I don't hate legitimate (read: LEGITIMATE) criticisms of the movies, because, as we all know, there are many. I enjoy the movies, but I won't deny that they are flawed. Very much so sometimes. What I do find annoying is the ridiculous claims by both professional reviewers and fans of plotholes, errors and criticisms that are either a.) not backed up by facts and evidence or b.) blatantly incorrect. And as many here have pointed out, there are lots of dumb examples.

I believe why Bay gets most of the flak is because, as the director, he is at the helm of this creative endeavour. Everything - every facet of filmmaking - is passed by him for approval, no matter how big or small. It is HIS say that makes things final (more or less, as the likes of Hasbro, GM, Paramount, etc. have their say on certain things). Thus, every mistake and everything worth praise is directed at him overall. Editors edit the film, but Bay gives his approval. Writers pen the script, but the director is the one to give the A-OK. And so on and so forth.

Thus, both criticisms and praise of Bay are warranted.

 

While you have a great point about the writer thing, I believe Orci and Kurtzmann did a far better job than Kruger.

 

People hate michael bay so much to the point where even if he had made inception, end up with the exact same product that actualy came out, it wouldve been called the worst movie ever by critics and trolls.

 

And what exactly, do you have to support this?
I don't personally care for Micheal Bay's work(or Inception, for that matter), however that dislike is because of the poor quality of his work, if he created a much better movie then it would be an entirely different matter. Micheal Bay fails to make quality movies, for whatever reason, be it that he simply cares not about his work, expends quality for expediency, etc. etc. If he made Inception it would not be the same, simply because of his style of movie directing.

 

I agree with this, especially since it was apparently Kruger who came up with most of ROTF's toilet humor.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. Just look at Bay's The Island. It was much more than a dumb action movie and it made you think as well. Critics didn't even bother to think twice about giving it bad reviews. The Transformers movies are also not the dumbest movies ever made by any means. They do have a plot and there are some explanations to the "plot holes" that the critics miss entirely. DOTM was accused of having no plot and it was easily the most layered in the trilogy with all the conspiracies and betrayals going on plus the themes. Bay is also hated by fans because he changes certain aspects of the lore or characters. Chris Nolan did the same thing for the Batman movies and he gets nothing but praise. I always hear about how easily Shockwave went down and how it's Bay's fault, but I never hear about Batman taking down Two-face with just a push. Personally, I think critics hate Bay only because his movies are the epitome of actions movies in Hollywood and they just find it dumb.

 

Oh yeah? So James Cameron had a misinformation campaign? Steven Spielberg? No? Didn't think so. Chris Nolan MAY allow people in his camp to leak fake stories (supposedly) but he never comes out and says things that will end up prove him a liar. He shuts his mouth. He's about the only other blockbuster director to even closely be associated with 'misinformation' and he's not the one giving it.

If Bay wanted Sentinel to be a surprize guess what? He should have shut his mouth. Noone thought he was going to be the villain, and the only ones he pissed off by saying Shockwave was the villain were the hardcore TF fans, so his 'misinformation' was wasted and comes off as tacky.

Don't be facetious. If he really cared about making a good film, he would have told Paramount he needed to push the release date back... Tons of other directors did so during the strike. It was a valid reason. Instead he charged forward, rushing to the point that he didn't even get enough footage for the final fight.

What else was he supposed to say? "I directed the movie, have final cut approval on everything, but in no way is it my fault the film was bad." He would look like an idiot. Not to mention he said this AFTER the leading man said the film was bad... Not like he came out and said we mad an inferior product. Hell, before the movie came out he was talking like "Steven Spielberg thinks this is my best film yet!"

People act like DOTM was better because he was really really sorry the last film was bad. Yeah right.

I'd feel sorry for him, except for the fact that HE IS THE REASON THE STORY IS MISSING CHUNKS! If he had the patience and actual concern for his craft to push back the release date and get things straightened out, guess what? He wouldn't have had chunks of story missing.

This isn't true at all. I like Michael Bay movies, always have. One of his biggest bashers, Ebert, liked the first movie. I don't agree with the man's assessments of ROTF and DOTM, but I understand what he has a problem with... With all the talent Michael Bay has, he makes lackluster films. It's like drafting a guy number in a sport, giving him a hefty contract, and then he puts up average numbers. You'd be disappointed. That's how people feel about Bay. An A-list talent doing C list work.

When Bay was announced as director, I thought it was great. For the action scenes, it was. But he failed to improve his work over the course of the trilogy, and he lived up to his main failing that he's called out for... he doesn't do bad guys well. He had a chance to make the most chilling villains since the original Star Wars movies, and instead gives us the most generic villains ever... aside from them being able to transform.

I praise his action mind, and ILM, and his choice to get Peter Cullen, but for everything else, he did mediocre. Not terrible, but certainly not what someone with his skill is capable of.

 

Directors get all the praise or all the blame because a great director can save a bad film but a great production team can't save a bad director.

Take Jaws. The book it was based on wasn't very good. The mechanical shark didn't work most of the time. There was a host of problems with filming. The director spent long nights with the writer working on ideas to work around all the problems. And somehow out of a doomed production Spielberg managed one of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters.

Now honestly tell me even with a dream team of Hollywood's best production people that anyone could save a Uwe Boll film? Even if Hollywood's best writer was involved it would just be another horrible Uwe Boll movie.

So how do Micheal Bay movies make money? Simple, marketing.

Change nothing at all about Dark of the Moon but the release date and I can assure you that it would not have made as much money as a February or September release. You've also got a ton of TV ads and some really well made trailers to sell the film on the 4th of July which is one of Hollywood's biggest weekends of the year.

Somewhere movies stopped being about how good a movie is and more about how well you can market a movie and how many theaters you can get it shown in. Attack the Block was a great British sci fi film, but without marketing and theaters it wasn't going to make the same box office of something like Twilight.

Not sure how many time people have to say it but money does not equal quality. Even a movie as bad as The Last Airbender could bring in $320 million worldwide. Or this year's film to bash Green Lantern still managed a worldwide take of $220 million. Some people will just watch anything if you know how to market it.

 

It was in 1979 when Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out. That movie was almost entirely comprised of new special effects and very little plot. And yet it made a ton of money.

This. Seriously, just because somebody bought the ticket, doesn't mean they liked the movie.

There are so many things wrong with this statement. The first is the comment about how much the movies made, as stated above, money =/= quality.

Second, you seem to imply that if someone hates the movies that they are a Geewunner who can't stand anything different from the Sunbow cartoon. Which is just plain wrong. I grew up on the original cartoon and toys, but that's not why I don't care for the movies. My dislike and criticism of Bay (and many others have said this too) boils down to two words: Shaky cam. When I can't tell who's fighting or what's going on in an action sequence in a big budget action movie about giant robots beating the crap out of each other, that's a problem. And that decision was Bay's, not the writers. It's up to the director to set up the shots, how the look, what camera angles, etc... and this just was bad cinematography. Honestly, the criticism has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it's not G1 and frankly the implication is insulting.

As for the twins... I'm white and grew up in the midwest, I'm not touching this argument with a ten foot pole.

As for the new Star Trek movie, yeah it had too much lens flare, even Abrams admited that after it came out. But you've made this joke twice and it wasn't funny the first time. Honestly, given the choice between too much shaky cam (Bay) or too much lens flare (Abrams), I'll take too much lens flare any day of the week.

Of course, a REAL director wouldn't have too much of either but....

 

Most of my mates loved the Transformer movies.
They loved the fighting, the loved the Transformers and despite the fact they really don't know much about Transformers other than the movies, their opinions are worth just as much as ours.
Hardcore TF fans may be disappointed, your average person from the audience will not. It's a small majority of people who disliked the movies.

And, shaky cam? That was to make the fight seem more real and get the audience more involved, make it feel like they are there. The only time where I didn't like the cam in a fight scene was when Optimus blasted Megatron at the end of ROTF.

 

Look guys can't we accept that at least the films helped the franchise be more relevant to the manstream audinance again? Because while the films aren't that popular with many of us it did spawn other brans that people like much better like TFA WFC,and TFP. Withou the movies somehow we wouldn't have any of those!

 

1) the G1 thing was a joke .Sorry you got a bug up your ass about it . And it hurt your feelings.
2)There was no joke about the lens flare. Its fact. Sorry I said that 2 times and your all mad about it. I forgot I did it.
3) With the twins there isn't anything to say about that. Thats how people talked when I was in school and the place I was working at.It didn't matter to me what color or race you are . Thats just how it was. Thats why it boggles my mind when people say they are racist.

 

Ugh THANK YOU.

People think that movies should be like comics and cartoons. That type of thinking is how we get some of the worst comic/cartoon-based movies in history!

Yeeeeeeessss!

I can refute SO MANY supposed "plot holes" from stuff that was IN THE MOVIE. Occasionally I have to use the movie tie-in comics for examples, which I shouldn't have to, but those are usually minor details.

 

While I'll gladly agree that the films helped to boost the pop culture status of Transformers I'm a bit loath to try direct links of we got the movies and thus we got the following.

Transformers has managed to keep some sort of cartoon on the air better than any other Hasbro brand so I think we still would have had a cartoon series even without the live action films. We had Armada, Energon, and Cybertron without a live action film. What the cartoon series might look like is a matter of debate, but I think we'd still have one and perhaps even a good one since Hasbro was wanting to expand it's brands on something like Cartoon Network before falling out and starting the Hub.

Even War for Cybertron seems like something that was just a matter of time. The Space Marines video game came out this year even though there isn't a live action Warhammer 40K movie. Developers just figured hey this concept begs for a game. Given Transformers would give you both a driving game and a shooter all in one I think it's a concept that was going to fly at some point even without a movie.

Plus I'm greedy so I'd rather take good to get good instead of endure blah to get good. Sure Star Wars the Clone Wars is a great cartoon, but damn the Prequel films being so bad was a hard price to pay for a good cartoon.

 

And I don't know a single person who liked or cared about the Energon trilogy (I personally thought it was horrible and unwatchable and I only bought one toy from the entire line. I was totally ready to forget about Transformers although I liked it since I was two years old). Now EVERYONE at least knows the name and basic concept of Transformers.

Warhammer was kept alive through great videogames, plus their installed fanbase from the tabletop games. Before the movies there was only the Armada game that was considered good for Transformers.

I agree that it sucks to deal with something you don't like just so you can get something that you DO like, but no one's forcing you to watch (and CONSTANTLY comment on) the movies, so I'd have to object to you using the term "endure". You're not a sob story.

Yes the movies could have been a LOT better, but not by making them more G1, or having more Transformers back-story that only fans like us would care about, or having more "plot". There was plenty of plot in the sequels. In fact, it's only when you decide not to LISTEN to what the characters are actually saying that you can't understand the movie and supposed "plot holes" arise. Some people can't look at explosions and listen to characters talk in the same movie, which alternately is why action movies are brainless.

In the end, a lot of it has to do with how much you are willing to invest in enjoying a movie like this. I know it shouldn't have to be that way, but it is what it is. Sort of like suspension of disbelief. Also, so many people have preconceived notions of what they want a movie to be before they ever watch it! No one likes surprises in movies anymore. They just want to see what they want to see. Sad.

 

Yep, see, exactly what I'm getting at.   I mean, of course certain things are actual errors and plotholes and can't be explained, but a large percentage of complaints are actually addressed in the movies, be it by dialogue or the story itself.

But a well written story shouldn't need any other material from expanded universes to explain what happens in the movie. The movie is the movie. It's own self-contained story that needs to make sense without additional material. Now, the comics are a fantastic way to flesh out certain things and characters, but in my opinion, when trying to explain something about the movie to someone, rely on the movie and the movie alone.

I...I liked the Unicron Trilogy.   Granted, my passion for the Unicron Trilogy has dwindled over the years as I compare it to awesome and/or well-made Transformers lore such as Animated/Prime/Bayformers... But then again, I also enjoyed Indiana Jones 4 and Green Lantern, so as Ash can attest, I may or may not be responsible for the continuous crap that the franchise might spew forth.   Jokes, Ash.

But I do agree. Whether it's for good or bad, almost everyone (forgive the blanket assumption) knows about Transformers to some extent.

 

Can we all agree on the fact that if the movies had the Armada kids, they would've had great reviews?

 

I know people say just ignore the movies, but for better or worse the movies are the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Short of going to live in a cave somewhere with no contact with the outside world I'm not really sure how anyone could just ignore the films. Plus it's not like the films don't do anything right, so you would be giving up some good stuff if you totally ignored the films.

I wish the films only problems were that it wasn't G1 because if that was the only problems I'd be happy with the films because Beast Wars, Animated, and Prime have been great without being G1. It just seems like me and Micheal Bay have different ideas about how we enjoy action films because while his films aren't horrible they aren't the action films I'd want to see more than once.

As a fan of movies in general I just don't feel like we should ever have to have to go oh well I guess it's good enough. There are a lot of talented people working on the films and it's not a bad budget for the films so it should be the best not just good enough. Instead of people leaving the theater feeling like they just got their money's worth, they should have that feeling of wow that was movie magic.

Hollywood is wondering why ticket sells were down this year in the US and I think it might have something to do with too many films being just good enough instead of knocking socks off.

 

So are you saying that the future lines having movies influence and or have links to it is a horrible thing? I mean having some movie influence is what's helping new fans get into the franchise and understand it better if you have some movie influnece to help get them started. I mean Batman TAS did something like that with the Tim Burton Batman films being it's main influence and it help the show a great deal with not just old fans but helped bring new fans in as well. Even the creators said that they wouldn't get it off the ground if it didn't have the movie influnece. That's what Transformers Prime is aiming for,having movie aspects to bring in people who are familer with the movies but not with the entire franchise and making them understand the mythos better and hopefully get new fans out of them, It would'nt be the same if you just showed them somthing like the Unicron trilogy. I mean yes the Trilogy was ablt to get off the ground without the movies but back than the mainstream audience thought Transformers was nothing more than a simple boys toyline and offered nothing really speical as a result. After the movies the mainstream media changed it's view on it and may be more open minded to it. So having movie influcnec is really not that bad if it's doing the franchise a big favour by having a little movie influence to help get new fans started.

 

 

NO.