Transformers movies

Natemans

New member
Apr 5, 2017
681
0
0
So I know the films are bad, but why do people still go see them if they know the quality isn't very good? I mean the last one was rated the worst of them and was the highest grossing film of 2014.
 

Saulkar

Regular Member
Legacy
Aug 25, 2010
3,142
2
13
Country
Canuckistan
In my case I really enjoyed the first one and kept coming back, hoping that they would capture the fun campyness of the original but none succeeded and so I am personally skipping the latest one until it inevitably comes to netflix.
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

Warning! Contains bananas!
Jun 21, 2009
4,789
1
0
There are plenty of things in the first movie I don't like. The parents, the dog, the kindergarten level and/or racist stereotype humor, Shia Labeouf everytime he's being hyper and/or screaming ("BUMBLEBEE!" "OPTIMUS!"). But on the whole, I enjoyed it as a really dumb, but harmless action flick.

It has parts that work quite well and feel like they have some heart to them. Unlike some, I rather like the grunt soldiers Lennox and Eps, they're pretty fun to watch, and it is also refreshing to see their military higher-ups portrayed as reasonable and competent, rather than bombcrazy General Rippers.

Then the sequels came and doubled down on all the stuff I disliked about the first, but was willing to overlook. Except, they're all basically the same movie, told worse. Again and again. I'll give Age of Extinction credit tho, unlike Shia's Sam Witwicky, Mark Wahlberg's character actually gets to do stuff up to and including significantly contributing in the fight with the big bad.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
Legacy
Jan 30, 2011
1,923
746
118
Honestly, I kinda think the Transformers movies and Michael Bay in general aren't as bad as people make them. I mean, they aren't good but they're three hour long commercials for toy robots, there's just a point where the premise is the problem, not the execution. You can play super heroes for gritty drama but when you have alien robots that turn into cars and fight each other you can either try to play it straight and end up with something dull and probably unintentionalle funny or you can embrace the stupidity. And Bay did just that and it seems to be working pretty well for him.

I'm probably about to defend him way more than he deserves but here we go: I think it's kinda admirable that Bay's unique directorial voice comes through so well in movies that are as blatantly corporate as Transformers. Bay, for all you can say about him, is an auteur director. I know you're probably rolling your eyes at that statement right now but hear me out: He has a very distinct visual style and very distinct themes between all of his movies and... well, most of these are pretty low brow and you are free to question their artistic merit but when you're seeing a Michael Bay movie you can tell it's a Michael Bay movie. What he's not is some studio stooge who does only what he's told to do. All the stupidity you see in his movies is his stupidity alone. And... well, that's gotta count for something, right?

Also, Pain and Gain was an extremely entertaining movie and if we get more like that in the future I have no problem with him directing advertisments for toy robots to fund them.
 

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Well, I've only seen 2 and 4. 2, without hyperbole, may be the worst film I've ever seen. 4 is bad, but kind of guilty pleasure bad. Even so, far better guilty pleasures exist out there.

But I can think of a few reasons:

-Transformers has an in-built fanbase. Now, from what I can tell, a fair portion of that fanbase dislikes the "Bayformers," but that aside, Transformers is pretty well known. I've never really been into it bar watching Beast Wars in the 90s, but I understand it was big back in the day, and from my experience, it's popular among kids in the present as well.

-They're undemanding. You go into a Transformers film, you know what you're going to get. Good Autobots vs. bad Decepticons, with a human protagonist that represents the everyman, coupled with the military getting in some kills of their own. Thing is, films cost time and money. So when you have limited time and/or money, it's understandable that at least some people will want to go for the 'sure thing.' With a Transformers film, you know what you're getting. For non-franchise films, you can't say that as readily.

On the other hand, a lot of franchises have a formula and stick to it, for better or worse. I've made no secret that I'm not a fan of the MCU for instance, as I find the films to be formulaic, regardless of characters. But compared to the Transformers films I've seen, the MCU is bloody Shakespeare. Franchises may follow formulas, but other franchises have still followed formulas with a modicum of quality. For whatever reason, the Transformers films are immune to critical savaging.
 

Darth Rosenberg

New member
Oct 25, 2011
1,288
0
0
Natemans said:
So I know the films are bad, but why do people still go see them if they know the quality isn't very good?
Maybe - radical thought, I know - people have different opinions?

Saulkar said:
In my case I really enjoyed the first one and kept coming back, hoping that they would capture the fun campyness of the original but none succeeded and so I am personally skipping the latest one until it inevitably comes to netflix.
I actually think the first TF is one of the best mainstream actioners of the, er, noughties. The novelty of what amounted to photorealistic giant-stompy alien robots smashing things up was almost enough to get by on alone (that felt like something I'd wanted to see since being a kid), but I also liked LaBeouf and Fox as a duo, the film had some real heart in places, and it had its funny moments.

As for sequels? The first one was utterly terrible, but Dark Of The Moon, for me at least, mostly equals what the original provided. Age Of Extinction was so hideously soulless - in part due to the mostly new cast (I can't stand Wahlberg) - that that was more or less my I'm-done-with-this-series moment. The first three films had managed to be odious in various ways (particularly the second), but at least they had a personality... AoE seemed to surgically remove it.

PsychedelicDiamond said:
I'm probably about to defend him way more than he deserves but here we go: I think it's kinda admirable that Bay's unique directorial voice comes through so well in movies that are as blatantly corporate as Transformers. Bay, for all you can say about him, is an auteur director. I know you're probably rolling your eyes at that statement right now but hear me out: He has a very distinct visual style and very distinct themes between all of his movies and... well, most of these are pretty low brow and you are free to question their artistic merit but when you're seeing a Michael Bay movie you can tell it's a Michael Bay movie. What he's not is some studio stooge who does only what he's told to do. All the stupidity you see in his movies is his stupidity alone. And... well, that's gotta count for something, right?
It's fair point that's become well known these days, but even if I sentimentally agree with it I'd have to do the same for Lucas and his SW prequels, and pretty much any film Zack Snyder's made... I suppose on this count they're all as bad as each other, but I much prefer what Bay accomplished with TF1 and 3 than the SW prequels or Snyder's work.

(then again I suppose all of BvS stupidity really wasn't Snyder's own, given he couldn't do anything about Terrio and Goyer's script)

Regardless, another reason I rather admire or appreciate Bay is that cinema - from its very inception - has been about one thing; spectacle.

To me, I see no difference between people crowding into rooms to see the flickering silhouette of a horse gallop (or simply projected stills via magic lanterns), and Bay's Bayhem - and that's no bad thing at all. Cinema is many things, and pure spectacle is a rather pure expression of the medium that's been there from the start and will always remain. The skyscraper keeling over and being cut in half by the big worm Decepticon thing in Dark Of The Moon is a tremendous technical and creative accomplishment; all of that detail and sense of scale doesn't just appear out of nowhere, and it takes skilled and passionate people to craft it.
 

pookie101

New member
Jul 5, 2015
1,162
0
0
personally i enjoyed the first one and just watched the others when they came on tv
 

Cycloptomese

New member
Jun 4, 2015
313
0
0
The Transformers movies are kind of like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to me at this point. There could be three of them or there could be twenty and it doesn't make much difference. That said, I like Micheal Bay and somebody needs to get him started on a Bad Boys III.
 

KissingSunlight

Molotov Cocktails, Anyone?
Jul 3, 2013
1,237
0
0
Hyperbole Alert! The popularity of The Transformers movies make me believe that humanity is doomed.

Seriously, this is another movie series whose popularity is head-scratching. I rarely see anyone who admits that this series is any good. My problems with it is mainly the story is really bad. I do think this series would be better without human characters. How annoying and useless have those characters have been?

This series is the ultimate "leave your brain at the door and enjoy the spectacle" movie series. For a lot of people, apparently, that is enough for them.
 

hermes

New member
Mar 2, 2009
3,865
0
0
People go see it because they are the definition of spectacle blockbuster. Big, loud and bombastic on the theater, underwhelming on every other medium. That means the people that see it on an IMAX or a similar big screen have their senses overloaded to the point they are more forgiving at their faults... That means, if you are slightly interested in seeing them, go watch them on a theater, because by the time they reach bluray or cable (unless you have a great home theater setup), they are unbearable to watch.

It also helps that they are able to get into the chinese market, which is so hungry for new content they will literally watch anything...
 

iseko

New member
Dec 4, 2008
727
0
0
When you are about to watch a movie you have to know what to expect. Transformers is not about the story for me. It is about giant robots blowing lots of shit up. And it does that very well. So I like those movies.

I also like schindlers list but for totally different reasons...
 

Wintermute_v1legacy

New member
Mar 16, 2012
1,829
0
0
I never got into these movies. I think I saw the first one and the one with Mark Wahlberg, that's it. They're kind of shit but at the same time, they're pretty good at making things go boom in ridiculous ways, though.

The Fast and Furious movies are more my style when it comes to "leave your brain at home" movies.
 

Ogoid

New member
Nov 5, 2009
405
0
0
I don't understand what you mean by "Transformers movies"; everyone knows there's only ever been one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lo7JPLJUUU].

All kidding aside, it baffles me as well. I went to see the first, was disappointed, heard from word of mouth the second wasn't much of an improvement and skipped it until I had nothing else to do on a 12-hour flight, and from then on decided to completely ignore them as long as Michael Bay is at the helm.
 

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 16, 2010
18,576
3,532
118
Ogoid said:
I don't understand what you mean by "Transformers movies"; everyone knows there's only ever been one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lo7JPLJUUU].

All kidding aside, it baffles me as well. I went to see the first, was disappointed, heard from word of mouth the second wasn't much of an improvement and skipped it until I had nothing else to do on a 12-hour flight, and from then on decided to completely ignore them as long as Michael Bay is at the helm.
Second that.

Let us not worry about how rubbish Michael Bay's films are, let us remember the really good one from the 80s.

Bah weep granah weep nini bah!
 

09philj

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 31, 2015
2,154
947
118
Michael Bay is the angel of destruction, sent to destroy cinema with his flaming sword of corpulent rubbish. Nearly everything in his films is shot in a way that is almost pornographic: cars, explosions, women, the lot. The notable exception is the action scenes, which I assume are filmed by strapping the camera to a washing machine motor and then throwing it from a moving car. Watching a Michael Bay film is vomit inducing in both the sense that it makes you motion sick, and because of the leering "PHWOAR, EH?" nature of the art itself. His career hit it's zenith with Bad Boys and every film he made after The Rock has had no redeeming features whatsoever.
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
15,489
0
0
What Transformers films? I remember 'Michael Bay's Explosion Movie', but not a Transformer movie.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
Legacy
Mar 8, 2011
8,411
16
23
People like terrible things.

Movies, music, books, politicians...

People like terrible things.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

books, Books, BOOKS
Legacy
Jan 19, 2011
5,498
1
3
Country
United States
The first one was pretty okay. It's a pretty decent popcorn flick where you just shut your brain off and enjoy the stupidity as things explode in glorious fashion.

After that?

Well, a few friends and I like to get to together to make fun of terrible movies while drinking and the Transformers movies, sans first one, got mocked and riffed. That's basically how I see them now, really. They're really not that good.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,689
11,191
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
I see the films like this: 1 is decent, but has not aged well, 2 is beyond horrible and 2 1/2 hours of my life I am never getting back, 3 was okay ( a C), and 4 was (barely) a solid B-. I don't where people were coming from by saying the 4th was worse. I am sorry, but nothing was worse than Skipps and Mudflap, fucking up Devastator, and adding a whole bunch of one-note human character who do nothing but run and scream like banshees. My real gripe with 4 was that it did not need to be 2 hours and 45 minutes long. Like Dark of the Moon, there was so much they could have trimmed out for time and pacing.

Unlike some egotistical assholes on the Internet like Nostalgia Critic (most of Channel Awesome), Movie Bob or Chris Stuckmann, I won't go out of my way to insult people who enjoy or don't enjoy them. I see no point in throwing a ***** for people doing whatever they want with their time and money. Are there better movies out in the industry? Yes. Do they sometimes get overshadowed by blockbuster like Transfomrers, MCU, or DC? Yes. But I am not going to act like it's the end of the fucking world.

That said, I barely have any interests in 5 right now, or most of the summer line up. The movies I wanted to see, I have already seen back between Jan. to May. The movies I want to see do not come out until the fall or winter season.