Taking a well-known element from a specific type of media and transforming it into a new one is a rather challenging task (Varela, 2012), yet, for obvious financial reasons, the specified framework has been used in movie industry a countless number of times (Manning & Sydow, 2007), with a predictably sad outcome in most cases. In their attempt to cash in on a popular character, most media producers fail to recognise the key principles and values that the source material was based on; as a result, the end product happens to be not only convoluted and practically pointless, but also filled with the ideas that distort the very nature of the original TV series, therefore, jeopardising the success and viability of the franchise (Carroll, 2009).
The specified process of altering the source material could be viewed as an attempt to incorporate diversification (Sutherland, 2012) and vertical integration (Bresnahan & Levin, 2012) into traditional media (Hesmondhalgh, 2012). Indeed, whereas modern media evolves consistently due to the technological advances and the opportunities for intercultural communication that they create, traditional media is quite hard to diversify. The above-mentioned Transformers franchise is a graphic example of the phenomenon in question; despite substantial financing of the project it still turned out hackneyed and half-baked due to the misinterpretation of the source material.
When it comes to locating an appropriate critical reading, one should bear in mind that the opinion regarding the destruction of the Transformers franchise van, in fact, be considered unanimous (Brody, 2014). Whereas the first movie that launched the plague of awful renditions of the source material had mixed reviews (Starns, 2007),the ones that ensued made it quite clear that the translation of the original ideas into the consumerist culture of the 21st century did not add attractiveness to the concept that was already silly to begin with (Jagernauth, 2014).
Reference List
Bresnahan T. F. & Levin, J. D. (2012). Vertical integration and market structure. Web.
Brody, R. (2014). Michael Bay’s meticulous excess. New Yorker. Web.
Carroll, R. (2009). Adaptation in contemporary culture: Textual infidelities. New York, NY: A&C Black.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2012). Cultural industries (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Jagernauth, K. (2014). Review: Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ starring Mark Wahlberg. The Playlist. Web.
Manning, S. & Sydow, J. (2007). Transforming creative potential in project networks: How TV movies are produced under network-based control. Critical Sociology, 33(1), 19–42.
Starns, J. (2007). Transformers. Coming Soon. Web.
Sutherland, R. (2012). Sound recording and radio: Intersections and overlaps. In Urquhart. P. & Wagman, I., Cultural Industries.ca: Making sense of Canadian media in the Digital Age. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer & Company.
Varela, M. D. M. (2012). Critical analysis on the communicative process between children’s magical realism literature and animation movies: conceptual primitivism aesthetic context for the referential problems on children’s texts. Comunicação e Sociedade, 18(1), 117–132.