KoH4711 wrote:Well, recalling the director thread, I'm not sure anyone taking on this movie would've been a universally hailed choice.
That said, it became popular to bash on Michael Bay long before he signed on for Transformers. A lot of people don't care for his style, and he's taken a lot of flak for Pearl Harbor being more of an action movie than a real deep look at events. He also gets a lot of flak for the writing in his films, despite the fact he's not been the sole screenwriter on any of them.
My take on Bay... he's got a tremendous visual style. He picks great cinematographers, and sets up shots very well. I do think sometimes he lacks in discipline as a filmmaker. He's still learning the art of "killing your babies", as one writing instructor I knew put it, taking out the scenes that might look or read great, but don't serve the story well. The fact that he's talking about doing a low budget flick is exciting, because I think he'll benefit tremendously.
For me, I come down to this. When I saw Armageddon with my fiancee's family, I was about to stop watching after the opening sequence because it was so over the top. But the film ultimately, for all of its flaws, pulled me in. And Transformers shows a lot more discipline than his other movies. There are still a few shots that are in there just for "cool factor", but he seems to be benefiting from his work with Speilberg. Who, by the way, finds him to be a tremendous talent as well. I'm not going to presume to know more about films than Speilberg.
The shaky cam stuff? Well... I think it's hit and miss. I could go into huge amounts of detail about the style, but I'd probably bore everyone on the forum to tears. =p I'll just say that I think it works tremendously well sometimes, particularly with more realistic moments, and poorly others. I felt like it worked to great effect in the Scorpinok battle, but not so much later in the movie.
As for the movie itself, there were a lot of challenges. A lot of people I know, folks who weren't Transformers fans but liked the movie, admitted to having a hard time at first accepting the Transformers as characters. For that reason, I think they made some good choices this time around. Bear in mind, this is almost a new sub-genre of film. I can't think of anything close to a giant robot/mecha film that's ever been in American theatres. And the last "based on a toyline" movie, the aforementioned He-Man, was a terrible failure. Given all the constraints, they made a tremendous introduction to Transformers for the general audience. And it certainly gives them the opening to do more with a sequel. And I hope they do.
I see your point of veiw but you have to remember the context of the film. I loved Armagedon, why? Because it was so over the top, it was big and bold. Pearl Harbor had no reason to be bashed because if somebody want more story then they should be at home watching the history channel as they have great specials and documenteries on all kinds of historical events.
I think what most people who are displeased by this type of film fail to recognize is that the "Action Film" or "Big Screen Movie" is a real genre of its own. That deserves its own merits but rarely ever recievs them.
Armgedon, Independence Day, Die Hards, X-men, Superman, Batman,Terminators and many many more are all great films with little to do with reality. But many of the so called critics and "higher educated" (as far as film goes) love to bash these kinds of movies. But the numbers dont lie, look at TF and all the aforementioned flix. They drew in numbers and $ like few others have.
As far as teachers go I feel the old saying holds true "Those who can...DO, Those who cant ...teach" this type of movie is supposed to be big, bold and brash. Would you rather see it as a screen play? Im not being an ass just kinda goin over the top with it a little bit.
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