Dave's TF Book Rant

     Transformers: The Movie Guide

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/MovieGuide07

     Your basic DK overpriced hardcover, really.

CAPSULE

     TF Movie Guide: Some nice pictures and decent background info, as far as
it goes, but very limited coverage.  Mildly recommended.  $17.99 printed
price, but Hastings wanted $19.99, and I didn't notice in time to complain
(nor was it worth two bucks to go back).


RANT

     Note, I will make some comparisons between info here and in the movie,
so that entails spoilers if you haven't seen the movie yet.

     Well, it's written by Simon Furman, officially.  I strongly suspect that
a lot of the material was written by one of the editor/manager types listed,
or simply by an uncredited DK guy, with Furman getting author credit because
he wrote the core info.  Then again, some of the science goofs sound like the
sort of thing Furman's done too (Mach 3 being considered fast interstellar
travel, sound of 700 deciBels, that sort of thing...in case you're wondering,
thanks to the way deciBels are logarithmic, 700 dB is so much power per
square meter that it's equivalent to channeling, um, the entire universe into
a single blast.  Something along those lines.  10^58 Watts per square
meter...if that's a sustained blast as shown in Blackout's listing, then that
requires annihilating 10^41 kg of matter entirely every second to keep it
up.  Even if I'm off by a few orders of magnitude, that's still a galaxy
every second or so to feed the beast.)

     Anyway, most of the book is a series of 8 page chunks, four double page
spreads for each character.  One for introduction (a quote from the movie and
some snapshots), one for robot mode, one for vehicle mode, and one for
"weapon mode" (highlighting their main attack, usually).  There's a few
double page spreads on single topics or minor characters as well
(Introduction, the AllSpark, Trans-scanning, Frenzy, Scorponok).  Not
everyone gets entries, though, even in a 72 page book.  Prime, Megatron,
Bumblebee, Barricade, Blackout, Jazz and Ratchet get the full treatment.  For
the most part, the info here is at least consistent with the final cut of the
movie, although some of it is extra background.
     All in all, a decent coffee table book.  The cover has a lenticular
motion gimmick, changing between Prime's face and the Autobot symbol.  A tad
expensive, but that's DK for you.  
     And now, some random comments on stuff inside.

     The AllSpark: A good large shot of the cube from one angle, plus insets
of all six faces in detail sufficient to let artists reproduce it if they
want.  :)
     Optimus Prime: According to the vehicle mode page, he has 39 artillery
muzzles ringing the truck.  I think they decided that the running lights
along the bottom of the bumper and the cab conceal weapons.  The roof lights
are labeled as surface-to-air missile ports.  Pretty heavily armed,
considering he didn't use any of these weapons in the movie!  The silver
canisters ahead of each door are explained as emergency backup power cells.
     Megatron: His fusion cannon is never shown, or even mentioned.  His
vehicle mode page is the one with the "three times the speed of sound,
enabling him to travel huge interstellar distances in a relatively short
time" science gaffe.
     Trans-scanning: While not shown in the movie, this says that they absorb
local matter to help in establishing new bodies from their protoform modes.
An unnamed protoform is shown.
     Bumblebee: While his beater Camaro mode is mentioned, it is not shown.
The vehicle mode page shows only the "just-out-of-the-showroom Concept
Camaro" version.
     Barricade: His choice of altmode is supposed to be ironic somehow, but I
don't get it.  The next line makes it clear he wanted a vehicle of authority,
so that negates any irony for "villain as police".
     Frenzy: Supposedly has distributed brainpower, so his body can operate
without his head.  One of his secondary neural processors is indicated as
being in his upper arm, oddly.  I suspect there was a late change in Frenzy,
though, since his entry claims he says little...while can hardly shut up in
the movie (granted, it's mostly untranslated Cybertronian, so it might just
be gibberish and not really saying anything).
     Blackout: According to this, despite his size, Blackout is only on a par
with Bumblebee for power.  That might explain how he got jobbed in the movie,
at least.  His Thunderclap Concussion Cannon is the one with the 700 dB
blast, heh.  Remember kids, use logarithms, don't let logarithms use you.
     Scorponok: Listed as being 8'8" long, which strikes me as a little
small, unless they mean just his main body length.
     Jazz: He's supposed to be Prime's second in command.  I don't see that
in the movie.  The book says he can generate a low-level forcefield that
protects his spark chamber, but he also uses it to avoid getting dents in his
body panels.  I suppose that's why Final Battle Jazz has all sorts of damage
to his robot mode, but none to his vehicle mode.  His weapon mode shows a
shield-gun combo thing that looks nothing like what the first toy had, but
one version of Final Battle Jazz has it (pictures of that toy have different
weapons in robot and vehicle modes, suggesting different prototypes).
     Ratchet: Has cutting buzzsaw blades on his left arm, rather than the axe
on his right arm as on the toy.  It says he can launch them off, but
trajectory is essentially random.  Wheeeee!

     Dave Van Domelen, typed this up offline because his home internet was
down most of the night, bleh.  Helped the cable guy mess with the
neighborhood hub, though.