Tales of the Intermezzo - Small Parts
A Transformers Universe Story
copyright 2007 by Dave Van Domelen
based on properties owned by Hasbro
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"intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play."
- American Heritage Dictionary
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE 2007 TRANSFORMERS MOVIE.
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"Nokias are *nasty*. Those Japanese really know the Samurai Way," a
man
in "I'm With The Government" clothing smirked as he placed the Nokia N90
into
the pitted armorplastic box. He took a moment to flip up its screen and
better display the product.
"Nokia is Finnish," a woman snarked back.
The man's smirk vanished, and he stammered for a moment. "Ahem. We
can
channel the cube's energy into this box. Watch."
With the press of a button, a stream of electricity crackled over the
smartphone. It shuddered and CHANGED, to the gasps of several present.
After a few seconds of chaotic growth, it settled down into a form that
resembled a tiny dwarf samurai, with broad shoulders and tiny legs jutting
out of the mass of metal shards. It struck the walls of the box several
times, adding more pits and scratches to the armor.
Then it changed tactics and grew a miniature rocket propelled grenade
launcher, opening fire on the walls of its prison. Large flakes of
armorplastic sprayed from the outside.
"It's breaking the box," the government man said calmly to another
man
in the room.
There was an explosion in the box, and the scene froze.
* * * *
"Transformers the movie, ladies and gentlemen!" Craig Ferguson
clapped
his hands and gestured to the viewers' left. "And with us tonight, to
talk
to us about the movie that opens tonight, the Nokia N90 Transformer,
Kabuta!"
A podium was rolled out into center stage by means of a hidden cable,
and a spotlight hit it, revealing a Nokia N90 phone. With a whirring
sound,
it suddenly leapt into the air and changed into the mini-samurai-bot from
the
clip.
"Grrrrrr!" it snarled.
The audience gasped and started to look for the exit.
"Ha! Gotcha!" it laughed in a high-pitched but clearly feminine
voice.
"Hi, Craig, glad to be here tonight!" Kabuta skittered down the side of
the
podium and then clambered up onto the arm of the guest chair.
"You could come all the way onto the desk?" Craig offered.
"No, no...I'm not that kind of girl," Kabuta demurred. "I'll leave
that
sort of thing to Bette Midler."
"Oh, a fan of Johnny Carson?" Craig asked, smoothly enough that you
could almost believe the banter wasn't pre-planned.
"Of course! Heyoooo!" she chirped, like Ed McMahon in a room full of
helium.
"But how does an alien robotic lifeform know about the Tonight Show?
And why am I giving NBC free advertising?" Craig asked, frowning at the
end.
"How do I know English in the first place?" Kabuta shrugged, crossing
her spindly legs demurely. "We hooked into your internet system and
learned
about your culture. A pity YouTube had to take so much stuff off for
trademark reasons. Still, Frenzy managed to hook me up with the rest."
"Wait, isn't Frenzy an evil Deceptiwhatsit?" Craig's brow furrowed
with
concern.
"ACTING, Craig. The actual war ended ages ago, on an entirely
different
planet. But some of the old-timers like re-enacting their glory
days...even
if it means pretending to get blown to pieces. Although, truth be told, a
few of the old coots like even that. Kinda like your Civil War
re-enactors,
from what I hear. Poor Brawl, though...he was so excited to be in a movie
on
this planet that he flubbed his only line, and no one caught it until we
were
already in theaters in Australia!"
"Ah ha," Craig nodded. "So, you've done this before?"
"Not me personally, no. I'm just a kid. But we like to tell our
story,
with local color variations, wherever we go. Prime thinks it can help
educate the populace...he really likes your human term, 'Morality Play.'
This is my first time, the last new world was before I was Sparked, maybe
a
hundred of your years ago. I really pushed to get into this one, even if
it
was just a bit part."
"Well, you know what they say, there are no small parts, only small
actors," Craig chuckled.
"I'm still big, Craig. It's Hollywood that got small," Kabuta
replied,
pitching her voice as low as it cold go. Which was still pretty high.
"I hear there's a cellphone toy on store shelves, but it isn't you,"
Craig said, with half-mock seriousness.
"Puh-lease, Craig. I'm a *smartphone*, not a cellphone. There's a
big
difference. It all had to do with licensing, though. Nokia licensed my
alternate form to Paramount for the movie, but Hasbro...that's the toy
company...had to make its own licensing deals for characters who either
weren't in the movie, or didn't get finalized in time. They went with a
cheap generic phone form and got that jerk Speed Dial to model for it."
"I detect some bitterness here beyond licensing issues," Craig arched
an
eyebrow. "Do you and this 'Speed Dial' have a history?"
"We used to date," Kabuta shrugged.
The audience let out a collective "aaaaah" of understanding and
sympathy.
"Let's just say I got sick of the 'roaming', and leave it at that,"
Kabuta added.
"So, is it off to the premiere after this? Oops, I mean, how WAS the
premiere, wink wink?" Craig said, playing to the running joke on most late
night shows that they weren't really taped hours in advance.
Kabuta sighed. "No, I couldn't go. That's part of why I'm doing
publicity on opening night."
"Oh? Why not?" Craig asked, looking genuinely interested. "I mean,
if
they can make arrangements for *Optimus Prime* to get inside, you should
be
no problem!"
"It's not a matter of size," Kabuta sighed. "The theater has a
strict
policy. All phones have to be turned off...."
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Author's Notes:
This is yet another AllSpark challenge, which was to take a 2007
movie
character and have them trying to attend the premiere, or otherwise
involved
in movie publicity. So, in a way, it's an Intermezzo between the movie
and
some sort of "real life". :) I just made up the new background on the
fly,
but I think it works.
The phone that got a bit part in the 2007 Transformers movie was the
Nokia N90, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N90
(entry does not
currently
show its robot mode as I type these notes, but don't be surprised to see
it
up by the time you read this!).
The name Kabuta comes from kabuto, Japanese for a kind of beetle
after
whose head some samurai helmets are based.
The opening scene is from the movie as best as I could remember it a
couple hours after the fact. Once the movie is out on DVD I may go back
and
edit things for accuracy. ;) I will note that in the adaptations, the
first
line was just "cellphones are nasty," indicating either they didn't have
permission to use the brandname, or the licensing deal was cut late enough
to
not be in the script versions sent out to adaptors.
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