WARNING: This journal contains spoilers!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Revenge was much better than the first one in my opinion. The robots were more prevalent and there were more elements of what I love about Transformers. The fact that they had not only Devastator but a “super mode” Optimus made me smile. I also enjoy the fact that they used the Matrix of Leadership as the mystic artifact. The inclusion of Sam’s dream/afterlife vision was a definite plus.

One of the awesome thing about Transformers has always been the fact that in a lot of them there has been at least one semi-mystical figure or artifact. As someone who believes in the spiritual and paranormal, the fact that the Matrix or the Allspark or Primus exist in a world along side the Transformers gives me a big kick. Personally, I sort of liked the idea of the Matrix of Leadership, so seeing it show up in the movie was great.

I’ll be honest, as an Optimus Prime fan girl this movie was at once completely freakin’ awesome and sad. The end battle so epically won at life that I can barely describe it. However, the fact that he mostly shows up during the rest of the movie as a dead body was awesomely sad. I actually teared up when I saw him die, like, for serious. Koko and Ronin were holding my hand during it. But the ending totally made up for his death. I mean, Optimus set a whole new freakin’ standard for bad ass.

Come on, he freakin’ rips off the Fallen’s face. His line “I rise, you fall” totally sent shivers down my spine. In all, I really liked that the robots showed a bit more wit in all.

However, I do have some qualms. Firstly, I admit that I liked the Twins because I found them amusing, but they are quite over the top. I’d much rather have had Sunstreaker to balance out Sideswipe really. Oh, and having Sideswipe and Sideways in one movie, with the same freakin’ paint color kills me. Do you know how many times already that I’ve crossed their names?!

Also, I don’t get why they have Arcee as a trinity. I get the mechanics of it - hey, I did invent a fan fiction concept that utilizes something akin to a hive mind - but what I want to know is why they insisted on having three motorcycles. I just don’t get why they wanted three motorcycles when Arcee is small enough to be just one. What’s more, since they completely redid the back story for the movie anyway, what would changing Arcee’s scale do? What’s more, you don’t see the three motorcycles becoming one robot and she never appears as a trio of sisters in any of the prequel material, so why is she suddenly a trinity with one sister called Arcee, one called Chromia, and one as yet unnamed.

What’s more, I was in Target the other day and I picked up the Chromia toy. I read the bio and instantly got even more confounded. Not only was it linking Chromia to Ironhide specifically (Highlight of the war? Friends my kiester!) but it made no mention of her being on of the Arcee trine. Why not just make her a separate character? I know that I didn’t use to count the toy bios into my understanding of the plot, but after seeing a documentary feature on the Shout Factory G1 issue, I decided that I probably should. I mean, I knew it before watching the documentary that TF was a commercial basically, but it was finally brought home to me that these guys worked really hard to incorporate the toys and make it all work together. The show and the toys were supposed to work together to tell the story, so I can no longer in good conscious leave em out.

All in all, though, Revenge of the Fallen was everything I thought it would be and more. If the turnout that I witness at the two showings I saw (I went to see the movie yesterday with Ronin and Koko and today by myself) is any indication, ROTF will be a nice big blockbuster. As it should be, since it’s one of those rare sequels that’s better than the first one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~