Transformers

This may contain a weak spoiler or two.

I go to the movies only about once every few months nowadays. My seasonal trip to the theatre took me to Transformers last night. Oh boy. Lots of crazy animation, a few explosions and a whole heap of transformations! The most AMAZING transformation of the movie, though, was the how the movie transformed my childhood joy into a pile of crap. So disappointing. I know it may be a little shocking to hear that a Michael Bay film lacked and semblance of soul, but, alas, it did. It wasn't that I was expecting anything too deep or moving, but it would have been nice to care a little about the main characters (or ANY characters for that matter). I guess it is good to see that some aspect of the 2-D original cartoon series was preserved in the flatness of the characters. Megatron wasn't in the movie much, but he had way more personality than anyone/thing in the movie. I almost wanted him to destroy the earth. Oh, spoiler alert: he doesn't destroy the earth.

Another interesting thing to look out for is the treatment of African-Americans in the film. There are a few black characters, a car salesman, a computer hacker, a soldier, and one of the transformers, Jazz, talks like a street stereotype. I'll just point you to this other blog post to get a more in depth understanding of Bay's treatment of these characters. Spoiler alert: To that, I'd only add that Jazz is the only Autobot ("good" transformer) that doesn't survive. For fun, take a look at how the Latino soldier and the Indian(?) phone operator characters.

More than meets the eye indeed.

The pants make the sponge

I like me some Sponge Bob, but I don't think I'll ever be able to watch it with the same innocent glee after reading about this litigation. Appearently a guy had a little cartoon character he peddled locally (Northern California) in the early 90's. Being a sponge, he was rectangular and yellow with eyes and feet. His name was Bob Spongee.

Bob Spongee? Oh man, that is awesome. Best quote from the article:

Viacom's attorneys have said in court documents that Sponge Bob is different than Bob Spongee.

"Defendants' work(s) are not substantially similar to any protectible elements of any of plaintiff's allegedly infringed works," attorneys wrote in response to Walker's complaint.

That is golden. They are quite a bit different though. Bob Spongee is married and wears no pants, while Sponge Bob is a dedicated bachelor and has squarepants. I can't really put my finger on what I love so much about this story, but I do enjoy well-written cartoons, litigation, and the tainting of innocence by major corporations so I guess my joy makes sense.

Oh, there is an official Bob Spongee page. Enjoy.