For reasons still not entirely understood even by myself, I went last night to see the new blockbuster hit
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. I'll blame it on a mixture of boredom and perverse curiosity as well as caving in to the constant invitations from my older, action-movie-addicted brother.
I went into the theater knowing what to expect, having seen the last two films in the series. Explosions. Pouted lips. Clichéd quips. Shia LaBeouf's thin little ties. But what I didn't expect, or didn't realize beforehand, was how much American propaganda there is throughout this film and the series as a whole. Here's a list of what struck me.
1. The film romanticizes American history
The plot of
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon begins in the year 1961, when a Cybertronian spacecraft lands on the dark side of the moon (hence the film's title). Soon after, the US government intercepts this information and the Kennedy Administration, operating under a Cold-War assumption that the Soviets must be up to something,
announces its plans to embark on the Apollo 11 lunar mission.
On its own, this revisionist sci-fi-infused history is pretty cool. The weird part though is the over-use of imagery. There are several shots of President Kennedy (digitally dug-up and remastered thanks to an unsettling use of CGI) depicted in the Oval Office, sitting at the Resolute Desk like a moving photo op, followed by a recreation of his famous man to the moon speech complete with stirring quotes. On top of this, there's also rehashed footage of iconic news anchor Walter Cronkite reacting to the Apollo 11 launch and landing with commentary, smiles and dismay. Afterwards, digi-versions of Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are seen embarking on the mission, followed by a sensualized, poignant scene that recreates the famous "one small step for man" moment. Then there's Apollo 11 splashing back to Earth in the glorious Pacific Ocean followed by a digitized Richard Nixon in another Oval Office shot, commending the brave astronauts. Finally, there's shots of proud 70's chicks and dudes, swelling with pride, smiling toward the sun like a Coca-Cola commercial (
such as...) and overall marveling at how groovy and far-out it felt to be a human—but especially an American—at that moment.
Overall, these parts seem contrived, not integral to the plot, and together with the puppet-like footage of dead presidents, they come off like something more appropriate for a museum tour than the big screen. (They're also about as creepy as
this recent ad using John Lennon's face and voice).
Transformers 3, on the whole, is peppered with awkward scenes like these, including the part when the actual Buzz Aldrin (this time visually altered only by his various real life face-lifts) meets robo-hero Optimus Prime at an American military base. They greet each other for some unknown reason and then quickly depart, though not before Optimus assures Aldrin: "the real honor is meeting you."
Current U.S. President Barack Obama is also digi-raped in a scene where "he" is seen giving protagonist Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) a medal for saving the planet in the two previous films.
2. Optimus Prime is like a mechanical Founding Father
This is might be more obvious, but I never really noticed how ... Optimus Prime = Captain America = Superman, etc.
A recurring theme in American action movies and super hero comics is that the central hero is a representation of America itself. This is
most obvious with Captain America (
in theaters July 22!) who more specifically champions the American cause against anti-democratic threats. But in the case of Optimus Prime and Superman, both are red-white-and-blue clad heroes from other planets who use their special abilities to not only defend the United States but to defend humankind itself and the Western ideal of freedom.
Specifically in
Transformers 3, Optimus Prime and his posse recover their former leader Sentinel Prime from the spaceship that crash-landed on the dark side of the moon, only to learn Sentinel has actually deceived them and is working with the evil Decepticons (
de-cep-tion, de-cep-ti-con, get it?) It turns out that Sentinel has made a deal with the bad guys in an attempt to protect his former home planet, and, in doing so, has surrendered everyone—robot and human alike—into slavery under the Decepticons.
And so it goes. During the incredibly expensive CGI battles between Optimus and Sentinel, both get all philosophical, with Sentinel representing oppression and tyranny while Optimus champions freedom and choice. Since the original 1980s
Transformers cartoons, Optimus's catch-phrase has been "freedom is the right of all sentient beings," so that's nothing new. Yet in typical Michael Bay fashion, Optimus's lines in
Transformers 3 were even less subtle, about as subtle as a giant shiny gun-wielding robot preaching in front of a tattered American flag could be.
3. The film is a commercial for the U.S. militaryLike the two films before it,
Transformers 3 is not only a chance to ogle the newest American automobiles but also a chance to see in nearly pornographic detail the newest gadgets of the American military. In the case of
T3, the focus is on military bases, government facilities, and the skills of military parachutists who fly around the city of Chicago to deactivate the bad-guys.
Transformers 2:
Revenge of the Fallen focuses on more specific weapons like aircraft artillery.
In
this video U.S. airmen talk about the film and the filming process. Of particular interest is the military officer at 1:50 who straight-up says the film was a great way to "put a face" on the Air Force and "let folks know our latest equipment and what we're doing."
Overall the
Transformers series seems to have blended the entertainment and military worlds to a degree that no movie has done before since maybe
Independence Day, another American-democracy-themed alien invasion summer blockbuster.
Disclaimer: This isn't intended as America-bashing; really I just couldn't help but notice these themes during the film, probably because living outside the U.S. for a bit has made me more sensitive to ideas like this. American films are promoted heavily across Europe (and increasingly in new markets like China too), and during the mindless two-and-a-half hours I kept wondering what it'd be like seeing this movie as a non-American.
