Throughout the majority of the Michael Bay era, there have been many complaints on the quality of the films. Too much CGI, too much dumb humor, too immature...but one complaint that's remained consistent throughout the franchise as a whole? Those lousy human bastards. After all, fuck those guys, right? We're not here to see Even Stevens try and get laid - we wanna see some ass kicking on a Cybertronian scale. Except Transformers are expensive, and we can't have a movie that's only Transformers and still somehow live action. So how do we make humans work? Personally, I think there's a few steps that the writers can take to accomplish this. First, the humans have to be HEAVILY involved with the Transformers - maybe they're military and work with them, maybe they run security on a lot of their missions, or maybe they DD for them when they take one too many shots of Energon; Point is, the humans and the Transformers have to be good friends. Second, the humans have to be characters of their own. Say what you will about Tucci as Joyce, but he's really the most dynamic human character - he starts off a selfish inventor, and later grows to recognize the part he played in all the chaos and tries to amend for it. Why aren't more human characters like this? They need their own struggles, their own distinct personalities and backstories - hell, I wouldn't mind a romance in these films, as long as it developed the human characters well. But wait, that means they'd have to write a woman as an actual character. They don't know how to do that, do they? Third, and this is important, MAKE THEM COMPETENT. If all they do is run and scream, and never do anything to help, then the audience will view them as cowards. This doesn't mean they have to pick up a gun, but they need to contribute in some way. That's the reason Tessa and Shane were so universally hated - they actually work AGAINST the Autobots, just out of their own incompetence, and it's not until the end of the movie that they come in clutch with the sword. This is just my personal beliefs. How do you believe the movies should go about writing human characters?
How to make Humans work in Michael Bay films? I think it's already been addressed in the films when the Fallen stepped on a disobediant human in the opening flashback?
Cut out the stereotypically racist and/or misogynistic claptrap would be a good start. But Bay's gotta be Bay, as far as that's concerned, so I'm not too optimistic on this front. I do agree with the OP's points but even when the first 3 movies heavily involved the military, they weren't so much characters but empty caricatures and "MURICA: EFF YEAH!" set pieces themselves. Lennox barely gets any characterization; we only know he has a wife and baby daughter (from the first movie) that we never see again, and that's all we know about the man. He's just there to be chiseled jaw vanilla flavored military leader guy, and that's it. Epps gets a bit more characterization since he retires from the military and transitions into civilian life in DOTM, I guess. Hell, we don't see much camaraderie or interaction between the NEST soldiers and the Autobots either, just some exposition about the next MacGuffin they have to find and prevent the Cons from getting their hands on. The bond between warriors-in-arms is one of the strongest in the world and I just didn't get any of that from the movies. Where was Epps being bros with Ironhide or Sideswipe? Or Lennox discussing tactics/strategy while swapping heartfelt war stories with Optimus? I'll even take some comical scenes with Ratchet attempting to better understand human physiology/nature on some unsuspecting soldiers or technicians. I'd love to have seen more down time and shooting the shit between the Bots and their human allies, and one of the few things that AOE got right was the fledgling banter/bonding between Optimus and Cade when talking about trust and raising kids, even if the quieter scenes like this tend to be somewhat boring by comparison to the action scenes.
I think the current 'problem' with humans in these movies (other than the usual one-dimensional, sometimes tasteless way Michael Bay portrays them) is that they keep trying to pit them against Transformers on an equal level. Either by sending an entire squad of soldiers into battle, or through the use of various heavy weaponry. Personally, I'd like to see them use humans differently: let them do things Transformers can't. Sneak through subway terrain into enemy territory, use guerilla tactics. Plant bombs. Get intel. And in the worst case scenario, use our greatest human tactic: our numbers! DOTM touched on this in the final act, but the approach was still very head-on. I don't feel humans have a place as an equal force to battle Decepticons, but written well, could be perfect support for the Autobots. Not the Michael Bay 'America rocks!!111' approach. The Transformers themselves should do the actual battles, deliver the final blows. In my opinion.
Ratchet: "I believe the human is experiencing some sort of blockage." Ironhide: "I can loosen that up for him." *whips out twin arm cannons*
By not making them the POV characters. The idea of "Live Action" is more or less to make it as realistic looking as possible, so interacting with live human actors is the most obvious way of acomplishing that. The problem with that is how the humans keep being more on-screen than the robots and the producers haven't figured out that simply sticking in more generic robots isn't solving the problem as that takes budgeted CGI money away from the actual main robots, meaning less meaningful robot on-screen time than the humans. The first Transformers works because it's not entirely just Sam Witwicky the Schmuck that's the focal human character POV like in every film afterward (replaced by Marky Mark in AoE) and his stupid romance plot that overtakes everything in ROTF later. Honestly, why they didn't make a movie just about Lennox's team is beyond me, because not only do those guys actually start out first in the film, but they're not having their personal lives drawn into this intergalactic war like Sam or Marky Mark. They're soldiers - characterful soldiers, that's important to note here - who pretty much accidentally get stuck fighting the robots but they man up and like the bunch of badasses they are probably have the highest robot kill count in the series at the end of each film. But they work, because the films are not about them. The films should be about the robots with humans as support characters, not mainly be about humans and the robots are support characters who do all the fighting. CGI too expensive? Use holomatter avatars or something (y'know, like they did in ROTF), that way it's still the characters on screen even if they're not visually robots, as they'll play up the "alien-fish-out-of-water" niche roles as they try (and usually acomplish in the most awkward way imaginable) to blend in. But restricting the robots actually being around only if they're physically represented as large alien mechanical beings in favor of more human drama...that being the focus almost exclusively in AoE is why the films are faltering.
I'd say make them like the fanbase, but that could lead to all kinds of trouble... Smart, competent, and kind is a good start. Or hell, make them cavemen like Beast Wars. They were cool human side characters.
I've always said have them as Headmasters. So they can join the fight on equal terms, and actually contribute. Plus you get better human/Robot interactions.
You're not alone, I did like how his character changed in the film. Also, the humans would work if they were useful and likable and not only there for eye-candy or comedy.
I think they did the right thing by giving Mark Wahlberg an alien gun. At least with that he could have some genuine input in a battle against the Cybertronians. I'd say human characters should probably be linked to the military in some way, maybe even give them prototype energy weapons or some such to level the playing field in a battle. I was writing something Transformers-related last year that I did not make much progress on before dumping, but the two main human characters were a female Air Force pilot and a middle-aged scientist who was essentially Jeff Goldblum. The pilot would get her hands dirty in a fight, complete with energy weapon reverse-engineered from Cybertronian technology, whereas the scientist would have an active role in fighting the Decepticons on a technological basis, aiding with the likes of hacking or putting together weapons to fight them. Characters like that might work better in a Transformers movie, as they would be able to actively help beyond running and screaming.
Looking at the Witwicky Trilogy as a whole (btw yes it's called Witwicky Trilogy now fuck wit me), Sam actually has a pretty good arc. He was the audience surrogate in TF1, sure, but he was also likable in that awkward teenager kind of way, and he clearly matures throughout the movie (no one mentions that Sam DID kill Megatron). ROTF kinda just has him being the straight man, but he did have to go through some heavy shit, and even the Primes said he was pretty badass. And yes, Sam was actually something that DOTM handled GREAT. He actually had an arc, and emotions, and his own personal struggles that the audience could relate to. He feels like the world where he did all these amazing things has just forgotten about him, and he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere. Then when he sees an opportunity to help and takes that chance, he gets his girlfriend kidnapped and is forced to be a mole for the Decepticons...and even THEN, he doesn't sell his friends out. That scene he had with Optimus at the Xanthium was just heartbreaking. Then when Chicago got fucked, HE was one of the first people to say "Nah fuck dat we gon' get dem shootas on Megatrons bitch ass" (paraphrased). Seeing Sam be all badass in DOTM was one of my favorite parts of the movie, as I remembered that awkward kid in TF1 I related to, and NOW he's exploding heads and shooting at McDreamy. The evolution of Sam from kid to warrior was pretty good across the films, but it really shines in DOTM.
One thing that might help is making shorter films. Just feels like the movies have way too filler to ramp up the run time and the vast majority of that filler is human centered. Simply cutting away some of the fat for a leaner more focused story might get rid of some of that feeling of being bored while waiting for either robots or explosions. Too many scenes over the film series that didn't really add anything to the movie except expanding the run time so cut some stuff out. I also agree with the people saying the human characters need to be more complex and interesting. Kind of rare to see characters expand beyond the archetype or stereotype into something that feels like a real person.
