**SPOILER ALERT** If you haven’t seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter referred to for convenience as Transformers 2 ) was a horrible movie. I’m not even going to debate that with anyone. But even if you liked the movie for some reason, there was a moment that proved once and for all that the director Michael Bay had no understanding of the Transformers concept, other than giant robots punching each other. That moment, of course, was the one where Sam Witwicki gets seduced by a nubile college coed named Alice, who turns out to be a Decepticon that chases him around the campus.
Why was that moment so awful? Not so much in terms of story. I actually found that moment one of the few unexpected plot twists in the movie, so that was kind of refreshing. But here’s the problem that occurred to me later on: it undermined the entire concept of the Transformers.
Let’s review. The Transformers are robots that transform themselves into other things so they aren’t discovered on Earth. “Robots in disguise,” right? And there are tons of Transformers. Cars, motorcycles, planes, tanks, radios. Notice a trend? They’re all machines. Why? Because the Transformers are machines that can only turn themselves into other machines. Even when the Transformers turned themselves into other lifeforms, they could only become mechanical versions of those lifeforms. Look at Scorponok or Ravage. No one could mistake them for the real thing. It’s the one limitation that the Transformers had, and it made sense. How could a ten-ton hunk of metal standing fifty feet tall pass for a human?
Michael Bay understood that. In the first movie, the Transformers only turned into machines. Bay even came up with a clever idea for how the Transformers avoided attention by having them create holographic human beings to pass as their drivers. That idea was repeated in Transformers 2 when the motorcycle Autobots created holographic drivers. And then came the coed Transformer.
This might seem a minor point. So a Transformer turned into a human? So what? Well, let me ask you this question; if the Transformers can turn into human beings, why do they bother turning into anything else? Isn’t a human being the ultimate disguise? You’re telling me Optimus Prime could have turned himself into George Clooney, but he decided to turn himself into a massive truck instead? No. The Transformers can’t turn into humans, that’s why they become machines like cars and planes that we’re familiar with.
Also, if the Transformers can become humans, why do they create holograms of humans to serve as their drivers? Why not just become humans to begin with? And don’t get me started on the robotic prehensile tongue.
NOTE: I’m aware that the Transformers series at one point had humanoid Transformers called the Pretenders, but there was a complex back-story explaining how it was possible for them to simulate human flesh. None of that was in Transformers 2.
What do you think of the Alice the Pretender? Let us know in the comments!
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="42882 ">5 Comments
I never thought of it that way but you're right, that did kind of make the rest look like losers. There's no way Optimus Prime could look human because he's too big. They established in the first film that he's massive even in his alien form.
DUDE YOUR WRONG. EVER SEEN TRANSFORMERS BEAST WARS?
this is partially true. when the arc crashed on earth, it surveyed the surrounding using probes at different times in history. when the vulcano the arc crashed into erupted, and thereby also repowering the arc, the surveying probes saw the different machines run by humas (mostly cars) as the dominating life-source at the time, and therefore rebuilt the autobots to look like different cars. this to again blend in with the dominate life form. coincidently this is also the origin to the dinobot, who were sent out to stop chock wave some 5 billion years ago. at the time the dominating life form was the dinosaurs, ergo dinobots. on a different not there were actually robots built to resemble human too, the pretenders. while they never really transformed (they had an exoskelleton disguising their true robot nature) they were infact transformers still. the most common style of Pretender is an inner robot with a single humanoid shell (usually resembling a monster for the decepticons or a human in battle armor for the autobots). now you might think that im defending micheal bays transformers here. absolutly not. what micheal bay did to the transformes would have resulted in prison if i did it to any person i know. yes, im refering to rape.
I'm reading this way late but I agree with everything you said. They should have used the Pretenders thing. I mean the chick could have split open and a little robot shot out like the thing from "Alien" or something. That would have been pretty badass.
I hate Michael Bay's Transformer films, but I'm sorry, I don't agree with your point.
Personally, I think the concept of humans turning into robots is one of the few things Bay got right, and I want to see more of it in other versions, like TFP.
In Beast Wars, among other versions, they've had robots that turn into organics. As for why all Transformers don't turn into humans, it's simple: not all Transformers are human sized, and it's been confirmed that in the movieverse the robots have to pick disguises around their general size and mass. Weve only seen a handfull of human-sized robits in the movie series so far. In G1, which did involve size-changing, they couldn't do it because it was mostly aimed at selling pre-existing toys. It could also be assumed that the average Transformer is disgusted by the thought of turning into a human (hinted in the comic), or that only certain types of robots can do it.
Personally I don't see any reason why Transformers shouldn't turn into humans, they turn into everything else. While I certainly think the concept could have been explained and elaborated on further, I don't feel that it strays too far from the original concept, I take much more problem with several things in TF4, including the "90's screensaver" robots.