覺悟的力量

這篇文章原文讓我們看到了變形金剛的意義遠遠不只是
單單一部電影背後的文化脈絡和網路世界發達下種種
對觀影經驗產生有趣影響的現像(包含有人就是要挑剔和批鬥)
，對應到板上熱烈的討論或爭執的現像，希望能提供點想法

原文


More than meets the eye... much more!

Alright, how do I begin? How do you put into words the culmination of years of anticipation, speculation, doubt, excitement, more doubt, more excitement and finally an overwhelming sense of “can’t wait any longer!”? This is what has been bothering me all night long. I have sat here with my laptop on my lap trying to find a place to start. I guess I will start at, well, the start, so here goes…

As most people who know me know, I am a Transformers fan. I am a product of the 80’s. I grew up, like most kids my age, watching Transformers after school everyday. Let me clarify that I was never the kid who nitpicked the lore. I was never the guy who debated between G1 and Beast Wars. I was the kid who loved the idea that giant alien robots could turn into things that I knew; cars, planes, boom boxes, this is what kept me watching, but as I grew, I realized there was more to them than, well, met the eye.

You see, here was an advanced culture, an alien race that, if they wanted to, could easily enslave and control our world and all its inhabitants. Granted, some of them wanted to do just that, but there were some who dedicated their existence to protecting us. Heroes. I know that may sound a bit cheesy, but hey, it was a Reagan era cartoon, and, as most of us 30-somethings know, that is what the 80’s were about, heroes and villains, good vs. evil, right vs. wrong.

So, here I am, 30 years old, a 30 year old kid, but still. A bit older, a bit wiser, perhaps a bit more skeptical, but definitely a bit harder to impress, so, when the announcement of a live-action Transformers movie was posted on AintItCoolNews.com just about 3 years ago the kid in me rejoiced while the adult in me said “What?! Come on! Really?”

I watched the movie go from rumor to pre-production. I followed the rumors from Robert Zemeckis to John Woo, and finally shrugged and said “eh, interesting” when it was finally announced that Mr. Michael Bay would be pulling this giant, possible catastrophe together. Let me state that I have never been a Bay Naysayer. I liked The Rock. Liked Bad Boys 1, loved Bad Boys 2, dislike the tone of Pearl Harbor, hate the second half of Armageddon, and thought that The Island was fun. I think that his sense of action and camera movement is impeccable (Bad Boys 2 car chase and Jamaican house shoot out scenes, I am talking to you).

I watched as the early robot designs started to pop up online. I took them as works in progress. I was never that much of a purist. I knew that things had to change. Let’s face it, you can’t have your main bad guy turning into a giant gun that someone else has to use. I never minded the flames on Optimus, it just never was that big of a deal. I never was that against the new look of the robots because at the end of the day, if you were an advanced robot culture that was thousands of years ahead of anything else out there, wouldn’t you look as bad ass as you could? Sure you would.

Also, the first look at the lips on Optimus Prime, not a big deal for me. It made sense because these are NOT robots, they are organic creatures made of metal. Artificial intelligence. They have emotion and feeling. They have to be able to show that and if that helped convey that, than why not. I never understood all the hate that was being aimed at this movie.

I would read the comments left by people online and it was so negative, but they all seemed to miss the point. There was never a line between flames on Optimus and, well, let’s say nipples on a bat suit. This was a film where giant robots would be fighting each other on earth! This was a movie based on a cartoon based on toys! It is supposed to be cheesy and fun and exciting. Why all the hatred and doubt? Leave your brains at the door and just have fun, and this was how I have approached Transformers from the beginning….

…but then things changed. I saw the trailers. I saw the TV spots. I was in awe. I was floored by what I saw. This film was shaping up to be a breathtaking spectacle, something new and exciting in a world of rehashed sequels, a new breed of heroes to believe in. What can I say, the kid in me woke up.

The hype surrounding the movie started to intensify. The groups were completely polarized. There was no one who was just mildly interested. It became the believers vs. the haters, and it got ugly. I started to read the talk balks and message boards less and less. I wanted to believe. I watched the trailers and TV Spots frame by frame, analyzing the look and feel of this film as best I could 90 seconds at a time. The countdown clock could not go fast enough and the kid in me sat up in bed and stretched.

Then, the unthinkable. My friend Sean, a Transformer fan of epic proportions won the Transformer Fanaticon contest and asked me to be his “plus one” on a trip to ILM in San Francisco to go behind the scenes and see how the magic for Transformers was done. A trip to the nerd holy land, if you will. The house that George built, and we were going to be able to look behind the curtain, and the kid in me rubbed his eyes and got out of bed.

The trip, OH THE TRIP, what can I say. It was a once in a lifetime experience. I saw things that I never thought I would see. The tour was remarkable, but more importantly, it was personal. Throughout the day, we were joined by the people who worked on the film. Animators who spent hundreds, nay, thousands of hours painstakingly making this film what it is. Guys who were no older than I am. These were fans. Fellow geeks who grew up watching Star Wars and loving it so much that they did everything they could to create that same magic for the next generation, guys who within the walls of ILM were having the same debates that were going on on the message boards online.

These guys were not all Bay fans. They didn’t all like the lips. They weren’t all fans of the flames, and believe me, they tried it all. As we sat in the big screening room at ILM, which is something I will take with me to the grave, they sat with us. As we watched scene breakdowns, they watched and explained. They showed us fully rendered 3D models and told us why. They showed us things that didn’t work and what they did to make it better. They gave us an insight to the process that made me gasp. There was so much love and dedication to wanting to get this right, that they put aside what they thought would be best and did what eventually turned out to be what was actually best.

They answered every question. We had the debate about Prime’s face plate, we talked about flames, they fielded questions about G1 vs. the new designs, and they convinced me, although it didn’t take much when they showed us a 10 minute reel of footage that brought me to my feet. It was stunning. Absolutely stunning.

As I left ILM with a new sense of just how much went into this film, the 100’s of people, the 1000’s of hours, my brain was swimming. I couldn’t really wrap my mind around what I had seen. I couldn’t make it make sense. I had seen Prime in all his glory 40 feet tall and he was real, as real as I had ever wanted him to be. I started to believe that it was all going to be alright, and the kid in me walked to the window and felt the sun on his face.

As I sat on the plane coming home, replaying the images in my head. Re-experiencing the whole day again and again, I started to realize exactly what lay in store. I started to get it. It was a movie based on toys, but it was more. It was a second coming of childhood. I remembered how Superman made me believe a man could fly and now, I started to believe that diesels could transform. I know, it sounds juvenile, but why not? This was my childhood rushing back. This was memory lane in full THX surround sound. This was a time capsule reopened in digital widescreen. This was a moment for me and I only had 2 weeks more to wait. The kid in me started to pace in his room.

I went the day they were available and bought my tickets for the 8:00 first showing on Monday, July 2nd. They wait was counting down…but then I ran into a friend of mine who works in a local comic book store. My transformer fandom is quite legendary here in town and he asked me if I had my passes yet? “Passes” What passes?” I inquired. He proceeded to hand me passes to an advanced screening of Transformers. All of the sudden, my wait had been cut nearly in half, and the day of reckoning was just around the corner and the kid in me got dressed and put on his shoes.

Cut to yesterday, I woke up with a sense of excitement that I had not felt since Christmas of 89 when I got my first BMX bike! It was the day. I had made arrangements with all my family, this was a grand affair. I got there early to save a place in line. Spend time with my fellow geeks. Show time was 7, I got there at 1. The line was forming. These are my people, I thought. I scanned the crowd. 30-something guys wearing transformers shirts were abundant, but how strange, the line also contained teenagers, small children, older couples, people of all ages standing together with a sense of excitement so thick you could feel it in the air. The child in me could barely be contained.

When I got into the theatre, the buzz was overwhelming. It was time. It was the end of the road. The moment I had been waiting for. It was here. I was finally here. I sat down and surrounded myself with my family and friends, people who knew what the wait was like for me, people who had literally been tortured with every new announcement and development. It was at that moment that they realized what it meant, what it really meant, because as I buckled in for the show, they realized that I was no longer the jaded, cranky 30 year old, no, as I sat back in my seat and the lights went down and the film rolled, the kid in me could be contained no longer and leapt out and from that point on, I was 8 years old again for the rest of the night.

What can I say about the film…? How can I possibly put into words what I saw and felt? I am still struggling. I know that sounds ridiculous. I know it sounds absurd. You may be thinking, “Dude, it’s just a movie!”, but it wasn’t. It was more, so much more. We all know the plot, the source of all the Transformers power had ended up on earth and they have all come to get it, some for Good, some for Evil. Their war, our world, hell it was on the poster. The film opens up with a breathtaking attack and never lets up. I have to say that I have never been in a screening that got this many applause breaks. People cheered throughout this entire film, from beginning to end.

The effects were amazing. The look of the film is beautiful. The pacing is great. The actors are all very good. It was everything that I wanted and as I sit here, the film replaying in my head, I wouldn’t even know where to start. The Robots? The action? The plot? Where do I begin? Answer, I don’t. The film opens in 3 days and I am sure that if you have read this, you are a fan and will be going anyway and don’t need me to spoil it for you. Although, I think that there is no way that my words could do it justice. This film is incredible, but it also heroic. It is emotional. It is about good vs. evil, but it is also about understanding and sacrifice. It is about explosions, but it is also about connection. It is filled with action and excitement, but it also filled with love and respect.

Sure, this is a movie where giant alien robots come to earth and blow stuff up, it is about things that transform, but it is more, it is an opportunity to be transformed yourself. Transformed to a simpler time where flames and lips and new concepts weren’t that big of a deal. It is a chance to be transformed to a time when mouth made sound effects were enough. A time when my Mom’s broom was the best lightsaber around. A time when my own imagination was the best special effects studio in the world. A time when innocents was innovation.

I know that a lot of you are skeptical. I know that there are people who want to hate this movie, and you know what, you will. You will find things to nitpick and complain about. You will see things that you don’t think look real. You will laugh. You may even leave the theatre pissed off, but you will be missing the point. It isn’t meant to Best Picture next year. This film isn’t supposed to be historically accurate, because the history of this film lives inside the personal experience of every kid who played with these toys in his backyard. This film is not meant to be analyzed and cross-examined, it is meant to entertain and amaze.

I think that this film will affect us differently. It will be the great action movie that you are expecting. It will be funny. It will make you cheer. It may even make you cry, but if you’re lucky, and I feel lucky today, it will make you believe. I implore all of you to walk into this film looking through the eyes that you had when you were just a kid. I did, and I walked out of that theatre in awe. I believed again. I looked twice at every car on the way home, hoping to see something out of the ordinary. I looked at every diesel, hoping that I would be the next one to be chosen. I wanted it to be real, and to the child in me, it was, and that is all that really matters.

So here I am, at home. The show is over and it is late. I am sure that this is not the review you all expected. Don’t worry, next week we can all hang out and discuss specifics. We can talk about the fights and the scenes that made us cheer, but for right now I am exhausted and need to get some sleep. I wish this same experience for you all.

…and the kid in me drifts to sleep with a big smile on his face.

特轉錄
ptt
macrose大大的中文翻譯


遠超過眼見為憑!!

好吧,我該如何將一年來充滿期望,推測,懷疑,興奮,更多的懷疑以及更多
的興奮; 到了最後終於感到再也無法多等一天的心情化成言語呢?
這個問題困擾了我整個晚上; 我就坐在這裡,腿上放著我的筆記型電腦,
並且試著找個點做開頭,我想我會從...嗯,不如就從開始說起吧~

就像每個認識我的人所知道的,我是個變形金剛迷。我出生在80年代,並且
就像大部份與我同年的小孩那樣,每天放學後按時收看變形金剛;我必須先
澄清一點:我從來都不是喜歡在雞蛋裡挑骨頭的人,我也從不愛為了初代與
百變金剛的差異去做爭辯;我十分喜愛巨大外星機械人能變形成人類周遭
事物(如汽車,手機)的這個創意,這也是讓我一直看下去的原因;但當我長大
後,我明白他們不止是我眼睛所看到的那樣而已,。

你懂的,這裡有一個先進的外星文明種族,只要他們想,便能輕易的控制我們
的世界,並奴役所有的人類;他們之中真有人想這麼做,但另一群人卻決定將
保護人類視為他們的使命,他們正是這個故事中的英雄。我知道這樣的故事
好像有點過時,但你想想看,這是雷根總統時期的卡通,而且對我們這些30歲
上下的人來說,這就是80年代的一切：英雄與反派,善良與邪惡,對與錯。

所以我就這樣長到了30歲;一切都與孩提時期的我沒什麼不同。只不過老了
點,更有智慧了點,或許還變的有點多疑;不過毫無疑問的,我更難被感動了。
所以當我三年前在AntiItCool.com看到好萊烏即將拍攝真人演出的變形金剛
電影的消息後,在我心中童心未泯的一面High到不行時,成人一面的我卻說:
啥?少來了啦!真的假的?!

我持續關注這部電影的消息,並看著它從謠言進行到前製階段;我追蹤著導演人選
的傳言,從Robert Zemeckis到吳宇森,而當最後確定是麥可貝要來促成這個極可
能演變成大災難的計畫後,我只能聳聳肩的說:嗯...很有趣。
我必須聲明我並不是逢麥可貝必反的人,我喜歡絕地任務,絕地戰警1,愛死了絕地
戰警2,不太喜歡珍珠港的風格,恨死了世界末日的後半段,並且覺得絕地再生很歡
樂。我覺得他在對動作場面的掌握與運鏡手法上都是無懈可擊的。(譬如說絕地
戰警2的飛車追逐與在Jamaican家的槍戰)


看著陸續釋出的機器人設計初稿,我只能把他們當作畫到一半的草稿;我並不是
要求凡事忠於原味的人,我知道事物會改變。醒醒吧!巨大的壞人首領是不可能
變成小手槍給其他人拿在手上的。我並不介意鐵牛被漆上火燄塗裝,那沒什麼
大不了,我不反對機器人變成新造型,試想,如果你是比其他文明先進數千年的
機器人,你不會想把自己變的越炫越好嗎?當然會嘛!

同樣的,當我第一次看到鐵牛的嘴唇時,也覺得那沒什麼;有嘴唇很正常,因為他
們不是人造機器人,而是金屬構成的有機生命;他們也不是人工智慧,他們是有情
緒與感情的,而且必須要能表現出來以傳達給別人知道,所以,他們為什麼不能有
嘴唇呢?

我不明白為什麼有那麼多人對這部電影充滿了忿恨,我會看一些網友對於這部
電影的評語,而大部份都很負面,但我覺得他們搞錯重點了。重點從來都不是貨
車頭上的火燄烤漆,或者是,嗯...蝙蝠裝上的乳頭之類的= =a
這是一部關於巨大機器人在地球上互相戰鬥的電影!這是一部玩具卡通改編的
電影!它應該是部讓兒時夢想成真,有趣且令人興奮的電影,為什麼所有人都充
滿了敵意與不信任呢?不需要想太多,好好享受它帶給我們的樂趣,我們剛接觸
變形金剛時不就是這樣的嗎?

然後一切都變了...我看了預告,我看了電視特輯,然後我傻了,為我看到的一切
久久不能自已,這部電影被拍成一部會讓人摒住呼吸觀看,一個在不同背景下發
生的的全新刺激故事,被賦與新生命的英雄們,栩栩如生的站在你眼前;我體內的
小孩甦醒了~

令人眼花繚亂的宣傳手法開始充斥在我們四周,電影的評價也漸趨兩極化,沒有
人能在其中保持中立客觀;粉絲逐漸形成對立電影支持派與憎恨電影派,而雙方
的唇槍舌戰內容越來越醜惡;漸漸的,我不再去看網路上的這些討論。我希望這
部電影會成功,我一格一格的播放著預告與電視特輯,並分析我這部電影可能帶
給我的感覺與精彩度(分析90秒已是我的極限了