Transformers 2 Writers Explain Why it Sucked

[craddoke]

So Michael Bay was "ticked off" at striking writers? That's rich... no, wait, he's rich.

Though I suppose that, in his case, you can't really accuse him of making the money off the backs of his writers - if anyone should strike on a Bay picture, it's the pyrotechnics crew.

 

[AgentNein]

It's a movie about giant alien robots that disguise themselves as cars and trucks and battling each other. It's a stupid, stupid concept ripped from a stupid cartoon trying to sell a toy line that somehow earned the infatuation of a million fanboys across the nation. This is why their movies have sucked, not so much Shia (who I'll never understand all of the hate for. He's sort of the new Tom Hanks. The problem with any of his movies has been essentially the problems with Hollywood in general these days).

 

[Space Jawa]

It's times like this I'm convinced the main reason I see so many people give Bay and his movies so much flak is because it's one of the 'cool' things to do these days. Especially since despite all the flak he gets, his movies still manage to make buttloads of money.

But you know what the best part is? That Bay knows there are people who don't like his movies and are highly critical of him, but doesn't really seem to care. After all, he was willing to give us this wonderful piece of self-referential humor:

 

[mechanixis]

Was I the only person who thought Transformers 2 was really Awsome?
It had tons of action and explosions, and robot killing each other.
Not movie of the year but still really good.

I thought of this movie like I do an action game. That means I don't care what the story is and I just want to get straight into the action.

But the action sucked. It was poorly choreographed, inexpertly shot, ugly, difficult to follow, and pointless. There was no tension or sense of purpose or danger. I swear during the fight where Optimus "died" I just quit trying to figure out who the hell was doing what and spaced out.

And just when you started to care about what was going on in the action, they'd cut to captain douchebag running like a sissy, or slutdog McGee doing... something... with that damn thing in her purse. Or one of the comic relief characters doing something racially offensive. Or they'd make a dick joke that wouldn't make a 12 year-old chuckle.

I get so tired of people saying this movie was good "because of robots fighting and stuff".

I could make more interesting, more exciting action sequences with some fireworks and gasoline in my back yard.

THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS. You can argue that it's a matter of opinion all you want, but liking this film is almost empirically indefensible. It's not even good as a bare-bones fireworks show, and even if it was, is that seriously enough to justify the millions upon millions of dollars that go into blockbuster Hollywood productions? Is that even worth your ten dollars and two hours?

 

[Namewithheld]

The fact that Transformers 2 was the worst part of a Mormon bachelor party (long story) says a LOT about how fucking terrible that film is.

I once wrote a 45 page novella in 4 hours that was better than T2, and it's probably the most embarrassingly bad thing I've written.

Seriously, a Transformers film should not be hard to make good: Likable characters in exciting situations doing cool things.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Unfortunately, it won't stand a chance without human main characters for two reasons.

1. While I love Transformers, an actual movie requires characters that the audience is capable of understanding, and the first step is to make them the same species.

2. The special effects were cool, but a whole movie of them with no real things going on would be horrible. Some of the upclose fight scenes were headache material, and there was no way of knowing what was actually going on.

Counter
1) Make one of the Autobots humanocentric. Jazz could...oh... Well, Bumblebee could as he was a VW B...oh...

How about going with Sparky from the original? Animation would obviously have worked best (WALL-E? The Lion King? Antz? Cars? Homeward Bound? Watership Down? Meerkat Manor? March of the Penguins? The Dark Crystal? The Sorceror's Apprentice? Land before Time? - All without humans - Yes, I admit that most of these were anthropomorphised characters, but that's what the Transformers were to start with.)

2) You don't need special effects. SFX have been the bane of a good story for many decades.

Take a normal battle of good versus evil. (Second World War had plenty of those scenarios as did any Samurai/Cowboy movies) Replace all the combatants with robots. Give those robots a personality. Let them fight over something (like Energon Cubes). ????. Profit.

That's how simple it is.


Would you watch this?

 

[teutonicman]

That face in the ark in the trailer better be Unicron.

It is Sentinel Prime.

Even after seeing the teaser trailer and knowing it's coming, all I can say about T3 is goddammit.

 

[Free Thinker]

#2 was a Cleveland Steamer on my childhood. Bay is on a metal wire tightrope for me.

 

[yanipheonu]

Which is a shame, since those guys can write given the right situation.

And really the only reasons those movies are popular are
a) Transformers are awesome not matter what
b) People like dumb action movies

Though Transformers 2, I can't even enjoy ironically. D: It's just really bad.

 

[Canid117]

Because "the writers, director and actors all suck at their jobs" was just too complicated? It's also nice to see them shamelessly shoving all of their failures onto Bay. It speaks volumes about their integrity.

 

[Xanar]

STOP RAPING MY CHILDHOOD. JUST STOP IT.

 

[fulano]

"The movie could have been pushed, but [Bay] uses all the same people over and over. He considers himself kind of a jobs program. And for him the idea of pushing the movie means all these people that rely on him go down and they're in between jobs, etc."

Oddly, that made me respect Michael Bay a great deal more.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

The movie was so bad it hurt my feelings.

 

[Jim Grim]

Was I the only person who thought Transformers 2 was really Awsome?
It had tons of action and explosions, and robot killing each other.
Not movie of the year but still really good.

It also had several 'jokes' involving dogs having sex. And by jokes, I mean they just showed us two dogs having sex. That's pretty much an indication of the standard of material on display.

 

[HotFezz8]

So what was the excuse for the first movie?

HA! wheres the like button?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

If Bay is involved it is going to suck harder than an industrial septic vac, and smell worse.

 

[warmonkey]

I thought of this movie like I do an action game. That means I don't care what the story is and I just want to get straight into the action.

Unfortunately the action was TERRIBLE.

oh look. a whole bunch of bullshit flying across the screen so quickly you can't even see what the hell it is. Oh, Megatron and Optimus are fighting? Good thing nobody can tell them apart, it's all just rapidly-moving shiny crap. Looks like a tornado just hit a cutlery store.

And there wasn't even that much action anyway. Lotta bullshit running around and globetrotting, very little actual action.


I was perfectly fine with seeing a bad movie just to see cool effects and action sequences. I am NOT perfectly fine with going to see a bad movie with expensive effects ruined by crappy camera work and shit-tastic choreography.

 

[WanderingFool]

Was I the only person who thought Transformers 2 was really Awsome?
It had tons of action and explosions, and robot killing each other.
Not movie of the year but still really good.

It had its points (Megan Fox is NOT one of them), but they were few and rarely worked together to make a good experience. I thought the first movie was around 3 "Meh(s)", but it did seem to have a better, I guess "flow". There was a lot of action, but it really did seem to just be small puddles instead of a stream throughout the movie... and looking at what I wrote, Im not sure im making much in the way of sense...