Transformers (Cont'd)
(Continued…)
3. Stupid Comic Relief:
Not long ago, I figured George Lucas was THE guy when it came to using stupid characters in a movie, ones which were intended for comic relief, but were really just annoying and oftentimes racist. Then Bay came along not once, not twice, but thrice with his own take on that idea! In all three Transformers movies, it seems the only point of having black characters was to add some sass and punchy dialogue. Take for example the fat dude in the first one (Anthony Anderson*), the fat special ops dude in the third one, or the "Twins" in the second. In most cases, this bordered on racism or at least bad taste, but in the second movies, the flappy-eared, gold-toothed, ebonics talking, non-reading robots not only crossed the line entirely but took a shit on it as well. Really, the only strong black character in the entire franchise was Epps (Tyrese Gibson) but even he was constantly playing second fiddle to Lennox, the white special ops dude played by Josh Duhamel.
Then there were Sam's parents. In all three movies, they are annoying, too-much-information spouting, no fashion-sense having, clueless morons who are constantly getting in the way. In the first one, this was semi-tolerable, just some passing talk about masturbation and the usual "parents are insufferable" stuff. But the scene in movie two where they are bringing him to college and the mom gets high on some pot brownies? Now that was just plain stupid. As if that wasn't bad enough, they are then captured by the Decepticons, thus fulfilling their role as total liabilities! By movie three, they are such incessant nags with the worst fashion sense that you get the feeling they are retired, eighty, and partly-senile (they're even driving a massive Winnebago!)
And then there was John Turturro, usually a funny and pretty damn sublime actor, reduced to the role of the Sector 7 agent, who's only real purpose was to make quirky jokes, be awkward and inject some comic relief into the action. He kind of peaked in the second movie, what with that whole "I'm under the machine's scrotum" thing. Seriously, Transformer balls?! John Malcovich who they brought in for the third movie was similarly awful, a solid actor from such classics as Of Mice and Men, In the Line of Fire and Being John Malcovich who plays an oddball eccentric who insists on color coding everything in on his office floor, boxes with a Transformer and collapses, declaring he's ticklish, and stares luridly at Sam's girlfriend! Not drole, dumb!
The same is true of Rainn Wilson (the creepy professor in #2), Alan Tudyk (Turturro's fey, German bodygaurd in #3), Ramon Rodriguez (Sam's roommate in #2), Frances McDormund (the CIA director-lady in #3), and Ken Jeong (office weirdo in #3). In each case, we see otherwise respected and respectable actors and actresses reduced to the most low-brow of antics in order to provide cheap laughs. Again, in the first movie, it was tolerable. The second time around, this element was so awash in crappy writing it kind of went unnoticed. But by movie three, I just couldn't believe it. In fact, it got so over the top by movie three that I had to wonder what kind of man Bay really is. Does HE think creepy weirdos who get in people's faces, annoy the hell out of people and act so dumb you want take a monkey wrench to their faces are funny? Is HE that kind of person? Megan Fox would seem to think so, but she's aint exactly the authority on sane behavior herself!
Really, it seems like every single secondary character has no purpose aside from providing cheap laughs in these movies! There's NO OTHER PURPOSE!
4. Women as Objects:
Speaking of Megan Fox, she did one thing which I respect the hell out of. And that was tell Bay to go there! Shortly after she quit the franchise, Fox went on record as saying she was sick of being treated like an object by Michael Bay. This was by no means her only complaint about the man, nor his about her, but she had a valid point. Just look who Bay decided to replace her with: Victoria Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a woman with zero acting experience and just about as much ability. In every shot, she is positioned as an object, holding her boobs out for that unbelievably obvious scene where her evil boss is describing the female form, or running around in model clothes and high heels while the world is exploding around her. She provides no real impetus to the movie, other than being a damsel in distress, and most of the time just looks lost.
Like his use of racial caricatures, Bay seems obsessed with portraying women in a most stereotypical light. When they are not playing pretty little dolls constantly bending over things or running around in skimpy outfits, they're vile temptresses, like the character of Alice in Fallen. It was the dumbest thing that she turned out to be a robot, but still, her purpose in the movie – a pretty thing with pouty lips and partially exposed breasts constantly trying to screw Sam – was clear! That bit about the robot tongue only added insult to that injury!
5. Raping History:
As a historian, it always bothers me when crappy movie makers try to rip off history in order to lend a sense of conspiracy and intrigue to their movies. Just look at Roland Emmerich or Jerry Bruckheimer, the former used Roswell to make Independence Day, the American Revolution to make the Patriot, and the mysteries of the Mayan Calendar to make 2012. Meanwhile, Bruckheimer (who was executive producer for several of Bay's movies) has been at least partially responsible for the rape of Arthurian legend, 19th century piracy, and just about every conspiracy theory known to man in order to make The Rock, Pirates of the Carribean, and National Treasure. Granted, these weren't all bad, but its still annoying when someone manipulates historical facts for the sake of cashing in (hey Dan Brown!)
But in this franchise, Bay's got em all beat! In the first movie, he claimed that the Hoover Dam was some sort of secret base. Why? Because it was built during the time of FDR, which was when Sector 7 was formed and Megatron found. Yeah, that makes sense! In movie two, ancient history becomes the target as Bay claims that the Pyramid of Giza and ancient city of Petra were both built in order to hide some ancient Transformer artifacts. Then, hang onto your hat, in movie 3, he used the ENTIRE SPACE RACE to create its insipid plot! Not only were all of humanity's attempts to make it to the Moon the result of some alien robot-related conspiracy, the fact that we've never been back since the 70′s was attributed to some cover up and conspiracy. Yep, not budgets, not the general thaw in tensions between East and West. No, no, it was a big cover up! Can you hear yourself Bay? I might kill you tonight…
And let's not forget Chernobyl. It was already established that the Appollo program led the US to discover the wrecked Ark and that Sputnik did something similar for the Russians. But they take that a step further by saying that the nuclear accident at Chernobyl was in fact Russian scientists testing captured Decepticon technology and testing it out. God I wanted to vomit by this point in the movie, and it was only fifteen minutes in!
6. Big Changes:
Just me just say, off the bat, that I am abundantly aware of how geeky this is going to sound! Truth be told, it always annoys the hell out of me when people say how changes were made from the original like its automatically a bad thing, but in this case, I think they would be right. And as someone who grew up with the original series, I did happen to notice that certain things had been changed or discarded from the original series that had actually lent it some depth and credibility. I mention this because of that, not because I feel like someone raped my childhood by deviated from the original script (looking at you George Lucas!) Okay, bring on the geekdom!
The All Spark: In the original Transformers, it was never entirely clear where they had come from. And the fact that there were good and evil machines, and that they were all unsure of their origins, seemed like there might be some allegorical similarities to the Biblical and other creation myths. In the original series, this was never really explored, the focus being on kids entertainment and marketing. But as the series got older, like its original fanbase, the concept seemed to mature. I never really did watch any of the spin offs after the original series, but by the time Beast Wars came out, nostalgia got the better of me and I watched a few episodes. Interestingly enough, by this time, the focus seemed to have shifted to dealing with more adult themes – like exploring why the Transformer transform, the origins of Cybertron, and what created them.
For example, I remember it being mentioned at one point in Beast Wars that at the heart of Cybertron there was this thing called the Matrix. Not the Matrix of Leadership, but some kind of massive, sentient force that was responsible for giving birth to the earliest Cybertronian civilizations, the latest of which had been the Autobots, at least until the Decepticons came along and wrecked the party! At no point was there this thing called an All Spark, an alien cube which floated through space from place to place. And while the Matrix served the same basic purpose (i.e. giving the robots an origins story), we never really got a close look at it or learned much about it. Nor, for that matter, did anyone try to lay claim to it. In short, it was like a holy relic, its purpose, creators and motives being entirely unknown. Thus the origins of the Transformers were shrouded in mystery. Just like us real-life human beings, they did not know the reason for their existence and could not fathom why the thing that created them would also want to create something evil.
This was something undeniably cool about the original franchise, in that there was depth and a real-world sense of mythos to it. In the movies, all that was missing. It's obvious why Bay would choose to change all that, it simplified the plot, cut down on the need for explanations and exposition, and provided an explanation as to why the bots came to Earth in the first place. Which brings me to change number 2:
The Ark: Again, different in the original. In movie three, we are told that the Ark was a ship carrying a weapon and was bound for Earth because Sentinel was trying to save Cybertron with it (in truth, he was defecting, but that's neither here nor there) But in the original, the Ark served a much more lofty purpose. Essentially, it was a survivor ship that the Autobots built after they realized that the war on Cybertron was lost. It's purpose was to carry the Autobots to some distant solar system where they would survive and rebuild. However, the Decepticons intercepted and boarded it, and the resulting fight caused the ship to crash-land on Earth, circa several million years ago. Everyone on board was killed and the Ark itself was damaged, but its central AI survived and managed to resurrect itself millions of years later, at which point humanity had built an advanced, global civilization. Again, a case of Biblical allegory, of real myth being used to give the story some depth. And again, Bay changed and simplified it. Not only was the Ark robbed of its significance in movie 3, it was also used for the purposes of giving the Transformers yet another thing to scramble for! Sp not only was he using an original idea, he was using it for the sake of unoriginality!
That relates directly to directly to the entire premise of the second movie. You know, the whole "the sun destroyer is in the Pyramid of Giza thing". In short, none of it happened in the original franchise, but I'm sure everybody knew that already. The idea of Transformers hiding a massive sun destroyer inside the Pyramid of Giza was so dumb, audiences had to know that only Bay could be responsible.
Whoa! That was a long review! But this is a big franchise. Not in terms of depth or credibility, but definitely in terms of screen time and hype. And really, did it deserve either? As I'm sure I wrote earlier, I'm not one of these people who would say Bay is a criminal based on how he made changes in these movies from the original franchise. I WOULD say he's a criminal based on what he's done to our collective intellect: namely, insulted it! And if you look at Bay's resume, this was just one entry in a long list of things he redid, rehashed, rebooted, or reimagined: The Island, The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Ultimately, the Transformers Trilogy failed to be the big re-imagining and the pop-culture phenomena that many hoped it would be. The main reason for this, aside from the weak writing, poor acting and the directorial style of Michael Bay, was the motives that went into making it. Like all of Bay's projects, the goal here was obvious: spend a shitload of money on some movies who's sole purpose is to make an even bigger shitload of money. He's good at that, no doubt about it! When all is said and done, Bay excels at giving the audience what they want. At least in the short-run. The problem is, once its over, we all feel guilty for wasting the money and subjecting ourselves to such guilty pleasures. Kind of like eating fast food or one-night stands. Sure, it seems fine at first, but immediately afterwards, we're all doing the walk of shame!
Transformers:
Entertainment Value: 7/10
Plot: 6/10
Direction: 7/10
Total: 6.5/10
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Entertainment Value: 6/10
Plot: 1/10
Direction: 5/10
Total: 3/10
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Entertainment Value: 6/10
Plot: 5/10
Direction: 5/10
Total: 5.5/10
