Megatron, motherfucker! He's back and this time he's a tank! A TANK! Boy I wish I could transform. I could be anything.

I'll tell ya, I am a developing a sickly parasitical relationship with the suckness that is the Transformers movie franchise. I think it was when I was watching the Blu-Ray a couple of weeks ago and thought to myself, 'you know, the design of the new Megatron isn't that bad,' that I realized I had a problem.

Speaking of problems, here's a fella can't get hired for shit, so he decided to go bananas on Craigslist. It's so filthy, internal security won't even let me open it on my work computer. (Which makes me wonder how they're gonna handle a post that starts with the words "Megatron motherfucker.")

Let me take a minute (once again) to wax Michael Giacchino's car. Any man who trots out John Williams' Lost World theme for the Oscar telecast deserves a bit of praise. I downloaded the 3 Lost season scores, and though I always liked the music on the show, I don't think I had a clear understanding of how freakishly well-laid-out it is until the "John saviour" theme got brought out rather subtly in one track at the tail end of season 1. This Giacchino dude really did map the whole thing out, huh? By the time you're into the mid-third season the thematic relationships are nothing short of mind-boggling (and oh so listenable). He must be one of six people in the world who actually knows what the frick the end of the story is. New Best Composer Ever?

"He walks among us, but he is not one of us." - Jack Shephard's tattoo

"An Eagle Cleaves the Emptiness" - Matthew Fox's tattoo

(...BUT WHICH IS THE REAL TATTOO...??)

I think about Lost, and (unrelatedly) life, a lot these days.

Posted by tederick at 11:51 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & megatron & miscellaneous crap & movies & scars
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Although I made protestations and claims this way in the years preceding, 2007 was definitely the year my toy collecting went "smaller, more awesome" which is something that probably should have happened way sooner. Now, I have bins and bins of old Hasbro Star Wars figures under my bed that I'll probably never drag out again. But in the plus column, the stuff currently on my shelves rocks all kinds of the socks. Here are the highs:

#1: Jabba the Hutt (Sideshow)

It's big, it's barely articulated, and the throne weighs more than my girlfriend (and I had to carry it home from the Silver Snail on the TTC in lousy Smarch weather). But if I own a single thing that fully expresses my lifelong love affair with the sheer gorgeousness of Return of the Jedi, it's this. Absolutely, in every way, a flawless rendition of a piece of my soul.

#2: Big Fucking Megatron (Takara Masterpiece series #05)

When I was a lad, Megatron was my favourite Transformer... in fact, I can't recall owning any other Transformers although I suppose I must have. Well anyways, with the new movie upon us with its abysmally redesigned Megatron, I got sentimentally oldschool on the leader of the Decepticons, and since buying a vintage Gen-1 Megatron toy costs about as much as buying this Masterpiece Series edition from Japan, I went with the latter because he is, after all, BIG FUCKING MEGATRON. Now I have the Megatron my grandmother bought me when I was 10, and the sheer fricking awesomeness of this toy which does, in every way, express every single thing I thought was cool about the character when I was a kid, right down to the glowing red light in his arm-cannon. Takes too fucking long to transform, but otherwise brilliant.

#3: Sao Feng, the Pirate Lord of Singapore (Hot Toys At World's End Series)

Oddly enough, the Hot Toys Pirates toy I almost didn't order ended up being the one I like the most. The Jack and Elizabeth are both somewhat disappointing, but Sao Feng is fucking spectacular. The costume, the sculpt, the accessories... this couldn't be done better. Oddly enough the Will Turner being released in the spring looks to be along the same line... now let's have a Barbossa to complete the set, yeah?

#4: Boromir, Man of Gondor (Sideshow)

After stumbling awkwardly with Aragorn and, to a lesser extent, Leggy, this Boromir is actually the best human Sideshow toy I own. It's perfect. The costume detailing literally boggles the mind (even if it did take me a solid hour to figure out how the fuck they tied their belts in Middle Earth, because it didn't come assembled), and I can't imagine a better Sean Bean sculpt if I tried.

#5: Ace and Ion (Kidrobot)

Aw c'mon. They're just so gall-darned cute!!

Posted by tederick at 9:14 AM in megatron & toys!
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Oddly enough, they both look so much happier and better-adjusted, post-fight. And so do I.

Posted by tederick at 12:09 PM in arcana & megatron & toys! & youtubery
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Megatron destroyed Sao Feng, internet. I think as humans we tend to forget the sheer destructive power that robot kicks will do to a person's jaw. Yeah Sao Feng ain't getting up any time soon. I made hilarious videotape of the whole thing! Maybe if I'm feeling particularly 2.0 later I'll put it up on the Toub.

As we were at the Starbucks until closing last night recording the Mamo, and I'm at the Starbucks just after opening working on the Snapdragon, I can verify for my readers that goblin hoedowns do not take place at Starbuckses after hours. Or if they do, the goblins are unusually good at clearing away the evidence. Because this place looks exactly the same.

I added a fifth issue to Snapdragon; the plot is concluded at the end of issue 4 but the primary characters get sort of underserved by that issue so I wanted to tack one more on. The problem with 5 is, no plot at all. Soooooooo.... that's challenging. It's all just warm-up for the next thing anyway, which will be comprised of one part writing a new feature, and two parts shooting a new short. I am heartened by the degree that Diablo Cody is all over the movie news lately, hustlin' and flowin' with new movies and new TV shows for Steven Spielberg. Former stripper can dealmake! Good for her. Of course, if my name was Diablo, I wouldn't face the career challenges I currently face. But I'm not as burned up about that as I usedtacould.

It's pouring. I'm sailing on a new open Wi-Fi port because all of the old ones surrounding this Starbucks got unceremoniously shut down a couple of weeks ago. WERE GOBLINS INVOLVED? Time will tell.

Posted by tederick at 7:15 AM in megatron & movies & podcastery & the process & toys!
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12" Sao Feng: worth every bloody penny. (And the penny count? Not small.) This falls in line with my new goal of buying less crap but buying way better crap. This is tip top crap. And I got him delivered to work, Brainwave of the Year. No back-and-forth with FedEx for their refusal to leave it on my porch. No sir. Two words: receiving department. Can't believe I didn't twig to this before. I'm going to take him home and have him fight Megatron. Why? Because one of the things I realized last week at Tony Robbins was that in spite of the fact that I own all these toys, I like never play with them! That's changing starting right now. And it's all about cross-franchise throwdowns this week.

Speaking of cross-franchise throwdowns, today in "hilarious things to link to," Lance Henriksen playing guns with Ewen Bremner. You know, there are days when I really don't want to know what it's like at Lance Henriksen's house. Is it really fun? Really scary? Sort of boring? I'm sure there's an answer, and I don't want it. I just want to ruminate.

When I was a kid we had this crazy dealie you plugged in to the ass of a Nintendo video game and then when you plugged the whole thing into the Nintendo, it did crazy shit like give you a billion bonus lives or make Super Raccoon Mario into a kind of living god. My question is: is there a Game Genie for the Wii? Cuz if so I gotta get that thing happening. Imagine what I could do to those motherfucking zombies if I was a Super Raccoon Mario.

I am feeling much better, thank you Internet for asking and for all your well wishes. Even the ones that were not technically English. Now I'm off to find a brownie and some ice cream.

Posted by tederick at 3:54 PM in megatron & toys! & wii & zombies
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Kurt Vonnegut - dead!

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie - not coming to Canada!

All-Star Superman #7 - awesome!

Transforming Megatron - fucking impossible!

Lost 3.19 - flashbackless!

Hot Docs press pass - achieved!

And the rest.

Posted by tederick at 10:14 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & comix & megatron & miscellaneous crap & movies & toys!
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Man, packaging sucks balls. Wait, listen: you hear that really faint slurping sound? That is packaging, laying tongue on a pair of balls, right now. Packaging is the big killjoy of toy collecting. I picked up both my Takara Megatron and Adventures of Ace and Ion today, and would have been happy as a felt rooster if I coulda gotten at either of them in less than fifteen minutes of futzing apiece. Plus, I am becoming more and more aware of the enormous environmental impact of my particular hobby. Given that I'm not a "keep it in the package" fellow by any stretch, I'd really love a toy company to get its shit together and start offering mailer-bag alternatives for collectors who don't need to gouge through a cardboard backer and three vacuformed layers of plastic bubble, and then go at the twist-ties with needle-nose pliers, to get at their toy. Fucking mail it to me as is. I'm happy.

Anyways the Megatron is freaking awesome - the kind of awesome where I put other toys away because I only want to look at Megatron - but something's not quite right with Ace and Ion. It's like they just don't fit with the rest of the toys. They're small and quiet and different. And so the fact that they don't fit actually makes me sad. Like actually physically sad. They're fuzzy and cute and seem optimistic, and they just don't know how to make it in my toyish world. Shit I might start crying here. Maybe I'll make Megatron their big brother / protector. OK am I empathizing a bit too much with the playthings? Yeah I think so.

Switching tracks: things are generally going well. I've got a colleague in from Vancouver this week (sweet, wondrous Vancouver) and we got some pretty goddamned good work done today if I do say so myself, like really excellent creative problem solving, which tends to thrill me no matter what. The bad news is that I seem to be getting sick, which is not surprising given the sheer quantity of germs I've been exposed to in the last ten days... the office is a freaking cesspool right now. Anyways it's been circling me for about 36 hours and my body seems to be putting up a really spectacular fight, because the illness is holding in the "cold and floaty" stage without moving on to the dry throat or the sniffles. So maybe I'll beat it off. Yeah. I think some beating off is in order.

I started storyboarding Portrait of a Young Artist in My Bed on Monday. I'm demi-proud of myself because at one point I became aware that I was doing the exact same shit I always do i.e. the bare minimum required to cover the scene, so I stopped, took a chill break (actually a Watch the Special Features on The Fly DVD Break) and in about fifteen minutes I was racing back to my sketchbook with a pretty lovely solution to the boring shot in question. Not by any means a filmic revolution in shot form, but a good keystone for the look of the flick as a whole and definitely not Business As Usual for my post-York visual style.

As I was telling someone today, I think writing the Terra comic book is genuinely improving my muscles when it comes to laying out a story visually. I'm thinking of writing my next movie script in comic book script format instead of as a traditional screenplay. It's just endlessly more interesting to be thinking visuals from the get go instead of waiting until after the other shit is there to start putting together the actual look of the thing. Dunno. It's a maybe.

OK, Steve just showed up for Lost Wednesday. I'll get back atcha later.

Posted by tederick at 9:24 PM in j-o-b & megatron & tederick films & toys!
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When I was a kid, Megatron looked like this.

He turned into a gun that looked like this.

Now in the new Transformers movie Megatron looks like THIS!!! and he turns into some kind of whackshit dumbfuck space whozit that looks like THIS!!!

Here's the old version and the new version standing side by side in case your memory is shot.

What. The. Fuck. No seriously, someone explain this to me because I don't get it. First of all, you don't fuck around with Megatron; Megatron fucks around with you. Second, Megatron does not need improvement; you're just lucky Megatron lets you walk around as flawed as you are. And most importantly, Megatron will fucking tell you if he needs to go somewhere. He doesn't need to fly there himself.

Thankfully, and perhaps in retaliation, I now own this. Respect the True Megatron.

Posted by tederick at 5:24 PM in megatron & toys!
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