I finally saw Transformers 2 this weekend, and while most of the sucky details were covered in this GChat conversation, I simply wasn’t prepared for how simultaneously boring and confusing the movie was. I didn’t know what either side was after at any point in the two-and-a-half hours — the Decepticons wanted energon, but were also after Shia LaBeouf because of his secret Allspark knowledge, but both sides also needed The Matrix, plus the Decepticons wanted The Fallen to return to Earth for some reason, then 95% of the way through the film the Decepticons just say “ahhh, f*** it, let’s blow up the f***ing sun.”
I could go on about the three leg-humping jokes or Shia’s parents inexplicably appearing during the final battle or the “hot girl” Decepticon who tries to seduce Shia even though she’s a f***ing Decepticon and could just grab him at any point with her infinite robot strength, but instead, I’ll focus on the most insulting, most unnecessary aspect of the film (with the rest of the movie all tied for a close second): Mudflap and Skids, the jive talkin’ comic relief robo side characters.
If you haven’t seen the movie (or if you have but mentally blocked out these two awful incarnations of human creation), Mudflap and Skids are two retarded-looking supporting character Autobots (I don’t say “retarded” in a vague derogatory way, I mean that they actually appear to have severe physical defects despite being robots) who speak in a cartoonish, ghetto-ized vernacular, employing modern American street slang just as any transforming robot from outer-space would. Mudflap also has a gold tooth, which makes a lot of sense, and for good racist measure, at one point even proudly declares that he ain’t no readin’ type. I assume there was also a scene where they teach Shia LaBeouf to dance, but it was probably cut for time (I can’t wait for the DVD extras).
Michael Bay defended the unambiguously racist characters with this quote:
“We’re just putting more personality in. I don’t know if it’s stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it.”
Bay’s Argument:
1) It’s the voice actors’ fault. The films’ forty producers simply couldn’t control them.
2) Our $700 billion movie doesn’t have an effing script or any directorial supervision. We told them to just like, wing it, and we’ll totally run with whatever. It’ll be like Curb but terrible!
3) They are robots, by the way.
So we’re to believe that Michael Bay — the dude who’s name and fingerprints are so visible throughout this movie, there were practically literal fingerprints in the shape of his name on the lens for half the film — had no intention of making these two robot side characters jive-talking black comic relief types? Even if they weren’t stereotypes, which they were, they were both completely unnecessary. The film already had Bumblebee, humping dogs, humping robots, Shia’s parents, Shia’s college roommate, and a parachute-farting ancient robot as comic relief; they didn’t also need two robots to constantly chime in with Jar-Jar-caliber remarks that all basically equated to “awww sheeeet – thing!!!!!!”
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that more likely, Bay and his evil boardroom of terribleness had a meeting to make sure they pandered to every possible moviegoing race, realized they couldn’t re-use Bernie Mac or cram in Anthony Anderson again, so they had to pick up the black-slack by adding two additional, flagrantly ghettoey robots, even if they contributed nothing positive or relevant at any point in the nine-and-a-half hour movie (except for briefly beating up Devastator for like 10 seconds).
For added confusion, Skids was voiced by Tom Kenney of Spongebob fame, which either makes me sad or angry or some combo of the two, I can’t really tell. I can’t really tell a lot of things anymore after seeing this movie; I think it robbed me of my sense of taste and smell for 48 hours after I saw it. It wasn’t a movie so much as a bewildering, life-draining event that ought to be isolated and studied objectively from afar in the hopes that it might never again be repeated (though I’m guessing from the fact that the film grossed 50 billion dollars and ended with Megatron saying “Ah, enough of this, we’re heading out,” that there miiiiiiiiiiight be a third installment.)
Only time will tell where Mudflap and Skids rank amongst Hollywood’s all-time worst side characters. However, particularly if they’re given more room to shine in a third installment, I’m confident they can achieve Phantom Menace levels of side-character sh*ttiness, and that’s about the highest compliment I can possibly bestow.
