RogueDeathangel wrote:vectorA3 wrote:RogueDeathangel wrote:vectorA3 wrote:Opera and ballet are not good examples to use. Heavily music, song and dance based. I expect some character development in a TF film because there are over 25 yrs. of comics, cartoon and other source material with rich character depth to draw from. Bay's movies are blatantly made to A) make $ and B) sell toys for hasbro. 'B' i'm less concerned about b/c I have bought some of the toys.
But there's no reason that films have to be heavily character and plot based. There's just as much artistic validity in a film being an exercise in style as a film that's an exercise in substance.
You make a good point about there being 25 years worth of depth to draw on but surely it's a worth-while endeavour to attempt to take the franchise in a direction it's never been in before? Transformers have never been used to make a big-budget, wide-screen, pop corn action extravaganza before so why not try that, rather than retreading the same old ground that the franchise has been going over for the past quarter of a century?
And of course the film is designed to make money. No company, no matter how artistically-driven would ever pony up a fifth of a billion dollars to make a film and NOT try to at least make its money back.
I go back to starfish's point -- no reason we can't have action and depth together. Part of that comes from poor writing. And I'm not saying that they need to recycle material directly from G1 or comics, but new stories with traces of the old would be good to see. The characters in the Bay films are so shallow. First movie -Megatron is established, temporarily defeated. Next, TF2 -- The Fallen comes out of nowhere, no backstory, no buildup. DOTM -- again, no mention of the plot points with The Fallen, Megatron has no power, and Sentinel Prime goes berserk. All over the place - these should've been more cohesive & not thrown together at the last minute. ROTF and DOTM very rushed. ROTF suffered more from that. One of the worst continuities for a trilogy I've ever seen. When the reboot happens - i hope they don't throw $250 mill + into garbage, last minute, written on the spot scripts/screenplays as they have been. That's no way to make a movie. And as I've said for the umpteenth time, they need to wait at least 3 years between movies to give everyone involved a chance to breathe. They're lucky ILM offices didn't meltdown & workers didnt have heart attacks
I've already agreed that there's no reason you can't have action and depth. As I said in the post you quoted, I just don't see why a film must have both. It's like saying a meal must have meat in it.
And I've never viewed the Transformers films as a Trilogy. It's not one long story that takes three films to tell (such as Back to the Future etc.) they're more like episodes of the G1 cartoon or CSI, self-contained one-shot stories that have very little bearing on each other.
While I'd love to see a Transformers movie with some depth, heavy character development and a story that would blow us all away and win an Oscar or two, truthfully with the current writers/directors/producers I wasn't expecting that. I enjoyed the movies very much, and there are elements in all three that are very good ideas that I wish were explored much deeper. And, I wish it had been a true trilogy, too.
And, yes, there are very good action movies - the new X-Men movie and Thor were really really good. Maybe Marvel Studios should make a Transformer movie or two...
