Before I say anything more let me qualify myself a bit. I'm a pretty liberal guy. I'm open minded. I live in San Francisco for goodness sakes! My family is Catholic but I keep my views very low key. No one accuses me of being a prude - let alone of being Conservative! I'm a parent. I have an 8 year old boy who is Transformer crazy. He has all the toys from the first movie. He has both the DS Lite games. My 6 year old daughter likes the games too. They've both seen the original movie. They both love the old animated series. My son was incredibly anxious for the movie to come out and for me to see it. He knew it was PG13 so I had to screen it to see if I would let him see it.
Neither of them will see the new movie if I have anything to say about it.
Why? Because for reasons that have nothing to do with story, plot, or artistic values the director (Michael Bay) needed to express. The movie is laced with really stupid and immature sexual innuendo. It started with the opening scene of Mikaela who poses quite sexually while painting a motorcycle. That scene was obviously intended for all the guys who thought she was a babe. The humanoid 'babe' in the college dorm who practically sexually assaults Sam served no purpose in the story but clearly was out of someone's college fantasy. The little robot that Mikaela 'turns' to the Autobot side humps her leg while making sexually suggestive noises. Mikaela's character morphed from the tough street wise beauty in the first movie into a frightened sex object in the second. All of this was certainly too much for my kids to see.
Why? What purpose could any of this have served?
Oh, that's right. I forgot. They basically tailored the movie to the male 18-30 year old crowd. The guys who played with Transformer toys 10-15 years ago (we hope it was that long ago). I guess the idea was to aim for that demographic and pull in all that money.
But you see, there's a problem with that. Those guys are not going to buy more Transformer toys (we hope). They probably won't see the movie again. They might buy it on DVD someday, but the value to *Hasbro* is gone.
Had they toned it down sexually and made this a cleaner PG movie they'd have pulled in a whole new crowd: the kids. I can tell you that movies that my kids love they talk me into seeing again before it leaves the theatres. Ka ching. My son just had a birthday and would love the transformer toys. Ka ching. Christmas - more toys. Ka ching. DVD release and a certain buy. Ka ching. Repeat cycle. Ka ching. Cash for Hasbro as well as for the movie studio.
But that's not how they played it.
Back to my son. I had to him that he couldn't see the movie - that it wasn't appropriate for kids. And I had to hug him and hold him as he cried and cried with bitter disappointment. He asked a great question: "but Dad, why did they have to make it inappropriate for kids?"
So, Hasbro, I hope you are happy with your profits this year from royalties on this movie. You'll not get another dime from me. My kids won't get the toys... I'll go out of my way to get them other things, to say "well, you know you didn't see that movie... why don't we get this other toy?" And I won't get them the games from it either.
Sometimes companies can be stupid, pathetic and completely short-sighted. Hasbro clearly is. And the movie was even worse.
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