As of late, I have been going through review videos of the Transformer movies, most notably the ones by Mathew "Film Brain" Buck and the 90+ minute audio discussion between Noah "Spoony" Antwiler and Brade "Cinema Snob" Jones.
http://blip.tv/film-brain/transformers-2-bmb-megacut-5302625
http://blip.tv/the-cinema-snob/spoony-and-brad-s-transformers-3-rant-5338043
I haven't seen Transformers: Dark of the Moon, mostly because Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen completely killed my interest in this film franchise. But, given the reviews from other Internet critics (including our own MovieBob) Dark of the Moon is nowhere near an improvement (if you don't include the cinematography getting better only because it was filmed in 3D). Despite the decline in quality, these movies have made well over 2 billion dollars worldwide. Bay himself has stated that he wishes to move onto other things but is still in the directors chair of each installment. Now, we can argue that the movie-going audience will eat this up just out of name recognition or because its target audience doesn't know a really bad movie when they see it or whatever reason. But it got me thinking of another possibility...
What if Michael Bay is pulling a "Bamboozled" with the Transformers franchise?
To get a better understanding of my question, we need to know about the movie Bamboozled. Bamboozled is a 2000 satire film directed by Spike Lee and stars Damon Wayans, Tommy Davidson, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Michael Rapaport. The movie centers around Pierre Delacroix (Wayans), a frustrated TV executive trying to get himself fired in order to escape the idiotic racist antics of his white boss Thomas Dunwitty (Rapaport). To overcome this situation, Pierre comes up with the idea of creating an extremely racist television program that is so bad, it will not only get him fired but also prove that his boss is an willfully ignorant schmuck. The problem is that the show becomes a phenomenal success that elevates Pierre and the cast of the show into super-stardom which, individually, leads to their downward spiral later in the film.
This made me ponder the notion that Michael Bay is doing the same thing with the Transformers movies. Yes, Bay said in reports that Revenge of the Fallen was bad due to the writers strike of the time. But, if that was the case, why is the 3rd installment seen as a greater step backwards? Plus, there have been reports of Bay not wanting to do anymore Transformers but still he came back for the upcoming Age of Extinction. The only reason he took the job again is because Paramount backed his pet project Pain and Gain. So it kind of makes sense, to me at least, that Bay was so fed up with being the Transformers director that he could have sabotaged the later movies but, unfortunately, the plan blew up in his face and people kept seeing these films.
This is just my theory on the matter. I could be way off and maybe Michael Bay is just a bad director/human being and Paramount doesn't know what a good movie is these days. But what do you, the people at home, think of this theory?
http://blip.tv/film-brain/transformers-2-bmb-megacut-5302625
http://blip.tv/the-cinema-snob/spoony-and-brad-s-transformers-3-rant-5338043
I haven't seen Transformers: Dark of the Moon, mostly because Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen completely killed my interest in this film franchise. But, given the reviews from other Internet critics (including our own MovieBob) Dark of the Moon is nowhere near an improvement (if you don't include the cinematography getting better only because it was filmed in 3D). Despite the decline in quality, these movies have made well over 2 billion dollars worldwide. Bay himself has stated that he wishes to move onto other things but is still in the directors chair of each installment. Now, we can argue that the movie-going audience will eat this up just out of name recognition or because its target audience doesn't know a really bad movie when they see it or whatever reason. But it got me thinking of another possibility...
What if Michael Bay is pulling a "Bamboozled" with the Transformers franchise?
To get a better understanding of my question, we need to know about the movie Bamboozled. Bamboozled is a 2000 satire film directed by Spike Lee and stars Damon Wayans, Tommy Davidson, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Michael Rapaport. The movie centers around Pierre Delacroix (Wayans), a frustrated TV executive trying to get himself fired in order to escape the idiotic racist antics of his white boss Thomas Dunwitty (Rapaport). To overcome this situation, Pierre comes up with the idea of creating an extremely racist television program that is so bad, it will not only get him fired but also prove that his boss is an willfully ignorant schmuck. The problem is that the show becomes a phenomenal success that elevates Pierre and the cast of the show into super-stardom which, individually, leads to their downward spiral later in the film.
This made me ponder the notion that Michael Bay is doing the same thing with the Transformers movies. Yes, Bay said in reports that Revenge of the Fallen was bad due to the writers strike of the time. But, if that was the case, why is the 3rd installment seen as a greater step backwards? Plus, there have been reports of Bay not wanting to do anymore Transformers but still he came back for the upcoming Age of Extinction. The only reason he took the job again is because Paramount backed his pet project Pain and Gain. So it kind of makes sense, to me at least, that Bay was so fed up with being the Transformers director that he could have sabotaged the later movies but, unfortunately, the plan blew up in his face and people kept seeing these films.
This is just my theory on the matter. I could be way off and maybe Michael Bay is just a bad director/human being and Paramount doesn't know what a good movie is these days. But what do you, the people at home, think of this theory?
