I think that it's only slightly less ridiculous than the people who freak out and make an issue out of the fact that people on the internet are criticizing someone in a prominent pop culture position. Especially given those people often attack Bay's critics with the exact same fervor and vitriol they accuse the critics of having.

There's so such thing as over-analysis. Keep in mind that people are not saying that Bay himself is a racist who firmly believes in the principles of white supremacy, they are saying that characters in many of Bay's films rely on stereotype for much of their character, some of which have some negative and truly ugly connotations, and that there is a dearth of characters in "legitimate" main roles that are not white males. One only needs to look at the number of Transformers in the Bay films that are effectively defined by their "funny accents" as an example of this. This shows a narrative style that is at best, lazy, and otherwise simply ignorant. Neither should be acceptable for someone doing business at Bay's level.

Let's look at this a different way, though, since I've gone around in circles regarding your points so, SO often before. Why does it seem so important to you that what Bay does is okay, and why are you defending him? Not trying to insult you, I legitimately want you to outline your thought process and motivations.

 

My only issue with the hate is when as soon as something about a Bay movie is announced, or if Bay so much as sneezes, people are unusually quick to jump on the "bay hate" bandwagon. He has his good moments and he has his "WTF" moments. He's not a perfect director, but when it comes to things such as plot many people forget that he's not a writer, he's a director. I find comments like "why did Bay have optimus kill megatron" or "why did Bay have sam kill starscream"? or especially "F*CK BAY FOR CALLING MIRAGE DINO" to be extremely ignorant of the fact that as a DIRECTOR, he can only make subtle changes to the plot the WRITERS wrote. They might not be bright (devastators balls & the driller) but you just have to see the half glass and say "he only meant well by it", because at the end of the day, it's an action movie. regardless if it's shakespeare or not, you know Bay can make a mean action movie. and personally, I've seen worse than what bay can dish out, just for a mindless action flick.

All i have to say about Avengers is this:
COMPLETELY different movie featuring heroes who've, let me stress this, have had their own movie. If avengers was a standalone film without all the separate hero movies, their fans would have the same exact opinion we seem to have about tf movies, being that "its an awesome action flick, but characterization is absent".

You can only do so much with the Transformers, especially considering how much it costs to create one rendered model of an autobot or decepticon.

 

TFTM is probably the worst toyline out there. ROTF and DOTM toyline on the other hand is by far the most intricate of them all. I love the leader class figures and Human Alliance figs.

In contrast, the movies themselves, the order is reversed.

Can 3rd party products replicate these? Probably not.

 

What do I think? I think it's just the way of the world and to not get so steamed about it.

If you're not a 'hator' then you're a 'hator hater'. Seems no matter which 'side' you fall on people are always hating someone for something.

 

Win.

Hahaha exactly why I didn't pick a side but decided to post my thoughts on TF movies and toys instead.

 

And that's all there is to it.

 

I think you have the power dynamic mixed up when it comes to movie making. Yes Micheal Bay is not a screen writer and he doesn't write the movies he directs. But he's not helpless in the face of writers forcing him to do things. Part of a director's job is translating the written words of a script into film form, loads of power in that translation as a good director can save a bad writer but it's really hard for a good writer to save a bad director. Directors are also fairly notorious for asking for rewrites when they don't like something in the script or they see it can't be done with the film's budget.

Just look at the Oscars. A big deal is made over best actor, best director, and best picture but the best writer news get tucked away somewhere after the news for best animated feature film. Some years the technical awards get more fanfare and hoopla than best writer.

 

I can partially understand where they are coming from. If you grew up with something and someone tampers with it, it can make a person upset. I can speak from experience, I remember watching Thomas the Tank Engine many times when I was young and when I see what it comes to today, I am disgusted. The narrator is terrible and there were plot elements that were changed that just shouldn't have been. So while I can understand where some TF fans are coming from, I can't really understand all of the hype the give. It is only a show after all, the a far more important things to be concerned with. Basically, if you don't like what someone does to something, don't watch it. That way people won't get angry, and other people won't have to listen to you complain all the time.

I'll also say there is nothing wrong with stating that you didn't like something. That is perfectly fine for someone to have their own opinion. It just gets old after a while.

 

Transformers #1 (1984) Buster Witwicky is making out with his girlfriend and getting it on until he is suddenly in the middle of a battle between Transformers. Not staying true to the original plot you say

Boom! Lawyered. - YouTube

 

haters will always hate i agree but just think where transformers would be if we didn't have bay and co. my opinion he has made three great films especially DOTM

 

That's very true. And though the relationship Buster and Bumblebee forge between the Autobots and humanity are integral to the success of the Autobots in the following issues (Sparkplug is an important figure in the infancy of that struggle on earth), Buster is used as a human lens on the conflict and character of the Autobot-Decepticon war, where Sam is treated as something between a protagonist and a messiah. That a small, seemingly insignificant human is able to change things in a way that thousands of years of cybertronian combat can't is a somewhat new plot development (though you could argue Sam safeguarding the cube from Megatron has parallels in the creation matrix ending up in Buster's head), and a concept that was beyond what many fans were willing to accept.

 

If you don't like the comic books they are easy to avoid because there are fewer and fewer comic book shops. Unless you are actively collecting other comic books then chances are you will not stumble upon the comic book somewhere.

If you don't like the current cartoon it's a little harder to ignore it all but not impossible. If you aren't watching the Hub then there aren't many ads for Transformers Prime other places. Sure there are toys on the shelves but it seems like there is always some sort of choice that isn't current cartoon related.

Films can't be ignored because to make as much as they can at the box office a studio will bombard people with ads any place they think a potential ticket buyer might be. It's also hard to ignore the movies when movie toys end up as the only product on the retailer shelves.

 

The new Star Trek? I love Star Trek (2009). Thought the characters were great, the story worked and everything came together well. It's jarring that those same writers worked on ROTF, but it also took place during the writers strike and it's highly likely Bay had more of a hand in it, so the difference in quality makes sense to me.

Ash pretty much nailed it on the director/writer power play a few posts above.

This is the "it's an action movie, it doesn't have to have good characters or tell a decent story!" thing. This doesn't hold any water for me. With Avengers, the world building to get them all together spanned several movies, and it was the climax. The thing about Avengers that's so fantastic is the characters - they're all well written, they all have their own individual strengths and weaknesses, they all contribute, get screen time, and matter. And the dynamic created by the group is an explosion of the quality kind. The action in Avengers compliments the characters while still being awesome.

Transformers hasn't come closing to touching that. But it could. And I think that's one reason people criticize Bay.

I had a fantastic time watching Avengers. X-Men: First Class also remains a highlight for me. There are plenty of action movies that I've greatly enjoyed because the people behind them didn't forget that characters and storytelling matter.

I don't consider myself a Bay "hater". But I'm no fan. I don't know him as a person or what his feelings/thoughts are. I only know his films. I don't think he knows characters or how to tell a story. He's good at action. That's about it.

 

Rant
I really, really didn't like the way Bay handled the Transformers movies. I didn't mind the first one, as it had some rudimentary characterization for the screentime the robots get, and I actually enjoyed the sort of mysterious feel of investigating the attacks on military bases as a way of building up to that moneyshot scene where all the Autobots transform for the first time in front of Sam.

But then they didn't build off of it. ROTF is a beaten dead horse, so I won't go into that. But DOTM isn't any masterpiece either. The action sequences quickly went from feeling awesome to being tedious. None of the robots got any time to flesh out their characters, and don't you friggin' tell me audiences can't relate to robots. You've seen Wall-E. We've all seen Wall-E.

The biggest issue I take with Bay's movies is that the main focus, the TRANSFORMERS, are little more than props or set pieces. They walk around and break things, but any 'bot either only gets like 5 bloody lines in the whole trilogy (Ratchet, I'm looking at you) or gets completely flanderized into a bloodthirsty lunatic (Prime and, to a lesser extent, 'Bee). None of the Decepticons are anything but roaring, spitting, slobbering monsters and even the Starscream/Megatron relationship receives barely a minute (if that) of development. The only character whose death I even had the slightest bit of feeling for was Ironhide, and even that was barely memorable.
/rant

 

And a flame war erupting in 3...2...1...Jumps though a wall and hides in the dog house.

 

This thread has been pretty civil so far...

 

You're talking as if Avengers didn't have more characterisation for each main character within just "The Avengers" then the majority of characters in any one "Transformers" movie. Avengers, ignoring the previous movies, still had great characterisation and people who hadn't seen the whole saga could still relate to the characters just from the context within the one film. Having a whole saga before it definitely helped it, but it still had excellent characterisation for all the main cast without the rest of the saga being considered, unlike what you claim.

 

I don't know... I sure loved the Black Widow and Hawkeye movies  

But seriously, I fully agree, in fact, I think one of the accomplishments of The Avengers was that it was an excellent movie with well developed character despite having 5 previous movies. Whedon could have just gone the easy route and use the previous movies as an excuse for not having any character development at all. Instead, I gave us very well executed characters, all of them meaningful for the plot.
This is what I consider to be Bay's main weekness. He simply is not a good character director. He does not create characters, he creates cliches. All his characters are just that, cliches... Everyone goes on on rants about the black characters... Why doesn't anyone mention Mikaela's cliche jock asshole boyfriend in the first movie? Or the frat boys in the ROTF? Bay also seems to have a big problem at creating menacing villains. His villains are little more than an excuse to have something for the heroes to kill or blow up and look excessively badass doing it.

 

For the most part, Michael Bay's movies are ridiculous. Armageddon was cool as a special effects romp, but is so choppily edited, it makes it kind of hard to enjoy. I've never cared for Bad Boys. I just don't. The Rock, quite possibly the Michael Bay-iest of Michael Bay films, is somewhat enjoyable, if not for how ridiculous it is. The Island was actually a pretty enjoyable movie, with a decent story, which is kind of under appreciated (at least from what I remember. I saw it only once when it came out).

When I found out he was directing Transformers, I was disappointed. I really was. But then the movie premiered, and you know what? I thought it was fucking awesome. Despite it's flaws, it's one of my favorite action movies of recent years. It has a story that works. The special effects were (and still are) awe-inspiring. It has a feeling of mystery to it that made it fun. I haven't felt the same way about RotF and DotM. I feel that had the 2007 movie remained a solitary film, and they hadn't jumped on the sequel wagon, we'd be in a lot better shape. Because it left you wanting more, when we really didn't need more. And when we got more, we hated it.


As for Bay himself, I will say, I think visually, he's an amazing director (Wait, what?!). I'm a photographer, and have always had an eye for visuals and design as long as I can remember. And Bay's cinematography, and his use of color, contrast, lighting, camera movement, and scene composition really is top-notch. It's damn near perfect, in fact. Honestly, that's one of the reasons I still watch DotM. Visually, it's incredible.

Clearly, where he falls short is in the writing and story department. You can apparently have the eye for visual, but the mind of a horny 14-year-old. I have a theory that if he were responsible for merely shooting the film, and stayed completely out of the screenplay aspect, we could have an amazing film on our hands, especially if we had a great screenwriter or group of writers. Disagree if you want, but I'm convinced.

Anyway, TL;DR, do I think he deserves the hate? Partially. But more so in the fact that he could have the ability to make some stellar films and doesn't exercise it, than anything else.

 

 

The term "hater"

What a defensive term for web based opinionated banter. "Hater Haters" and, the ultimate 3rd level conundrum, "HyperHaters" (aka: hating the haters that hate haters) have one thing in common: we all need an audience. Its the basic fundamental of the ancient art of trolling. The readers of this thread need only know that once you click into a message board, you must be prepared to disagree with what you experience. How you handle that experience, process it, and proceed to experience everything else on that related topic should be completely up to you.

Sincerely, I hope we can all evolve and aspire to be more like Kane, take his advice, and "embrace the hate".