An Ode to Jazz the Fallen

Like a lot of the older cartoons, I remember Transformers as a moral and heroic struggle against Megatron and his evil Deceptacons. I sneered at Starscream, cheered for Optimus and laughed at Jazz. But I was never really "into" the cartoon. I remember as much of it as I remember from Voltron and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- namely the toys that came along with the shows.

Then a new Transformers appeared, with a new look, new characters and a darker tone than its squeaky clean predecessor. The show, Beast Wars, ran each morning at 6:30 a.m., the perfect time for a teenager to watch TV while I got ready for school. That show probably kept me from being tardy two or three times a week.

It was one of the first shows where the good guys didn't always win -- in fact, they often lost spectacularly and not because the bad guys cheated, but because the heroes had their own flaws. Apparently, the few characters was an accident that came about because it would have cost too much to have more characters digitally animated.

It worked.

Each character had a distinct personality, they were robots with souls, with senses of humor, failings and strengths. It engrossed me, I followed the three-season series as closely as I could.

And then last night, I went to see the new Transformers movie. The best thing I can say is that it's a series of computer generated action sequences loosely strung together by the best efforts of Shia LeBoeuf. Michael Bay surely must have spent all of his money convincing the voice actor behind the original Optimus to return for this movie.

It lacked that overwhelming sense of heroism from the first series and the character development from the second. It made poor use of some talented actors (John Turturro, Jon Voight) and of some not-so talented actors (cough-Tyrese-cough).

For a movie tagged "More than meets the eye," it was anything but.