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Transformers One with Adam Davenport
28 Plays8 hours ago
This is a very special episode as Doug is joined by his brother Adam to talk the latest entry in a childhood favorite franchise - Transformers! Is there more than meets the eye? Does Josh Cooley have the juice (or whatever the machine equivalent is..oil?)?
Oh and SPOILERS FROM THE TOP
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Transcript
Introduction to Adam Davenport and Transformers
00:00:31
Speaker
All right. Well, uh, this is a special edition of These Guys Got Juice. And, uh, I'm here with my brother, Adam Davenport, who's an actor, acting coach, member of BAFTA. And we're talking, uh, Transformers and Transformers One. Thanks for coming on, Adam. Of course, my pleasure. This is a ah nice, uh, milestone to be being interviewed by my brother on this podcast. So look at that.
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, well, hopefully it's the first of many. I mean, because I like, you know, you you you have a lot of insight into film and specifically from the vantage point of being an actor, you bring a perspective that I think that, you know, we haven't had any other actors on the pod so far. So, you know, i i having that insight and that perspective is makes for, I think it's going to make for an interesting discussion. So, yeah, I guess to start,
Childhood Memories and Toy Culture
00:01:27
Speaker
Uh, what's your relationship with transformer? I mean, you watch the cartoon as a, as a kid, right? Yeah. Well, like any child in the eighties, um, you know, I had my share of, of transformer, uh, vehicles. And I also remember there were different tie-in, I think there's a tie-in at one point with McDonald's. They, uh, so every Friday begging.
00:01:53
Speaker
Mom, I wanted a happy meal. I could hopefully get another cheaply made you McDonald's version of a transformer vehicle. But you when you're seven years old, they're not cheaply made. These are you vessels into your you imagination. And so And so i it's think for a lot of young people,
00:02:16
Speaker
Transformers are arguably their introduction to car culture. And so it certainly was that for me. But yeah, three big franchises for me as a kid growing up, Transformers, He-Man, and Ghostbusters. So those were definitely, it was a definitely formative part of my childhood. But I didn't really, I can't i remember anything beyond that. I did watch the animated series. You know, I remember the the song. Oh, sure. You know, iconic. More than meets the eye. But other than that, I don't remember any storyline. I just remember basically you've got Autobots on the righteous side and then you've got Decepticons on the, you know, antagonistic side. So beyond that, I had have no context beyond that.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I'm not a child of of 80s, but I definitely saw reruns of the original cartoon. and i you know I was a big toy kid, so I definitely had some toys. That's interesting what you said about an intro to car culture, because I definitely had multiple vehicles of just different... fra Whether it was a like Transformer, the Ghostbusters toy line had a lot of crazy different vehicles from the cartoon of that. But I just ah really only have interest of cars when it's through other media. Movie cars are cool, but then in real life cars, I mean, it's like, ah, it's just, you know, get you A to B, utility. I don't geek out over car stuff. But I think that was the gateway drug for people who did get really in into cars, probably.
00:03:52
Speaker
or Hot Wheels too, I guess was the other big car-based toy line. I was never like a Hot Wheels kid, but yeah, similar, I don't remember. I know the characters kind of basically because they have pretty distinct like looks, but terms of lore and storyline, I maybe recall more from there was a like 90s spin-off that had definitely bad by today's standard 3D animation, Beast Wars. I remember that there was like some time travel stuff going on in that show or something. Yeah, I really don't remember any of these storylines. and
00:04:26
Speaker
I kind of fell off of the franchise during like the Bay movies. I was a pretty like one the second one. I was like, these aren't for me. And then pretty much just my fandom was dormant until now.
New Transformers Movie Themes
00:04:39
Speaker
Who is Josh Cooley? I don't know this director. I was i looking at up. He's worked on some other animated stuff, I think, just as an animator, not a director. Like the main other movie that he directed that I recognized was ah The The Last Toy Story, Toy Story 4, which was, i honestly, I think it was pretty, I was one of those people, I think a lot of people after three were like, it was a perfect ending of three, they don't need to,
00:05:06
Speaker
Make another one I just remember there being a lot of skepticism and then four is actually like way better than it you would think or has any right to be and this movie too I think similarly I think just based on at least for a lot of like people my age like are Just like the commercials made it look like that this was going to be extremely kitty and have like, you know, a sense of humor that's for that demographic. And, you know, I probably would have gone around to seeing it eventually like on a home video or something, but like just all the word of mouth from like you and other people saying like, no, this is like legit good. I was like, oh, I should probably see this then. And turns out to be right. This is a really good movie.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's thematically deep. I mean, there it's really resonates on ideas of friendship, then, of course, betrayal and then corruption. And, you know, what is loyalty? What is what when you have uncovered a scandal? Do you what do you do? Do you do the right thing?
00:06:17
Speaker
Uh, you know, I forget what character gripes. This is why you don't go to the surface. Cause at first he's complaining that he, he's, you know, been made self-aware of how they they're being deceived. Was that, um, was that was complaining about? No, I think it was, uh, Brian Tyree Henry D 16 who becomes mega truck. I mean, like, yeah. and Yeah. He says.
00:06:42
Speaker
I think they did his arc really well in terms of like, we, I mean, if you have any familiarity just by the look of these characters, you can kind of, you like, oh, Orion's gonna become optimist. And like, you kind of see where they're headed. You know, like that's the thing with origin stories that you're kind of ahead of like, where are the things going? But like, because I don't remember any of the, I mean, some of this could be invented for just this. Cause I was like, was there ever an origin where like,
00:07:08
Speaker
uh Optimus and Megatron like used to be close friends maybe there is and I just don't don't know about that but I thought that was like an original take and then this whole idea of like that uh John Hamm uh Sentinel Prime had been like exploiting their labor I mean if you're talking about the themes are deep in it like yeah it's got it's kind of about a workers uh uprising and then how So a villainous person could like co-op that for their own power, you know, like Megatron is tech. He's correct in the fact that they're being exploited and this isn't right with what's in the prime zoom. But then he's like using that then to like, you know, elevate himself. So it was like this kind of.
00:07:48
Speaker
dealing with some ah ah headier themes than I would have expected. I was like, this kind of, you know, shares more in common with like other science fiction, like stuff like Dune or something than than like, just like a ah kid's cartoon. So like, I, I like that there's actually like thematically and emotionally some stuff to dig into because I I did feel that love between Optimus and Megatron, that closeness, that they they were brothers
Character Development and Real-World Parallels
00:08:13
Speaker
in a way. you
00:08:15
Speaker
And I like... Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. What were you about to say? No, I was just like... ah The little glimpses you get of this the city on Cybertron, from just my cursory, what I remember, like Cybertron was like, yeah, that's where they came from the planet. But then all the Transformers stuff happens on Earth. So I didn't I was like, yeah, what would a machine city look like? Like, what's their culture? What what is this like? And like, i i there's just like a lot of cool insights into like how that would function.
00:08:46
Speaker
Well, I think this is function of having a really good screenplay. So it looks like there are three writers that collaborated on this.
00:09:00
Speaker
Andrew Bearer, Eric Pearson, Gabriel Ferrari, but Eric wrote Thor Ragnarok. I'm trying to see what Gabriel did, but ah did I never saw Ant-Man. Yeah. look like Paul Rudd, so he's just like automatically...
00:09:18
Speaker
it makes things fun. Like they're not my favorite movies overall. I mean, they they I like that they are a little different from the other Marvel stuff. At least the first two Ant-Man movies were like kind of heist movies. Like he's using the shrinking powers like go and he has to like steal a thing and break in. So like I liked I like that that they're almost like doing like Mission Impossible esque escapades, but with like a super suit or superpowers. So yeah, I think I think That makes sense that these guys come from a background of like writing so superhero stuff. And a lot of superhero stuff is origin stories. But this is like a really compelling like, yeah, again, I not to keep hammering over the head like that. I don't remember any of this lore. So like I'm sure there's going to be super fancy like, no, they did this before in this comic, in this cartoon.
00:10:08
Speaker
I mean, I was looking up some of the characters. I was like Scarlett Johansson's character. I was like, was she from something? And then, yeah, she was in the original 80s cartoon. It was like she's Optimus is like a top adviser or something. ah Alita, I was like, I do not remember this character.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think I I only really remember Optimus Megatron, the Sentinel and Bumblebee. You know, maybe like just I didn't I never heard of I don't recall Alpha Tron voiced, you know, very well by Lawrence Fishburne. It's almost cheating to cast him because his voice instantly makes everything compelling. And like when someone there's a skill to like being able to deliver exposition and not make it
00:10:59
Speaker
be clunky and like oh you just need to tell us how this world or our plot mechanic works but like that makes it interesting because like when he's giving the whole backstory of like how Sentinel Prime had deceived them all it it's cool it's engaging but then also they're doing this cool visual thing where it's like it's a hologram but it's almost like it's swirling around like dust particles it's like it's a cool visual match uh matched with like you know, an iconic voice. So it really he really sells the gravitas of like this, this great betrayal. And, you know, that's like the emotional crux. I mean, I guess Megatron and Optimus' relationship is the main emotional core of the thing. But then like this learning that this how they've been deceived and manipulated, that's what causes this rift between these. They seemed inseparable before, but now they they're going different paths.
00:11:53
Speaker
Well, that resonates because look at what's happening in the world and then becomes kind of a commentary on tribalism. Because we have people that have vastly different ideas of how we deal with corruption and you when our political leaders perhaps perhaps you know have led us astray or haven't delivered. have sometimes vastly different ideas of how we want to respond to that. So then this kind of dissension is what destroys and disrupts friendships. Look at look the 2016 election in America. You have so many people that stopped talking to even people in their own families.
00:12:39
Speaker
because of that divisiveness. So then you play that, you establish that. I think they did a very good job of building the arcs of of those two. um And the actors did a great job too. Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry. So it was all believable. And you see through these Are we, how are we, how are we describing them? They're, they're robots. They're like alien robots. Yeah. So they're machines. Yeah. Yeah. They're machines. So we're seeing through these machines, we're, we're recognizing ourselves.
00:13:19
Speaker
Well put, well put. And yeah, I love when the sci-fi can do that
Spiritual Themes and Cybertron Design
00:13:23
Speaker
and raise these parallels to ourselves. And the element that I'm pretty sure this is in other Transformers stuff, but like whenever Optimus is like, interacting with these the these original primes who are like have moved it almost seems like they've become part of the the planet's core which is like that that's like their god i guess who like created them you know it was the the original transformer he became this planet they live on but there's like there's kind of like a a a spirituality to like their whole
00:13:56
Speaker
you know setting and this so like because like towards the end when he like goes to the I know I'm jumping all around but like when he goes to the core and he actually you know is able to become uh Optimus Prime and then he ascends I thought that was it was really cool imagery but then I was like oh he's kind of like a Christ figure you know like he does he's he's betrayed and then he died you know quote-unquote dies and then he's like he's reborn better and you know he's And I don't know where they're going to go from here, from other, you know, are we going to keep doing sequels to lead up to like, I, you know, the Transformers that we know starting, but he's supposed to be, you know, leading his people to, to freedom.
00:14:41
Speaker
I like what do you think about the visual style? I thought it was a really cool visual style. Yeah. Just the whole design of Cybertron, the city was great. I mean, I'm just into sci-fi cityscapes and I thought this was a cool way to realize how that looks. But then when you go above the surface, it's interesting because there's like overgrown you know like the kind of look of what post-apocalyptic things were like oh this vegetation's overgrown and stuff you get a little bit of that in some areas but it's interesting like oh so like there are this plant life is i assume organic so there's like organic stuff that grows on this machine planet and and
00:15:19
Speaker
and that has interesting because like yeah what does that mean and but then also there's like animals roaming around but they are machine there's like like robot deer they see when they first get up there like i thought all that was cool and like how the landscape itself like transforms and shifts there's like this like wave of like I don't even know what you call it. It's like these shifting crystals in the environment that derail the train car that they ride up to the surface on. So yeah, I thought that was all really creative. And just they evoking the original designs of a lot of these characters, but then in a way that's like they're not fully there yet, but you can see by the end of like, OK, this is how they they they become the Megatron or the Optimus
00:16:02
Speaker
uh we recognize and I thought oh it like yeah there's a lot of ways that ah ah like sometimes prequels for these franchise get a little too on the nose or annoying of setting up like oh did you know C3PO was made by Anakin actually it's like I did I don't know what that adds to my understanding of of of but this did avoid like all the things that sets up of like I mean, it's honestly adding a lot more tragic context to things like the emblem that like the iconic Decepticon emblem that is on all of them. you When you find out that it's like this prime that Megatron used to idolize and Optimus had got him this basically like this patch or I guess, since they're machines, it's like a decal that they put on that's like emblem of that prime. But then that becomes like this like tragic thing that he's all like branding. Because I don't know if you stayed till after the credits, you see him actually ah ah anoint them as Decepticon. You know, he's Brian Terry. Henry's making a speech of like, we won't be deceived again. We are the Decepticons. And he's like branding all the other robots to like with with that emblem. And it's like now it's like, oh, wow, that
00:17:12
Speaker
I thought it was just a cool emblem before. Now it has meaning behind it. I'm curious. Obviously, they have. Is it doing well? I think it's doing really well. I mean, yeah, I'm not always like tuned into box office stuff, but it's been holding and was number one for at least a couple of weeks. Honestly, it's probably going to, if it it hasn't already been announced what the box office for this weekend is i i don't i don't think the new joker is is like gonna be passing up it up pulling it down but it's and i think the word of mouth uh is just gonna lead to having legs uh because
00:17:50
Speaker
It's actually good. You know, like I don't think the marketing didn't do it any favors. Yeah, I don't know. Paramount Market Market your movies, but I guess. But despite that, it's it's doing well. So presumably they're going to you know, anything that does well has to have a follow up. So I didn't even know it I didn't know it was number one. There's not like a ton of other bigger things out right now. I mean,
00:18:19
Speaker
The substance is popular in the culture and is getting rave reactions to it, but I think they just decreased the amount of theaters it's playing in. like went to an even more limited run, probably leading up to, since it's movie distributed, it's going to be streaming their thing, but probably within a month or something. I mean, that's still doing pretty by scale like something that independent and and smaller.
Box Office, Marketing, and World-Building
00:18:42
Speaker
It's actually still making money. This weekend, it's number four, Transformers. Joker is number one this weekend. Oh, it it managed to get to number one. It's probably going to have a pretty steep fall though. The reaction to Joker has been pretty nice. Personally, not to get off topic to another a movie we just reviewed on here.
00:19:04
Speaker
I like this one better than the last one. I don't know if it's the Lady Gaga of it all or the musical. I thought they were doing something pretty interesting with that. But I also understand why fans of the first one would see this. My theater, I don't even think they knew it was a musical. Like each subsequent song, I could feel them turning against the mood. And the one one guy in the theater even said like, another one?
00:19:28
Speaker
They started singing. It was like, yeah, that's what happens if musicals keep singing. So. Yeah, OK. Well, I haven't seen I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I like to know what you think. I mean, not. Yeah, I'd be curious to know what you think once you see it. But anyway, back back to Transformers. Yeah, they do such a good job of building this world and like my kind of like ephemeral memory of like what happens in this world. of it starts coming back as things are being revealed or developed in the story. Like when you get the Steve Buscemi and he's like the leader of this, they were like the high guard of of the original primes. And so when they got
00:20:14
Speaker
ah ah betrayed like they became basically like guerrilla warfare fighters sabotage trying to sabotage central prime but then like the whole origin of like their leader uh who bishami is playing stars star screen and like he's always had this like garbly like even more robotic than the other one's voice. And the you origin of that, I guess, is that Megatron just like was choking him so much. It crushed whatever voice box or voice control thing so that he has this unusual
00:20:45
Speaker
pitch in his speech now, but then that then he becomes like Megatron's right hand, because I do remember that from the cartoon of the like, he would always be like, basically nagging Starscreen of like, like, yeah, it's Starscreen, you suck. So it wasn't, Megatron wasn't a kind ruler. So it was like, oh, this is like how that dynamic begins. And if, yeah, it was all compelling to me.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah. Like I said, I think their writing was smart. I think, uh, it was very aptly directed top notch voice talent. Um, everyone really, you know, treated the, I mean, I, in my screening, it was a Baptist screening. So, uh, but in a regular AMC theater. So I'd say half of the, the.
00:21:33
Speaker
Audience were just regular ticket paying members and then there are quite a few other BAFTA voters like myself, but everyone Because you can feel when people how people are responding to the movie everyone really seemed engaged and just a mere fact that Paramount is is Pushing it, you know for awards, you know because otherwise they wouldn't they wouldn't spend money and have an awards department and inviting us to screenings and such. So means that they really see the integrity of the movie and it's good that they're supporting this way because otherwise I never would have ever seen the movie.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, same. And I think it, well, I'm trying, you know, I don't always keep up with like the latest animated films. So I was trying to think, what would its competition be it's not, there was a Pixar movie, The Summer Inside Out, too. I didn't see that. I think the reception was kind of mixed to it. Because I liked the first Inside Out, but I think some people came out of this one like, and I didn't need a sequel, or they didn't really I mean, just based on how people have responded to this, I think i this has a shot of winning Best Animated Feature. ah was also, oh, Wild Robot or whatever that Lapita thing is. Nyong'o, she plays like a robot came out, I think, the same weekend. I've also heard mixed things to that. I mean, some people have come up, like, oh, I wept during this movie and then, Nick I mean I kind of saw I wish he was here so he could compare and contrast the two robot movies But he said ah ah it wasn't that the script was pretty bad was was his complaint I mean, and that's like you kept going back to the script of this I think that is one of the strongest besides the performances really selling like All this like the it is it's a good
Emotional Journey and Voice Acting
00:23:18
Speaker
script. It's a good movie so I mean if you're you're listening this deep you've probably already seen the movie but you just go see if you if you listen without
00:23:27
Speaker
seeing the movies first, just go see it. I mean, yeah, we we said the I guess spoiled it, but like it's still it's it's it's about the journey. And I i mean, for me, I was like along for the ride emotionally, like with those characters. And that that's that's a pretty great achievement, I think. Absolutely. So well done, guys. Well done, Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry.
00:23:54
Speaker
Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm, Keegan fire fire Michael Key, my God, yeah, an ensemble. So congrats to you guys and Steve Fishemi as well. Congrats to you all. Well done. Well done. Release upping the bar for... what can be achieved by an ensemble for voice acting? Yeah, because it felt like some animated movies, you can be like, oh, they recorded this separately. They weren't in like adjacent booths or anywhere recording their lines anywhere around the same time. But the energy with, especially with Megatron and Optimus, there was, you could feel the chemistry. So I'm curious, like, oh, did they actually like film or record their lines together? Because it kind of feels like they they hads had some,
00:24:39
Speaker
To have that kind of chemistry, I feel like would be harder to do if they recorded separately. I think they had to have Yeah, which is always, which is always better. Like, I mean, I guess they just do that separately for scheduling reasons. And that's the benefit ah of it being anime. But you can kind of, you know, for something where, you know, I've never thought, say this about a transforms movie, like the emotional impact of, of like the character arcs is, is important. Like it is important. in So like, you do need that, that kind of, you know, emotionality to be able to, to to really feel it.
Future Roles for Adam and Cybertron's Potential
00:25:12
Speaker
Who would you say is the MV? I mean, the whole ensemble is great. But if you had to pick one performance. Oh, you can't ask that of an actor. I can't. Yeah, I tried to trap you. and Seven years when I actually get to work with some of these guys and some fans going to find that clip and it's going to bite me in the ass. I can't, I can't answer that. I think everyone really was an awesome. Yeah. Let's, let's get you in one. I mean, they're going to make sequels. I don't, I don't remember all the transformer names, but there's for you to play one of these guys.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, because, yeah, I did start thinking about a lot of these days with bigger movies. I'm like, just tell me a good, contained story. Like, I don't don't make me think about the larger franchisification or sequel of things. But this one, because I was so excited coming out, I was like, yeah, so what would the sequel be like? Because I think just from what I vaguely know. i When they leave Cybertron to come to Earth, like it's not because things were going great there. So it's oh, this is there a war between Megatron, Optimus going to reach a boiling point, and that'll be fall of Cybertron. And then could probably make a whole trilogy out of just that. You don't even
00:26:28
Speaker
We could get several movies of like, we don't need them on earth because there's enough there like dramatically, I think to like, you know, have, have a full multiple movie arc out of, which would be, which would cool to see. Like I definitely will go see, you know, you get this crew back together, this cast and Josh Cooley looking forward to see what he does next. Cause yeah, he's, he's been nailing it. And a good, a good score too.
Film Score and Conclusion
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah. and like good What'd you think of that Quavo song during the credits? It was like Quavo and Ty Dollar sign or something. Oh, I don't remember that. I don't remember that, but I do remember Brian Tyler composed the score and I do happen to be Facebook friends with him. Oh, cool.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think he did. did. the He's done a lot of scores, but if I'm remembering correctly, he maybe did the Watchman score. I think I like the I like I liked all the ones I'm seeing on his IMDB that he did. If he did do Watchman, I did like that the score in that maybe maybe I'm thinking of a differentff someone else with Tyler.
00:27:35
Speaker
the name. That might be Tyler Bates, I'm thinking of actually. But the things I was just looking at ah ah of Brian Tyler, those are some good scores. And yeah, he definitely... Oh, this song you're talking about with Ty Doller's sign in Quavo, Brian sing the chorus. Oh, OK.
00:27:54
Speaker
That's cool. So yeah, fun fact. So So yeah, that's all. Thanks for my two cents on the movie. But yeah, I hope your listeners watch it and they can respond how they think about it. But yeah, I enjoyed this conversation very much.
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, well, thank you for coming on and ah ah love to have you for, you know, you're at ALR Screenings and something, leaves an impact on you that that want to talk about, like, you know, it's always, we we we we're pretty flexible here in terms of like, we cover, you know, there'll be like one new release each week, but then it's whatever else we want to talk about our cover like sometimes something will just fall and on our radar and like oh yeah we should talk about this so yeah any anything like that even even older movies because we have done you know not new releases so you know i'd love to have you on any time and
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah, it was a great time. I'll put all everyone's links to socials will be in the show notes. So follow Adam on all that stuff on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and the show's Twitter and my Twitter is also also in the show notes. So, yeah. Check that out and rate five star if if you leave a five star rating and like actually write out a review We will read it on I mean we did that Last last month and you know, we appreciate that you guys seem to be responding to this positively So yeah, just just shout out leave a leave a comment or something with with with your your star rating and We'll shout you out. But yeah, thanks for listening and and and thanks for coming on Thanks for listening to my brother's podcast guys