Archive for Transformers

Ninja Day 2013: Scene by Scene: That Transformers episode with the female robot ninja

Posted in cartoons, holiday, Ninja Day, ninjas, Transformers, TV shows with tags , , , , on December 5, 2013 by Paxton

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Today is Ninja Day, my friends. I celebrate it every year. It’s one of my passions. So, in the spirit of the scene by scene movie reviews I did for Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination, today I’m going to do a scene by scene review of the Transformers episode “Enter the Nightbird”. You know, the one with the female robot ninja.

Nightbird 000 Nightbird 001
This is Season 2, episode 6.  Here are the opening titles and title card.

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In the beginning of the episode, we see the Autobots installing new sensor pads on their floors. Wheeljack tests them by saying, “Look how they react to metal”, he touches the surface and then the sensor pad lights up. So the Autobots are putting metal detecting sensor pads in their headquarters?  METAL DETECTING SENSOR PADS IN A HEADQUARTERS FILLED WITH ROBOTS.  That makes sense.

Nightbird 004
This is Dr Fujiyama, “the famous scientist” (all the explanation we are given).  He calls the Autobots because he needs their help guarding his newest invention, an advanced form of robot.  Optimus Prime is talking to Fujiyama on a standard two way video communicator you see in TV shows and cartoons all the time. However, they way it’s drawn, it looks like that’s a window and Fujiyama is in the next room.

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What is Fujiyama’s secret robot? Fujiyama introduces it as “The world’s first female ninja robot”.  He actually says that.  Not sure why the sex needs to be addressed since it is, you know, a f**king robot.  And maybe in this universe a MALE ninja robot has already been created.

Nightbird 008
This is the moment in the cartoon in which Optimus Prime awesomely says, “What is a ninja?”  Prime, you’re adorable.  Jazz actually explains it to him.  Not one of the human characters.

Nightbird 009
During the Q&A, this guy stands up and asks, “Why build a robot ninja, doctor?” He is then promptly escorted from the premises and beaten amongst the head and shoulders with heavy clubs.

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Here’s the full pan up of the ninja robot. Thought this was a cool shot. The robot is christened Nightbird. The Autobots are here to protect Nightbird from being stolen by the Decepticons. How the Decepticons know about this robot or why they would even care when their own robotics are light years ahead of anything even in this robot is never really explained. But it is a ninja, so, I can’t blame them for wanting it.

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Looking at some movie branded food stuffs

Posted in advertising, Ghostbusters, movies, pop culture, Twilight with tags , , , , , , on May 12, 2011 by Paxton

If you read this blog you know I love both movies and promotional food stuffs like new soda flavors and candies. I love it even more when they are combined.

Here are some candies, pastries, etc that were re-branded to promote a movie. I’m going to exclude the Star Wars saga from this article because, honestly, I could do a series of articles on Star Wars and food branding.  Images are from my own Flickr stream unless otherwise noted.  See all images BIGGER by clicking on them.

King Kong Twinkies King Kong muffins
King Kong Hostess pastries – Back in 2005, Hostess did a big promotion for Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake. They added banana to several of their products. In the pics you can see Banana Twinkies as well as Banana Walnut mini muffins. Interestingly enough, Twinkies’ original flavor was, in fact, banana.

Hulk Life Savers(Via Jason Liebig)
Hulk Sour Lime Life-Savers – A Hulk branded Sour Lime flavor promoting the 2003 Ang Lee Hulk movie. I don’t actually remember these at all, I just saw the wrapper pop up on my buddy Jason Liebig’s Flickr stream. Jason states that it may have been a Canadian only product.  I like this much better than I liked Ang Lee’s movie, and I haven’t even tried these.


Hostess Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pies – From 1991. This was sort of a dual promotion. The packaging used artwork from the cartoon, but it was released around the time of the second live-action movie. You can even see a movie promotion on the packaging.  Matt from X-Entertainment did a great write up of this product.  The pies were green and filled with vanilla pudding.  There were four package designs each featuring a different Ninja Turtle.

Incredible Hulk cup cakes(Via Jason Liebig)
Hostess Hulk Cakes – From 2008 to promote the Incredible Hulk reboot with Edward Norton.  These were a Scary Cakes promotion for Halloween that featured green frosting and sprinkles on top.  Hostess also added the Hulk to their regular cup cakes, donuts and Twinkies products, but left the actual cakes unchanged. There was also an Incredible Hulk branded Air Heads candy.

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Movie Man-athon: Transformers 2 and tons of other movie reviews

Posted in movies, reviews, Transformers with tags , , , on July 13, 2009 by Paxton

Steph was gone this past weekend so I made it my goal to watch as many movies as I can fit into like 3 days.  And not just any movies, I watched typical “guy” stuff that no self-respecting “lady” would ever sit down and voluntarily watch.  For you guys, I’ll do a quick review on 7 of the movies that I watched for the first time this weekend.  This doesn’t include Star Trek II and Star Trek III which I rewatched on Saturday and Sunday.  I also watched the first four episodes of 24:  Season 7. So, with my butt cramping from sitting on my sectional for 3 days, here are the reveiws of what I watched in my 72 hour Man-athon.

Transformers 2

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) — Let’s start out with the biggest movie I saw this weekend, Giant F***ing Robots 2:  Megan Fox is Super Hot.  Wait, I mean, Transformers 2:  Revenge of the Fallen.  The title is irrelevant.  To illustrate this, I created the poster above because I thought it more honestly reflected the flat-out AWESOME-ness that is contained in this movie.  For weeks I’ve read how horrible this movie is.  The internet is lambasting it as terrible, and I was prepared to HATE it when I walked out of the theater.  The only reason I saw it was to make fun of it. However, despite the movie’s problems, it is fun to watch and delivers on the “giant robots battling” action.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plot holes large enough to drive a transforming truck through, but the shiny, battling robots and Megan Fox’s partial nudity is well worth it.  I hear you asking, “What type of plot holes, Pax?”  Well, apparently, certain Transformers can teleport.  “Wait, wha-?!”  Yes, Jetfire, who can transform into one of the fastest planes ever created, the SR-71 “Blackbird”, can instantaneously teleport.  Actually, so can The Fallen, who transforms into a spaceship. Why would they ever transform in order to travel?  Why not just always teleport there? Why walk to work when you can drive, you know what I’m sayin’? Doesn’t make sense. There’s also something else that was surprising.  The Twins; Mudflap and Skids.  There’s been a lot of controversy over these guys because they are perceived as being “racially insensitive” caricatures.  Are they racially offensive?  I can see the argument of them being racially offensive.  I know they were put in there for younger audience members to identify with, but damn. They were also considered comic relief, which this movie has a lot of.  It seemed this whole movie was funnier than the first one. Lots of action, lots of funny. Don’t think too hard about the problems.  Like teleporting robots or why they couldn’t use the metal shard to revive Optimus Prime like they did Megatron or why Bumblebee still can’t speak despite the fact he could at the end of the first movie. It’s all just too much to worry about when you have giant f***ing robots beating the crap out of each other in the desert. 3.5/5

Dune

Dune (1984) — Okay, as awesomely action filled as Transformers 2 was, this movie is that amount of awful.  Like horrendous on multiple levels.  If you’ve read the original Frank Herbert novel, then this movie will be offensive based on the MANY ridiculous changes David Lynch made to the novel’s story (Weirding Modules?!  Hawat has to milk a hairless cat for the antidote to the residual poison in his body?!  The Mentats’ hilariously long eyebrows?!  Paul magically makes it rain on Arrakis?!).  If you haven’t read the novel, then this is just an insanely boring movie with a half naked Sting staring at you for 30 minutes.  WTF happened between Herbert’s novel and this movie?  I read the book a few months ago and while it was a dense read, it was worth it.  The characters and events are richly textured and the world Herbert creates is fantastic.  Lynch should be f’n ashamed of himself and never been allowed to make another movie after this was released.  True, this book would be hard for anyone to make, but DAMN, Lynch, WTF?!  My eyes have actively declared war on me for making them watch this abomination.  If you are having trouble sleeping and haven’t read the book, watch this movie, you’ll be out like a light in 10 minutes, I promise.  If you have read the book, pretend this movie doesn’t exist.  For now until I die, this movie is dead to me.  I would give it a 0 but it was so bad it almost became entertaining in the same way watching a horrendous car wreck is entertaining. 1/5

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