you cared about Transformers,

like grew up on it, learned life lessons from

it, became a bastion of what it stood for, despite

it, being a glorified toy commercial for young

boys, I ask you, do you want the same studio

and producers, which Michael Bay is still a part

of, by the way, taking another vicious porn hack

at your franchise? Or should we just, as James

T. Kirk once said, let them die? I know where

I stand. Where do you? Um, Optimus, you want

to see something funny? No. You had mentioned

Bayhem. in your in your thing. So the All Things

Transformers Summer of Bayham, a six part series.

Oh, so. So, yeah, I got PTSD from Bayham. I used

to work for Editing House where we would edit

or make shorter versions of actual movies, which

means you have to watch a movie for like 30 straight

times. Get know everything by heart and pull

out things that are unnecessary to get it to

like a two -hour movie to like 60 minutes so

I had to watch all those transformers movies

like 30 times each and That was work So we have

the hate plague which was obviously the return

of optimus prime which is so funny the red disease

yeah i just did this the other day i was i had

to watch return of optimus prime for something

oh it was to get that picture but i mean we're

not gonna be here all night but like because

seeing as how i don't know anything else well

i mean i have other things i need to do but oh

there it is I'm a podcaster. Don't you want to

be a podcaster, too? I wrote that on Twitter

the other day and I got several. I think this

episode is famous. And again, I'm not as versed

as with Transformers television as you guys are.

But I remember this because it was the only other

time I ever heard you got the touch. Not in a

movie. Because I guess you got the touch when

he opens the matrix that's like oh, yeah fucking

movie song What's going on here? Yeah, it is

the only other time Gregory? Jessica? Does this

mean the fighting will continue? Hard to say.

There will be no war today, Optimus Prime. You

have earned Galvatron's respect. The wisdom of

the ages. it's lost no not lost we're all a little

wiser now but the matrix is empty it's up to

all of us to fill it again with the wisdom we

accumulate from this moment on autobots transforms

I gotta go or else you're gonna make me spontaneously

combust. Seriously, I haven't had this much fun

in a long, oh God. Holy crap, my face hurts.

I don't have a face. No, I'm sorry. My bones,

my face bones hurt. My bone face hurts. My face

hurts. Oh God. On the Simplistic Reviews podcast,

we talk movies. We talk TV. We talk. Hello Julie,

what the heck are you doing? Trying to make our

spot sound more exciting by adding explosions

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could have got the

point across with sound effects. Not the real

thing I'm sure your insurance company will cover

that! No, they won't. No, they probably won't.

So DJ did not make me spontaneously combust,

but I, TF2 and Mike, am leaving. And I am leaving

you on this note because the next time you hear

my voice, I will be in my new... Permanent home

base of Anderson, Indiana. Yay, and Yeah, I gotta

go catch a plane folks. I just hope it's not

Starscream Starscream I've been trying to reach

you all day Sorry boss my phone was probably

in airplane mode Yes! I wish to speak to my lawyer.