Transformers 2 Writers Explain Why it Sucked

[MR.Spartacus]

I'm still going to blame it on Michael Bay considering that all the flaws of this film are in ALL of his other films. At least the ones I've seen, Which is all of them except for the two Bad Boys films. Unfortunately as I already know they're keeping Shia and probably the same writers.

 

[lastjustice]

Michael Bay is like Nickelback. Just something everyone loves to hate because it's cool to hate (especially online.), but still manages to sell millions. Ultimately the people who hate bay ar ejust more vocal than the masses are online. People who enjoyed the film took it on face value and didn't expect any more than what it was. A big dumb movie with alot of stuff blowing up.

Despite all hate online I barely meet anyone in real life who claims it's this awful film. I remember people calling into a local station when it came out when the DJ asked if it was good or not. Everyone who called in said see it. People in the audience clapped both times I saw it in the theaters

I like Bay since he never pretends be something he isn't. He just does what he does and makes the movie he wants to make. He doesn't give crap what the critics think,and the world rewards him for it. I'd do same thing with my work if one of my story every gets published. I succeed or not that's fine. I'm not going pander to the critics. I'd crash and burn or do awesome telling the story I want to. So I respect him for how he handles it all.

Oh I hate Michael Bay...then why did you watch both films?(it's not like he hide the fact he was on the project.) Are you just that much of masochist? You hate money? Or do you just want something to complain about? I suppose you could gone to see the first because you were curious or a long time fan...fair enough. I suppose I'd give it another chance. Whatever the case, you know where you stand, don't bother watching the third then. It's that simple.

Transformers never was high art. It's always been something that's cool simply for sake of being cool. The 86 film sucked ass, and raped your childhood far harder than anything bay did. I hated it with the fury of a 1000 burning suns as a kid for a reason. Kiss players is easily the worst thing with the Transformers logo on it. The Series has been reinvented more times than Madonna. You don't like the current batch, just wait a bit. A new batch will come out as I'm soon there will be more Transformers movies made by other people in the future. Bay made Transformers more popular than they've ever been. Love or hate the films he's proven the IP has strength after 25 years to be a blockbuster, so it will get far more projects like War for Cybertron for years to come. (the game wouldn't have ever happened if these films didn't come out. Who knows if we'd seen transformers animated or Prime either.)

I'd chalk up the first film to budget for it's lack of bot time. It's a heck of alot cheaper show cars and humans than CGi robots. It was an unproven concept so it didn't get as much funding to do it right. All fights are rushed, and often cut away to a human character because of that just couldn't afford make the scenes long as they wanted. It proved the concept was profitable, and those they pushed forward.

I believe the second film would have been better if the writer strike wouldn't have happened. You can say well Bay should have waited blah blah. It's not as clear cut as that. Bay was taking a huge production where he was getting access to tons of stuff like pyramids and aircraft carriers. You can't just halt the world once these things are in motion. Movie making is a very complicated process that's not like oh just flip a switch that turns on and off. (if you've ever been involved in a shooting you'd understand.) It's not a baseball game you can just push back for rain. It's like having a 100,000 ton train at the top of a hill, once it starts going forward there's nothing stopping it. For better or worse.

I'd personally hope they cut out alot of the low brow humor. Kids are going watch these films, and they should keep that in mind. They probably won't but, I can wish for it. Over all I am glad the films came out. I had alot of fun watching them as it reignited my love for transformers. At the core the spirit of it all was maintained for me. I watch scenes like the autobots descending or the Forest battle, and they're perfect. The look the feel, its everything I could hope for.

The good outweighs imperfections.(I remember telling my brother in law they were going butch it back in early 2007, then I saw the trailer where prime rooled up. I'd never eaten my words so fast. My inner child went nuts.) I was glad to that my sisters kids got to see a new transformers that they could understand why Optimus Prime is one of the greatest fictional characters for themselves. I don't have to tell them. They just know. When my nephew thanked me for taking him to see the first movie about a 3rd of the way thru it, I knew he was hooked.

Is it the greatest movie ever? No. Greatest movie of 2009 ? probably not. The greatest 2 hour commericals? Absolutely haha. (I seriously wanted buy a camero after that.) I have watched both films probably 10 or more times. It's something that always cheers me up, like watching star wars, indianna jones, or good fellas. Movies I can just watch again if I catch on TV.

If people want to hate it that's their business. I'll be in line with the rest of the Decepticons on July 1st waiting to transform and rise up.

 

[toothofymir]

That's it? Hmm, I thought it might have been the terrible camera work, atrocious robot design, spectacturaly bad acting, and some fairly questionable character choices.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

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.

When I first saw it, I agree, as it was one of the first Blu ray movies to christen my HD television, and it was great to watch. The plot, characters, acting, ect... well, yeah, that was all horrible, and on second viewing, I think I would choke on those aspects.

It reminds me of G.I. Joe, in that the first viewing was quite good for me. But upon (recently) watching it again, I just couldn't help myself from being distracted by the awful attributes that overshadowed the film.

This in turn gets me because MovieBob (as an example on just this site) gave G.I. Joe a good review for what it was, but constantly knocks Transformers 2. And yeah, rightly so, as T2 was hard to watch in some parts - particularly two mechanical reproductions of a man's crown jewels - but I think it comes down more to Bay. From the article, it sounds like the guy would not be the most pleasant director to work with, and his ostensible reasoning/excuses for going with what should have been a draft comes off more as hiding the fact that he wanted to push out this movie ASAP. That speaks a lot about Bay, in that he sounds less concerned about quality than getting the project done, no matter how stupid Shia Lebeouf comes off.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

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 will tell you why this movie was bad to me.


Because for an action flick full of explosions, I found myself fast-forwarding way to often to get to any interesting part, and I couldn't even finish watching it, I got bored.

Only good part in the movie was, Jet Fire.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

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.

When I first saw it, I agree, as it was one of the first Blu ray movies to christen my HD television, and it was great to watch. The plot, characters, acting, ect... well, yeah, that was all horrible, and on second viewing, I think I would choke on those aspects.

It reminds me of G.I. Joe, in that the first viewing was quite good for me. But upon (recently) watching it again, I just couldn't help myself from being distracted by the awful attributes that overshadowed the film.

This in turn gets me because MovieBob (as an example on just this site) gave G.I. Joe a good review for what it was, but constantly knocks Transformers 2. And yeah, rightly so, as T2 was hard to watch in some parts - particularly two mechanical reproductions of a man's crown jewels - but I think it comes down more to Bay. From the article, it sounds like the guy would not be the most pleasant director to work with, and his ostensible reasoning/excuses for going with what should have been a draft comes off more as hiding the fact that he wanted to push out this movie ASAP. That speaks a lot about Bay, in that he sounds less concerned about quality than getting the project done, no matter how stupid Shia Lebeouf comes off.

Yeah, that's what happened to me to. I remember watching it and liking it, so I bought it... then I started to noticed everything wrong with it.

 

[rickthetrick]

I'd rather put my eyes out with Megan fox's club thumbs than watch either movie again!!!

 

[snave]

I loved Transformers 2. This just confirms what I loved about it: it genuinely had no plot. None whatsoever! And it was great! I didn't have to sit through what'd be a half-baked storyline anyway to enjoy a buttload of eye candy. It's a great one to put on with friends because if you miss something, it makes no less sense anyway.

 

[honeybakedham]

This is just sad, look, why don't they just admit what really happened. Transformers 2 was a clear sign that nobody involved had any care what so ever for the subject matter.

Transformers are a cheap plastic toy from Japan marketed by a cut rate cartoon that is fondly recalled in the most fetishistic way by uber-nerds who had the misfortune of being twelve in the 1980s.

What worries me would be if anyone involved in the movie actually did care about the subject matter.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

SNIP

I agree the first one was good; a solid movie that proved the concept was good. Saw it 7 times in cinemas.

Trailers for the second movie started rolling in; hype was big and the general buzz was positive. Then I saw the movie itself and I felt somehow cheated: liked I'd been promised A fine steak but someone gave me a McDonalds burger.

With a couple of years worth of reflection I felt RotF isn't the worse movie ever made, but as a tentpole flick I felt it sucked for worse than it had any right to. There are flashes of excellence such as the Forest Battle but overall it was the bigger but not better of the two movies.

I'll say again, a reasonable and intelligent narrative is not, nor should it ever be, an optional extra or a luxury.

 

[LazyAza]

I understand perfectly why people hate Bay's tf films, and as a long time tf fan I definitely have my own issues with them but I quite enjoyed both the first and RotF. People just need to switch their brains off and enjoy them for what they are; simple action films with some amazing cgi and sound design. That said though the second clearly had tonnes of writing issues but eh I still bought the blu-ray lol.

I'm looking forward to the third since they presumably have had a much better and easier time of writing the thing so at least if its just another plotless action fest it won't be so god awful to try to follow or understand what exactly is going on without rolling your eyes =P

Sentinel (voiced by lenard nemoy) and Shockwave are in it so they have some cool new characters this time around as apposed to the generic ones that do nothing for most of the film like sideswipe and jolt. Also they took the racist twin characters out, which is nice.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Well to be honest I thought Transformers 2 was a bit better than the first as it had more robot fights really. Yeah the story did suck but that redeemed it and made it watchable.

 

[Bre2nan]

You might be able to pull out the "bad timing" excuse if any of your other scripts were better, Orzi & Kurzman. RoTF was a total train wreck, but most of the damage done was in acting and directing. The script was par for the course for these guys.

 

[Ian Lutz]

This is just sad, look, why don't they just admit what really happened. Transformers 2 was a clear sign that nobody involved had any care what so ever for the subject matter.

Transformers are a cheap plastic toy from Japan marketed by a cut rate cartoon that is fondly recalled in the most fetishistic way by uber-nerds who had the misfortune of being twelve in the 1980s.

What worries me would be if anyone involved in the movie actually did care about the subject matter.

If that is the case than what was the point of making a movie about it? For the record I didn't grow up in the 1980's, but I did happen to watch the cartoon thanks to VHS and DVD. Alright sure, maybe the plot and writing for individual episodes weren't as good as they could've been, but the premise and characters were compelling enough to make the show at least memorable. Which is more than I can say for it's live action counterparts.

 

[subtlefuge]

I'm not holding my breath. I was outrageously disappointed when I found out that the trailer for an interesting alternate lunar landing fiction was being used for another Transformers movie.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

On Topic: I can't say I really expect the 3rd film to be any better than the 2nd, not when they have already established that releasing a film its own director at one point described as "crap" will still make them crazy amounts of money - where is the incentive to improve in this scenario exactly?

Heh, I saw the advert for the third film, and the lead-up seemed really compelling, then I found it was a Transformers film advert. Then it just seemed really horrifically cheesy. Interesting advert ruined.

 

[Mallefunction]

What I find funny is that I was bored outta my skull during T2. The action actually became mundane and dull. Honestly, it was the first time I fell asleep in a movie theater while M-16s were blasting away and cars were crunching into each other.

This is because mindless action is BORING. It's the same with horror films: without likeable characters, no one cares about whether or not they make it out ok in the end.

It also doesn't help that almost every action sequence is pretty much the same for these movies. It pretty much bombards you with it every 6 seconds so you become used to the noise and light and your body stops reacting to it.

You see my lovelies, there is something called 'rising tension' which helps to keep movies (regardless of their genre) engaging. Even chick-flicks and family dramas have it on some sort of base level. T2 lacks it because there is no threat. Why is there no threat? Because no one gives a shit about the characters. Even if The Fallen wasn't taken down like a ***** in the end, there's no reason for us to feel afraid or worried for these characters, therefore making him little more than a cheap plot device for the mind-numbing action.

 

[tyriless]

I'm pretty sure it had everything to do with Mr. Bay being associated with the movie, and blaming it on the writer's strike is about as poor of an excuse as I could imagine. I mean, Mr. Bay is only THE Director - it's just a small fry in the process afterall.

Yeah, the lack of script did not hurt the director of the Walking Dead achieve critical success. No script? FU writers, I will write the damn thing myself. Of course, this is the guy who made Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, two of the best adaptations of Stephen King since Stand By Me so he knows something about cinematic arts.

PS: Ugh, I just imagined how Michael Bay would of handled The Green Mile, not a pleasant thought.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

er bad fiction that was regurgitated twice by two 12 year old hookers sharing a cup then inseminated into "big momma" only to "come" to full term to a still born, line sniffing bastard child of big media and bad writing... did I mention the bad writing?

 

[Draconalis]

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

It is Sentinel Prime.

Wait... so that abomination on the moon is Sentinel Prime?

I thought it was a giant douched out, in classic Bay fashion, Super Skrull

Also... to the person that WANTED it to be Unicron... I hate you.