At first look, it does not look like Herbie. After getting another look at the original Abbey Road cover, it’s clearly the exact same bug, license plate and everything.
Dis.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the object on the wall, above the Beetle’s roof. It looks like a Terminator skull to me.
Here’s a higher resolution version. Some details become much more clear.
AskNott, it’s a sunflower.
Thanks for the hi-res view, Peter Morris. The detail is much better. The artist says the writing on the wall says, “The cake is a lie,” and Optimus Prime’s bumper sticker says, “Bartlet for President.” I guess I’ll have to take his word for it.
The Beetle on the Abbey Road cover was not just any Beetle. The license plate “LMW 281F” was a big part of the “Paul is dead” rumor; allegedly it meant “Linda McCartney weeps”, and that Paul would be 28 if he was alive.
I like it.
Odd that it would be Hermione from the Harry Potter franchise, and not Harry. And Buffy should be barefoot. But those are just quibbles.
Presumably, the commissioners like Hermione more than Harry. (I certainly do.)
It can’t be Herbie. Herbie had a number in a circle on his doors, and he also had a ragtop sunroof.
I used to read a lot about the “Paul is dead theory” so I recognized it right away as the “28IF” Beetle. And it lacked the Herbie stripes.
Probably true, although most of the other references are the centers of their particular universes.
I would argue that Hermione is at least as central to the Potterverse as the Plants vs Zombies plant, or Loki’s staff are to theirs, and certainly a lot more than the Winchesters’ car or Beaker are to theirs.
Whatever that is…
Personally, I’ve always viewed a man’s shirt on a naked female the same as a flag on a conquered fortress.
Optimus Prime is a transformer.
Transformers was a series of 30 minute toy commercials in the 80’s, now a series of 2 hr long toy commercials directed by Michael Bay.
Michael Bay is a director famous for bad movies with explosions.
Movies are like pictures, except they move.
…and so on…
Ragged and smudged with gunpowder smoke?
Yeah, except that Optimus in the movies looked nothing like the cartoon or the toys.
I’m not even a fan of the cartoon (or the toys), but that still rubs me the wrong way.
Transformers are redesigned constantly. Even in G1 and G2, Prime had this, this, this, this, this, and this. Oh, and before actual Beast Wars media came out, Optimus Primal was supposed to be him, so he also looked like this and this. (And that’s not even including cancelled toys like this.
If he’s not expected to keep the same look within the same continuity, why should different universes’ versions look like his first look?
(And cabover trucks are not exactly common in North America, where Hasbro is based, so it wouldn’t make sense for a Hasbro-designed toy that wasn’t a pure nostalgia-bait collectors’ item to have that design.)
Bah. Another beautiful theory crushed by ugly reality.
The REAL missed opportunity here was that the artist didn’t make it Harry Dresden’s, “Blue Beetle.” It kicked ass, in a four-cylinder kind of way.