Pretty Hate Machine

Sinking feeling #547921: That next year's Transformers movie is going to suck big time.

It pains me. I was, and still is, a massive Transformers fan.

Why am I so certain the movie will suck?

Let's get this straight. The original cartoon series was conceived so that kids like me in the 1980s can have a storyline to play with those KICKASS toys.

I mean, c'mon, there has never been a toy as cool as a robot that can change into some other object. And the manufacturers knew it, so they created a cartoon series so that kids like me can re-enact the scenes with the toys obsessively.

Notice the big difference -- the cartoon came after the toys. It's not like Star Wars, Toy Story or The Incredibles, where the toys came as spin-offs from the films.

Therein lies what will surely fail the Transformers movie, despite Michael Bay's laughable "updates" of the robots.

Think about the ridiculous premise. Highly-sophisticated robot factions battling from Cybertron to Earth......by changing into unsophisticated, low-tech vehicles/guns/planes??

Yes, this was the same plot as the cartoon series we so loved. But we didn't care then, because WE HAD THOSE COOL TOYS TO PLAY WITH. Who cares about plot? We were busy fiddling with all the transformations.

Where are the cool toys now? Sadly, and probably, they will come as tie-ins with the movie.

The plot will be savaged by pretentious film critics. The movie will be passed off as mindless entertainment. The toys will be treated as commercial projects.

The joy of playing a transformer toy was to immerse in the possibilty that these toys have a background.

The sad fact about the movie is that, without the toys, the standalone story will fail, no matter how much CGI effects it has.