What do you think of the Micheal Bay hate?

Discussion in 'Transformers Movie Discussion' started by Shizuka, Apr 5, 2013.

  1. Shizuka

    Shizuka Optimus Prime's Scriptor

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    I go to IGN for my news on games, movies and so on and for a long while I've had the displeasure of skimming the comments section when there were articles about Ninja Turtles. The comments quickly become typical Bay hate that by now has become incredibly thoughtless and "hive-mind" in nature.

    We all agree that Revenge of the Fallen wasn't the greatest which is true. People say that the 3 films don't have a plot which is not true. People also say that the writers suck but then I say that "you may think that they do but you're probably going to watch Star Trek".

    The typical thing a typical Bay Hater says is for example: explosion, explosion, explosions, ass, humping robots, racist joke. I read these over and over again. The funny thing is that these are examples of what was wrong with ROTF not what was wrong with all the other films Bay has done in the past such as Bad Boys, Armageddon and so on.

    Many people also seem to forget that they went to see an action movie and many times action movies have basic plots and the forte is the action. I assumed this was obvious. And even if DOTM had a simple plot and even if the acting in some areas wasn't the best, the action was great. Few Transformers episodes have amazing plots and even the Avengers didn't have the best plot yet it got praised by fans for seeming "just like the show".

    I'm not saying that some of Bay's choices were tasteful e.g. Devastator's wrecking balls, but I also think that fans are blowing things out of proportion and unless they're going out to watch a comedy it's seemingly impossible to just go to the cinema and have a good time.

    Not to mention that Bay is getting flak about Ninja Turtles even though time after time I tell them that he's not even directing the film.
     
  2. MV95

    MV95 @marlinfan1995 Veteran

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    Agree with you 100%.

    And Bay haters flooding in to defend themselves in 3...2...1...
     
  3. Nevermore

    Nevermore It's self-perpetuating a parahumanoidarianised!

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    There's two sides to this.

    Yes, Bay can set up good explosions.

    However, Avengers is a testament to the fact that you can have a very entertaining action flick that does not rely on shaky-cam you-can-barely-follow-what's going-on-cinematography, can have a decent plot with enjoyable characters, none of whom need to be over-the-top comic relief, and still make a shitload of money that makes even Michael Bay's biggest accomplishments pale in comparison.

    Or, to put it even more simply: Do action movies need to be well-crafted to be entertaining? No. But does that mean they need to be dumbed down to appeal to a large audience? No.
     
  4. FatalT 71

    FatalT 71 Mr. JazzHunter

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    Bay is not the master of his craft that he'd like to think he is. The above reference to the Avengers was spot on.

    Bay - no bueno.
     
  5. soundwaverulls

    soundwaverulls Taking a break

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    Yes. There are over the top haters. Just like there are over the top defenders. And I believe both should be condemned.

    However, there are over the top, impossible explosions, sex jokes and possibly racism in all his films. Look at that bus bursting into flames as Bonecrusher smashes through it, Sam's happy time, the scamming Black cars salesman and black hacker, Cons bursting into flames as Optimus strikes them with swords in Chicago, Brains in Carly's underwear draw and Hardcore Eddie the black coward.

    Also, an action flick can have a well thought out plot and good characters and still be enjoyable. And one of my biggest problems with the films is how personality deprived the Transformers are, not the bad plots.
     
  6. Shizuka

    Shizuka Optimus Prime's Scriptor

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    I think the difference with Avengers though was that they had time to craft each character individually before lumping them together otherwise we would have had character that would have been a bit 2-dimensional and clichéd to their comic counterpart.

    I don't see what the ethnicity of the salesman and the hacker have to do with anything. Maybe you'd care to elaborate? Unless these are stereotypes in which case they've gone over my head. If this isn't that obvious a problem though, are they really a problem?

    I would have liked more personality from the bots too but isn't down to multiple factors such as screentime, writing, acing and so on? Like I've said, there's only so much characterisation you can have in this movie with so many characters; it a problem Avengers avoided but Transformers can't have that luxury.

    In the end however, we're comparing one style of filming to another. I personally like the style but I admit to liking the focus in DOTM.
     
  7. biscuits

    biscuits Sin from Genesis

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    Eh, haters gonna hate, I'll continue to enjoy the films as some mindless fun.
     
  8. soundwaverulls

    soundwaverulls Taking a break

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    The problem is that, outside of Epps, all the black people in the TF trilogy were, incapable of fighting (Jazz), liars (salesman), hackers (Glen), wannabes (Twins) and cowardly(Eddie). However this may be Bay being unable to portray characters in his films that aren't uncreative stereotypes and not him being racist. However the strong possibility of racism is there.

    Bay may not have a ton of films but the first one showed you can have serious Transformers with some basic character and even have fun with them without reducing them to total comic relief. Gun happy Ironhide, playful Ratchet and whatever you'd call Jazz. So for character, I don't think it's as much as he can't do it but he doesn't take TF seriously enough to try.
     
  9. Shizuka

    Shizuka Optimus Prime's Scriptor

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    You're just over-analysing characters. Bernie Mac was funny and I saw no-one who had a problem with his character. Glen was a useful character, the Twins were emulating a subculture that many teenagers are adopting (you should live in South East London) and so on. If these characters were white would Bay still be racist? Or would it suddenly not become racist because the majority of characters in the films are white?

    I think that these problems are personal to you because you're lumping all of the "black" characters together. You're reading way too much into it.
     
  10. VaderPrime1

    VaderPrime1 Prepare for termination!

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    Yep.

    I'm in the middle of watching G1 for the 4th time and that's all it was. Mindless fun. They have the most ridiculous things.
     
  11. cappeca

    cappeca wtf is this?

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    People realized they're all the same. Even the Meatloaf clip has the same scenes.

    Now, action movie NOT EQUAL ******ed movie.


    Who's defending what now?
     
  12. Honorbound

    Honorbound Taking a break.

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    Personally, I think that Bay does have his weaknesses, mainly the toilet humor, but he is genuinely good at action and massive spectacle.
     
  13. bellpeppers

    bellpeppers A Meat Popsicle

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    Well, if you're suggesting that all the negative persona's should only be white...
     
  14. Jakest123

    Jakest123 Well-Known Member

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    The choreography in the battle scenes is just great. How Optimus uses the environment to his advantage will always be awesome. I'm surprised no one's noticed the genius in the choreography.
     
  15. Scorpio

    Scorpio Well-Known Member

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    I just wrote a long reply to this and it didn't submit properly... oh well...

    Put simply;

    ------

    Ninja Turtles;

    Some of the Bay hate is justified - he was after all director of Ninja Turtles back when the Ninja turtles was announced. He was also the one to incorrectly state that the Turtles were aliens and as one of the producers he has the ability to have final say over the casting choice of Megan Fox as April O'Niel.

    ------

    Armageddon;

    Many of the stereotypical character traits shown in ROTF - including a black muscly gay person, a black person dreaming of something more, an old fat man shouting at his old grouchy wife - are also present in Armageddon. Its just many people remember the good parts of Armageddon and thus can actually ignore the bad parts.

    -------

    The Avengers;

    The Avengers has several movies setting up the characters and the movie plot is based on several of the comics - including the role of Hulk as being used as a weapon by Loki, the role of the Tesseract/Cosmic cube which was established in Captain America and much more. The plot is simple and in many ways reminds me of some of the Star Wars films, especially in the way the enemy is defeated at the end.

    Plot of Avengers;
    Thanos uses the Other to get Loki to lead an attack against Earth and its heroes to clear the way for him. Meanwhile the heroes of Earth must band together in order to defeat a much larger threat when Loki steals the Teserract - a mystical item which can be used to open portals to other worlds. Will the combined might of the Avengers be enough to stop Loki and an army of alien Chitauri?

    Plot of Transformers;
    Sam Witwicky is trying to get laid and is attempting to impress a fellow classmate Mikaela. However, when Sam buys a car, hijinks ensue with the car actually being an alien robot - Bumblebee. Now Sam finds himself stuck in the middle of an alien war. Will Sam be able to save the planet and win the girl?

    Avengers stays much closer to the origins while the plot of Transformers varies into pretty much more of a comedy.

    -----

    "I also think that fans are blowing things out of proportion and unless they're going out to watch a comedy it's seemingly impossible to just go to the cinema and have a good time"

    At this stage I want to point out that the article you read was about Ninja Turtles... there was no mention of Transformers only hatred towards Bay - and due to this you have blown things out of proportion by using it as a post against 'Bay haters'

    I would also like to point out that many people watch good movies. Just because it doesn't seem like it to you, it doesn't mean that its not happening. Going back to your original point about the Avengers... many people will watch Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2 and other action movies... as long as they actually enjoy them.

    Just because it is a comedy doesn't mean that people will enjoy it. 'Ted' is a comedy and I hate that film. The 'Scary movie' series are all comedies and I hate those, etc...

    -----

    "you may think that they do but you're probably going to watch Star Trek"

    No need bringing Star Trek into this. No one was saying the writers were bad, they were just saying its a bad script - though as each movie with similar writers appears it becomes more likely people will start blaming the writers.

    -----

    "Not to mention that Bay is getting flak about Ninja Turtles even though time after time I tell them that he's not even directing the film."

    I love this... the blissful ignorance of someone who is trying to claim Bay deserves none of the hate for Ninja Turtles. Please read the following;

    • Bay confirmed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film would be Ninja Turtles and that the Turtles are no longer Mutants but aliens
    • "Unless the film is supposed to be based on an original script, the producer has to find an appropriate screenwriter" - Essentially this means that the producers of the film have an ability of leverage over the script
    • "The producer also has the final say on which film director gets hired" - Essentially this means that the producers of the film have a leverage over the script and direction of the movie
    • "They also have the last word when it comes to casting questions" - This essentially means that Bay along with the other producers had final say as to whether Megan Fox would be playing April O'Niel
    • Bay originally wrote the first leaked script which you can have read to you here as you facepalm yourself every second for thinking Bay doesn't deserve any hate when he had a large part in this script;
      Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) Script Read! *LEAKED* 100% Real - YouTube

    So yh... Bay is directly responsible for the leaked script which included the Turtles as Aliens. He may be partially responsibly for the casting choice of Megan Fox as April O'Niel. He may also share some responsibility with the decision to make the turtles aliens in the first place... though I believe that may have been decided by those higher up.

    -----

    In short... stop using bay hate on a Ninja Turtles article to justify your own rant about 'bay haters'

    Also... stay away form IGN... it doesn't provide good news...
     
  16. soundwaverulls

    soundwaverulls Taking a break

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    Actually, these complaints aren't entirely my own and I myself know that there are many different ways of viewing the black characters in the TF films. And something I failed to get across is that I was merely listing possible complaints about racism, in reply to your claim that those claims could only be applied to ROTF. Sorry, I'm often unclear in my points.
     
  17. Ash from Carolina

    Ash from Carolina Junior Smeghead

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    Micheal Bay does have some skills which keep him from being a Uwe Boll, but there are loads of reasons to hate Micheal Bay if you love movies, and the hate goes back well before he even thought about directing Transformers.

    Back in the 80's Micheal Bay would have been considered pretty good because we had that crazy decade when you could do just about anything in an action movie like what crazy character can we team a star up with for a buddy cop action movie. But action movies moved on while Bay seems like exactly the same person who directed The Rock, just no growth at all as a director.

    While he makes great explosions and gun fights he's really weak on other elements. Pearl Harbor had such a horrible love triangle with such rotten acting that it's hard to top the stink of it. The heroes aren't hitting on much in the personality department outside of the big book of film clichés. The villains are so forgettable in a Micheal Bay movie that outside of character you already knew like Japanese admirals or Megatron it's hard for anyone to name a Micheal Bay villain. While other directors have been hitting it out of the ball park with villains like the Joker and Loki the Bay films have been running with the idea that bad guys aren't characters just something for the good guy to kill.

    Really doesn't help that Micheal Bay seems to be bad with fans and that's not good for a geek film. Fans kind of expect a director to be fan friendly even if that director can't put everything you want into a film. We just live in an age where Bay's ego of the Transformers are mine and you nobody people can't do anything about it doesn't fly very well.

    As to the Turtles thing, well the reason Micheal Bay is catch flak for it is because Micheal Bay is the only person coming forward with anything about the movie or pushing the movie. Sure it's not directed by Micheal Bay but he seems to be the person pulling all the strings and not caring if fans are happy or not.
     
  18. Starscream Gaga

    Starscream Gaga Protoformed This Way

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    Wait, the April O'Neil as Megan Fox thing wasn't just a horrible, vicious rumor?

    My soul is dieing.
     
  19. saberconvoy

    saberconvoy Drifting around

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    For me, its not Bay personally, he just got caught up in my hate for it. I honestly just hate live action in general. I'm to much into the anime/cartoon side of it. I think live action can never do a good job at making something like that. Therefore my hate for anything live action is there.
     
  20. Scorpio

    Scorpio Well-Known Member

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    "TMNT: we are bringing Megan Fox back into the family!" - Michael Bay

    It was confirmed by Bay she would be included in TMNT and given the limited female roles in TMNT she is either playing April O'Neil or the 'female turtle' character from the leaked script.

    Given that her character was confirmed this early on its likely that she'll be a main role - which leave only April O'Neil - though I don't think there has been any confirmation of her in this role... pretty much every website is stating she is and the production team involved have not confirmed or denied it.

    Once again... the original first script (Confirmed by Bay to be the official script that he was working on originally);

     
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