Stylin Online TFW2005 Contest #3 - Tell Off The Critics!

In the end, it all boils down to one thing.. escapism.

On another forum, I was in a discussion with someone who had difficulty understanding why so many people were enjoying the film. He was particularly confused by how audiences were embracing Tranformers ROTF as opposed to Terminator Salvation.

I attempted to explain that the main difference between the two films was the use of humor (which is a subjective thing and clearly people disagree about whether it worked or not -- much like any comedian really) The world of TS was a depressive almost nihilistic environment I pointed out which audiences might have felt overwhelmed by.

The point is, for many people, the summer film is purely about escapism. Of course, that's a subjective term and no two people will agree 100% on what it means. For many, there's a fine line between escapism and pure fantasy. In other words, there has to be a common human trait that people can identify with in order for audiences to resonate with a film.

For the original TF film, it was the experience of owning your first car and experiencing a crush on someone. For the second one, it's growing up, accepting responsibility and trying to push on despite life's turmoils.

It's been said that TF:ROTF is the quintessential summer movie, and I'd agree with that assessment. Bay's goal is to provide entertainment, not pursuing an Oscar.

To Ebert and the other critics, I would respectfully agree and disagree with their assessments. By the criteria they judged the film against, I can see where it doesn't meet their expectations.

Or to put it another way, if I'm expecting a home cooked hamburger, I know I'm not going to get it from McDonalds. That having been said, sometimes you're just hungry and a greasy fast food burger hits the spot. It's frustrating for those who hate fast food to see billions served, but the fact is, that's what the target audience craves. The same things applies with regards to TF:ROTF.

It's ok to not like the film. Just as it's ok for others to enjoy it. You may want to save the world from greasy hamburgers being the only option to eat, but realistically, non-fast food options will never go away.

(This is an article I wrote for my paper about ROTF. Figured it was just as applicable here.)

Ahh, the summer movie season. Blockbusters as far as the eye can see. This year, the summer movie season officially began with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. However, it did not open to positive reviews.

Roger Ebert was one of the examples, saying “If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together.”

……

That’s pretty bad.

Ebert goes on to say: “The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. The human actors are in a witless sitcom part of the time, and lot of the rest of their time is spent running in slo-mo away from explosions, although--hello!--you can't outrun an explosion. The battle scenes are bewildering.”

Allow me to ask the question that makes the entire review redundant.

Do you think that this movie was directed at you?

Ebert is a 67 year old man.

Does anyone honestly think that Michael Bay, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Ehren Kruger all brainstormed about how the 67 year old man demographic would react to this movie? No, they know who will be the main demographic, and, thus, they wrote with them in mind.

Another thing about Ebert’s review is he complains about the explosions and battle scenes. Yeah, because if you don’t count the amazing CGI effects, the battle scenes are awful. Plus, if you’re colorblind, and have zero eye coordination, it’s moderately hard to tell the black catlike robot between either the bright yellow robot or the blue and red robot with the bright red flames on his body. Another thing critics have been complaining about was the sexuality, but there’s a few non-human sex jokes, easily forgettable, and taking up a mere 25 seconds of time. If anything, the sexuality is equal to the first movie, except this one has more explosions. What about the emotional depth between Sam and his parents during the Egypt scenes? That’s easily forgettable, because the critics are only looking for the BAD in the movie.

I admit, the movie seems a bit too long at times, but that’s because in the time allotted, there’s not enough time to explain away the plotholes. If the forest battle was really the climax, as so many have claimed would be better, everyone would be complaining about the fact that the movie was too short. And be honest, this movie exists for one reason. To sell toys. Unfortunately, by the time the forest battle comes up, Bay’s only sold about 10-13 new toys, yet there’s a $100 big toy to sell to the kids, so it looks like it’s time to add some screen time onto the movie to sell MORE toys. And it does its job. By the end of the movie, kids will be lining up to buy a $45 Optimus Prime toy. Face it Ebert, the point of this movie is to move some plastic. And if there’s a story in there, so be it.

My main point is this: You can’t please everyone, so just add some explosions and then make $16 million on your opening day, breaking box office Wednesday records. Who cares about the critics when this movie is destined to be one of the biggest summer movies ever?

This movie only has one purpose in life, maybe two. Its primary purpose will be to sell home theater systems when it comes out on DVD. Every specialty electronics retailer will using it to demo their wares. Its secondary purpose is to pad the demo reels for everyone who worked on it at ILM. They have accomplished quite a technical feat, and were it not for those people, this film would be completely unwatchable. The film does a complete disservice to the franchise. If any good is to come out of this movie, it is my hopes that they will move on without Michael Bay, and find someone who will give the source material the proper respect.

I remember when I heard they were making the first one, and it was going to be live action no less! I thought “This is going to be the new Star Wars for a whole generation and beyond…” The depth and wealth of material is immense, and could have delivered one of the most incredible film going experiences in decades, but instead we got a hollow empty story with less than satisfying results. There were parts we all liked, and were happy to see the franchise getting attention. But ultimately I don’t think the first film was the Transformers film anyone really had hoped for or had imagined all these years.

Now we come to the second film, a chance to atone for everything that wasn’t quite right about the first, a chance to exceed expectations and deliver something truly spectacular, epic, something like The Empire Strikes Back. While the battle scenes do deliver on some levels, the whole narrative is a complete joke, and an insult to anyone who knows what a story is supposed to accomplish. Instead of taking a turn for the better, being more attentive to fandom, and making sure the absolute best product is delivered to us, we get the lowest common denominator of dialogue and plot ever produced in a film.

It’s literally like someone found all these effects reels and said “Hey! Let’s string all these different CGI elements together and see if we can make some sort of story!” Kind of like what was done with Robotech back in the day, except this is strung together with fart jokes, cussing robots, bare assess, and giant metal balls, instead of an epic back story, or any kind of story at all for that matter. I think the critics are pretty much right on the money on this one. They’re not hating, they like us, simply want to see something compelling, something life changing, like Star Wars did generations ago. Perhaps in this franchise, they all saw that potential, and were more than frustrated when all the potential this franchise has, was squandered on this even more hollow, empty, and let’s face it… sad sequel.

It’s not about who is right, or who is wrong in this exchange, it’s simply about wanting the best, wanting the film we all have always dreamed about, and so far, I don’t think we’ve gotten it yet. Michael Bay is to Tranformers, what Joel Schumacher was to Batman. Schumacher’s only point of reference for his Batman films was the 60’s TV series. He refused to acknowledge any other source material, and we got Batman with plastic nipples as a result. I can only pray that Transformers will find its Chris Nolan, and break out to achieve its true potential.

Peace.

The problem with Ebert's one-star review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is that it is inconsistent with Ebert's own rules he uses to judge movies.

Ebert's methodology is what makes him -- usually -- one of my favorite movie critics. He uses a one- to four-star scale, including half stars, with the midpoint being 2 1/2 stars. Getting 2 1/2 stars means that the movie delivers exactly what you expect it to deliver based on the previews; nothing more, nothing less. In other words, 2 1/2 stars is Ebert telling us "if this is the kind of thing you think you'd probably like, you'll probably like this movie." So, for example, "Imagine That" got 2 1/2 stars from Ebert.

This is why 2- and 3-star reviews are the most common Ebert reviews. From the 2 1/2 star baseline, a 2-star review tells you that even if you typically like this sort of thing, you'll probably be disappointed. On the other hand, a 3-star review tells you that the movie exceeds expectations.

Thus, I can understand -- and even appreciate! -- that Ebert gave 3 stars to the romantic comedy "The Proposal", even though I would personally rather gouge my eyes out than see a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock. It's okay; Ebert is saying that if you like romantic comedies, "The Proposal" is better than what you'd expect, and if you're neutral about them, it's maybe worth giving a shot. If you hate romantic comedies (as I do), Ebert's 3-stars are telling you that you'll probably still hate "The Proposal."

For the rare movies where Ebert gives 3 1/2 or 4 stars, he's trying to tell you "hey, see this film no matter what kinds of movies you typically prefer." That's why The Hangover gets 3 1/2 stars and Up gets 4 stars -- Ebert is saying "hey, even if you don't typically like raunchy comedies or Pixar movies, these are some damn good movies. Go see them!"

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the two-star movie is a signal to you that the movie is likely to fail to meet your expectations, like Terminator: Salvation. He's not saying "don't see this movie," and if you're a die-hard Terminator fan, you're going to go see it even if it gets two stars. Ebert is just trying to warn you in advance that the movie isn't going to deliver on what you think it will deliver.

A one-star rating, on the other hand, is for movies so bad that Ebert is trying to tell you, "for the love of God, man, this movie is crap! Don't see it! You won't like it! It will so fall below your expectations that you will be angry at having spent 10 bucks and two hours of your time in the theater. No matter how much you like Jack Black, "Year One" is just not funny." You get the idea.

So, if you've read this whole overly-lengthy post, what's the payoff? The payoff is that Roger Ebert gave the first "Transformers" movie THREE STARS.

Yes, that's right, Mr. Hater told us in 2007 that the first "Transformers" was probably going to be better than your average action flick; that it would surprise you, and that on balance it was worth seeing if you liked that sort of movie and maybe even if you didn't. On the other hand, if you hate the idea of giant robots beating the hell out of each other, you probably still wouldn't like "Transformers."

With that as a history, there is simply no way you can go from a 3-starred review of "Transformers" to a 1-starred review of "Transformers 2." It's fundamentally dishonest. Ebert knows that if you liked "Transformers," you're probably going to like "Transformers 2." Heck, on his blog, he even predicts that Transformers 2 will be a blockbuster and spawn additional sequels. By his own criteria, Transformers 2 deserves at least 2 1/2 stars. Ebert's gripes --the movie is too loud, too explodey, too cartoony, too sexy, and so on -- are not 1-star gripes. If you're thinking about seeing Transformers 2, you know it's going to be loud. You know there are going to be massive explosions. You know Megan Fox is going to straddle anything in a horizontal position. You know there are going to be raunchy jokes. You know there are going to be giant CGI robots beating the crap out of each other. You know all of this because you saw Transformers 1, and Ebert gave that three frickin' stars!

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course. Subjectively, I think Transformers 2 is a better movie than the first Transformers in a lot of ways. The robot designs are cleaner and easier to follow in TF2; the fight scenes are better choreographed and more interesting; the variety of robot lifeforms are more interesting; the plot had more twists; there were more interesting subplots; the relationship between Megatron and Starscream was spot on (as was Soundwave); the movie did an excellent job turning Jetfire and Wheelie into real characters; and so on.

And there is room for fair criticism, too; the things I didn't like about TF1 were back in TF2. So you have Bumblebee peeing on Simmons in TF1; in TF2, Simmons stands under Devastator's balls. TF1 makes two unfunny masturbation jokes in 5 minutes; TF2 makes two unfunny dog-humping jokes in 5 minutes. TF1 had Jazz "kickin' it in the crib"; TF2 has the unbelievably annoying Twins. And so on. But (at least in my eyes) you'd be hard pressed to say that TF2 was worse than TF1 in cringe-worthy moments.

But even if you disagree with the subjective evaluations, what you get out of TF2 is pretty much on the close order of what you'd expect having seen TF1. Not so much better that it deserves four stars, but clearly and beyond a doubt not so much worse that it deserves just one.

Ebert's broken his own rules to climb on board the "Michael Bay sucks!" bandwagon, and it's a shame.