Kids and cars

The other day I spent half an hour trying to assemble a car for my 2-year old son. It was an Autobot inspired by the Chevrolet Spark. The Covenant Car Company Inc, the distributor of Chevrolet in the Philippines, had graciously hosted a premiere movie screening of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and given away several dozen of the toys as door prizes. My kid can relate to Handy Manny and just loves Elmo, but the Transformers are probably several years away from full-blown appreciation. Yet his first encounter with “Sparks” elicited instant joy. No need to explain what he is or what’s the difference between an Autobot and a Decepticon, just “Open car, dada!”

Being the proud masochist that I am, I refrained from consulting the toy’s manual, which meant the poor Autobot suffered through more pretzel-like contortions and several snapped-off limbs than if the family dog had gotten to it first. Those toys didn’t use to be so complicated. I remember easily transforming my favorite Autobot toy, “Sideswipe”, into his Lamborghini Countach form in just a few seconds.

After leaving my kid’s Transformer in the hands of an expert (his mom, who fortunately knows how to read a manual unlike me), I checked the movie critic websites for their take on Michael Bay’s latest robo-blockbuster. Predictably, they didn’t like it for all the reasons a critic is supposed to rate a movie by: poor acting, cumbersome plot, too much sound and fury signifying… nothing?

Truthfully, I found the movie too long by about half an hour, and perhaps it was because I and my wife were seated at the very last row of the theater that made the 3D more of a headache than a viewing pleasure. And yet after digesting what we’d just seen after a few days I came to realize the genius of Michael Bay, and the Transformers franchise as a whole: it’s about being a kid again, playing imaginary battles with toys, sticking to a hackneyed script but with a sacred ending: the Good Guys must always prevail. God forbid that Optimus Prime really die, but Megatron deserves the most painful ending possible. Oscars? Tomato meters? Who cares?

Funnily enough, as the final, epic battle was playing on the screen, I had a vivid recollection of one game I played in the living room when I was about 6 or 7 years old. As my parents watched me play, I pitted Autobots against Decepticons, and threw in a few Gobots (remember those?), some Matchbox cars , and a couple of Hot Wheels into the fray. I didn’t have any GI Joe toys because my dad told me, “Boys don’t play with dolls”. Cars and robots were fine by him, though.

The “good guys” won, of course. As they should always do in the movies. For what is TDOTM than an epic toy battle, only more entertaining because you get really big robots, really nice cars, you don’t have to make up the dialog, and you’ll see more cool stuff blown up real good on screen than you ever had as a kid. Few kids ever had the courage to dismember their limited collection of Transformers; Michael Bay provides that vicarious, liberating experience of smashing, hitting, and decapitating a small army of them with the help of CGI and a refusal to make the movie more serious, more “cerebral” like Dark Knight.

Thanks to the movies, Chevrolet has also raised its exposure to an otherwise jaded market. Who can ever look at a Camaro and not imagine it suddenly transforming into “Bumblebee”? Or see the Spark and instantly think of its character “Skids”?

So it is with this realization that I watched my son warm up to his new toy. First, the basic roll along the floor. Then the inevitable bump (actually, more like a controlled crash) into another toy car. Then out came the other cars in his collection. Soon he was lost in the make believe world of cars and games adults can only wistfully recall.

For as long as children are children, and adults have a sense of humor and a willingness to suspend disbelief, Michael Bay can do as many Transformers  movies as he can think of new, epic battles for his wonderfully elaborate toys.

Here’s a very incisive comment from one of our regular Backseat Drivers (one that piqued our curiosity as well)…

I’m glad to know that there’s a plan to connect C5 to the Skyway and also Skyway to Coastal Road. Maybe they could start to consider a plan to have a highway to bypass Tagaytay going to Nasugbu as well. And improving C3, the road is in such a state of disrepair and the trucks are all over the place. One thing I notice, though – these are all in Luzon, which is good, but what about the Visayas and Mindanao areas? I’ve been assigned in the Visayas for over three years and one project that got mothballed (I think) is the bridge connecting Iloilo and Bacolod. I heard from the locals that politicians and businessmen having a stake on the RORO and shipping biz there are blocking it. Also, Cagayan de Oro traffic is getting worse, they should add routes there to improve it. Hope they look into these as well.

Lastly, why is it that I’ve never heard any update regarding the completion of the STAR tollway? Just a few months ago, the accidents that happened there created so much news and yet to date, I’ve not seen any news to complete the highway. – brondial