I've been saying this for years; if the films are that bad how is it they keep making so much money? It took 10 years and 5 films for the success to decline. After the first film people knew what they were getting into - in fact after second film people knew what they were getting into and they kept going back. Whether the plot makes sense or the acting is questionable or whether the pacing is everywhere at the end of the day the majority enjoyed the films (which is the point of movies) enough to not only watch sequel after sequel but enough to earn the franchise billions of dollars. The reason why The Last Knight performed so poorly is the same reason why I went into the film and didn't leave disappointed; it was more of the same. It was impossible for me to be disappointed unless the film didn't meet the standard of the past films but while I enjoyed it it didn't exceed that standard like DotM did compared to RotF and because it was more of the same and because it didn't succeed the standard people had grown tired of the franchise. I do think that Bay is a talented director because not everyone can direct like he can.
To put it mildly, revenue and quality are not explicitly correlated in cinema. Michael Bell excels at the former (and is often supported by the best marketing machine a multibillion dollar media company can bring to bear), but that does not mean the latter is not up for debate.
Revenue and quality aren't necessarily correlated, no but, this is what I'm saying. When scrutinized these films may not have the best quality but it's good enough to do it's job and it does it so well that people want more of it. This can be said about so many things. Is the quality of Mc Donalds the best? No, because you can go to other places and get a higher quality product. But Mc Donalds does what it does well and it makes people go back time and time again.
Kind of reminds me of something Bay said one time. When The Island didn't do the sort of box office they wanted Bay didn't say it was because the film was any different than what he's done before but rather that marketing dropped the ball on promoting the film.
He's a great director and all the Movies he did are truly brilliant. (yes, I'm sure TLK is Hasbro-Paramount child, isn't HIS FILM)
one of the complaints about bay's films is "oh, the explosions" & i just eye roll at that. one of bay's biggest faults sadly is he is compassionate to his criticism yet also quite defiant..he kind of sticks his eye in the critic as to say "you want explosions & gratuitous, questionable angles, ill give them to you!" & yes, he does have child-like humor but that is because he has the mind of a child, in that, his inner-child is damn strong & that's where he pulls these shots from so you can't have one without the other with him it seems...he is a child in a man's body (this is a good thing when you use that innocent/childlike creativity to amass a fortune as he has) his earlier work, before he became huge stands the test of time...go watch bad boys or the rock & see how far ahead of the times he was... his style has always been polarizing..i remember back in the late 90s people complaining about armageddon & how deep impact is far superior...well, one film is an after-thought & the other is a well-known guilty pleasure of many... he is a genius in how to frame a shot...he isn't nolan, tarentino, cameron (where he writes his own stories & is a masterful storyteller)...he is more of a technical genius akin to spielberg & kubrick..where as, he has an unparalleled vision & does a tremendous job translating that into a shot he takes flack for making action-films because that is not a genre of the elite...he is the best action director of all-time in my opinion & when he strays from his genre (pearl harbor/13 hours/pain & gain) he still shows his great eye dont forget he made that historic milk commercial as well..so he's been the golden boy all his career.....man found steady work in hollywood for over 20 years & appears to have a job as long as he wants one...that counts for something & there is no question in my mind he helped influence an entire generation for better or worse.. do i think he could have done a better job with the transformers films? absolutely. but at the same token, we are certainly lucky to have him
"good enough to do its job", the true hallmark of quality and the work of a genius. I'm with you on that McDonald's analogy though, it's a really fitting one.
ive seen this previously & a lot of it is what i expect to hear from the haters..he lost me at casual racism & sexism...bay's first movie was with martin lawrence, will smith & tea leoni as the main stars (not that something like this needs to be pointed out) but that's overlooked because somehow bernie mac's character is racist in transformers
I've never understood why people call certain roles to be racist. Like, if it's in a book/comic book or on an animated show where a person of that race doesn't have to actually be involved, I totally get it. Or if a character makes derogatory comments towards a race/a character pretends to be another race, I also get why that would be seen as bad. But... Why would people sign up to play a role if they thought it was racist? Why would Bernie Mac even want to be in Transformers if he thought the role was hateful towards black people? It just doesn't make sense. Telling me that those actors hate their own race or just do it for the money is frankly more offensive than any perceived stereotype.
