Michael Bay, I Hate You

Current mood: disappointed
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Michael Bay, I hate you. That much is easy to say, finding out how so much irreparable damage has been done by his hand is a little more difficult. I've decided to delve deep into why I dislike Michael Bay.

Michael Bay likes the big summer blockbuster. He's been making movies that are released in the summer for a few years now, almost to a sickening degree. Let's start at the most recent event. On July 3^rd, two days ago, I paid to go see Transformers. Up until now Bay has been creating intellectual property that is not very original, that much we all know. This movie is the closest to home for me. I, along with many other readers of this blog, grew up with the Transformers. Few things are sacred to young men my age, one is that of the boyhood charm of the giant robots that filled our afternoons on TV and crazy creative play sessions with the action figures, helping to develop our imaginations. I know the show and animated movie were vehicles for Hasbro to hock some toys, but that was ok because they were just shills for the toys themselves, not other products which leads me to my first issue with the movie.

The Autobots (those are the good guys) originally transformed into vehicles that were meant to aid humans. Ambulances, fire trucks, tractor trailers. On the television show Xbox's and Mountain Dew vending machines did not transform into robots. In the live action movie, the Autobots didn't just turn into vehicles, they turned into General Motors vehicles. Clever product placement indeed. Every time I turn on the TV the past week or so I have seen no less than 3,758 "Transform Your Ride!" commercials. I knew this was coming, but I wanted to believe otherwise. Shame on me for believing that Bay would deliver in the respect of not whoring out his movie for advertisement space in a feature film. In the background, fine. In the action of the movie? No thanks.

Issue number two, the amount of incredibly ridiculous over-acting. The interaction between hapless Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and typical eye candy Mikaela (Megan Fox) are about as hollow as most performances in any fill in the blank Bay feature. However, the dialogue between Sam and his parents is some of the worst overacting and non-humorous script writing while attempting to be funny script writing I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen a lot of bad movies. The worst crime is reserved for the interaction between the Autobots themselves and the environment they are placed in. They looked about as comfortable as a guy wearing Milk-Bone underwear at a dog show. I've watched the animated feature very recently, and some of the old series episodes. The Autobots were not bumbling idiots, with the exception of the Dinobots and Blurr. Blurr was the dumbest and most annoying Transformer next to Wheelie. Back to the actual real actors in the movie. When the original animated movie had more acting talent in it than the live action movie, you have a problem. Even John Tuturro sucked. Call me sentimental, but I'll take Judd Nelson over Josh Duhamel any day of the week. You say Jon Voight? I say Orson Wells.

Issue number three, historical inaccuracies. I understand taking something and making it your own, but don't screw it up beyond the point of recognition. Optimus Prime not wearing his mask the entire movie? Starscream looking like they dug him out of his fat Elvis period and dressing him up enough to put him in the movie for 10 minutes? Devastator was a combination of all the Constructicons forming one giant robot, not some tank. Megatron looked more monstrous and primitive than an evil, conniving, run of the mill Transformer type looking character. Not one mention of Energon Cubes, and no damn Soundwave. How do you leave out Soundwave? When they announced they were bringing back Peter Cullen to voice Prime, I thought the picture was going in the right direction. Did I want some things to vary from the original show? Of course. Did I want all the original voices to come back, or at least make an effort to process Starscream's voice? You better believe it. Am I asking too much? I don't think so. The movie had a one billion dollar budget. For that much they could have resurected Robert Stack to come back and do a voice in the movie.

Issue number four, the idiots that applauded for the movie in the theater. I thought it was just maybe the group I saw the picture with, however my friend Derek said that in a theater in Sioux Falls they did the same thing. It may have been kids that didn't grow up with the awesome generation one toys, or the original series and were raised on the crappy Armada series, but I heard a lot of adult cheers as well. You're all going to hell for liking this movie, because Michael Bay is Paris Hilton's evil minion number one in our entertainment hell on Earth. As I mentioned before, I'm convinced Hilton is the Anti-Christ and Bay is doing her bidding in the motion picture industry. Hilton was born the same year Bay got his start as a crew member on Night Court. Coincidence? I'll let you decide.

Bay has directed and produced some of the worst shit I've seen in a movie in my life. After saying that I won't lie, I own three Bay flicks on DVD. They are Armageddon, Bad Boys and Bad Boys II. I don't like them that much, but for some reason I purchased them. It must have been my hallucinate period where the ghost of Don Simpson made me purchase stupid movies. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of going to movie to get away from my trials and tribulations, but I don't want to spend that time and money on a movie that is vapid and completely devoid of substance either. Steven Spielberg, who was an executive producer on Transformers, wrote the book on blockbuster movies. The main element Bay's films lack in comparison to Spielberg is the connection between all the action and finding heart in all of it. Watch E.T. or Jaws and take a few notes Mike. Studios give Bay an endless budget and he turns out crap. I'd like to see a great filmmaker take a crack at a movie like this with the same type of cash behind him or her. Then again, you have to have Cybertonian ego to make a movie about giant, transforming robots, and Michael Bay has that ego in spades.

Currently listening : Mirrored By Battles Release date: By 22 May, 2007

7:27 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Derek

First off, im pretty sure they were called the "Constructicons", but thats neither here nor there. Second, i hope you read my blog too. And third, and most people at the comic store agree with me, there's almost no way the sequel could suck as much as this one, so thats a plus. The amount of anger this film has instilled in me could fuel about 1 million energon cubes!!! Eject Eject Eject!!! "No one calls my buddy Soundwave uncrasimatic". lol Posted by Derek on Friday, July 06, 2007 at 8:24 AM [Remove] [Reply to this]