Valkyr71 said:
P.S. Whats wrong with Bay's love of the military. Theres so many directors and hollywood folks that love to hate us and think that we are hired thugs (see most James Cameron films)
thats its kinda nice to see someone in hollywood who thinks we are something thats fun to make look good.
Actually, I think that James Cameron has gotten a bad rap for his depiction of military personnel in his films.
In Aliens, the Colonial Space Marines were pretty much the heroes of the movie. Especially Hicks played by Michael Biehn. Scared, out of their element, but in the end they succeed in defeating the alien threat. And nuking them from orbit
In The Abyss, 3 Navy SEALs go down to the underwater base and one of them (again Michael Biehn) goes insane because of pressure sickness. He isn't thinking rationally become paranoid and tries to nuke a perceived threat. One of the other SEALs helps defuse the nuke. The third just stands by. Overall I would say this is a neutral portrayl of the military. However, just to emphasize the point, the villian wasn't acting on orders from the Pentagon or anything, he just went crazy and acted on his own. While the focus of the film is anti-war, it is never anti-military.
In Avatar, the Corporation in charge of mining for Unobtainium has hired Ex-Military mercenaries to protect their base. These are not meant to be soldiers but private military contractors and mercenaries. Jake Sully is a former Marine as well. While there is a sense of Military vs Nature going on here. I will agree that this film does portray gung-ho military personnel as being evil, but again according to the movie they are just mercenaries. Of course the structure of the narrative for this forces the military to be the villian like the Union Army in Dances with Wolves or the new Imperial Japanese Army in The Last Samurai.
So overall, in the films that James Cameron has done that have had military personnel as a significant part of the plot, he is basically neutral on military matters when you look at these films. Of his other films, only True Lies has any military presence in it, and that is incredibly minor as the main characters are spies. Pirahna 2, Terminator, Terminator 2, and Titanic did not have any military presence.
On the other hand, Michael Bay's interest in the military is purely based on his love for the machines and not the people. All the characters in Michael Bay's films are broad stereotypes. The Rock gives some real character to military personnel, but other than Michael Beihn (again) and his SEAL team, the military characters in The Rock are all antagonists. Micheal Bay loves his explosions, cool hi-tech vehicles, helicopters at sunset, and even bigger explosions. The military is just a means to an end to accomplish his big explosion.
I really don't want to discuss Pearl Harbor because it lacks Bay's fetishitic approach to the modern military. However, it is the exception to Bay's fetishitic approach to the military. He has actual characters in this, but that was unavoidable because it's a dramatic love story.
So while Bay may generally show the military in a positive light, there are exceptions to that (The Rock), and the military in Bay's contemporary films are just a vehicle for producing explosions and action set pieces. He's not interested in the people, he just wants to make it look "cool". On the other hand, James Cameron has taken a fairly neutral appraoch to the military in his films. At least a balanced approach if you weigh the films based on who the villian is out of context.