Zob's Thoughts on Revenge of the Fallen Ravage

Ravage has become something of a staple character in the Transformers mythos—since his appearance at the beginning of G1, various incarnations of him have popped up in the Beast Wars, Transformers: Energon, Alternators, Robot Heroes, and Transformers Universe toy lines. While other characters have been reimagined multiple times to accommodate the whims of designers and to fit within a specific toy gimmick, Ravage remains, and has always been, a black cat. The latest version of the Ravage character is paired with Soundwave, appropriately enough, and Ravage is sent by Soundwave into the ocean's depths to locate the remains of Megatron.

As a robotic panther, Ravage is around five inches in length at the haunches and nearly nine inches in length from nose to tail. He's covered in dangerous-looking spikes that are actually totally kid-safe due to their rubbery vinyl construction. The juxtaposition of an alien styling mixed with a familiar animal form is not a new one, and his overall aesthetic is decidedly Zoids-like—especially the purple lightpipe in the top of his head that looks a great deal like a cockpit. (This resemblance is particularly appropriate given Tomy's acquisition of the Takara brands.) He's predominantly a muted black with faint traces of metallic flecks embedded within the plastic, accented with silver and metallic blue. In a movie franchise where multiple characters have been completely redesigned, bearing little or no resemblance to their original G1 counterparts, Ravage is surprisingly close to the 1984 version. The original toy was almost perfectly flat, of course, because he transformed into a cassette tape, so the new version is decidedly more round and three-dimensional. That said, all the basic elements are here—he's a mechanical-looking black-and-grey kitty cat with guns on his hips. The only thing that really seems out of place is his single eye, which gives him an H.R. Gigeresque vibe.

Ravage has around 24 points of articulation, depending on how you want to tally them up, with many of them in his legs to achieve a wide range of poseability. His front shoulders, for example, can move on an axis in three different directions, which is particularly rare for Transformers that turn into cats, most of whom have had limbs that simply swivel. His waist has a ball joint that provides some surprisingly limited movement, but due to his built-in gimmick his neck doesn't move at all. It's the lack of a neck joint that prevents this toy from standing upright and assuming an unofficial humanoid configuration, which otherwise would have looked an awful lot like Beast Machines Cheetor. His tail also moves in five different ways, though the swivel joint at about the halfway point is weak, and the tail tends to pop off regularly. This is, for what it's worth, the only major design flaw I think the toy has. Pushing the lever down on the toy's back causes his head to jut forward a little , his ears to lower, and his jaw to spring open; flipping it up returns the head and ears and jaw to their original position. (The packaging identifies this as his Mech Alive gimmick, but I don't think this is right. When you rotate his forelegs, you can see the gears turning in his upper legs; this is more consistent with the other Mech Alive designs and I believe this is the gimmick in question.)

Ravage may have posed a problem for Hasbro because, much like Scorponok from the 2007 movie, he doesn't have an overt vehicular transformation. When Hasbro produced a toy based on the Scorponok character, they invented a robot mode for him so that the toy would be marketable as part of the Transformers toy line, despite the fact that he never used this robot configuration on film. It seems a similar approach was taken with Ravage. In the movie, Ravage does assume a space travel configuration when he is dispatched by the orbiting Soundwave to the Earth below. Clearly, the focus for Hasbro was on the accuracy of Ravage's panther mode, since the toy's transformation—described as a "reentry mode" on the packaging—is a half-hearted reconfiguring of limbs rather than a true transformation. The skill level assigned to his transformation is three, an "advanced conversion," which is a reflection of the toy's price point only, and certainly not its complexity. The upshot of this is that while his alternate mode is fairly lame, his panther mode is very good, without any of the usual design limitations imposed on toys because of the way they transform.

Transforming him essentially involves clasping his front paws together in front of his head to partly hide his face, folding his back legs and tail underneath him, and swinging out his chest panels to reveal some tiny little wings. The swing-open chest components are the only moving parts of the toy that seem to be there specifically for the transformation process; if it weren't for these parts I'd swear the toy wasn't actually designed to transform into anything at all. There are no landing struts or anything on which to balance the toy in vehicle mode, though at least it does hold together fairly well due to some strategically-placed pegs. His guns are independently positionable, with each of them attached to a pivoting mount that allows for a few different options. Just as Scorponok is pretty obviously a robot scorpion that's standing upright, though, Ravage is still pretty obviously a folded-up kitty cat.

Overall, Ravage is a pretty cool toy, particularly if you're a fan of the movie and want to own physical representations of the characters. He's arguably one of the all-time cutest incarnations of the character to date, with his one little puppy dog eye and adorable little chipmunk teeth. If you enjoy transformable robot toys because they're like miniature puzzles, though, Ravage will present absolutely no challenge; he's barely a Transformer in his own right. (Then again, he's still more complex than half the stand-me-up-and-swap-head toys that Hasbro has produced for Beast Wars and Beast Machines over the years, so I guess it's a give-and-take.)

Zob

Revenge of the Fallen - Tonight!

I'm heading out to see Revenge of the Fallen tonight with some folks from Cartoon Network! I'm pretty psyched about it, so I'm not going to try to post other new material on the blog until after I've seen it. Then I'll try to post some thoughts - probably not a review, since I imagine Bish has already covered that nicely.

Hope you all enjoy it! Many thanks to friend-of-the-blog Lonegamer for the tickets!

Bishbot's impressions of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (SPOILERS)

Yesterday I went to see the latest Transformers film “Revenge Of The Fallen.” It wasn’t a special premiere or event or anything: I just happen to live in the UK. What follows is a short but very probably SPOILER LADEN set of thoughts and impressions masquerading as a proper review.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME IF YOU KEEP READING








First of all, I think it is important to make clear that I really liked Michael Bay’s first Transformers film without thinking it was the greatest film ever or indeed even close to the greatest Transformers story ever. “Revenge Of The Fallen” pretty much continues in that vein, although I do not think that I will end up liking it quite as much.

First of all: it’s long. It’s really really long. That normally doesn’t bother me in films, but they do need a sufficiently interesting plot to sustain them and I’m not entirely sure “Revenge” completely justified it’s running time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s never boring, but the plot becomes increasingly convoluted for the arbitrary reason of including bigger and bigger set-pieces. The set pieces themselves are, of course, excellent, but definitely give the impression of being conceived first, with the plot twisted to fit them in. At times, towards the end, the brief dialogue scenes begin to resemble the cutscenes from videogames - a little bit of context before you get back to shooting bad guys in the face. Nonetheless, since I wasn’t exactly expecting a Bergman-style exploration of the human (or even the robot) psyche, I don’t want to emphasise this criticism too much.

So there’s your basic chase action storyline. Sam Witwicky is once again the bearer of “precious cargo”, at first, knowledge imparted by a fragment of the All-Spark and after that the “matrix of leadership” which is actually a key that unlocks a pyramid that will destroy the sun in order to harvest the explosion for energon. Because of this, he gets chased by increasingly larger and meaner Decepticons, including the most logical use for Pretender technology yet seen, and even Megatron and Starscream themselves, who capture Sam and try to retrieve the knowledge from his brain. I really liked this scene because it reminded me of the stories where the Decepticons were actual characters and had plans of their own. Prime gets killed (imagine that!) rescuing Sam, and it turns out that he can probably be revived by “the matrix of leadership”, which is in Egypt, and which the ancient Transformer, Jetfire, can find. They need Optimus back on his feet, because “only a Prime can kill The Fallen” who is a big scary Decepticon hanging out on Saturn’s moon of Titan who even Megatron kowtows to. It turns out that “The Primes” (how Optimus is related to these ancient Primes is not explored) used to charge about the galaxy destroying stars for their precious energon, but wouldn’t do it to inhabited star systems, and The Fallen is “fallen” because he wanted to do it to ours, despite primitive humans existing. It all seems like a silly thing to fall out over. The galaxy has quite a lot of stars left, and most of them probably don’t support life, but there you have it. Anyway - huge battle - Devastator, pyramids destroyed, lots of generic Decepticons and United States military assets going at it, Prime comes back, wins, everyone’s happy.

So, the action. There is, as noted, a lot of it. This film is bigger, longer, flashier, more expensive and possibly even louder than the first one. There are a number of absolutely stellar sequences from the battle in Shanghai at the beginning to the colossal Decepticon/United States throwdown in the Egyptian desert and, frankly, no matter what you think of the plot, if you like Transformers at all (and you do, since you’re reading this) you owe it to yourself to see them. He’s a bit of an internet joke, but nobody does action like Michael Bay and he is on top form here.

There are Autobots too... they just don’t do all that much. Bumblebee gets some nice action, as does Prime (of course) but most of the time the Autobot presence in battles is very much in support of the human military one. I really liked the idea of a joint Autobot/human strike force hunting out Decepticon infiltrators, but, you know, I’m a Transformers fan, I wanted to see the Autobots a little more. This was especially frustrating because they introduced some new ones, with minimal explanation. Sideswipe gets a couple of cool moments, and Arcee seems largely forgotten before two-thirds of her are destroyed in the desert. The newcomers that get the most time are “The Twins” a pair of wisecracking would be “gangster” Autobots who seem to have annoyed a lot of people. Personally my tolerance for this sort of comic-relief character is pretty high, and there have been many Autobots over the years who have been, well, a bit “special” but they are on screen a lot, and never do very much other than fool about. The Autobots left over from the last film do have a few lines but not all that many and don’t really have any time to shine. Also there seems to be a blue chap called Jolt. He’s there in a couple of scenes... no idea why.

Most of the humans from the first film reappear. Shia LeBoeuf continues to be pretty good, but doesn’t have to carry the film quite as much as he did last time. Megan Fox’s role as sex appeal, while it was never exactly in doubt in movie one, is heavily emphasised here with a lot of slow-motion running and loving camera shots down her top after she has fallen over (again and again). Can she act? A bit, I suppose. I actually gave a sort of mental cheer when John Turturro appeared, which is surprising, since I found his appearance as Simmons in the first film very very strange indeed. Apparently repeated watching has given me a sort of Stockholm Syndrome regarding the character. The military types are decent enough and “bring the rain” in a competent fashion. Sam’s parents have a slightly bigger role in the plot and are consistently amusing, although an early joke where his mother accidentally eats cannabis goes on for a bit too long.

Look. I’ve done my best, but memory is fading fast. Suffice it to say that it’s the same ingredients as the first one. Robot on robot action, rather over the top comedy and ultra-competent American military porn are all present and mixed in much the same awkward fashion. There’s just a lot more of each and the whole thing doesn’t feel quite as new. There is no scene, for example, to rival the initial appearance of Bumblebee, or the other Autobots, from the first film. It’s not really “Revenge Of The Fallen’s” fault. The genie was already out of the bottle. We’d seen the Transformers in live action, and all that was left was to give us more of them. A bigger, more intricate and better crafted story wouldn't have gone amiss, but the tone had been set by the first movie, so anyone expecting a revelation in Transformers story-telling is, unfortunately, way off-beam.

I had done my homework: rewatched the first film, reread "War Within: The Dark Ages" and I could be a relentlessly picky fan and go into depth about every little character and scene and once the DVD comes out, I probably will, but I enjoyed “Revenge Of The Fallen” for what it was: a fun action-fest set in this new movie-continuity. It wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed it, and after the first movie, I wasn't really expecting anything more.

Zob's Thoughts on Revenge of the Fallen Autobot Wheelie

Note: This review contains minor spoilers for the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, specifically the scenes in which Wheelie appears. If you're the type of person who just got angry that I told you that Wheelie will be appearing in the movie, I strongly suggest you stop reading now (and probably stop surfing the Internet for a bit, while you're at it). If you're like me, though, and you want to soak up as much as you can about the movie before its theatrical debut in just under a week, then by all means—continue on!

Wheelie is a tiny little robot gremlin. A self-described scrapmetal drone who takes the guise of a toy radio-controlled car in order to gain access to a surviving fragment of the Allspark cube, he initially has an unpleasant confrontation with Mikaela, but eventually comes to respect and admire her so much that he defects from the Decepticons and professes loyalty to her instead. The toy is part of the second wave of Deluxes and ships with the likes of Chromia, Skids, and Smokescreen (the redeco of Jazz).

Autobot Wheelie, as Hasbro calls him, comes packaged in robot mode—a practice that seems to be popping up more and more lately. I don't think this is done at random, but the reasoning for it seems to vary. (The Fallen , for example, is probably in robot mode because his vehicle mode is one of those indistinguishable Cybertronian things.) In Wheelie's case, his vehicle mode is scaled smaller than a lot of the other Deluxes; even though his wheels and undercarriage constitute nearly half his mass, he's deceptively small. Take that away, and he looks like a Scout-class toy. It's understandable that Hasbro wanted to showcase his largest and most imposing configuration, if only so kids didn't feel like they were getting ripped off in paying twelve dollars or more for such a tiny vehicle. Packaging him as a robot also has the added benefit of presenting him in his most recognizable form, as kids who see the movie will undoubtedly recognize the foul-mouthed little Decepticon on sight

As a vehicle, Wheelie is a little more than three and a half inches in length and just under three inches in height. His oversized monster truck wheels add a lot to his size and help to make him nearly as tall as he is long. (We don't get monster trucks in the toy line very often. He reminds me a great deal of Micromaster Mudslinger.) Wheelie is notable as one of the few Transformers toys that turns into a scale representation of an object—he doesn't turn into a full-sized car; he turns into a toy car, making the Hasbro version of him an example of life imitating art. Wheelie's toy isn't life-sized—he'd need to be a Leader-class toy to be the size in which he's depicted in the movie—but he's closer than the rest of the current Revenge of the Fallen product offering. His wheels roll freely (and true to his name, he can indeed pop a wheelie) but due tho their enormous tread pattern they actually work a lot better on carpeting than on flat surfaces. As mentioned, he's got a lot of undercarriage junk tucked under and behind his wheels that spoils the illusion a little, but other than that, it's a fairly convincing disguise. (Surprisingly, all the undercarriage stuff stays pegged in its proper place very nicely.) He's even got an open truck bed, a comparative rarity in transforming toys, though parts of his robot face are quite plainly visible inside the bed.

His transformation is complex and not very intuitive. A lot of movie toys just sort of explode into their humanoid form, with armor panels and dangly bits hanging everywhere, and it's far easier to start with the comparatively compact vehicle form and then unfold it a piece at a time than try to begin with a robot whose limbs are already pointing every which way and try to figure out how to fold him back up into a vehicle. This is an instance where some detailed written instructions would have been enormously helpful, since the wordless pictorial illustrations don't always convey precisely what you're expected to do. For those of you bemoaning the tired old transformation schemes we've already seen dozens of times, though, you're in for a treat since the act of transforming Wheelie is an entirely unique experience. Essentially, he lays on his back and his arms and legs retract underneath him, but this is a gross oversimplification of a process that took me multiple tries to fully master.

As a robot, Wheelie is nearly eight inches tall, gaining most of his height from his crazy, spindly legs and neck. It's difficult to describe his points of articulation because his design doesn't really match up with human anatomy, but he's got four independantly-moving joints in each leg and three in each arm, plus articulated claws and fingers, to achieve a wide variety of poses. The character rolls around on two wheels in the movie, but the toy is equipped with heel struts that enable the toy to stand up unsupported. He's also got three neck joints, all hinges, that allow various degrees of up-and-down movement but no side-to-side rotation. Close examination of his face sculpt reveals that he's got two differently-styled optic sensors, presumably as a nod to the scene from the movie in which Mikaela attacks and maims him. (His eyebrows are likewise sculpted differently, creating the effect that he's got one evil Decepticon eye and one sympathetic Autobot eye. Too bad they aren't colored differently like they are in the film.) The toy has no weapons, and only has a single gimmick to his name—rotate his crotch knob and you can switch his faction symbol from Autobot to Decepticon. That's it. Nothing spring-loaded, no Mech Alive gimmick, and no other action features.

Toys based on characters from the movie franchise are unlike any other Transformers toys ever designed. Wheelie embodies that design philosophy to a tee—which means you're likely to either love him or despise him based on your feelings about the other movie toys. He's got pretty much the same design aesthetic as Frenzy from the first movie, but Frenzy never really got a good transformable toy (the only version that actually turned into a CD player was the extra-chunky, kid-friendly Fast Action Battlers edition). I anticipate Wheelie being the comic relief character of the movie, so his popularity—and thus the demand for his toy—will no doubt soar enormously following the release of the film. If you're on the fence about him, you'd better grab him now before he gets scarce.

Zob

Zob's Thoughts on Revenge of the Fallen Deluxe Bumblebee

When it comes to collecting toys from the Transformers live-action movies, I only buy toys of the characters who actually appear on-screen. Therefore, I consider my 2007 movie toy collection more or less "complete" despite not owning off-screen characters like Wreckage, Swindle, etc. I had originally sworn off buying any of the Revenge of the Fallen toys based on character I already owned, since it seemed silly to keep buying Optimus Prime and Ironhide and friends all over again just because there's a new movie coming out. That said, the first time I saw Bumblebee in the store during the weekend the Revenge of the Fallen toys broke street date, I couldn't tell right away whether or not it was the same toy I had at home or something brand-new. The head sculpt, in particular, convinced me to buy the toy since I knew for sure I'd never seen it before. Of course, after I got him home and did a comparison, I realized it was, indeed, pretty much the same toy, with some minor alternations. I thought about returning it since I hadn't opened it, but I liked the new head sculpt so much that I ended up keeping him.

Bumblebee was one of the only toys that was available prior to the May 30th release date; he and Soundwave were available for order on hasbrotoyshop.com several weeks prior to the street date, making them this year's equivalent of the "sneak preview" protoform figures that were released in 2007. They are the only two Deluxe-level toys from assortment who are packaged in robot mode instead of vehicle mode. (There's probably another reason for that besides being an attempt to distinguish the sneak preview toys from the rest of the assortment. As a Cybertronic satellite, Soundwave is the only Deluxe-level toy that transforms into something completely indistinguishable and unrecognizable—everybody else turns into realistic cars and jets and things. Bumblebee turns into a regular ol' car himself, but in vehicle mode, he looks exactly like his previous release two years ago, so packaging him in robot mode was a savvy way of showcasing the mold differences and convincing kids to get this toy. (Starting the toy off as a robot necessitated an entirely new instruction booklet, though they did recycle some of the illustrations—they're just in a different sequence.)

Bumblebee's vehicle form is actually a slightly modified version of the original toy. When the 2007 movie was under development, the decision was made to base Bumblebee on the fifth-generation Camaro Concept intended for the 2009 production year. Now that it actually is 2009, though, the producers went in a slightly different direction and made Bumblebee a 2010 Super Sport, which is similar to the concept version but with a larger front intake and dual fog lamps. Hasbro altered the toy's design to more closely match the updated vehicle design; the changes are largely cosmetic (they also tweaked his wheels a little), though the slightly bigger front bumper doesn't rest as snugly against his body in robot mode as the previous version, so his chest juts out a little more than it used to. (Note that Hasbro still refers to the vehicle mode as a Camaro Concept on the packaging.)

Another change Hasbro made was to replace Bumblebee's original handheld weapon—a cannon that converted into a blade, which detached and stored between his legs in vehicle mode. This time, his armament is fully integrated into his design, replacing his right hand altogether. (This is actually more accurate to the films, in which none of the Transformers carry accessories—their various blasters and swords and things are part of their bodies, and are usually created by transforming their arms into their weapon of choice.) The toy's entire forearm is essentially a missile launcher, and comes equipped with a bright orange "pulse missile" whose prototype was shown as translucent on the back of the package, but realized during production as opaque orange plastic. Even though his entire forearm has been hollowed out to make room for the missile, though, somebody must have made a slight miscalculation because it doesn't fit very well when the missile is loaded. The butt-end of the missile presses up against the inside of the chamber, which interferes with the potential launch distance by a considerable margin. The launcher is actually designed to rotate inwards, but while this eliminates the friction problem with the missile, it puts the launcher at an awkward angle with respect to Bumblebee's arm. (The actual reason it rotates is so that it can rest between both his arms for storage in car mode; the missile juts out from underneath the rear bumper, nestled right between his twin exhaust pipes.) The launcher is held on with a tiny little knob and pops off all too easily.

By far the most troublesome change, though, is actually the smallest—and at first, the least noticeable. There's a little plastic tab on each of the armor panels on Bumblebee's upper legs, which are designed to fit into the little slots on the other half of each fender and help lock the vehicle mode together. It looks like somebody decided to tweak that part of the toy's design, too, and altered the size and shape of the tabs, even though there was no real reason to do so. I didn't find out about this until the first time I transformed the toy and snapped one of the tabs clean off in an attempt to fit it in the slot. Suspecting I just ended up with another defective toy, I traded it out only to find that the second Bumblebee I bought had the exact same problem. As it stands now, the new tabs—particularly the one on the rear left quadrant of the car mode—is too thick to fit easily inside the slot it was designed for. There's an old saying that goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and I find it to be more than applicable here. Unless you're careful, the tabs will snap off the first time you transform him to car mode. You'd probably be best off snapping off the tabs deliberately, or at least whittling them down, due to the way they interfere with his transformation.

The new head sculpt is fantastic, and as I said, proved to be the selling point of the toy for me. It's a larger and more ambitious design, with the components on the sides of his helmet jutting out more prominently and much larger antennae that really help to convey the appearance of the character as he appears in the movies. Where the first version had a light pipe built into the head so that his eyes would glow when held up to a light source, the new toy does away with this idea in favor of eyes that are painted blue with black pupils, representing the camera lens-like optical sensors Bumblebee and the others have in the movies. It's a really nice look, though I had to look through several Bumblebees at the store before I found one that wasn't cross-eyed. (I have this trouble with C-3PO toys, too.) The first Bumblebee I bought had a loose head that kept popping off, but the replacement I got was fine, so obviously your mileage may vary.

Hasbro also tweaked Bumblebee's color scheme, swapping out his yellow-and-black colors for yellow with metallic grey. We lose some of the resemblance to the original incarnation of the character (as well as some of the metaphor behind his name), but it's more accurate to his on-screen appearance in the films, so I'm okay with it. It seems like the paint on his doors is a less precise match to the surrounding plastic this time, but that's a comparatively minor thing. A handful of other changes were made, like adding some pin striping around the borders of his racing stripes and a more authentic-looking GM logo that do improve the appearance of the toy.

Overall, though, the changes Hasbro made to the toy hurt it more than they help it. It's one thing when you take an action figure and package it with a different lightsaber or something, but when we're talking about a transformable toy that's engineered so that all the panels shift and fold and fit together precisely, just about any alterations you make are liable to mess things up along the way. I can appreciate that Hasbro was trying to offer something new and different so kids didn't feel like they were buying the exact same toy over again, but as far as the new gimmick goes, they really should have just left well enough alone.

Zob

Zob's Thoughts on the Revenge of the Fallen Novelization

This is a review of the novel adaptation of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and as such is going to contain major plot points about the movie. If you're interested in remaining spoiler-free I strongly urge you to stop reading this review immediately, and come back after you've gotten a chance to see the movie. If you're like me, though, and like to know everything there is to know about the story in advance, then by all means, continue!

I actually picked up both the junior novelization by Dan Jolley, which is essentially a 140-page stripped-down, bare-bones version of the movie, as well as the full-length 325-page adaptation by Alan Dean Foster (who wrote the novelization of the first movie as well), which goes a lot more in-depth into the characterization and detailed descriptions of events, and includes numerous scenes that were omitted from the junior novel altogether. This is how I approached my introduction to the first movie as well—I absorbed the junior novel first to get a basic idea of the story, then went back and read the unabridged novelization to gain a more complete understanding of each scene. By the time the movie hit theaters, I was already fairly well-versed in movie lore and was able to immediately identify characters as they appeared on screen (which can be a useful tool, given how so many of the movie characters are the same basic color scheme).

As the story begins, we learn that Major Lennox and Master Sargeant Epps are still cooperating with the Autobots, responding to Decepticon sightings throughout the world and attempting to contain them and—in true government style—concoct an elaborate spin following each encounter to offer some alternative explanation for the disturbance besides giant alien robots from outer space. Sam Witwicky, meanwhile, is packing up for college when he rediscovers a fragment of the shattered Allspark, which immediately turns every kitchen appliance in his house into a killing machine. After Bumblebee diligently comes to the rescue, inadvertently destroying half the Witwicky home in the process, Judy Witwicky demands that Bumblebee leave. Sam concurs, but for a different reason—he's going off to college and wants better things for Bumblebee than to follow him around like a lost puppy—despite Bumblebee's insistence to the contrary.

Meanwhile, the government is holding Optimus Prime and the Autobots responsible for the increased Decepticon activity on Earth, citing concerns that despite the fact that the Allspark was destroyed and Megatron was defeated, the Decepticons have continued to pose a threat. When Optimus asks Sam if he will speak to the government on behalf of the Autobots, he initially refuses—after all, he just wants to lead a normal life. Neither the Allspark nor Megatron have been completely destroyed, however—the Decepticons send a contingent into the ocean to rebuild and revive him, and he immediately sets about to contact his master, The Fallen, who reveals that the Allspark energy is now contained within Sam Witwicky's mind. Sam himself is vaguely aware that something's happened to him, as evidenced by the alien symbols invading his consciousness. After a thwarted attempt by a Decepticon disguised as an alluring female to seduce and sedate him, Sam flees the campus, only to be scooped up by the Decepticons. Optimus Prime arrives to confront them and is mortally wounded by Megatron, allowing Sam to escape. After the new Autobot recruits identify the symbols in Sam's mind as the ancient language of the Prime Dynasty, they seek out an aged ex-Decepticon named Jetfire who may understand its meaning. Jetfire reveals that The Fallen was once a member of the Prime Dynasty, the first Transformers created on Cybertron, but that he stole the Matrix of Leadership and planned to create a machine that would destroy the Sun and harvest its power. One of the surviving Primes recovered the Matrix and buried it under what would eventually become the Pyramids of Egypt. After Sam recovers the remnants of the Matrix, he uses it to restore Optimus Prime. The withering Jetfire donates his components to Prime, who is reconfigured into a flying machine, allowing him to confront and defeat The Fallen.

Returning are Optimus Prime and Bumblebee as featured characters, with Ironhide and Ratchet appearing in slightly diminished roles. Megatron and Starscream get a lot more time together, so we get to explore their relationship in a bit more depth; Skorponok does make a brief cameo before he gets destroyed (apparently he's been hiding for the past two years), but there's no overt signs of any other Decepticon return appearances. Blackout's in the Hasbro toy line for Revenge of the Fallen (his Robot Heroes figure is back in stores, and there's a transformable Blackout redeco coming called Grindor) so I was half-expecting to see him come back, but he's not mentioned by name (there is a mysterious "helicopter Decepticon" who scoops up Sam and friends, though, so this could be him). Also, I had thought we'd be seeing more of Barricade, since he shows up in the prequel novel (and his strange disappearance from the first movie suggests he was never destroyed) but he, too, is conspicuously absent. On the human side of things, Sam and Mikaela naturally take center stage; Lennox and Epps once again play pivotal roles, Ron and Judy Witwicky are their usual embarrassingly parental selves; and the former Agent Simmons of Sector Seven fame, once a major antagonist, proves to be a valuable ally this time around.

There are lots and lots of new Transformer characters in the story, and not all of them are identified by name. Among the Autobot recruits who responded to Optimus Prime's signal from the end of the first movie are Sideswipe, a sword-toting warrior; Skids and Mudflap, collectively known as the Twins; and Arcee, a female Autobot who separates into three motorcycles when she transforms. (It's worth mentioning that Jolt is not mentioned in either of the novelizations at all—he was reportedly a last-minute addition, evidently thrown in after adaptations were already written.) The Decepticons are joined by Demolishor, an excavation machine, and Sideways, a little tag-along sports car; Soundwave, who remains in orbit in satellite mode to disrupt human operations and communications; Ravage, who is dispatched by Soundwave to the surface to assist in Megatron's ressurection; the Doctor, who in turn is deployed by Ravage to restore Megatron and who later attempts to gain access to Sam's brain (the Hasbro version of this character will be named Scalpel); the Constructicons, none of whom are identified by name in the novel, but there may be as many as eight of them; Wheels, a tiny little monster truck who defects after he decides he likes Sam's girlfriend better than the Decepticons; and a cadré of fifteen unnamed Decepticon troops who were in storage aboard the Decepticon ship on Mars and who are activated by Megatron. (One of them may be Ransack, the World War I-era bi-plane. He gets stepped on by Jetfire almost immediately after he shows up so it's difficult to make a positive identification.) I had thought, honestly, that after reading the book I would have a clear understanding of which characters actually appeared in the movie, and therefore which Hasbro toys I would want to buy, but I have to admit I'm still a little confused. I get the distinct feeling that the novel was being put together before many of the character names were settled upon—at one point there's even a reference to a "Twin 2," evidently a placeholder name that never got swapped out.

Then there's The Fallen, who is revealed to be Megatron's boss. His relationship to Megatron is not entirely unlike that of the Galactic Emperor to Darth Vader, and I'm not sure I like how Star Warsey the Decepticons have become. Megatron is, and has always been, his own lord and master—the original Megatron's coerced agreement to serve Unicron was so unsettling particularly because it was so uncharacteristic of the Decepticon leader to take orders from anyone. The notion that there are other robots even higher up on the chain of command makes Megatron a lackey, essentially, and far less compelling as a villain. He's no longer the Ultimate Evil; he's been bumped down to public enemy number two.

Since the first movie introduced the concept of plain vanilla transforming robots, I can understand that for the second movie, the writers wanted to kick things up a notch and introduce some new types of Transformers. It's not just giant alien robots, now—it's three motorcycles who combine into one robot, or two robots that combine into an ice cream truck, or seven robots who combine together into a gigantic robot. There's no real explanation for how any of this new technology came into play, suggesting it's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff and that we just weren't privy to it during the events of the first movie. The writers did specifically mention that they nixed the idea of doing female Transformers last time because they didn't want to have to explain the differences in gender, and yet there seem to be absolutely no explanations revolving around Arcee, so the point seems largely moot. I was also expecting some kind of explanation for the reason for Skids and Mudflap's disfigured appearance (and completely ridiculous speech impediments!) but it seems unlikely there will be one offered in the movie, since there's nothing of any sort in the novel. (Were their protoforms damaged? Did the Decepticons scramble their circuits? We'll apparently never know. Just accept the fact that they're freaks who promote strangely-flavored M&M's and move on, I guess.)

Jetfire also deserves special mention here, as he's depicted as this elderly, decrepit robot, exhibiting all the robotic-equivalent symptoms of a human losing control of his faculties, up to and including nearsightedness (he wears robotic spectacles) and incontinence (yes, you read that right) and senility. He's played for comic relief and I'm sure he'll get a laugh out of theatrical audiences, but given the previous depictions of Jetfire/Skyfire from G1, this alternate version of him—a cranky old coot with Alzheimer's—does take some getting used to. He's described as an ex-Decepticon, which is at least consistent with the character's history from other media. He's also referred to as a Seeker, and I must begrudgingly admit I appreciate the G1 reference, even if it's being used out of context (to me, the term has always meant Decepticons-who-are-designed-like-Starscream—which Jetfire is clearly not).

Among the new human characters are Leo Spitz, Sam's roommate at the college dorm who runs a giant alien robots conspiracy web site. He's approximately as useless as Miles, Sam's best friend from the first film. His character serves to illustrate that not everybody takes what the government spoon-feeds them at face value, particularly when it comes to potential cover-ups—and in an example of art imitating life, his rivalry with a competing web site reminds me of some of the fierce in-fighting within the real-life Transformers fandom. This online feud proves to be particularly significant when the rival webmaster is revealed to be, in fact, the former Agent Simmons himself, who managed to collect some vital information about the Transformers before the final dissolution of Sector Seven—including the revelation that the Transformers have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, and that they have been hiding among us not just in the guises of military aircraft and cell phones, but going back all the way to the early days of the Tin Lizzy and steam-powered locomotives. (As an aside, I would love to see Hasbro produce some steampunk-style concept toys.) Another pivotal character is Alice, who is actually revealed to be a Decepticon who took the form of an audio-animatronic Alice in Wonderland puppet from Disneyworld in an attempt to capture Sam. (In the novel, they never come out and actually identify the theme park by name, but there is a rather obvious trademark-sidestepping reference to "Mickey the friendly mouse.") Alice's involvement in the story raises so many unanswered questions—why does she waste time trying to get Sam into bed when she could just immobilize him and deliver him to the Decepticons? If Bumblebee really suspects she's a Decepticon, why does he passenger her around, slam her into the dashboard a few times and then let her walk away? (This is not completely out of character for Bumblebee, mind you, since he allowed Sam to get into serious danger while supposedly serving as his guardian during the events of the first movie, too.)

There are a handful of other minor plot elements that sort of left me scratching my head. There are numerous times when Skids and Mudflap are described as normal-looking vehicles that can blend in fairly well with their environment, but that Bumblebee poses a constant problem because he's so terribly conspicuous. Putting aside for the moment that a yellow sports car isn't any more or less out of place than a bright green smart car—if Bumblebee's vehicular mode of choice is such a big issue, then why doesn't he scan something less conspicuous? He upgraded his vehicle mode for the most pointless reason in the universe in the first movie (Mikaela basically called it a piece of crap), so why does he act like he's stuck with it during the course of the novelization? By the time they get to Egypt, Bumblebee's covered in a thin layer of dirt and everyone's so thankful that it helps to disguise him a little. Speaking of ridiculous Bumblebee plot points, he's suddenly reverted to not being able to speak again, despite the fact that he seemed to have fully recovered (and was speaking intelligibly) by the end of the first movie. The first time, his lack of verbal communication was an artificial but cute contrivance; this time it just strains plausibility. (Maybe if they'd killed Ratchet in the first movie instead of Jazz there would be some reason for his slow and difficult recovery.)

It's worth mentioning that there are a number of scenes that differ considerably between the junior novel and the full-length adaptation; my suspicion is that the junior novel just changed some plot points or left some things out due to space, but it's difficult to tell. For example, the entire scene with the kitchen appliances coming to life is completely missing from the junior novel (interestingly, this scene in and of itself was adapted into another children's book called When Robots Attack! (which sounds like one of the sensationalized TV specials on FOX). There's a particularly gruesome part that's completely absent from the junior novel—in the abridged version, the Doctor completes Megatron's recovery on his own, but in the full length edition, the Doctor notes that Megatron's body is incomplete and requires replacement parts, so three of the Constructicons turn to a fourth member and completely cannibalize him. (I wonder how this affected their Devastator configuration?) Also, while the full-length novel is somewhat vague about this, the junior novel specifically states that Megatron can transform into both his original Cybertronic jet form as well as his new tank mode. While in the Egyptian pyramids, the ancient Transformer symbols are revealed in the junior novel when somebody throws a clay pot at ex-Agent Simmons; in the regular novel, a scuffle between Mudflap and Skids uncovers it. Also, the little monster truck Decepticon-turned-Autobot is called Wheels in both books, but the upcoming Hasbro toy is going to be named Wheelie. It will be interesting to see which version of events plays out in the movie proper.

Some other details I liked: The Decepticon ship that landed on Mars is, in fact, named the Nemesis. (This was the name retroactively applied to the original Decepticon space cruiser from G1, as told in the Beast Wars episode of the same name.) Also, here's a gag that not everyone is going to get. The government is trying to pass off the Transformer sightings as human-built, remote-controlled anti-terrorist machines that have malfunctioned, and the name of the company claiming responsibility for them is Massive Dynamics. This just happens to also be the name of the secretive technology organization from the FOX television series Fringe, which was also created and written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. (The fictional company even has its own web site, massivedynamics.com, though at the time of this writing it does not include any Transformers-specific content.)

Overall, I think I like the direction they took the movie—we get a little bit of Transformers back story while still propelling the characters forward in interesting directions, and even though there's a lot of focus on the humans, there's considerably more screen time for the giant alien robots than we got last time. With this being the second act of a three-part story, I had actually assumed that they would follow the Star Wars storytelling model and that the Decepticons would basically win the fight this time, giving the Autobots a chance to redeem themselves in the third and final movie. (Sure, Optimus Prime was badly wounded, but is there really any question in anybody's mind that he's not going to pull through?) With that in mind, the second movie ends on an almost anticlimactic note. There are hints that Sam is not fully aware of what role he will play in the future, suggesting there are big things in store for him for Transformers 3, but there really weren't enough plot points left dangling to even take a guess at what will be coming in the next sequel. In the meantime, however, now that I've read the book, I absolutely can't wait to see this story realized on celluloid. June 24th can't come soon enough for me!

Zob