Movie press release deconstruction: the REAL message of the new “Transformers” theme park ride.

There’s been a whole lot of breathless squabbling going on about the announcement from Universal that they’re planning to add a “Transformers” ride attraction to their theme parks in Singapore and Hollywood. And while some may view this as good news to fans of overpriced amusements worldwide, I think you deserve to know the real story behind the new ride – especially because, in order to build it, Universal will scuttle its classic 1992-ish “Backdraft” attraction, a decision which impacts me personally and inconsolably.

Here’s a look at the press release, with my clarifications into the PR flack’s lingo below.

1. Rather than following the storytelling or goal-oriented nature of “usual” theme park rides, Universal’s “Transformers” attraction will instead follow Michael Bay’s narrative inventions and will choose a random, chaotic course on each visit that leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing.
2. Theme park visitors will experience what it’s actually like to inhabit a Michael Bay movie in one section of the ride in which they’ll get to run in super-slow motion across a bullet-pocked battlefield while explosions erupt awesomely behind them. Following this will be another room in which riders will get to debate exactly why the slow motion was necessary.
3. The “Transformers” ride will be guided by automated female robots who will look like porn stars, shoot guns like stuntmen, and talk like no female human has ever talked in recorded history.
4. Michael Bay’s signature style will again manifest when roughly 150 innocents will be violently killed on the ride each day even though their deaths will go unnoticed and unremarked upon.
5. In keeping with Bay’s visual aesthetic, one part of the ride will surround theme park visitors will thousands of dramatically waving American flags. No matter which way riders turn, they will be unable to escape the mesmerizing and stirring site of so many flags, waving so very very spectacularly.
6. Riders will experience unprecedented interactivity, and will actually be able to choose the kind of humor to be infused throughout the experience. The comedy selections will include:
1. Lispy Gay Stereotypes
2. Jive-Talking Urban Thugs
3. Pre-Adolescent Bathroom Humor
4. Genitals
7. Upon completion of each ride section, “Transformers” riders will only be allowed to advance by approaching a microphone and shouting BayMacho® lines of dialogue such as “Let’s go do some business!” or “You did NOT just shoot that!” or “Danny get me to a goddamn plane! ” or “Now let’s turn this bomb off! “
8. At the end of the ride’s 2.25 hour duration, visitors will pass through an area where they will experience Bayphoria®, an exciting new atmospheric technology which will fill them with a sense of exhilaration upon leaving, but which will also cause them, 10 minutes later, to realize that they have no f***ing clue what just happened.