shamone wrote:Capt.Failure wrote:5150 Cruiser wrote:Capt.Failure wrote:It's compounded with the other point you made that ultimately, Hasbro approves these characters and how they are portrayed. They made the call to put the Twins in the film, but they aren't willing to deal with the consequences.
Agreed. Ultimately hasbro made the decision to put the twins in the movie, there for they should have carried them all the way. But to be fair, (and i think you can agree to this), i doubt they anticipated the portrayal that critics and some fans saw them. They saw them like we did. Im-mature teenage robots. Nothing else, nothing more. If they knew the **** storm it they were going to bring, wether or not they agreed with it or not, i'm sure they would have changed them around a bit. But again, because some feel the need to be overly politicaly correct, we have characters that had great personalities ditched without an explanation.
Indeed, but to stay on this topic and swing back on the main thread topic it's hard to say Bay isn't trolling with the Wreckers. The double standard among the PC crowd and Hollywood is rather jarring, that one *supposedly racist portrayal is ok while another is not. I'd love to see the critical and fan reaction if a **gay transformer showed up.
*Of course the people who complain about the Wreckers, if any due to said double standard, are just as bad as those who complained about the Twins.
**I haven't been keeping up on Transformers past Beast Machines, so I don't know if that hurdle was jumped yet.Edit - Some education on double-standards. Scroll down to "Non-Gender Related/Other," or just read the whole thing (it's mostly about sexism though):
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... eStandardsDouble Edit - Yes I'm completely aware I'm guilty of many of these on the Seibertron forums.
so essentially there is no argument to be made
if you criticise twins - you are overly PC (what is the opposite of that, wilfully ignorant)
if you dont criticise redneck wreckers (if they are) - you are a hypocrit0
If you do criticise wreckers - you are overly PC
So its a sort of a loop. in your mind.
As for the rest of your post, some of us have already criticised the movie for its attitude towards homosexuality, so if it was more blatently offensive then im sure us overly pc lot would voice our distaste for it.
Not in my mind, but in fact. It is an endless loop and a pointless one, same as the percieved *"homophobia" you mention. If there was some active conspiracy within the production to slander blacks, homosexuals, and apparently Jews (to which I'm also less than convinced) then there would be a problem. But there isn't, and it's all boiled down to lots of wasted energy between the two of us (and many others) argueing on the topic.
shamone wrote:1. Bay has not displayed a directorial style where character development and insight are key, either in the first two transformers movies or the remainder of his ouevre. Therefore im making the logical jump that he wont be too concerned with character growth or levels in DOTM. He does pick the scripts he directs, therefore if he wanted to work on a character piece he could find one, its not his style, some directors are just not talented in that manner.
2. A director has more to do than, point the camera, shout action and cut. They translate the dead words on the page and bring them to life on the screen. So a director can get a performance from an actor that may not be on the page, they arent just blank read throughs we see on film (even in bay movies). Therefore when a director is directing, he is directing performances, collaborating with his actors to understand the role. The tired cliche of the actor asking what is my motivation is not directed to the scriptwriter (they are rarely on set) but to the director, who interprets the words on the page.
1. I would never disagree that Bay's style is about action over characterization. That's why in my opinion he's perfectly suited for the Transformers films and also why he gets such hate from the critical establishment due to their misguided belief that they define "art" with their opinions.
2. Indeed this is true, but at the same time Bay has his hands tied in several regards. For one these aren't his characters were the Transformers are concerned, they belong to Hasbro. Second, as I've said before, he gives alot of the actors the chance improv their performances. Skids and Mudflap's attitudes and voices came from said improve jobs, and while Bay had to approve said voice acting on one level, the final word was again with Hasbro. In a production like this you need to take into account that extra layer.
*The line "Go whine to your boyfriend." directed at Leo is by the Twins is hardly homophobic, more a throwaway line anyone with common sense would just ignore, gay or straight. If you want homophobia go look up such names as Ruben Diaz, Rick Santorum, Byran Fischer or the recent rantings of so called comedian Tracy Morgan. To say what I want to say as politely as possible: You are not an expert on the topic, stop pretending to be.
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