Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Funny you should mention the Coens Batutta, Michael Bay is the Coens number one fan, he loves their films (I'm probably number two!).

You're also right about his approach to moviemaking, but remember, this is a guy that came from TV commercials, and at the tender age of 25 had already won every major award there is in the TV commercials industry. So that's where he comes from. On the other hand, Nolan has a degree in English literature, and has always loved film as a medium, and never had to use his talent to sell beer, therefore his works will naturally have a "deeper" cinematic meaning. But MB has proven a couple of times in his career, that his style can fit certain types of films extremely well, The Rock and Transformers I being probably the best examples of this.

He's the kind of film maker that is very good at what he does (Tony Scott on steroids...), but has nonetheless a very small range, meaning that if he steers direction slightly, he won't be understood or appreciated for it, in fact he will be hated for it. That's probably the price for being one the most profitable directors in the world since the age of 30!

Maybe he just needs some good "parental" guidance when choosing his projects.
 
Nuno Dias said:
But MB has proven a couple of times in his career, that his style can fit certain types of films extremely well, The Rock and Transformers I being probably the best examples of this.

He's the kind of film maker that is very good at what he does (Tony Scott on steroids...), but has nonetheless a very small range, meaning that if he steers direction slightly, he won't be understood or appreciated for it, in fact he will be hated for it. That's probably the price for being one the most profitable directors in the world since the age of 30!
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Transformers I is the only film of his I truly liked. I thought The Rock was overwrought to an absurd degree, and his cutting style was at its most obnoxious there. His pure action films have an aggression about them that I find a bit too sadistic and off-putting. I think making a film that was somewhat geared towards younger kids softened that tendency enough that I was able to enjoy his work. The Island was just okay for me. It had his strongest script up until then, but I actually think a smarter filmmaker could have made something more out of that. But, yeah, the reasons why his films look the way they do are no mystery. I read the only reason he got the job for Bad Boys was because Simpson or Bruckheimer wanted the name and number of an actress in one of his commercials. That's Hollywood!
 
I like the bay Nolan polar opposites comparison very much. In my opinion both only have one successfully pulled off piece of directing, the rock(well done action flick, what bay should do), and Memento(very well done introspective mind trip movie).

I'll give Nolan that his movies appear more pleasing if you don't actually think and let the movie do the (bad) thinking for you. though I respect Bay more(still very little) as he is doing what he has always done and will always do make blockbuster movies that slowly give us more and more action and tna and far less story with each progressive movie(no deception there). Where nolan (as did bay) has managed to ruin my favorite super hero effectively making him a hero(taking away the super my own beef I know), and continued to try and remake Memento with no success(in my opinion).

I feel we are all a product of whatever was in the theaters when we decided to make movies. Kind of like the music you listen to around the time when you loose your virginity is the music you will love the most for the rest of your life. So I understand we each have our own unique attachments to directors and movies but we do need to face the reality of the difference between a movie we enjoyed and an actual well put together piece of film making. I love water world and judge dread but I will be the first to admit they are horrible movies they just have a sentimental value to me.

In the end movies are about making people happy and releasing them from their lives, as well as inform and many other things. So I applaud those who enjoyed the movie and speak it loud. Discussion is great we are all entitled to our opinions and it's fun to read them all.

Happy creating and play nice!

PS: the batman movies were wonderful movies just not good comic movies or adaptations in my opinion so in that light I feel they were failures for him, I'm a huge batman fan so I know this opinion is not shared by many and highly ludicrous. Oh and in my opinion transformers as the reviewer puts it represents everything that is wrong in this world today, so trust me I'm not defending Bay I think he should politely step down, I just think Nolan should put down some of his hats and stop trying to make intelligent movies for stupid audiences because you just end up with a pseudo-intellectual movie suffering from horrible exposition and pointlessly convoluted plot points.
 
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At least Nolan is trying to make quality films.

William Goldman categorized films into 3 types:

(1) movies that aspire to quality and succeed
(2) movies that aspire to quality and don't succeed
(3) movies that never meant to be any good at all.

Category 3, he said are "movies for which the original pulse was either totally or primarily financial". Tranformers 3, as were the previous 2 were made on this goal and only this goal. No higher meaning, not art, not philosophy nothing but money AND that is why its a massive failure.

Think of Terminator 2. A robot film. Loads of explosions, violence etc. A film about two robots hitting each other-sounds a bit like transformers. Yet the film transcends. There is this wonderful story about a robot becoming human, and becoming John Connor's father. I always cry at the end. Watched it nearly hundred times. I always break down crying at the end.

Transformers doesn't have this, it doesn't have anything to do with human emotion. It simply doesn't want to. Bay has no connection with human emotion. Many have argued but that's the point its just throwaway entertainment. Its for 15 year boys. I reject that notion. I think Bay is scared. A scared filmmaker. So afraid to explore his emotions, thoughts and ideas about life that he falls back to "****ing the screen". Making things explode because that's incredibly easy to do. You can have that but there has to be more.

He makes these stupid films, and yet when i watch and hear interviews with him he's not an idiot. He's not loud and borish-at least in the interviews i've seen, he's articulate, sometimes engaging. I'd loved to see him make something personal cause then i reckon you might just see something worthy of attention.
 
Kingswell said:
William Goldman categorized films into 3 types:

(1) movies that aspire to quality and succeed
(2) movies that aspire to quality and don't succeed
(3) movies that never meant to be any good at all.
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That's an interesting categorization. I sort of have something similar:

(1) movies that completely and unrelentingly sell me on the emotions and truths of its moments
(2) movies that mostly sell me on the emotions and truths of its moments, except for a few transgressions in which I'm taken out of that blissful, emotional cocoon state and begin to logically consider the movie
(3) movies that simply can't tell the truth because there's none there
 
S. Matthews said:
Where nolan (as did bay) has managed to ruin my favorite super hero effectively making him a hero(taking away the super my own beef I know), and continued to try and remake Memento with no success(in my opinion).
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To be fair, there's nothing SUPER about Batman. He's always just been a hero. A regular (albeit wealthy) guy trying to do what's right.

However, I have come up with a better ending for Transformers 3. I think it's more realistic to what would actually happen, and it gives the movie a theme.

*some spoilers*
When the autobots say "This is your war now. Never lose faith in yourselves." and leave, they shouldn't have come back. Rather they should have left the humans to believe in themselves and fight! After years and years of warring between the humans and the... well, we'll just call them "machines", the world is a desolate wasteland and most of the human race has been wiped out. Except for a small group of renegade humans still fighting the war against the machines. We'll call them "the resistance". By this point in the future, rudimentary time travel will have been achieved and the humans will decide to send someone back in time in order to warn the humans of the past of the impending robot armageddon. In retaliation, the robots will send one of their own back in time to try to stop the human from completing his mission.

What do you think? Better?
 
Like I said I know I'm nuts... his super power is his super intellect he is very intelligent in the comics and that is how he is able to match up against real super villains and stand beside hero's like superman(and design and create his own vehicles even adapt alien technology)... that is what I was hinting at when I said he took away his "super" he's far more just a rich guy with some great connections and friends and a lot of balls, not the batman I remember(though there are many so I can understand). Though I'm not trying to push this on anyone this is just my opinion no reason others cant enjoy this take on it... continue.
 
Michael Bay has said somewhere that he makes film for 15 year old boys. Now, do you guys remember a time in your lives, where you were more foolish than at 15? Of course not.

Ok, so his films are set in a "car commercial" world and his people behave like they're in a "beer commercial", but a group of 15 year old boys are going to have the time of their lives watching his films. I remember watching his first films when I was in my early twenties and absolutely loving them! All the nastiness and sadistic agression and all the macho behaviour became much more apparent to me as I grew older, but kids can't see that nastiness in his films, they're just reacting on a purely emotional level, because that's all a 15 year old can do, his hormones are taking over his rational.

But to be 15 its nonetheless one of the most fun times of our lives, it surely was to me!

PS - I must say that I also feel asleep at the end of Inception... but loved the Dark Knight.
 
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I wasn't and so weren't many of my friends at the age of 15. I was just getting into Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, film noir, and Woody Allen by that stage. Many many boys of that age could think of nothing worse than to watch emotionaly vacuous films.

As i said in my previous comment its a very poor defence by Bay. I said it was a scared reaction by a scared directors. I retract that - its cowardice. It's also the same excuse film snobs use to defend some of Godard's awful films-its not meant for you, you don't understand it.

Secondly a studio gave Bay $200 million to make it. They want everyone to see it-they put adverts everywhere. Not just in tv shows and magazines for adolescents , but during tv shows aimed at adults. So it just doesn't wash.

I was told today that Michael Bay directed the video for Meat Loaf's 'I'd do anything for love'. That video is brilliant, full of emotion and drama, great cinematography (although that may be more to do with DOP Daniel Pearl). It's just really good. Miles better than millions of other music videos before and since.

So why can't he do that in a full feature length film. Cause it seems he's capable and talented. That's why i get so angry at him-i just feel he's better than this.
 
i think that many people fail to see that bay is a director that is hired to make money, and he's pretty good at doing that
 
aalleexx said:
i think that many people fail to see that bay is a director that is hired to make money, and he's pretty good at doing that
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I think that is incredibly easy to see. I think many people just object to the way he makes money.
 
Kingswell said:
I was told today that Michael Bay directed the video for Meat Loaf's 'I'd do anything for love'. That video is brilliant, full of emotion and drama, great cinematography (although that may be more to do with DOP Daniel Pearl). It's just really good. Miles better than millions of other music videos before and since.

So why can't he do that in a full feature length film. Cause it seems he's capable and talented. That's why i get so angry at him-i just feel he's better than this.
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The difference is that that video had a classic song as the script.
 
That's true, but the video is still very good. If Bay would allow himself to direct a proper script i can imagine him making a decent film
 
I see it as more the route of least resistance or laziness rather than cowardice, but either way the man is not working at the top of his capacity.
 
Maybe i was little strong in that respect.

Bay reminds me of Guy Ritchie, and this is why i hold out hope. Ritchie made some absolute garbage in my opinion, the same gangster film over and over again. Decided to make Sherlock Holmes, different genre, different working conditions... just different to what he's done before and he made a very good film.

I see Bay is doing a relatively small film next-budgeted $20 million. Limited resources, apparently a black comedy (so not action). I'm hopeful.
 
Kingswell said:
Think of Terminator 2. A robot film. Loads of explosions, violence etc. A film about two robots hitting each other-sounds a bit like transformers. Yet the film transcends. There is this wonderful story about a robot becoming human, and becoming John Connor's father. I always cry at the end. Watched it nearly hundred times. I always break down crying at the end.

Transformers doesn't have this, it doesn't have anything to do with human emotion. It simply doesn't want to. Bay has no connection with human emotion.
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Great point, just wanted to say that. I don't know if I ever cried, but I see where you're going.

I've never made it past the first Transformers film, so I've got nothing to add to the main discussion. But the rationale above….that's the reason I never pursued the latter two films.

Hell, I'll even go to bat for Tron: Legacy. There's *some* notions of human emotion in that story. But the Transformer films aren't calling me. EVEN THOUGH I used to watch the cartoons when I was in 7th grade. :grin:
 
Kingswell said:
Think of Terminator 2. A robot film. Loads of explosions, violence etc. A film about two robots hitting each other-sounds a bit like transformers. Yet the film transcends. There is this wonderful story about a robot becoming human, and becoming John Connor's father. I always cry at the end. Watched it nearly hundred times. I always break down crying at the end.
Click to expand...

And to think, all of those great conflicting humanity themes were all B-story stuff.
 
Just saw this movie and liked it. I felt the whole film moved quickly and thought the action was phenominal. Bay got really creative and added some pretty good comedic moments as well. I refuse to believe this is in the same "lazy" catergory as Hangover 2, Pirates IV etc. The film I watched looked like it had a ton of effort put into it, and really created some of the greatest actions scenes I've ever seen.
 
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