How much did Transformers suck? Let me count the ways. Here’s 10, off the top of my head.
1. Michael Bay is a hack. He confuses action in a story, with making something happen every 8 minutes. Ideally no “scene” in a Michael Bay flick will last longer than 2, maybe 3 minutes; there was to be Big Action every 8-10 minutes, or he gets hives or something. In short the story moves forward more by fiat than actual plot.
2. Did you notice how the Transformers weren’t really that important in the flick? It was about Shia Lebeouf trying to get laid, and happened to feature giant, transforming alien robots. In fact, one could argue that it took giant transforming alien robots to get him laid; how sad is that.
I don’t think any Decepticons really had any dialog at all; Megatron appears late in the film; the Autobots exist only to crack the occasional one-liner, or complain to OP about “why are we fighting for the humans”. In fact I’d wager the scorpion robot or the boombox spy robot had more screen time than Megatron; probably only Bumblebee had any appreciable time (and that was as car).
No more summer sci-fi blockbusters that are actually about one boy’s desperate quest for pussy (Deep Impact, etc). PLEASE?
3. “OK, John (Turturro). Look, I know you’re a great character actor, but basically, just mug for the camera and overdo the shit out of it. OK? Your motivation is, ‘You need to make some car payments so you took a stupid role in a Michael Bay film’. Aaaaaand … action.”
4. “OK, John (Voight). Look, I know you’re a great character actor, but basically, just ” etc etc as above. Also why bother to focus on SecDef? To make the one boring and stupid POTUS joke? Look I’m all for “insert GWB analog, then make him look like a doofus” but there’s just no point. Skip the political commentary altogether, OK? Giant robots people. That’s what we’re here for.
5. This is of course a “you’re over-thinking” flaw, but I just can’t get past, “Why the fuck do intelligent alien transforming robots rely on missile and projectile weapons, esp. when they also have energy weapons and, shit, advanced spaceflight?”. Like, do they “grow” ammo?
You will forgive the sci-fi nerdery but isn’t it cooler to think, “maybe they’re some kind of silicon-based intelligence, that that all-spark thing energized, or maybe its a kind of gestalt mind thing, the creation of some post-Singularity species, and their bodies are just that; shells for the brain. So blowing one in half is not a big deal, they only need to preserve their mind/consciousness, which is why the all-spark thingee is so important”.
6. CAN WE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE RID OF THE FUCKING COMPUTER VIRUS MEME THINGEE FROM ALL SCIFI ACTION MOVIES PLEASE KTHXBI
It’s a crutch of the weak screenwriter. For fuck’s sake, just, stop. Come up with something new for fuck’s sake.
7. The action was, in typical Michael Bay fashion, egregiously hyperkinetic, such that it’s all one big whirling robot-and-too-much-bass-and-reveb sandwich. It’s OK to calm things down a little. It almost seems odd to reference it, but notice how in 300 they used slow-mo, traditional and bullet-time pans/sweeps, and other things to turn hyperkinesis into “you’re there on the battlefield with a god’s-eye view”? 300 deserves props for its fight scenes; Transformers was just ZOMG MORE ACTION MORE MOTION MORE SOUND.
8. (SPOILER) I totally dig how to make the Megatron/Optimus Prime fight more “dramatic” he randomly announces they’re brothers. HO HUM NO ONE CARES
9. (SPOILER) Could the death of … umm .. whatever the fuck was the one that died, be any more ignominious and boring? See above: he had no dialog, in fact I forgot which one it was, but I’m supposed to be all sad that he’s dead? He didn’t do shit. Waste of time.
10. Criminal underuse of the canonical transformer transform noise. Nuff said.
Don’t get my started on the hipster NSA geniuses who have to go get Anthony Anderson to decode the alien language, the data encoded in the glasses, egregious product placement and name-checks, etc etc.
