For this week’s Sunday “Bad” Movie post, I watched the two Transmorphers movies. These are two movies produced by The Asylum
in 2007 and 2009 that took their core premises from the blockbuster Michael Bay
Transformers series. The first in the franchise came out around
the same time as the first in Michael Bay’s franchise, and the second was
released around the time of the sequel.
Like most of Asylum’s releases, the Transmorhpers
movies are meant to cash in on the success of the movies they are ripping off,
confusing people in movie rental stores (the few that are left) and online
streaming services, when they accidentally pick these movies up instead of the
mainstream ones.
The Asylum tends to take liberties with the stories they
tell. They might be ripping off
something more famous or popular, but the stories tend to be their own and fit
their own mold. The movies follow a
certain set of criteria for the most part.
In my post for Rise of the Zombies,
I outlined five of the main concepts that seem to appear in the movies produced
by The Asylum. I’ll review them now very
quickly before I get right into this post.
The first of the concepts is the fact that the movie is
based on an established property.
Whether that means a franchise, a single movie, or even a television
show, the Asylum movie should be a knock-off.
In many cases, the title is a rip-off of the title of the known
property. Other times, it is only the
core concept of the movie. This concept is essential in getting people to watch
the movie. If you can confuse them into
thinking it is something else, they will watch it.
Concept 2 is that the movies produced by The Asylum have at
least one recognizable actor in them.
This is more common in the more recent Asylum movies than the ones that
came near the beginning of the company’s reign of direct-to-video rip-offs. The actors themselves might not be huge
stars. They could be someone who was
supporting in a bunch of stuff. They
could be a person who had one big role that they are known for. As long as people could see the actor and
think “Hey, I know that person” it is enough for The Asylum.
Bad effects is the third concept because no Asylum produced
movie is complete without the subpar effects that give the action that the
mainstream movie would typically have.
The effects are usually very poor quality. In many cases, they are outright
laughable. Because of the low budget of
the movies, the effects can’t really get the funding to be of a higher
quality. That’s The Asylum for you.
Onto concept four which is that one of the main female
characters must be a doctor, scientist, or stripper. Must is such a strong word. Most of the time this is the case with The
Asylum movies, though. Why these three
professions? I’m not exactly sure on
that one. The strippers aren’t as often
as the other two, and may in fact not be a part of the equation. It is mostly in here from when I watched 200MPH, a movie that has yet to be
featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
Doctor and scientist are two sure-fire jobs for women in most Asylum
films.
The fifth and final concept is basically an offshoot of the
first one. In the rip-off movies, the
plot usually seems to get more outrageous than the movie it is based on. This one really needs an example to be
explained properly. I will use Snakes on a Train for this one. Snakes
on a Plane involved people trapped on a plane with snakes that were put in
the storage hold by a criminal. Snakes on a Train takes a different
approach. The snakes come from inside
people, and when they attack other people, those other people release snakes. Then a snake grows and eats the train. That is a lot more insane than Snakes on a Plane.
The reason that I wanted to restate each of these concepts
for movies produced by The Asylum is that I wanted to take the remainder of
this post and write about how the two Transmorphers
movies fit into the five concepts. The
more that they fit, the more stereotypically Asylum the movies are. I will go through each concept with each of
the two movies to determine whether or not that concept is a part of the movie. So, without any further rambling on this part
of the subject, let’s get into the first of the two Transmorphers movies.
Transmorphers
Before I go over the different concepts and how they relate
to this specific movie, let me explain the story of this movie. In the future, the human race has been driven
underground by the robots that now rule the Earth. The atmosphere is bad, and it is dangerous on
the surface. A group of soldiers goes on
a mission to end the mechanical threat and bring the world back to the healthy
state it was at before their arrival.
Transmorphers is
clearly a take on the first Transformers
movie; however, the story is drastically different. The title alone makes the movie fit the first
of the Asylum criteria. Transformers is a very close title to Transmorphers. And, at their core, both movies are about
humans having to deal with dangerous, shape-shifting robots coming to
Earth. But Transmorphers takes place in a future world that has been overrun
by robots, so that’s different. There is
still enough present to fit the first concept.
That means that we’re at 1/5.
There’s nobody in Transmorphers
that could have been used for name recognition at the time. Most of them had done small parts in many
movies and television shows previous to being in the movie, but nobody had any
real star power at the time when it was released. We are still at 1/5 for the concepts that
this movie hits.
Bad effects is a concept that is readily apparent throughout
Transmorphers. With all of the different robots that have to
transform into giant death machines, effects are required throughout the movie. None of these effects look all that
good. In fact, many of them look
downright terrible. They look like
computer graphics from the show ReBoot,
but placed in a live action setting. The
movie definitely fits this part of the Asylum criteria, so we have now gotten
to 2/5.
Fourth up is female doctor or scientist. I do believe this one is not present in the
movie. The doctor/scientist in Transmorphers is a man. However, he does have an assistant who is
female. Maybe that’s stretching the
definition of female a little bit. His
assistant is an android made to be female.
I would consider this about halfway there, so I’m going to give the
movie half a mark. 2.5/5.
Finally, we come to how outrageous the movie is compared to
the first Transformers movie. Does Transmorphers
top that movie in terms of insanity? That’s
difficult to say. In Transformers, there are two factions of
robots fighting against each other, with Earth being their battleground and the
humans ending up in the middle of the war.
Transmorphers simplified this
by making it humans versus robots, without any robot versus robot stuff. Then again, we do find out there are androids
within the humans, so I guess there are robots versus robots in a small
sense. In Transformers, the robots transformed into vehicles. In Transmorphers,
they transformed into any mechanical device.
Plus, the atmosphere was destroyed in the rip-off. I guess I have to give it to Transmorphers.
That leaves Transmorphers
with a 3.5/5. That’s pretty Asylum of
the movie. There are some movies that
are more stereotypically Asylum, yet there are many more movies that aren’t as
Asylum as Transmorphers. Let’s see how the sequel (actually a prequel)
stacks up with the criteria.
Transmorphers: Fall
of Man
Because this movie is a prequel, the story takes place prior
to Transmorphers. It follows a group of people in a small town
who are dealing with the initial coming of alien robots to Earth. They must band together to try and stop the
otherworldly threat from destroying the planet they live on. And it all leads to the world being engulfed
by a toxic atmosphere, and humans being driven underground (the setting for the
first movie).
Obviously, the movie fits with the first concept of the
Asylum blueprint, as it is ripping-off Transformers
again. Though, the title is even better
than the first with Fall of Man
playing off of Revenge of the Fallen. Get it?
They both have fall in them. As for the story, it fits with Transformers in that it involved alien
robots coming to Earth and causing destruction.
That gives Transmorphers: Fall of
Man a 1/5 so far.
The second concept that needs to be covered is the inclusion
of an actor who is known for his or her work in another movie or television
show. Unlike the first Transmorphers movie, the second one
actually has this. It features an actor
named Bruce Boxleitner. He is known for
his work in Babylon 5, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Tron (he played the character
Tron). This is enough star-power to
allow The Asylum to use his name for selling the movie. That’s a second point, moving Transmorphers: Fall of Man up to 2/5.
Honestly, the effects in Transmorphers:
Fall of Man are decent. For the most
part, that is. The robots actually look
okay. But, there’s still a lot of
weakness in laser blasts and explosions.
So that means that criteria number three is covered. There are bad effects in the movie, and
that’s what The Asylum tends to do. The
movie is now at 3/5.
The fourth thing I need to look for is a female doctor or
scientist, and that’s easy enough to find.
One of the main characters, and the first to know the problem that is
unfolding, is a female scientist. So,
yeah, that’s in the movie, and that brings the score up to 4/5.
But Transmorphers:
Fall of Man is not a perfect Asylum movie.
Sadly, it doesn’t quite fit the final criteria of what makes an Asylum
movie an Asylum movie. It does not
out-crazy Transformers: Revenge of the
Fallen. It might actually be the
better movie too. The characters are
more defined, the humour isn’t as offensive, it has a story you can follow
easily, and it is more restrained. If it
weren’t for the big budget, Transformers
could be the Asylum version of itself. Transmorphers: Fall of Man tops out at a
4/5 on the Asylum scale.
As you can see, some movies fit the Asylum archetype better
than others. The differences in what
they have or lack don’t make them any less Asylum, though. Some of the movies don’t feature anyone
famous. Others, like The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, aren’t
even rip-offs. But they all feel like
they come from The Asylum because The Asylum is more than a studio. It is a brand. At this point in time, the brand is just as
important to the success of these movies as the actor, the source material, or
the quality. People see the name Asylum
and they think of Sharknado or the
countless other movies by the studio that have been featured on SyFy. People are now watching the movies based on
the studio as much as anything else.
The Asylum began as a studio putting out cheap
knock-offs. It still does that, as can
be seen by the ever increasing number of Asylum produced knock-offs that I’ve
seen for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. But
the studio is growing out beyond that.
As such, the criteria will likely grow as I see more of their
movies. They even have a television show
called Z Nation that airs on
SyFy. They’ve basically become this
generation’s Troma. What will come of
the studio in the future? Only time will
tell.
There are a few notes for you guys and then we’ll be done
for this week:
- Jason S. Gray was in Transmorphers. He had previously been featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Snakes on a Train.
- Shane van Dyke was the star of Transmorphers: Fall of Man. He was also the star of Paranormal Entity.
- I mentioned The Coed and the Zombie Stoner and Rise of the Zombies in this week’s post.
- Other movies by The Asylum that I have covered are Two-Headed Shark Attack, Nazis at the Center of the Earth, and Bermuda Tentacles.
- Have you seen either of the Transmorphers movies? Have you seen any movies from The Asylum? What movie do you think is the most Asylum of all Asylum movies? There’s a comments section below where you can discuss all of this and more.
- If there’s a movie that you think I should discuss for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can tell me in the comments, on Twitter, or in an email at sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.
- Next week’s movie is a little movie called Freaked. It comes from Alex Winter, of Bill and Ted fame. I’ve not seen it before, so this is going to be interesting. See you next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment