Philosophy Sunday: The Transformers Movie. Cool or not?

Two men sat by the river.

'I'm an outsider from society,' said the first, a weathered old Mexican named Carlos, 'left behind by the so-called march of progress.'

'Yes,' said the other, a large man named Larry, 'me too.'

They sat for awhile considering the concept. One of the men had some bread and they fought over the bread. In this way, they repeated, at the most common level of life, the myth of Optimus Prime and Megatron fighting over the Allspark, that mysterious object that gives all Transformers life. But humans are only condemned to repeat the endless story of the Transformers if they remain unaware of their futile mimicry.

At that moment, behind them, a car turned into a big robot with guns and it walked around cracking jokes for awhile. The men stopped fighting over the bread to laugh at how stupid it looked.

'Ha ha,' said Carlos, 'who would actually use their time, let alone their money, to watch a Transformers movie?'

'The same twenty-five year olds that sat in a theater full of ten year olds to watch the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie,' said Larry. 'These people would pay their life savings to stare at their childhood toys and pretend they have not grown into men.'

This little scene took place in the Salinas Valley by the way, which is in California. It is pretty, and a valley.

You see, I believe that all men are born either saved or unsaved, much like all Transformers each have a specific vehicle that they turn into when they're done having cool fights using state of the art special effect fighting techniques. A man cannot change whether he was destined to go to hell or not, much like Optimus Prime has a truck as his other shape and he could not choose to become a shopping cart no matter how much his soul longed for it. But a man will show signs of being saved through his life, much like a Transformer will turn eventually into a car and you can say "Oh, that one turns into a Porsche" and you won't have to wonder whether it turns into a Porsche anymore.

I think I've lost my point a little, but basically what I'm saying is that these are big giant robots who turn into fun cars that I can play with. I have to collect all the models and see what they will transform into. Yes, this one's a helicopter! "

'Well, as you know Buck,' said Steele, 'in the bible it says 'Thou shalt build statues but it will be for naught, for your enemies will laugh at your statues and the shoddy workmanship involved.' This means that Transformers are signs of the end times, if you interpret the bible using a combination of this handy flow-chart and a lot of squinting.'

'Do you think it looked really hot for like one second when all the Christian women were suddenly sucked off of Earth without their clothes?' said Buck.

'Yes, Buck, I suppose it did,' said Steele. 'But quick, we are danger. We must think cursory in order to get out of this.'

Then Jesus came and fixed everything. The End."

-What a bloody murk-up is this, then? said the drovesman.

-Ah, ain't that the Stephens of it, said the other drovesman.

The car on screen, a being of cold metal and cold movement, unfolded itself strangely into the shape of a great metal man. Fruanshelftffnnn! (This is a word which combines 'Fraun' which is the name of that great shapeshifter of Irish myth, 'Shelft' which is an Etruscan word that means 'became' or 'was turned into', and 'fnnn' which was a typo I made when I was on a deadline and didn't have time to type up a corrected page.)

-What a wallop of a film! said the drovesman.

-A furk wallop offa jerky-durk, said the other drovesman.

No, he thought sadly and coldly, this film is the tempting vileness of sin, and I must not let the warmth of a bunch of robots hitting each other tempt me from the cold cradle of my mother church. Besides, is the movie good? And no I said no it isn't No.!"

1. Transformers are self-evidently designed for small children.

2. Any child small enough to enjoy Transformers will obviously not remember any of the stupid nostalgic stuff from the early Transformers.

3. On the other hand, small children don't have money.

4. The Jews suck and we should kill them.

5. Obsessive nerds have lots of money to spend on stupid stuff like Transformers movie related merchandise, but

6. Obsessive nerds are never satisfied with anything.

7. Michael Bay could conceivably go by the nickname Michael "Gay" because I do not like his movies.

8. Ha ha, Michael Gay. That's classic.

9. Anyway, this movie has two audiences neither of which are good audiences to go after.

10. I can dead lift like 300 pounds, no problem