"I spent four years in film school for THIS?" The Simpsons Movie: Best. Movie. This Summer. Along with Transformers, haha. Though I have one minor gripe: The movie is a little tame. The animators could've gotten away with A LOT more and still retain the PG-13 rating. But whatever... If I wanted to watch a REALLY raunchy animated film, I'd pop in my DVD of South Park: The Movie. By the way, that line I quoted at the beginning of this entry is spoken by a squeaky-voiced theater manager who appears on-screen near the end of the film's credits. If you went to film school like I did, you'd feel that that line kinda hits the nail on the head. 'Cause the sentiment is true! That is all.

NASA KSC / George Shelton

A WEEK FROM TODAY (HOPEFULLY)... I said the same thing about the Dawn spacecraft a few weeks ago, but hopefully, things will actually work out for Phoenix—and it will launch during the early morning hours of August 4th. It better...considering the reason why Dawn’s launch was delayed to September was to clear the way for the Mars lander to lift off. Weather and technical issues (particularly maintenance problems with ships and aircraft that were going to be used to track telemetry from Dawn’s Delta II rocket during the ascent into space) were what constantly grounded Dawn until NASA finally decided to move its launch to this Fall. Anyways, Godspeed Phoenix! Must I let you guys know why I’m eager to see Phoenix make its way to the Red Planet? Go here. And see photos below.


NASA / Lockheed Martin / The Planetary Society


NASA / Lockheed Martin / The Planetary Society


NASA / Lockheed Martin / The Planetary Society

PHOENIX Blog Entries Archive:

May 8, 2007

TRANSFORMERS Sequel Ideas...

TRANSFORMERS 2: (OPTIMUS PRIME Opening Narrative) "It has been one year since the loss of The Cube. Because we, the Autobots, can no longer revive life on our home world of Cybertron, we have had to rely on a vessel, known as The Ark, to ferry us across the stars...in search of a new haven. Our search has now come to an end, with Earth as our final refuge. While we were able to coexist with Earth's inhabitants, our enemies have found their own motive to come to this planet. A motive...that involves causing endless death and destruction to this world... And we must stop them before it is too late."

Megatron gets located and retrieved from the ocean floor to get repaired on by Decepticons still loyal to him...while Starscream returns with his own followers to wreak havoc on Earth. The Constructicons and Soundwave are among the new baddies to show up. Sam and Mikaela's relationship is expanded upon; Jazz is brought back to life by Ratchet; more Autobots arrive on Earth (via The Ark) to help Optimus Prime and Company prepare for the growing Decepticon threat. Megatron gets revived as Galvatron...and in an Empire Strikes Back-like dark ending, shows how powerful he is by killing off, with only a few blasts of his giant cannon, Starscream and his followers, a large metropolis full of humans...and even Optimus, Ironhide and some main Autobots in an "Are they really dead?" fashion. Sam and/or Mikaela are also injured during the final battle...and are evacuated just as Galvatron prepares to destroy unnamed city (for some odd reason I'm picturing Chicago). Ultra Magnus and other Autobot reinforcements arrive on Earth in the final scene. Barricade (the Decepticon police car in Transformers) shows up for the final battle, but mysteriously disappears for no apparent reason.



TRANSFORMERS 3: A la Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, Optimus Prime is revived and becomes more powerful than ever. Unicron arrives to join in the Decepticons' conquest of Earth. More stuff on Sam and Mikaela's relationship as they recover from the previous film's injuries. A HUUUUGE WORLDWIDE/SPACE BATTLE between the Autobots and Decepticons ensue...Unicron is destroyed in the process...and Optimus Prime makes up for being a weakling in the first film by beating the crap out of and defeating Galvatron in a climactic fight between the two. Barricade again shows up for the final battle, but mysteriously disappears for no apparent reason.

Sam and Mikaela get married in the final scene with Bumblebee as the best man. Just kidding 'bout this last one...or am I?


EDIT: Are Autobots voyeurs? You be the judge... (Why else would they have their headlights on?)

DEREK FISHER TO HEAD BACK TO THE LAKERS... The contract will be for 3 years and a total of $14 million. Awesome. Welcome back to L.A., Fish.

WHERE’S STEVE JABLONSKY?? Today, in response to finding out Transformers was the coolest film this summer, I went onto Amazon.com to look up the Transformers movie soundtrack. I found it, and was quite displeased—actually pissed—to realize the CD only contained songs and not the orchestral score by the composer himself. What the hell? Don’t get me wrong... Linkin Park is cool...but if I wanted to listen to their songs I’d buy their album. I want the soundtrack so I could hear the epic music that Mr. Jablonsky conducted for the film. If you read the reviews on the bottom of the soundtrack’s Amazon page, you’d see that a few other people share my view. Someone said that a separate CD will be released in the future that’s devoted to Jablonsky’s score, but when the heck will that be? When the DVD comes out?? The same crap was done with the Spider-Man soundtracks. If you were a fan of Christopher Young’s music in Spidey 3, you gotta wait for another CD to come out. Much like what was done with the first two films in regard to Danny Elfman’s music. God, I hate capitalism...and yes, I hate communism and fascism a lot more.

Great. I’m so upset I’m straying off topic. Thanks a lot, jerks.

BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER (FOR ME, THAT IS)... I just came back from watching Transformers: The Movie, and needless to say... Bring on the sequel! Really— I haven’t been to a film this fun (Note: I said fun...not good. But Transformers was good!) since Independence Day in 1996! You heard right... Despite liking Revenge of the Sith, and Spider-Man 2 (and yes, I liked Spider-Man 3), and Batman Begins, and The Mummy, and Pirates of the Caribbean (the first film), I didn’t enjoy a movie this much since the alien invasion film 11 years ago. Well done, Michael Bay! Again, you heard right! This flick should really make up for the flack he got for Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. Especially considering the fact a lot of the shots in Transformers actually lasted for more than 2 seconds on screen! Good God!



Anyways, Transformers rocked! Jon Voight did well. And so did Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson (though I don’t think we need to see their characters again if there is a sequel, which there should be...though it's gonna be hard to top this one)...and Anthony Anderson and Bernie Mac were crack-ups. Rachael Taylor is hot. Last, but not least... It might just be me...but I really dug the romance between Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox... WOW). LaBeouf and Fox, in my opinion, had really nice chemistry together. People in the audience actually cheered and whistled during that last shot (not to spoil the ending for y’all) where Mikaela is mackin’ with Sam on top of the Camaro— err, Bumblebee. You da man, Sam! I think we should definitely see their characters again in Transformers 2.



And finally, another reason why I dug Transformers, other than the KICK-ASS special effects (award Optimus Prime and Megatron for a Best Visual FX Oscar next year!), was the music. Steve Jablonsky (Desperate Housewives, the first Pirates of the Caribbean, Tears of the Sun... He composed additional music on that last one. Hans Zimmer was the main composer) created a very epic score that reminded me of the work Hans Zimmer did for Gladiator or David Arnold with Independence Day. Very adventurous-sounding. And the U.S. military should really be giving kudos to Bay right now. Add real F-22 Raptors and MV-22 Ospreys with giant robots and Megan Fox, and you have a summer blockbuster that’s also a great recruiting film for kids wanting to join the armed forces. Just wait till the Iraq war is over till you do so, 'kay folks? ‘Nuff said. No wait— One more thing... Starscream escapes at the end??? NOOOOO!



Bring on Galvatron, the Constructicons, Soundwave, Dinobots and Headmasters in Transformers 2 (currently, the Constructicons, Dinobots and Soundwave are actually rumored to be in the sequel)!! Oh, and don't forget Fortress Maximus and the Aerialbots. I'm such a geek.



5 out of 5 stars. *****

UPDATE: This review is now on Epinions.com.

TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE... Tomorrow night, Michael Bay’s long-awaited take on the old cartoon that spawned lots of kick-ass toys back in my childhood days gets released in theaters. Hopefully, it’ll be good...from what I’ve seen in the trailers and TV spots. Then again, I saw the first Bad Boys film, The Rock, Armageddon and Pearl Harbor at the cineplex (plus, um, bought The Island on DVD...but it was on discount since I purchased it from the studio store back when I worked at the Paramount lot, which owns the movie as Paramount is part of Dreamworks. Dreamworks produced the film), so who am I kidding? Michael Bay flicks are like MySpace, caffeine, junk food, and—if you’re a druggie (which I am not. Pretend I didn’t use this last analogy)—crack... You know they’re bad for you...but you keep coming back for more.



Anyways, I’ll probably watch the movie on Tuesday...since I only want to associate my midnight screening experiences with Star Wars (I, uh, watched The Phantom Menace with some college dorm buddies at midnight back in ’99—but it wasn’t on opening night, thank God—and Revenge of the Sith with some old high school friends on opening night two years ago), haha. Speaking of Star Wars... George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic did the visual FX for Transformers...so all the robots should look bad-ass on the big screen. I mean—REALLY bad-ass. Just look at these screenshots I posted with this journal entry! That is all.