Transformers: Fear Takes a New Form

Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe et al are more my brother’s vintage. I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boy, myself.

When I saw Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, I caught the majority of the new Transformers trailer. It was … hilarious in its badness. Now, the movies are a good way of telling people how to feel. We’ve had, over the years, homo panic, Islam panic, Commie panic, even North Korea panic.

Today, thanks to Michael Bay, we’ve got a new twist on AI panic: the fear that our cars will TURN INTO ROBOTS AND KILL US ALL. That’s why I don’t drive: I live in fear! The reason I upgraded from a Walkman to an iPod is because I’ve seen what Walkmen can do.

So if you look at Transformers, you can tell that what we’re in for is a ride of pure hell. There could, even as we speak, be a Transformer hiding in your pool waiting to pounce on your unsuspecting children. It is unclear precisely what this Transformer intends to do your little girl, as I believe that Decepticons run on fuel rather than blood. Perhaps plasma is simply delicious.

In fact, none of this makes any sense at all. That’s the good thing about irrational fear: it’s irrational. I don’t believe that society has a history of oppressing sentient machines, enslaving them to our whims. I’m more in league with the types of cars that burst into dance at the slightest provocation.

How Transformers can be anything but bad is beyond me. Unless it turns out to be a documentary: a stern warning of things to come. In which case, Michael Bay for Antichrist!