Not 100% sure, I don't believe he's ever said he disliked her because she's female, I'm sure there'd be more of a fuss kicked up if that were the case. I think he just didn't like the character, which is fine, Derrick J. Wyatt was rather public about his dislike of Drift (Which I assume was just because it was popular to do at the time) and Beachbomber, which was funny because his Prowl was like a combination of the both of them.

I don't even recall him giving a reason.

From TFwiki: "In another interview, Alex Kurtzman cited "scale issues" as an additional reason for dropping Arcee; allegedly, Michael Bay simply considered her too small as compared to the rest of the Autobots." So I remembered something incorrectly.

Still odd reasoning in retrospect, given how largely scale has been thrown out the window in the films.

 

Arcee vrs Shatter.? Who would win.?

 

Shatter

 

Not sure why he included her in the first place, but he didn't like her.

Here, I'll quote an article I found on that subject: "You know what? I didn't like Arcee," the filmmaker revealed exclusively to us Thursday night, "so I kill her later, all right?"

"You know what? It's like actors," he explained, comparing his Transformers to flesh-and-blood stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. "There are certain actors that blossom on screen, and there are certain others where you're like, 'Yuck, I'm cutting them out of the movie.'" So Bay decided to kill Arcee – a pink motorcycle who can be glimpsed in the movie's trailer during a chase scene in Japan. As some fans might remember, the death of Jazz in Bay's first "Transformers" film not only served as a reminder of the severity of the robot war, but also became one of the film's most touching moments. In the sequel, however, Bay was so eager to kill off Arcee that he had no desire to milk the moment for emotional impact. "This isn't sad," he grinned, discussing Arcee's sudden death. "This is just 'get it out and get it over with.'

 

WUTT

 

I thought the same lmao. I think they meant Shanghai. You know, the battle at the beginning of ROTF.

 

Yeah, they clearly meant Shanghai... in China.

Typical io9.

 

Disgusting.

 

He was forced to include her, but then told he could kill off some of them if he absolutely felt so strongly about it. That out of the triplets, only one needed to survive in side material for drawing on later if it was needed. That it really didn't matter so long as one survived, but it'd also be curious to see how audiences react to that or if they'd even notice.

A lot of that also stemmed from him being 'educated' on the lore by the wrong areas back then, and also consider what the slash fiction back then was like in the fandom that it's kind of understandable what his hesitancy was. Has nothing to do with "he hates women" and more to do with the time these things were made and hollywood mentalities that pervaded the industry that have long since evolved and grown. Keep in mind at the time he was making movies, he was catering to certain male stereotypes, and his interviews reflect that too, and not really his own real thoughts on it. Press materials are about catering to an audience's perception, not that often about 'facts' or 'truth'. They are about selling a narrative to push ticket sales because of demographics.

So in other words, this was pandering, which has been quite common in movie marketing for a very long time. About as long as "press marketing areas" have existed. People that call out "pandering" these days, really don't realize how long they've been pandered to themselves, and are more only complaining that they are no longer pandered to.

Even modern Bumblebee movie marketing stuff is quite heavy with the pandering to audiences intentionally with fake narratives and moderately made up stories. Press marketing is all about manipulation tactics like that. It's relatively the same for almost all media you consume in general.

That entire "Bay hates women" rhetoric that keeps getting used is outright false too. If you actively pay attention to the films, more often than not, the women are extremely capable, and a few intelligent men are too, but some main male leads are usually bumbling overemotional idiots with too much ego for their own good. Cade was a mild departure from that, but it had shown up in other ways. But You definitely see it pronounced with Simmons, Sam, and others. Whereas Mikaela, Carly, Lennox, Epps, Tessa, Izzie, and others are extremely capable characters thrown into extraordinary circumstances and rise to the occasion. He gets a lot of flack, but the movies really speak differently about his stances and contradict what people keep trying to sell on that.

Out of every film he directed, the women typically have the pivotal moment that changes the course of the film, and narrative speaking, if you remove their role, the film falls apart and the bad guys would have won. Without Maggie, the data signal from the first movie would have never gotten decoded that led to figuring out what was going on. If Mikaela was removed from 07, Bee would be a sitting duck, potentially dead. If you remove her from ROTF, Sam would be dead by Alice's hands as well as how she was pivotal to other events in the film. If you remove Carly from DOTM, Prime would be dead. If you remove Tessa, the same by Lockdown's hands. If you remove Izzie, the whole squadron would have been wiped out. For someone that allegedly hates women, he sure seems to keep giving them pivotal important roles that aren't comic foils or anywhere near inept. Usually showing the courage to do what needs to be done without hesitation, and highlighting the ignorance of male perceptions about women, as well as highlighting various judgmental views males have about looks. Which you can see plain as day on Glen's TFWiki page.

 

Bay hates women less than he hates men, but he writes all of his characters with utter contempt, so it's kind of grading on a curve.

 

  What are you talking about bro? How could you possibly know what he's thinking? I highly doubt he actually hates women or men, calm down. Just because TFwiki makes a childish comment to that effect doesn't make it true.

You're putting down what could easily just be incompetence to malicious intent, that's a really bad way to live and interact with people. Allow me to remind those unaware, since nowadays no one tells them otherwise, you can't accidentally hate a demographic, hate requires intention to hate, you can't accidentally be a bigot.

Not really a fan of Bay's style at all, but I'm not going to assume I know how he thinks just because he doesn't like a dumb robot character.

Bahahahaha, that's great.

 

I think he's just taking the piss, bro.

The joke is that man or women, all are equally inane and incompetent under the direction of Bay.

 

Kek. Well, you're not the one who made the comment so you can't really say, can you? I'm simply analyzing what he said as he wrote it, maybe next time he should make it more clear that it's a joke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Generally just claiming "someone hates ____" without anything supporting it doesn't classify as a "joke", but perhaps I'm just not as enlightened about modern comedy. Also your explanation doesn't even touch upon what was discussed at all, he claimed he could read Mr. Bay's mind and claimed that he wrote all his characters with contempt even though these movies HAVE writers that aren't him, and you're telling me it was a joke that means both Men and women don't know what they're doing while working for him because Bay's direction is not good.



Not even saying that you're incorrect about Bay's poor direction, but that's not what he was saying with his comment.

Also just so you're aware there's more that makes a movie awful than just a misguided director. All the blame can't realistically be placed solely on him, I know he's awful but he only has SO much power.

 

Indeed, for every scene of Megan Fox being a piece of meat on screen, there's a scene of Shia LeBeouf being abusive to his friends and loved ones, or Mark Wahlberg aggressively opening a can of beer at someone, or Deep Wang, or Simmons in a man thong. Honestly, the women might make it out better just being objectified.

Lindsay Ellis' series The Whole Plate covers this in Episodes 6 and 7, it's really kind of a fascinating aspect of Bay's career.

 

Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

 

And I thought I dug up threads lol.