More than meets the Eye

Despite having seen countless comic book characters (alright three to be precise) "come alive" on the big screen, not to mention Pirates of the Caribbean, I still could not help but chuckle when I saw Hasbro® on the screen. But I guess now I have seen it all, unless of course they make a major motion picture based on the Geico cave men.
Transformers, I am afraid starts with a rather unsatisfying back-story. Which leaves many questions unanswered. Is this CUBE of intelligent design? The fact that it has hieroglyphs would seem to indicate this. If so, what became of this intelligence? Has anyone ever tried to decipher the hieroglyphs? Why does Bumblebee keep transforming into that junky old camaro? And did we really need all those movie references? (I suppose the ET one was obligatory, but six? Two or three would have been quite enough.) A lack of a sound foundation regarding the principle dialectic leaves somewhat of a quandary in the body of the narrative. What reason do we have for thinking that the Autobots are "good" and the Disepticons are "bad"? Besides the rather pragmatic and even narcissistic principle that the Disepticons kill humans and the Autobots don’t. This problem might have been overlooked (this is after all a movie based on a line of toys) had not Optimums Prime decided in the middle of everything to get philosophical, borderline preachy. He tells us that all sentient beings have the right to chose, blah blah blah. Where is he getting this? Was there some Mosesatron, who climbed up Mount Siniatron and brought back these transcendent truths to them, or is Prime just making it up as he goes? And although Magatron certainly fits the typical villain profile in our post post post western culture, one has to admit that his hatred for humans is at least partly justified. One notable good thing about the movie is Starscreem. Though he does not get a lot of screen time, his character seems to have transformed from a whinny ass, ambitious lieutenant to a credible rival to Magatron. And since he seems to be the only Disepticons to escape, he should play a more significant and pivotal roll in the next film, which I'd bet my ridiculous blogger salary is coming.