A rant about fighting robots

I've had a thought on my mind for a while.  It's an inkling that I had while watching Transformers, realized when I watched Iron Man, confirmed when I watched Transformers 2, and something I decided I had to rant about after watching Iron Man 2.  I HATE watching robots fight.



And I don't mean with weapons; I'll watch all types of robots go at each other with weapons.  No, I'm talking about one-on-one robot fist fights.  I don't ever want to see Iron Man, or a Decepticon, or an Autobot, or whoever the fuck else throw ineffective punch after ineffective punch at their equally matched opponent.

Now, I get why Iron Man would punch his opponents.  He's a human being in a robo-suit, so understandably he would fight like a human.  But why the fuck do Transformers, who according to their back-story are a species that have been at war for hundreds of years, punch each other?  Their punches have little to no effect on each other.  Essentially, their punches just knock their opponent back a little bit.  It's the equivalent of a playful shove.  And it's all wasted effort.  No wonder they've been at war for so long,

The best hand-to-hand combat moment in either of the Transformers movies is when Megatron rips Jazz in two.  

 Artist Rendition

This was great for two reasons: 1) Jazz was a racist stereotype, and 2) It actually shows how a transformer would kill another transformer in hand-to-hand combat.

In the Iron Man movies, the best action sequences have been the ones where humans were fighting Iron Man.  There's two reasons for this as well: 1) It eliminated the no consequences, CG character vs. CG character nonsense that spoils the Iron Man vs. main villain character in a robot suit fights. 2) You know that if Iron Man punches someone, they're going to FUCKING. DIE.  Lethal consequences, they make movie fights great.

The way I've got it tallied, the two best action sequences of the Iron Man franchise are:
When Tony Stark uses the Mach 1 suit to escape the cave where he's being held hostage in Iron Man.

 "Silly bitch.  Your weapons cannot harm me."

And when Whiplash decides to fuck shit up in Monaco in Iron Man 2.

Mean-spirited caption about Mickey Rourke's face

Why were these fights the best?  Because you knew that those poor cave dwellers and Whiplash were one good hit away from being a blob of fleshy red goo on the ground.  In the case of the cave peeps, it was cathartic to see Iron Man take them down, so it worked.  In the case of Whiplash, the movie had only been going on for 20 minutes, so the filmmakers had to find semi-creative ways to help Whiplash avoid death, thereby making the whole fight more interesting.

Contrast those with the end fight from Iron Man where Iron Man and Iron Monger were punching each other all over L.A.  The guys inside the suits never felt like they were in any danger, so essentially it was like watching two guys fight in really expensive, high-tech sumo suits.

Sidenote: Tony built his sumo suit in a cave...with a box of scraps.

So in closing:

Makers of Transformers - Have more transformers rip each other in half, or give them guns like you gave Optimus Prime in Transformers 2.  Also, bring back the hot Australian blond from the first movie, and have a CG Bernie Mac do one of his Def Comedy Jam routines.

Makers of Iron Man - More Iron Man vs. characters that aren't in giant robot suits please.  Or just have him beat the shit out of the Hulk, because the Hulk is fucking terrible.

/rant

P.S. If you didn't get my sumo suit caption, click here.