#jammed and butt dialed people and was generally bad

[revchainsaw]

Bumblebee (2018)

Good Evening worshippers, and welcome! Today the Cult of Cult goes a little more mainstream than usual. It's been a while since i've tackled a big Hollywood superhero film. But I do believe that these sorts of films will be remembered fondly my small groups of people in the future, especially the smaller films that are being overshadowed by the big bad MCU, films like 2018s Bumblebee.

The Messsage

Bumblebee was originally released as a prequel to the Transformers franchise that had started all the way back in 2007. However, reboots had really hit the market as a way to breath new life into struggling franchises, and the Transformers series had already gone to just about every absurd extreme you could imagine. No changes were made to the movie as it was released, but with it's more childish and heartfelt tone, and a new aesthetic that was softer, smoother, and all around just generally more pleasing to the eye, I think it was a wise choice to rebrand Bumblebee as a new beginning.

Our story is of two friends from two very different worlds and how they came together. Our first character is Bumblebee, then known as B- number sign/it doesn't really matter. Not yet Bumblebee is a soldier set with securing a safe location for the Autobots to regroup and make their home as they suffer a pretty serious defeat on cybertron at the hands of the tyrannical Decepticons. Optimus Prime, here again voiced by Peter Cullen and looking so much more like himself, assigns this task to Bumblebee promising him that they will meet him there when the time comes. Then Optimus fucks off for the rest of the run time making way for our little hero.

Bumblebee lands on Earth and is immediately set upon by John Cena and his military goon squad. It probably would have been wise for Bumblebee to avoid John Cena but in his defense, he couldn't see him. Hardy har har. In his attempt to flee his voice box is damaged, he seeks sanctuary by taking the form of a run down little VW bug, and suffers from amnesia.

Then we have Charlie. Charlie is not like other girls. She likes cars, all the retro music, which wasn't retro when the movie takes place, so I'm supposed to just think she's a rocker but it kinda seems like she'll listen to just about anything. I think in 2018 liking Motorhead and The Smiths (who are used ad nauseum in this movie) is perfectly common, but I feel like in the 80s that was a much different and much older attitude to take.

Anyway Charlie's poor family lives in a super fucking nice house and are poor because the dialogue keeps insisting they are so it must be true despite all the shit they have that actually poor people would sell blood and teeth to attain, but hell, this is Hollywood and Hollywood poor is like regular people upper middle class. Charlies family is so poor that instead of giving her a one time graduation/birthday present to buy a part for a car she already has, they just give her a moped, She also spends all her time at a pull apart where the manager (who might be her uncle that wasn't super clear) is willing to just give her a Volkswagen so I don't understand why she didn't already have the project car up and running. Whatever, it's a plot contrivance. All you need to know is that Charlie is tenacious and hard around the edges cuz her dad is dead and she's not yet mature enough to process that in a healthy way. Maybe her character arch will teach her to let others in, we'll have to find out.

There's also a wacky nerd named Memo, and some bad guys, and John Cena. They are all also pretty archetypal and contrived and don't really do anything of note that isn't just filling a beat that this kind of movie needs to walk. Charlie starts Bumblebee up, discovers he's a robot and the two begin to bond. Charlie learns to make a friend, and bumblebee is learning about himself. They get into hijinks and get revenge on a bully girl who makes Regina George look like a saint, she pretty much only picks on Charlie exclusively for having a dead dad.

The moment Bumblebee is woken back up, some technology goof em up that both he and Charlie are unaware of brings two Decepticon baddies into the picture. I don't remember their names, but since I love The Venture Brothers let's say they can be "Jet Boy and Jet Girl". Jet Boy and Jet Girl are sometimes cars, sometimes various flying military vehicles, and they make friends with the deep state and plan to get all the adrenochrome from all the orphans, or just to go find Bumblebee and beat his ass good cuz their bad guys. Let me tell y'all though, Jet Boy and Jet Girl are so bad that they don't even care that the government is listening when they reveal that they are planning on bringing a Decepticon Invasion and after they rough up Bumblebee real good they are going to destroy all life on this planet. So they start by killing a military scientist.

John Cena is after Bumblebee and he's homies with Jet Boy and Jet Girl until the military scientist butt dials him and he hears the evil plan. John Cena goes from heel to face and helps Bumblebee and Charlie save the day. It's a giant CG clusterfuck climax a la any superhero film in the last 10 years and I basically stopped watching. BumbleBee pulls a Hellraiser on Jet Boy, and then he hits Jet Girl with a freaking boat. Charlie uses her diving skills do dive down and save him, but he's a Giant Robot and he was okay and it was literally pointless for her to to except as a way to show that her character has completed her arch by doing the thing that was representative of her connection with her lost father.

Bumblebee turns into the Camaro from the first movie, meets up with Optimus prime, and the stage is set for this prequel to squeeze more prequels out. So it wasn't very creative, but was it bad? Let's find out.

Please Stand to receive the Benediction.

Best Aspect: Transform the Franchise

Bumblebee was directed by Travis Knight of Laika fame and it shows. This movie marks a stylistic change in the transformers franchise, as in it doesn't look like utter dog shit, but it also represents in many ways a tonal shift. It does hold on to a lot of gross sleaze that has unfortunately been forcibly jammed into the DNA of the franchise but it also attempts to be a more heartfelt entry. The characters of Bumblebee might all be sort of a waste of time, but at least they are doing something with emotions, even if the emotions of the characters are only explored as deeply as a children's cartoon I'm glad they are there. In the previous installments the only thing the characters did between running from action piece to seizure inducing action piece was drool over underage girls like a bunch of chimpanzees at the facility where they test experimental E.D. meds. It was nice to see that at least somewhat tampered. This transformers movie feels more like it's for kids and young teenagers, and strangely that more friendly tone makes for a much less juvenile product.

Worst Aspect: Remember I Love the 80s from the 2000s

I hope you really like Stranger Things. I do, but because Stranger Things was so successful it' s going to be everywhere. Not true Stranger Things just 80s nostalgia porn. This 80s nostalgia is going to be forced on you whether you like it or not, and it's not going to be fun. It's gonna be in your shows, in your music, in your Sunday like Bacon in 2010. It's that or Marvel Franchise Brand Whedonisms. Bumblebee is that brave movie that says, "Why not both?" It would seem fitting that a property as quintessentially 80s as Transformers should feel completely comfortable doing a period piece set in the 80's but it's so fucking half hearted it's depressing. It wasn't done to appreciate the roots of the IP, it was done to cash in on a trend and it feels it. All they did was throw up a date and insufferably force an 80s soundtrack down your throat as if that was enough to convince you that this movie needed to be set during this time. Other than that you could have told me this film was set in 2007 and I couldn't tell you any different.

Best Character: Charlie's an Angel

I liked Charlie. Sure her Arc is predictable, her taste is dumb, and she isn't exactly a master of her own destiny to any degree. But at least she is a woman in a transformers movie who's got something going on. Sure she's defined entirely by grief, but that sure is better than pretending that being able to work on cars is a feminist character trait instead of a weird fetish thing. They certainly do that thing with Charlie, but at least it's not the only thing they throw at the wall. Bumblebee is by no means out of the woods in this department, but it garners a lot of goodwill for trying. Like a racist uncle who just started his journey out of ignorance, but hasn't yet realized he has to stop asking mortifying questions to the barista at Starbucks. Okay, maybe that's an extreme metaphor. I'm saying that perhaps Charlie is not a great character but she's a great character for a Transfomers movie.

Worst Character: It's JOOOOHHHNNNN CEEEENA!!!!

Why is John Cena in this movie? I don't hate the guy, but his character seems pointless. You could remove him from the movie completely and replace him with any one of the random military goons at any point and it changes nothing. What was with that dumb salute at the end? It seems like they put him in this movie in post and it was just to pump up cast list. I wish he was given anything to work with. I can't remember his characters name, and it's not like John Cena did a bad job, I was just annoyed every time they kept giving him hero shots. I felt like I was watching a trailer for a different movie.

Best Actor: Optimal Primo!

Every time Peter Cullen speaks I want to listen. There's a reason they haven't had Chris Pratt or somebody with a bigger name come in and take over the role at this point. He's why the audience keep coming back. Peter Cullen IS Optimus Prime, and there's no changing that. He also wins twice. He's the best actor in the movie AND he's barely in the movie. Good call Peter.

Worst Actor: Mean Girls 2, Meaner and Girlier

I don't want to be cruel so I'm not going to go into to much detail, but there's an actress in this film who's performance is so mustache twirlingly evil and stupid that it ruined my suspension of disbelief when i knew going in that i was about to endure a 2 hour toy commercial about robots that turn into cars. Beldar Conehead was a more convincing human being than Tina.

Best Effect: Goo Be Gone

I really appreciated when the bad guys shot the government nerd into a blast of snot. That was pretty fun for me. Best part of the movie hands down.

Worst Effect: Live Action?

Bumblebee is a cartoon. It's a great looking cartoon but it doesn't sell itself that way. If we were doing a Roger Rabbit thing I'd have no gripes. However, I think CG is just getting worse. I'm criticizing this and it's still lightyears better than the previous entry's on the franchise. No transformation or fight sequence in Bumble Bee had me straining to make sense of what I was looking at. I think it was a great idea to start using some basic shapes and outlines to these characters, and return somewhat to their 80s designs. But at certain points, especially when there were no humans in the shot, i was pretty convinced I was watching Clone Wars. There may not be anyway around this, as the Transformers concept might not be able to be pulled off in any more effective manner. It's a minor gripe, but I just didn't think it looked like anything other than a very expensive cartoon, and in this franchise that's a compliment, because it least it looked like SOMETHING!

Best Scene: Space Opera

I am not a Transformers fan. I missed the boat on the cartoon as a kid. I would sometimes catch it at friends houses but I was more into Batman, Star Wars, and Ninja Turtles. By the time I came onto the scene the world had moved on to Beast Wars. I did one day arbitrarily decide that my favorite Transformer was Sound Wave. He looked great in this. I am a big fan of the return to form with a lot of the character designs in this. They really did keep the things that worked from the other adaptations, and they are steadily removing the things that didn't. For this reason, the scenes on Cybertron, particularly the battle with Soundwave (i prefer for personal reasons) looked great and were exciting to watch. I remember thinking Cybertron used to look like a Marilyn Manson shot a music video from inside to dumpster. This is so much better.

Worst Scene: Blocking the Box

There's a scene in Bumblebee where Charlie's family decides the best way to save their daughter was to cause a pile up of vehicles in an intersection, and it's pure contrived writing that saved any character in that sequence from being killed in a horrific traffic accident. It was stupid, played for laughs, and it wasn't exciting as much as it was anxiety inducing. I also thought that there was no reason the covert military group covering up extraterrestrial life wouldn't just disappear this family of fucking morons in their little piece of shit car. The logic of the scene was just so childish like, "No they won't hit me, I'm a good person."

Summary

Bumblebee may be remembered fondly in a decade. I think especially if the Transformers franchise were to end here. It didn't get the publicity of the other films, and that really is a shame. For my money, this was the best Transformers movie so far. I was very tempted to give Bumblebee a C, it does just enough to right what was wrong from the other movies to make me appreciate all that work. This movie has heart, and if you are at all into Transformers then l think you should see it. It's still pretty stupid, and pretty basic. It's not offering anything new to the genre, and it feels like a commercial for more movies. I really wish we could just get movies that want to tell a story. I thought it over and decided that it wasn't fair not to grade Bumblebee on it's own merits. Bumblebee is substantially better than the films that preceded it, but that's not saying a lot, when the films that preceded it are joyless exercises in self abuse.

Overall Grade: D

#Transformers #Bumblebee #Optimus Prime #Action #Adventure #Car #Super Hero #Robot #Scifi #Grade D #D #Grade: D #2018 #2010s #(D)

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD commentaries; 2.09 Lockdown

Writers’ commentary with Lilla & Nora Zuckerman:

Points made include:

Turned out to be a big episode, kicks off the race to the end of the season

The concept of a bottle episode, as something useful around ¾ the way through the season when you’re starting to run low on budget and need to save plenty for the important final episode, and when also people are tired out and so having something simple and cheap to film by being all mostly in the same set (“something that takes place within your standing sets”), is helpful and so that’s the bottle episode concept. And it makes a fun challenge for the writers in terms of can you make the plot work within those constraints. 

Season one’s bottle episode (“As You Were”) as being a great episode, so they had “big shoes to fill” in writing this season’s bottle.

They remember when they first heard about this wrestler guy (Adam Copeland aka Edge aka Dwight) that was going to be joining the cast and so they looked him up and found “this cool-looking dude - almost too cool to be in Haven” and describe him as “very giant but a wonderful guy”.

The special effects for the disease/trouble as being “really cool”

They started from the point of a quarantine in the station and Lilla [I think] mentions one of her favourite movies called Wreck (which apparently became an American moved named Quarantine), as one of the inspirations for this episode in terms of locking down an outbreak.

Audrey and Nathan being back in the same office again now that the new Chief is here. Nathan moving his stuff back in at the beginning of the episode.

As Duke arrives they talk about the challenge of having to get all the relevant characters into the one place. “Before we bottle up the bottle we’ve got to get everyone in.” So Duke brings Evi to the police station and they thought that Duke would be smart enough to realise if they were to confront her about the Rev. in any other place “she would bolt”. So he’s “roping Nathan into this because he knows it’s the only way the two of them are going to get answers.”

“And I do believe Duke probably has a sizeable number of parking tickets.” / “It may be the only thing that’s keeping him and Nathan friends, that Nathan will fix these parking tickets.”

They comment approvingly on how “gross” the blood on the floor in the corridor looks

And also approve of the return of Chris Brody, looking sharp in his suit, and note that Jason Priestley directed this episode and what a great job he did. They remember finding out that he would be directing episode 9 and being really excited “as girls our age who fondly remember 90210 was so important for us as teenagers, so we were pretty geeked out.” And also being excited to bring back Chris Brody as a character because they wrote the episode where he left town so was nice to write him coming back.

As they unlock the door to find the dead officer Stark, they point out how the blood only flows directly out of the door “It’s not going anywhere else, it just wants to get out so bad”

Re Chris Brody; “We always in the writers room envisaged that when he came back from London he would have indulged a little bit more than he should have in his curse. So he’s got a swagger now, he’s used to getting what he wants, and he’s definitely taken advantage of his trouble.” But how he’s also at least a little bit aware of that himself and sees Audrey as his salvation a little bit. But he also doesn’t remember the detail of how they parted the same way she does and so he’s expecting that they can just jump right back into a relationship, but she’s not.

Lots of amusement at Duke’s reaction to meeting the new police chief.

One of the things they tried to do with this episode was to put up as many obstacles as they could for Audrey and Nathan in solving the trouble, because they’re stuck in this one place and so the new Chief is useful as someone they can butt heads with; someone who doesn’t know about the Troubles and wants to do things by the book.

And they talk about this as setting up the potential for something that Audrey and Nathan might have to deal with throughout the rest of the season; trying to do what they do while hiding it from a by-the-book Chief; although of course he doesn’t last that long. And they compare the rate that Haven goes through Chiefs of Police as being like on Buffy where they went through a lot of Principles at the school because you just never know what’s going to happen to these people.

Liking the opportunity to use Dwight and imply that he worked for Garland as a fixer and a cleanup guy, but Nathan isn’t sure if he can trust him or to what extent he can use Dwight, so this was a good episode to explore that.

They compare Dwight to Bill Johnson in the Die Hard movies “except he isn’t outside eating twinkies; he’s a little more badass”

Vinessa Antoine as doing a wonderful job playing Evi.

Describing the new Chief as not understanding what he’s dealing with and so just following procedure; not realising that the Troubles do not.

How the casting for this episode came together really quickly, and how maybe Jason Priestley had something to do with that, because they were people that he knew and had worked with.

The new Chief as being not very friendly to Nathan, including with how he’s moved right into the office and made himself at home.

Having to be careful with a bottle episode to give a reason why they can’t just leave or call in reinforcements [when the Chief confiscates everyone’s cell phones etc.]

How they had a lot of conversation about where to put the bodies; is there a morgue in the station? And concluding that they’ll leave them in the bathroom in an ad hoc solution, but that that is how it would be.

Adding the threat of someone working against them [ie whoever called off the CDC] as another way to further isolate the characters in their bottle

Approving of the “creepy” and “gross” nature of the effects as the Chief dies.

This as the first episode where they really got to show much of the outside of the police station [the building in Lunenberg]; more than just initial establishing shots. And how it’s a nice looking building to get to film.

“If I was in a jam, I’d call Edge to come rescue me. Edge is a guy you wanna have on speed dial at all times.”

And so once the Chief is dead Audrey and Nathan have to make a decision because potentially they can leave now, but should they?

Describing Evi as smart, sneaky and slippery as she swipes Nathan’s keycard

And as Nathan questions her they talk how this plotline sets up the rest of the season, and is a launching point to drive Nathan against the Rev. and this growing conspiracy, as well as setting Duke off on his own path

General approval of how the episode was put together and shot; how it didn’t feel stagnant despite being all in the same location, which can be a danger with a bottle episode. You never want a bottle episode to actually feel like a bottle episode and that worked for this one.

As Duke and Evi talk [“Everything that’s happened between us was controlled by them?”] they say that this is the first time Duke and Evi have really been honest with each other since she came back to Haven

“You very rarely see Duke Crocker lose his cool, so that’s kinda fun to see.” And Evi as having gotten under his skin and him as really caring about her. And so she decides to help him. “She believes that she’s helping Duke in these moments.” As she makes the decision to go outside they describe it as a “desperate move but maybe for the first time since she’s gotten to Haven her motives are pure. She’s trying to help him.”

The thing with Nikki picking at the coffee cup is based on a habit of one of Nora’s friends from college. And Lilla was glad of it because “sometimes you’re up at 2am writing and you’re like; I just need a clue” and so that was a good clue for Audrey to find.

As Evi leaves the building she doesn’t believe she’s going to get shot. She thinks she’s doing the right thing and she’s not aware of quite how dangerous the situation is. “We wanted to make this a heroic moment. She’s doing something brave, she’s doing the right thing.”

“This was really difficult because we’re basically killing one of our main characters. You want it to ripple through the rest of the episode, you want it to feel very real.” “If you’re going to kill a main character you want to see the rest of the characters reacting to it, but it can’t be what the rest of the episode is about.” So that was a difficult balance in writing the second half of the episode. Because they have to react to Evi’s death, but they still have the same original problem to deal with as well. “In the writers room when we were talking about how Duke would react to this [Evi’s death], I think we were all in agreement that he would want to go kick some ass.”

But Nathan can’t let him because “we’re looking at someone who just went outside and got shot, there’s no way he’s going to let his friend go outside no matter how angry he is”

And as they fight and Nathan knocks Duke out, they say that “while it’s for his own good, this is maybe the worst possible thing Nathan could do to Duke in this moment”

As Audrey talks to Nikki again they say how they always try to weave together the Trouble with whatever’s going on in the character’s emtional life.

And Nikki’s Trouble as how the abuse she was put through built up inside her like a poison until she couldn’t hold onto it any more and it leaked out into those around her. So you’re not going to solve the Trouble unless you solve the core issue of what’s causing it.

Liking the scenes with Audrey and Chris and how their relationship has evolved, but also how he is getting in the way of her having the conversation with Nikki that she needs to have. He is a different man since he went away to London and Audrey is realising that pretty quickly; that he’s changed.

They raise the question of whether it is actually Nikki who is Troubled or if it’s the two of them together as a couple that is Troubled.

When we learn who Hugh is they compare it to “that moment when you learn that the monster is in the house with you.”

The challenges of writing Chris Brody scenes to make sure everyone’s reactions are consistent with his Trouble, and specifically when Hugh Underwood is talking to him because you have this “abusive, horrible man” who is still going to be affected by Chris’s Trouble.

Originally they had wanted to have a scene where Hugh was talking to Chris about how his wife just won’t listen to him and ‘you know how it is man, sometimes you’ve just got to put them in their place’ and so Chris’s Trouble would effectively create this really dark creepy scene where Hugh confesses all of his abuse as he wants to talk to Chris. But unfortunately the pace of the script meant that they couldn’t put that in there. But that would have been a cool twist, because if you’re the guy that everybody likes, then you’re the guy that everybody feels like ‘this guy understands me and I can tell him anything, all my secrets’ but some people you don’t want to see inside their heads.

Description of Audrey as she talks to Nikki again as “curse whispering”

And now Hugh has a gun because Audrey has been betrayed by Chris. “He thought maybe he was helping but, he is not.” “There’s probably nothing worse for a cop than to see your own gun pointing at you.”

They mention that they had to cast the extras here because although they don’t have lines they’re in multiple scenes and they have to be the same people and so they needed to be specific about who they were.

They talking about having always liked “really creepy stalker movies” like Sleeping with the Enemy, so this was fun to write such a “vicious evil dude”

As we see Duke locked in the prison cell; “These scenes are really setting Duke and Nathan against each other for the first time I think in this season really; we had them working together, they were really close and now this incident is starting to shatter that and the fact that Nathan has got Duke locked up in this cell now; Duke is not going to forgive this easily.”

And they talk about how after this Duke is going to be changed forever.

As Hugh has the gun to Audrey’s head they say that they didn’t write that he is grabbing her by the hair, but they approve because it “makes it even creepier” and describe it as very “caveman and disturbing”

And as Audrey talks to Nikki again they point out that with less time pressure Audrey might have about it a bit more softly but as it is she really needs to go for it; she is “curse whispering for her life”

And how Audrey is basically encouraging Nikki to turn her affliction on her husband “which is a little unorthodox; we don’t generally condone murder”  but sometimes people are “very bad” and it’s one of the reasons it’s fun to write for Haven because sometimes you get to make these strange and “morally questionable” choices. “If you look at most Stephen King books, by the time the bad guys get it, they’ve been very very bad.” and how they try to live by the Stephen King model a little bit, “he sets up some good rules for us.”

And how Stephen King also has a lot of characters who are abusive men and how they can be scarier than his monsters “they are real-life monsters”

“So we’ve basically used murder to solve our problems here but, I don’t feel that bad about it.” “I think it was the best solution for all involved.”

Where Nathan and Dwight are getting shot they talk about how this scene was really difficult to plan and how they didn’t have the time to shoot a whole assault sequence so they had to try to be clever and economical about how they showed this

And Nora [I think] remembers being on twitter when this was airing and seeing everyone freaking out that they had killed Dwight. And they acknowledge Dwight as a “real fan favourite.”

And they also like this scene for the fact that it illuminates Nathan’s curse in the sense that he could have been shot half a dozen times but wouldn’t have known unless he checks himself.

For a while they considered having the Rev. in the station for the whole episode, but there were already a lot of characters involved and they couldn’t see any way to do it without it being too crowded. Also same for Vince and Dave. And that it worked well having the Rev. come in at the end because it means he could have been pulling strings from the outside during the episode.

As the Rev leaves, they comment how they “like this look and the way that Eric plays this” because we’re not quite sure what he’s thinking or whose side he’s planning on being on. (Adding “usually his own”)

And re the Rev. “Stephen McHattie just has to stand there and he looks kind of evil.”

And then as Audrey and Nathan talk to Dwight, they talk about how we’re seeing how Audrey and Nathan are going to work with Dwight more and how they’re going to use him and bring him into the fold in terms of the Haven team. And seeing Nathan react to Audrey suggesting that they cover up a murder. How they are pushing these characters into a place they haven’t been before in realising that Haven can’t play by the same rules as the rest of law enforcement. And this launches them into episode 10 and the morally questionable choices that Audrey will make.

The final scene with Audrey and Chris was Jason’s suggestion to film this outside and they say how well it worked.

They joke how they specialise in writing Audrey/Chris breakup scenes by the water (following the first one in episode 6) and how they had to explain to some of the male writers they work with about how to have a male character apologise. They describe this moment when Chris apologises to Audrey as something that was very controversial, though they are very firm that Chris was clearly wrong and it makes sense for him to apologise.

But this was a tricky scene to write because Audrey liked being with Chris because she liked her for who she is, not because she’s immune. She can’t be the one who’s going to keep him honest, she can’t be his sober buddy. And how he realises that she’s right.

They both agree that the last line of the episode is a favourite.

They say that they’ve left it open so that maybe we’ll see Chris Brody again; they both like the character. They acknowledge it’s controversial online, but that they like these two characters together. But that Chris is doing the right thing by walking away.

And about liking the composition of the final shot “Jason is a hell of a director; we were really lucky to work with him”

[btw there is no guarantee that the parts I’ve quoted are all 100% word-for-word accurate]

#haven syfy #2.09 - lockdown #haven dvd commentaries #havensyfy #haven rewatch