Driven Back To Fandom

[sakon76]

As it began, so shall it begin again. I've been largely absent from DW and LJ, and have shifted my blogging to my quilting blog at https://tinkerstitch.blogspot.com/. But now I'm back, because my typing into the void there won't do a thing for my fandom needs, and Tumblr is crashing and burning as a platform, like LJ before it.

Today, Wonderful Husband dragged me to see Bumblebee. Partly, I think, because he's worried about me and knows that my love for Transformers is a deep and abiding one.

(Which is why I stopped watching the Bayverse movies after Dark of the Moon. That was the point at which they went from "not good, but interesting" to "this is bad, you cannot make me watch any further.")

But I'd heard good things about it, so I was mildly jazzed, and these last two weeks with him taking time off have been the first times we've gone to see film movies since... Black Panther. Good heavens, has it really been nine months? I guess it has. So last week we went to see Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse (loved it!), and this week we went to see Bumblebee.

(And, no, we don't really watch movies on TV. It takes energy and two hours of the kidlets not getting up to see what Mummy and Daddy are watching. Which is why I still haven't seen most of the Marvel'verse.)

But Bumblebee was... wow. It was honestly a love letter to the original series. And to all of us girls who weren't supposed to play with the boys' toys (both literal and metaphorical, though not in this case sexual). I have FEELS about this movie and I need to spend some time thinking about it. Wonderful Husband and I debated whether or not this can even be part of the Bayverse. The continuity cracks between it and the first film are wide and deep. Yet at the same time it clearly was intended to be part of it. And Bayverse has always been riddled with continuity cracks. (Kind of embarrassing when a 1980s cartoon series has better continuity than the multi-billion-dollar Hollywood blockbuster franchise based on it.)

So, any of my TFs peeps still around and alive and interested in talking about Bumblebee?

Comments

[tainry]

Oh I would love to talk and talk about Bumblebee!!!! Just went to see it for a second time last night! <3 Still good second time! o^___^o

Have you watched any of Lindsay Ellis' meta on youTube? It's from a film school person's perspective but also a Transformers Fan perspective so there are technical things re film which I don't know about but which do help me understand some directorial/editing decisions better - even if I don't agree with them always, from a fan POV - and also she's funny and wry and wants to find something salvageable...even when there isn't. u.u

Anyway! Opening sequence! For a second I actually wondered if we were going to see Wheeljack and Bumblebee smuggling energy rods into Iacon like right out of G1! XD We did get to see Wheeljack for a split second at least!!!! <333 And Arcee! (Poor Cliffjumper! Again! At least he didn't get turned into a mindless zombie this time!)

I am never made happy by "The Touch" but it was amusing to hear it here - an actual nod to previous TF incarnations! And oh my gaaaah I bweed so hard when Bee was driving away across the Golden Gate and came abreast of Optimus!!! <333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 GLEE! GLEE GLEE GLEE! And Optimus 'old friend'ing people and putting his hands on shoulders and CHARLIE GETS TO HUG BEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! So good. ::snuggles into::

OK, I have a guest over so while there's lots more to eeee over, I'll restrain for now... ::hugs!:: Got your card! Thank you! <3 <3 <3 I have been the opposite of organized this year but I do hope to get cards out at least...eventually............... o.o;;;

[sakon76]

I haven't watched any of Lindsay Ellis' stuff. I'll have to check her out. Thanks for the rec!

For the opening sequence, I gasped in happiness, turned to my husband and whispered "THIS is what I wanted Bayverse to be!" So much happiness.

And, yes, poor Cliffjumper! The moment I saw him I knew who he was and that he was not going to make it. I flashed to that memorial video they did for him at the last Botcon I went to. :)

Was that supposed to be Optimus? I thought it was just supposed to be a nod to his G1 design, because I thought this was a prequel to Bayverse and it would be about 20 years before the arrival happened, but then there are so many continuity cracks that I'm no longer sure....

[tainry]

:D

Yesss! <3 Cybertron is instantly recognizable, even has the torn-apart sections below just like G1...

Yeah, continuity between this and Bayverse is dubious at best. Consensus seems to be that Hasbro wants to be able to play it both ways - it's either a prequel or a softish reboot. Simmons is a junior agent here, there's a Sector 7 headquartered under Hoover Dam, but...the timeline doesn't make a lick of sense. The timeline in strictly Bayverse doesn't make any sense either, though Captain Continuity aka John Barber took a stab at it and managed to string things together...sort of.
It's a prequel if it doesn't do well enough to make more along this line. It's a reboot if it makes enough money. Sigh.

I'd rather think of it as a reboot; closely related but a separate universe. There were seven more Autobots coming down there at the end, with Bee and Prime setting up camp and waiting for them... (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧

[sakon76]

Makes sense. I'm assuming the seven Autobots landing at the end are the ones we saw at the beginning, but I suppose there's no hard and fast reason that would have to be so.

[tainry]

::nods:: It could be almost anyone! Lessee...Ironhide, Ratchet, Arcee, Wheeljack we definitely see. Cliffjumper had a bad day on a moon of Saturn. So three more... Me personally I can't not have Jazz, so...XD

[dragondancer5150]

FWIW, I'm still kinda around. Not active in TF-dom atm (kinda been driven out of it in a sense) but I still love G1 (and TFA). I hear ya on the live action movies, though. I was not overly thrilled with the first movie (it focused too much on the humans for my taste, like if "The Secret Life of Pets" focused primarily on the human owners rather than on the animals themselves), and I was done after the second, only seeing the third because everyone else was and I wanted to be able to participate in the chatter. Will never bother with #s 4 or 5 and have been ambivalent at best about this newest one, even though Bee is one of my top fave characters (cuz not a fan of Bay!Bee). But...maybe I'll see it after all. Once it's out of theaters and I can just rent it on Amazon or YouTube or something.

[sakon76]

Driven out? By anything in particular, or just kind of fading away from it like I did?

If you want to give it a try, I've been watching the first season of Rescue Bots on Netflix with my boys, and while the designs and art style make me want to claw my eyes out, it is in fact delightfully whacked in a way that really reminds me of G1. Plus LeVar Burton voicing Dr. Green is a delight!

[tainry]

:(

Rescue Bots!!! <333 Dr. Greene! Flobsters! Squooshy grump Heatwave! Dear Chase! Boulder! Blades! <3333333333 Seconding the rec; if you can bear past the animation and that the show is aimed at much younger kids than TFP... I have the beginnings of notes for an epistolary fanfic about Dr. Barranova! <33333333333

[dragondancer5150]

It's been several years now since I started watching RB. Unfortunately, I didn't get much more than halfway through the first season before life got in the way and I never got back to it. I have to admit, Heatwave's attitude in general bugged me, as did Kade's, and their subsequent interactions were kinda hard to watch. I'm sure they both got better as the series went on - there were hints of it even in what I saw. Chase, Boulder, and Blades were great, though, yeah! The really young kids target audience made the show a bit hard for me, but the animation didn't bug me any more than Every. Other. Modern. Animation. Style. does. >,> I think I stopped caring for animation styles after, like, the 90's. Cartoon Network is the WORST imo. So yeah, RB's style doesn't actually put me off. LOL hell, TFA's style finally grew on me, and that's saying something. XD

[sakon76]

Honestly, I want Kade to die in a fire. Maybe he gets better in later seasons? Dunno. The time-travel episodes at the end of season 1 are really good. If you can, I'd watch at least that far!

[dragondancer5150]

UGH sorry to hear about Kade. >,> But yeah, one of these days. x,x

[tainry]

Heatwave gets better. He has quite an arc over the series - the other characters more or less do, too - and you see his heart more and more even if he's still grumpypants. <3 Also Mark Hamill voices the Chief's wandering brother and it is a DELIGHT. Also any episode where Bumblebee shows up to visit. And Optimus! <3

Kade either gets better or easier to ignore, I'm not sure which. XD

[sakon76]

Mark Hamill is ALWAYS a delight. Unfortunately Netflix only seems to have season 1 of RB anymore, so my chances of getting to see his episodes are slim. Grr, why can't Hasbro just release a DVD box set instead of cherry-picked episode sets? I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

[tainry]

Netflix noooooooo!!! Oh argh. Yeah, c'mon Hasbro! Jeez! D:

[dragondancer5150]

A little of both? A lot of minor things plus cooling interest in general. I couldn't get into TFP when it was on (the Cons were more interesting to me, the Bots were just perpetually "ignore Dad, do The Thing anyway, things go wrong, apologize to Dad for doing The Thing, claim to have so much respect for him...next week, rinse and repeat" and I just couldn't. It got annoying. Granted, I only got half-way through Season 1 before Life got in the way, but I wasn't brokenhearted about never managing to get back to it. I enjoyed the Bayverse movies even less. And I've sworn off the comics. In pretty much every way, they've gone in directions I just wouldn't enjoy. I got enough of what was going on in the comics from friends' rants and ravings to know that. So I wasn't really interacting with anyone re: TF even though there was plenty of TF chatter going around. Plus somewhere along the line, I lost confidence in the background and personality choices I'd made for G1 Wheeljack whom I used to write and rp a LOT. I started doubting and backing off from them and so writing/playing him fell apart for me.

Health issues played a lot in things too, leading me to lose interest in a LOT of things because I just couldn't cope.

Yeah, I need to give RB another go. Like with TFP, I got half-plus the way through S1 when life got in the way and I never got back to it. It's really cute and some of the stuff is just ridiculous even by G1 standards (especially that ep with the flying lobsters or whatever they were). Heatwave's attitude in general bugged me, as did Kade's, and their subsequent interactions were kinda hard to watch. I'm sure they both got better as the series went on - there were hints of it even in what I saw. And LOL yeah, I remember when Doc Greene was first intro'd, it drove me nuts bc "who is that?! I know that voice!" So that was fun. ^,^

[sakon76]

I couldn't get into TFP. I don't know why, I just couldn't. I tried! As for the comics, I didn't even try those. I had heard enough to know that they wouldn't be my cup of tea.

And... can the flobsters in Rescue Bots really be that much sillier than the surfing Autobots in G1? :)

[dragondancer5150]

Yep, same. Not bad in and of themselves, just definitely not my cuppa.

LOL point. XD

[tainry]

Or the "build a giant purple griffin! Explain nothing!"

[playswithworms]

*tackleglomp*

Helloooooo!!! <3 I know I see you on tumblr sort of, but that's not the same. I bet movie watching time is hard to come by! Glad you got to see Into the Spiderverse - I've been hearing lots of good stuff about it, so that's next on my list.

I watched the Bayverse to the sad end, but yeah, Dark of the Moon was a good stopping point. You didn't miss anything! And yes, yes, yes, Bumblebee!!! *jumps up and down* I finally saw it just before Christmas and I want to go see it again. I followed the plot the whole way through and wasn't confused and clueless!! Robots I could tell apart!!! That first part on Cybertron was so awesome, OMG. Heroic awesome Optimus!! I liked the humans! The romance subplot was unsmarmy!! The girl gets the robot/cool car!!! Bee is kickass! Family is frustrating but everyone is trying, and they all come through at the end! Optimus at the end!! :D

If I have to have a nitpick, the whole mom coming home after Bumblebee trashed the house and instead of going "OMG we were robbed"...somehow concluding that her daughter did it? And then jumping to an argument about Charlie getting over her dad? I couldn't quite swallow that one. And then Charlie doing the cool dive at the end was cool, but...was she going to just bodily haul Bumblebee up from under 15 feet of water?

[sakon76]

Hiya! *tackleglomp*

Yeah, Tumblr is fun in its way, but I use it mostly as a "retumble things I think various of my friends will find intersting/amusing" platform, not so much as a conversation space.

I loved the subtle homages to so many 1980s films. Their house being cordoned off ala E.T. Memo trying and failing to stop the military vehicles ala Splash. The cop with the radar gun ala The Last Starfighter. Etcetera. I LOVED that Charlie was never, EVER sexualized, and that I can count down a list of the ways that she is in fact a perfect opposite to Sam.

And, yeah, Charlie's mom jumping to that conclusion was a little shaky, but I can kind of see it given that Charlie's first action was to say "I can explain, it's my fault."

One weird thing for me was, I spent the entire film going "Charlie's mom. I know her. Where do I know her from???" Then I check her Wikipedia page and figure out that I don't know her face, I know her *voice*! She's Vidia from the Tinkerbell movies, all of which I've seen and love. Strange how you sometimes recognize voice actors even when they're not doing voices. ^_^

[darkdanc3r.livejournal.com]

We're still here! Still watching for you to update, too, but that's less important.

I think it was said that Bumblebee was supposed to be a reboot, not part of the actual Bayverse, and I'm all for that!

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

Bumblebee as a reboot would make more sense. Because otherwise there's two conflicting arrival-to-Earths of Optimus and the other bots....

Though I did get a kick out of seeing baby!Simmons in Sector 7.

As for updates... I'm honestly guessing I'm not going to be writing much if any at all until my older boy starts school in September. Ha, a nearly five-year hiatus! Ah well. I wouldn't trade my boys for anything, even if they are a pair of energy vampires.

[darkdanc3r.livejournal.com]

Hey family comes first, we all accept that. Or ought to.

But baby Simmons, yes... *snicker* That was wonderful. There are some aspects (very few, really) of Bayverse that weren't that bad, but a reboot definitely needs to happen, and Bumblebee was a wonderful way to start that off.