DJ Paine

so my eldest son Drummond is now 5 1/2 years old and he is a Transformers freak. This was not by my choice. About a year ago – while he was still 4 years old – he was at “the cousins” place for the day {my brother Jamie’s -5 years & 5 days my junior a- and his wife Kylie’s place} – when he got back that night Drum was telling me all about Michael Bay’s first The Transformers film – now i was abit taken aback about this, that’s not a film i felt he was mature enough to see, and also i wasn’t a fan of that film. Then before you know he was over at my mum’s place and she had just bought the DVD of the movie! {she had seen the movie at the cinema and LOVED it} so of course Drummond and her watched it and once again i was bamboozled with my family, this time that my mum would show that to her little grandchild…
i was also a bit saddened that literally one week my son could not get enough of Pixar’s cars and then he wanted to be Optimus Prime…. sigh… they grow up so fast!
Anyway, i got a copy of the film on the computer and Drummond and i watched it together, and i was amazed by how petrified and INTO IT he was… he was on the edge of his seat and even covering his eyes in some parts of it. i asked him if he was ok and he was, but then over the next week he started having some “scary dreams”, when we talked about it i was expecting him to tell me about Megatron or Starscream freaking him out but no. he was scared by a 5 second scene in the film where a Mountain Dew machine came alive and fired some cans- here is the scene, slowed down from youtube:

That was what gave him nightmares.
A mountain dew machine transformer.

sigh…
i could inject some witty stuff about the evils of product placement etc, but i’ll continue with this history story:

i then knew what i had to do with Drummond, we sat and watched ALL the “making of” pieces on the Transformers DVD special features. i showed him the old cartoons and explained about movies and how they made them, special effects and what movies are. It totally worked. Drum laughed at what the week before had freaked him out, he even told me that one day he’d like to make a movie too.
He then went on to watch that movie two or three times a week for months and months, he got Transformer toys for christmas, birthday, had a transformers cake for his birthday… he played transformers ALL the time. But a part of me was saddened that my son had become “dull” to something that once had him ducking for cover because of the thrills and spills. Did i want him always freaking out? heart pounding? In wonder? or had i done the right thing in giving him the fruit from the tree of knowledge and opening his eyes?
Earlier this year i had to delete the movie off the computer and cut him off from it abit because his obsession was getting a little bit full on. But he was also happy because i showed him the trailers/previews of the upcoming Transformers 2 film that has just released here in Australia. {to some of the worst reviews ever} I never cease to be amazed at my son Drum’s ability to watch something 10 seconds long and he working out names and motivation for everything he has seen, his imagination is brilliant. BUT as the date came closer to the second Michael Bay Transformers film hitting our screens, reviews and critiques starting to pop up as Drum was counting down the days… i became worried that Michael Bay had really kicked me in the pants by upping the violence, language and “adult content”, then as people i trusted saw it all of those concerns were confirmed. i had to break the news to Drummond that we wouldn’t be seeing it at the movies… fathering at it’s best….

what could i do?
i hatched a plan….
{to be continued}