MTV Interviews Transformers Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and explains his thoughts on the Critics..

MTV: On the other side of this equation, the critics have been less than kind. I know you’ve gone on the record a little bit about why you think that is, but I’m curious to hear it in your own words.

Bonaventura: There’s a combination of factors. Number one, critics do not understand this kind of movie. They just don’t understand, they don’t get why people like this kind of movie. They’re evaluating a movie like this, that is meant for mass entertainment on a really epic scale, as though it’s a 1970’s Martin Scorsese movie.

There’s just a disconnect there. They seem to look at every film in the same prism—this is a different prism and they don’t accept that. I think also, they just don’t want to have any fun, you know, like come on guys, let’s have a little fun here. We’re not pretending on our side to be making a big social statement or something, our intention is to entertain the audience.

I kind of figure enough critics don’t see these movies with the audience, is my suspicion. Because if they’re with the audience, they cant help but be affected by what they’re hearing and reacting to.

I used to feel that film criticism was a really valuable part of the arsenal of making film better frankly, because they could call you on your this or that. And they could encourage you when you make a fault, when something was flawed, they could look at what was good.

Pauline Kael, Vincent Canby, those critics, even if they didn’t like the movie they would embrace what was good about it. And now it’s either thumbs up or thumbs down, and as soon as you do that to almost anything it’s never going to work.

Michael has been a target, because when he was young and brash, he cut a particular kind of figure that didn’t rub the critics the right way, and they’re holding him to things he said when he was 20 years old or 25 years old. You know, he’s matured, he’s a different guy and they seem to look at him as though he’s the same guy they reviewed 20, 25 years ago when “Bad Boys” came out.

They make it personal. That’s the part I don’t understand. He’s clearly working hard, he’s clearly doing whatever he thinks is right. Okay, you don’t like it, why are you making it personal?


Check out more questions and answers here!
Source: 'Transformers' Producer Answers Critics Biggest Problems With 'Age Of Extinction' - MTV

 

I totaly agree with Lorenzo.Good points

 

Uhhhhhhh what about the dinobots?

 

BS. The "It's not supposed to be Shakespear/Scorsese people!" excuse is well worn and invalid. No, it's not supposed to be on the level of plays/movies like that. But it could at least strive to be better, say, the match of the Marvel films or Starwars or Indiana Jones. Movies that are viewed through the same "prism": big summer blockbusters- but are much better.

And again, for the record, I thought TF4 was pretty good, better than the first three, and better than this year's ASM2, but there are much, much better summer popcorn action movies out there. TF4 doesn't get an easy pass just because it's a "summer film."

 

some danm good points

 

Wow. That's exactly what I would have said. Kudos Lorenzo!

 

Hum, if critics don't know how to have fun then why would The Lego Movie have a Tomato Meter of 96%? Kind of hard to get to 96% without critics going crazy for your film. Really wouldn't call X-Men: Days of Future Past just like Martin Scorsese even if Kitty Pryde somehow developed a mutant power which allowed her to send Wolverine's mind back to his 70's body. Yet the new X-Men movie clocked in at 92% of critics giving it a positive review. So I don't think critics look at action films from the same prism they see the films that will contend for best picture on Oscar night.

I know some people have a time with the concept but people going to see a movie doesn't make it a good movie. If the box office of a film was the only measure of a film's quality then don't even bother to vote for film awards just give out awards to whatever made the most money.

As to why critics stay tough on Bay it is because Bay just doesn't change. Once in a while he might do something minor like take some of the bad humor out of one of his films, but it still ends up as so much of the Bayism that happens film after film. Someone like Spielberg you get ET, you get Jaws, you get Indiana Jones, you get Jurassic Park, you get Schindler's List, you get Saving Private Ryan, you get Catch Me If You Can. With Bay you get explosions from a film plot that just seems like an illogical flimsy script there only to get you to the next explosion.

If Michael Bay wanted to shut up the critics then all he has to do is make a really great film. But no he rather just keep making variations of the same film each time. Doing the same things over and over again just isn't an effective way to get people to change their minds.

Just look at all the actors who screwed up and came back to be big stars again. People love a redemption story but Bay will never find redemption with the critics if people like Lorenzo di Bonaventura keep telling him it's not anything he did wrong it's just critics are mean old people who can't see his brilliance. Bay rather surround himself with yes people than examine his flaws and weak points as a film maker.

 

Bad excuse after bad excuse, really. It would really be good if he actually DID answer rather then claim that critics "don't want to have fun" and act like Michael Bay is some wounded puppy that needs special treatment. He didn't actually address any of the problems at all.

But is he saying that all the really well done action movies of the year that have gotten well deserved good reviews are comparable to a 1970s Martin Scorsese movie? Or are only bad films held to some ridiculous pre-established standard?

 

With a title like that I was expecting actual answers to questions about the plot and stuff, not just lazily dodging all criticisms.

That Dinobot bit is not at all encouraging. "We didn’t want to just throw them in because we could. The next movie is going to give us an opportunity to set up the characters to do something bigger with them.... we haven’t decided anything about the next movie yet."  

 

I gotta say, iron man 1, captain America, and thor were good movies IMO. I don't see iron man 2-3, spider man 2-3,&2 reboot as good. Green lantern and hulks sucked. Avengers was pretty good...but those movies are far from good overall. It's just hard I think to satisfy a mass audience. I see Ben afleck around here all the time (superman vs batman) and I don't know how that movie is gonna b, but prob not too good I bet. Who knows, it's just hard when you are trying to appeal to a wide audience, and it makes the films lose track sometimes I think

 

oh.. you mean the star wars films that weren't reviewed very well at first?.. those star wars films?.. or the newer ones that were equally as panned?

i also remember A LOT of people who flat out disliked iron man 2, and quite a few who weren't too thrilled with iron man 3.

lorenzo has a point. i'm sorry you can see it, and just completely deny it saying it's invalid.. rather close minded if you ask me.

i don't see what avengers had that transformers didn't.. if we're strictly looking at it on its own.. i just don't see the difference between it and TF4..

the difference between both series is that marvel has had SEVERAL movies that can focus on one individual character and build that character up.. whereas in transformers .. first off they're completely CG, which makes it difficult to begin with, then you have several of them to attempt to flesh out.. which again, is expensive.

they didn't have a plan for these movies because they didn't know how well the first one would do.

i think AOE is the best one we've seen so far, i thought it was great.. it's the movie that i've been wanting to see from the first place.. and now it seems as thought they have some direction in where the next two movies will go. which is something that the avengers had the benefit of.

to me.. there really just seems to be a bias when it comes to bay.. no matter what, it just seems like the reviewers can't see passed the fact that bay directed the movie.

i mean.. look at the new turtles movie.. personally, i think it looks good.. but it's already getting shit on because bay produced it.. he PRODUCED IT.. they act like he produced, wrote, directed, and starred in the damn thing. people are already predicting it's going to suck. .. if that's not a clear example of bias, i don't know what is. also, you have to understand that this movie was getting bashed BEFORE and after the teaser trailer.. people hadn't even seen the theatrical trailer before they started ripping it.. because bay is PRODUCING it.

oh well. i enjoyed it.. and judging by the money it's made.. the multiple viewings of it by some of the people on here.. it couldn't have been that bad. i know i plan on seeing it at least one more time.

 

Wow, Michael Bays wife and kids didn't even come to see DOTM. That's legitimately sad.

As for the interview, he brings up some valid points.

CREATIVE REASON?! We literally know nothing about why they are there and why?!

Now I thought TF4 was an awesome experience, but the reason I'm and others are so critical is that we all know that Transformers can do better.

 

So if the professional critics dislike the movie "They don't get it"?
When fans dislike the movie we "hate" michael bay?

The movies cheerleaders will never allow people to dislike the movie without calling other fans haters.

But when the LEGO movie and How to Train your Dragon make for better cinema than a childhood/teen/adult favorite. That says something.

I get that some people will never outgrow brainless stuff, and that's fine.
I do expect more, and Transformers has the potential for it.

No i'm not a Geewunner... G1 didn't age well.

 

I disagree we actually learn a lot about them in the scene where Lockdown is hanging Prime upside down on his ship. He's basically talking about them the whole time.

I'm also hoping to get more back story in the next movies, but I think we know way more than nothing at this point

 

With all the money these movies have made they can pretty much ignore everything anyone says because there is no reason to acknowledge it.

It's like Mc Donalds, you are not supposed to eat there 3 times a day but people do it.

 

And like McDonald's the food is shit and you know it, but damn it's fun to eat.



End of the day though, the critics are right, but know what, with price of movie tickets I'd rather spend my $10-14 for experience of a brainless summer blockbuster than the next Steel Magnolias.

 

Uhmmm. This happened one time in my country. We have this film fest every X-mas season. Like 8 to 9 locally made movies compete in this film fest. No foreign movies allowed to be shown in theaters in those periods (from December 25th to 3rd week of January) to boost locally film industry. That film fest organizers changed the criteria of judging in the Best Picture category.

The film that will rule the Box-Office wins the Best Picture of the film fest. And the film who won the Best Picture (due to ruling the box-office) is a Harry Potter rip-off fantasy film. a B movie. Legit film critics made uproar reaction to what happened and ridiculed the award giving body and the winning film that year.

The rules revert back the following year until now. But every year B movies rules the box-office in our country every x-mas season. The film producers of the b-movies reasons is that "it's Christmas Season, we just want to give viewers especially kids some fun."

But everyone knows here that those b-movie producers aren't banking on serious, drama, crime story, horror, biopic or artistic film so much. Coz assurance of Box-Office hit is slim. So they resorted on current film genre of kid's fantasy film or comedy bar jokes films coz such movie assures a box-office returns no matter how crap or garbage it is from a film critic standpoint. They don't care for accolades. Just box-office hit.

If Bay joins our film fest here, he'll win box-office every damn year.
The good thing, there still some film producers willing to gamble and join the film fest every year and make some quality artistic films though knowing it'll flop the box office.

Yeah very like a McDonalds thing. I'll admit that i watched one of those local B movies. Like what i watched TF AoE.
It's something about B Movies full-pledge critics can't really understand. Those same critics who licks a Scorsese film.

 

He's got a point. Most critics these days review films on a strict set of criteria that they expect pretty much ALL films to meet, or they're considered "bad". And clearly none of the Tyran films meet those requirements.

But really, if you're expecting stuff like that from basic summer blockbusters then yeaaaaah I don't think so.

 

I wouldn't really say Michael Bay has "matured," like Lorenzo has said. He's still acting at times like a guy who can't let some of his immaturity go.

I sometimes think if Bay ever went the Spielberg route of settling down, raising a family, having a new take on responsibility on life, the character moments in his film could get stronger. I rarely ever get a super-strong emotional connection to his human characters.

 

Bull. All that scene was was just some exposition introducing a concept that gets no explanation or focus. Just apparently the Dinobots were knights or something.

I like Lorenzo, but he's dodging the criticisms of the movie. Just because it's a big action movie doesn't mean it can't have better writing, actors and characters. Look at Marvel. They genuinely try to make good MCU movies that are still entertaining. There was still clearly some effort in even their worse movies like Iron Man 3, and they have a multitude of directors and writers. When Iron Man 3 dropped the ball with the Mandarin, they made a short film that addressed the complaints against their screw up (namely the omission of a critical line of dialogue from Killian that would've made it less of a shitstorm than it was). I really enjoyed AOE like the rest of the films, but I won't turn a blind eye at the many flaws and faults of it.

Though I am intrigued that the Dinobots will have larger roles in the fifth film.