6/25/2007 - cosplay transformers

Transformers is back this summer and this time as a live action movie. I, for one, am really looking forward to it. If you haven't read my take on the original Transformers movie from 1986, it's HERE. Anyway, this year has been kinda mixed as far as movies go for me. I was going to watch all the Marvel movies, of course, starting with Ghost Rider. Boy, I should have waited for the rental for that one. Whoever thought that a middle-aged Nicolas Cage would be a good Johnny Blaze (who should be in his twenties) must've been under the influence of something. One of the frustrating things about the movie was that the director, Mark Steven Johnson, said that he was hampered by the studio when he made Daredevil and that he had more freedom in Ghost Rider. And yet, Daredevil was a LOT better movie than Ghost Rider. Ugh, I hate giving Ben Affleck any credit, but he was a lot more believable as Matt Murdock than Nic Cage as Johnny Blaze.

The second Marvel movie was Spider-Man 3, and I was really psyched for it. The first was Spider-Man was great, especially in setting up the origin of Spider-Man. The second one was a little overrated for me, but I still enjoyed it and it had probably the greatest one-on-one fight scenes in a comic book movie. After the first two, I really trusted Raimi to give us a great Part 3. Well, for me, it was good but not great. Like everyone says, it seemed like Raimi wanted it to be the last movie in a trilogy for him and threw everything at it, when he really didn't need to. I mean, it was cool seeing Gwen Stacy and Venom, but if you're not going to pay proper respects to their storylines, save them for the next movie. Also, as a semi-purist of the comics (okay, I don't know if you can be a semi-purist), I was really disappointed with the way they retconned Spidey's origin. If they're going to turn Uncle Ben's death into AN ACCIDENT, then that totally takes away Spidey's original motivation for being a hero! Ugh! Oh well, I'll still get the DVD, because it was a tour-de-force in terms of the visuals and the action.

The third Marvel movie was Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and I had lowered my expectations of it because I thought the first one was pure fluff. I really hated the lead "actors" of Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba because I thought (and still think) they didn't fit the parts. I actually had high hopes that Julian McMahon would be a good Dr. Doom, but I was disappointed there too. Well, I'm glad that they seemed to learn from a lot of the mistakes of the first movie, because the second movie was actually quite good. It's not the best superhero movie (I'd probably put it at the bottom of the first tier), but it was pretty fun. Especially during the parts where the Surfer shows up. Doug Jones deserves all the kudos he received for his kinetic performance, and I only wish that they used his voice instead of Morph-- oops, Laurence Fishburne's.

So that brings us to Transformers, which can sort-of be considered as the fourth Marvel movie of 2007 since the original Transformers cartoon was a Marvel co-production. The trailers have looked pretty good up to now, showing a lot of giant robots fighting and stuff blowing up Michael Bay style. What I'm really happy about, though, is how they've thrown a bone to the fans of the old cartoon by casting Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime. Peter did such a great job in the original cartoon and for many, he was the voice of God!

Today's video should also appeal to the old fans. It's a group of cosplayers in Transformers outfits. But these aren't ordinary costumes... after all, how could you make a Transformers costume without the ability to transform? Now, you may be thinking, "how could you make a robot costume turn into a vehicle and still have a person inside it?" Well, for these Transformers freaks (I use that term affectionately), if there's a will, there's a way:



I should have learned by now not to be amazed.