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Really, Chinese netizens? REALLY? Apparently some Chinese are incredibly upset at the Transformers 2 movie, not because it was a two-and-a-half hour waste of time with an egregiously obscene budget for barely a semblance of a plot, but because the beginning scenes are "an insult to China."
From People's Daily Online:
Some Chinese netizens are not happy about this movie because Shanghai appears to be very shabby in the movie which they think is not a real representation of the city.Moreover, they think bombing Shanghai is an insult to China. They think the movie intentionally tries to uglify China. It is understood that publisher may cut these scenes from the Chinese edition out of consideration for box office receipts.
Some people comment that it is still unbearable for the publisher to only promise to cut these scenes in China. If the "shabby Shanghai" in "Transformers 2" is widely seen by people all over the world, this will mean an even bigger insult to us. Therefore, those people are requiring that those scenes are not shown anywhere in the world.
Even People's Daily thought the netizens who opined this were overreacting, arguing that Shanghai has shabby places like any other city in the world, that it's just as insulting to only shoot prosperous areas, and that "the rational reaction should be to face the unsatisfactory reality and try our best to reform and construct out cities."
But we think even that misses the point. To be honest, we had no idea the opening fight was in Shanghai (though we're sure a subtitle flashed by with that info at some point)... there was no Pearl Tower, no iconic Bund view, just some factory in the outskirts. All we got was that it was a generic city with an Asian theme - and we bet that's what most of the people around the world saw too.
Compare that to its portrayal of Egypt, which was very clearly recognizable as Egypt: an ass backwards country with nothing more than a few goat herders in a vast expanse of desert. This is despite them having roughly the same GDP as China's. Their greatest attractions - the Valley of Kings, the Pyramids of Giza - get ripped to shreds by a joke of a robot who's main punchline is that he has two giant dangling robot testicles.
Compared to them, we really got it good.
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That is some childish-assed shiat right there. Pathetic.
I suppose none of those netizens stopped to think about the much more severe effect that pollution has on the reputation of Chinese cities. Shanghai is cleaner than most Chinese cities by far, but I would hardly call it sparkling, and much of the reason is the pollution.
shanghai: head north to collect your self esteem
Elaine, clearly you haven't been keeping up-to-date with your sister site, Carioist. Egyptians are livid about their portrayal in Transformers 2. Most netizens have called for Egyptian honor to be restored by changing the offending scene to one showing Decepticons enjoying a day at the Al-Refa'i Mosque or the Autobots taking in the stunning view from the top of the Cairo Tower. They also call for an end to the negative portrayals of their culture in Western entertainment medium, so they can continue to consume said culture without feeling conflicted about future knee-jerk over-reactions or their complete inability to understand that Hollywood movies are not made for them.
the movie made it pretty clear it was "supposed" to be shanghai. aside from it being labeled "shanghai" there were a few shots of the pearl oriental tower and the bund (you can clear see the jin mao but the wfc was missing). the whole thing was shot in some factory in the u.s. it's just another one of those fake studio shots, like "tokyo" in day after tomorrow and "shanghai" in armageddon.
Perhaps the battle in Shanghai should have included a decepticon hurling Mao's statude at an autobot who vaporizes it with a energy blast.
If you're going to insult someone, go all the way.
Thin skinned little Chinese bitches.
people need to keep in mind that most of those "netizens" are a bunch of less educated, short sighted (井底蛙) kids with nothing better to do. Their world is limited to the computer. They don't know what is really out there, they cannot comprehend the meaning of "story" or "movie." They are just a waste of time for everyone else. Full of garbage.
whatever, man.. whatever!
At least they didn't show chinese people in conical hats pulling rickshaws.
Wow, are Chinese really that insecure?
I watched Transformers 1 last night and was similarly amused by the way that Qatar (average GDP per capita: $75,900) was portrayed as a backward desert full of a-rabs living in stone shacks.
Still, I don't suppose anyone is going to mistake these films for documentaries.