Once upon a time, good old cartoons were. Goldrake (Ufo Robot Grendizer), Mazinger, Daitarn 3, Trider G7, Gundam. Then we grew up and new cartoons weren’t any longer what they used to be :-), Transformers (at least for my generation) was the beginning of the decline (at least on TV). I didn’t like much this series because the plot was childish, the transformations were fictitious and the idea of sentient robots was implemented in a pretty ridiculous way.
You can imagine my mindset when yesterday I entered the cinema to watch the Transformers the movie. I must admit that the movie is not that bad. It has some good action moments, some intriguing ideas, although it lacks of a well thought plot and most of the cues are not deployed as one may expect. The part I found most disappointing was that transformations were absolutely undecodable. You see a car, then in a second and half it is robot, but you can’t tell how it did. This is, maybe, one of the greatest difference with the cartoon, where transformations took many seconds in a sort of accelerated bullet time. The intent, back then, was clear – sell the merchandise.