Michael Bay blames Actor's greed for impending SAG strike

Guess the A-listers don't have enough golden toilets yet.

As for Bay. I say go ahead, rewrite the script and give the real stars their rightful screentime. We want more robots!

Ah Mikey Bay...

You suck so much at directing...

Maybe the actors are striking because of that.

Meh. Just further goes to prove what an ass he is. Must be why all those "A-list" actors keep comin back to work with him...


I was thinking about this in another post, and it's still sticking.

I really would like to see a different approach to a "Transformers Movie" every year- sorta like what was done with the last series of Godzilla films.

Each film is it's own story, own continuity, unless the characters prove strong enough to merit another story (like how they made two Mecha-Godzilla films).

This is what they do for the toy-line anyhow. Different line (or two) almost every year now.

If they did something like this, then I wouldn't care about this movie or it's sequel, because I could hope (eventually) something that I would like would get made.

I think the major fan division on this film and its sequels, is such that for the people who like them, everything's great.

But for the people who loath them, we get to wait another decade or more for a film we'd buy on DVD.

I still haven't put one cent into the movie franchise. Never paid to see it (gave the money to Pixar instead that summer). Never bought a toy (no I didn't steal any, I just don't want them). And never bothered with the DVD (twice was enough).

More words from the Michael Bolton repaint.

Granted I stopped paying attention to strike related stuff after the writers one, and that one I beleive they had a legit gripe. I dont know the basis behind this impending strike but I bet money does play a BIG factor and I'm sorry but I cant feel sorry for them when they make more money per minute of screen time than I make in a year sometimes.

That said, people need to stop hopping the "bay sucks" bandwagon. It's old and frankly its played out. We all know that the movie wasnt everyones "ideal" transformers movie and I have a big newsflash for EVERYONE. There will never, ever be a transformers movie that firs the role of "ideal" transformer movie for every fan in the fandom, thats because a lot of fans are so fickle in what they want that they will never be happy.


"Oh no thats not the right shade of red on starscreams wings, you suck"

"Booo, robots don't pee"

"Waaaa, I liked hotshot better than bumblebee and hound is supposed to be a marine jeep, not a navy jeep. You all suck at making movies"

That's kinda why I like the idea of multiple continuities...

Better chances of pleasing more people. Not 100%, but that's the idea.

And Bay is a hack.

And Robots can pee, if you design em to do it- but what kind of idiot does that?

Personally, I think he has a legitimate gripe here. Strikes rarely ever really increase the money that a striker wants to receive, and if the strike goes too long, they come down on their demands so they can start working again anyway. Teachers do that here in Chicago once every five years or so.

But hey, at least the crew of Celebrity Fit Club may have a chance at a real job soon.

I blame Tom Cruise.

It's over-exposed, over-paid, talent-less hacks like him who rely on their so called good looks that COMMAND ridiculous amounts of money just to appear in a film that has lesser known actors and actresses wide eyed with hope that they too can some day get money like that.

[01] I disagree with you on several counts, Trypticon. While I agree that a different 'Transformers' film every year would be an interesting take on the hollywood norm to cash in on a viable franchise, we are not Japan (unfortunately); Japan has far different sensibilities than we here in the States. While said sensibilities have a great fan-base here, there is still not enough attention devoted to it to consider putting any more effort into it than there already is. Our franchises have more "conective tissue" to them because America's mindset has evolved to understand such, while the Japanese find the emotional weight of a given story sufficient enough to warrant it merit within the culture; it's why there Anime series end, as opposed to our cartoons running thier course until cancelation. We are just now seeing story wrap-ups coming into fruition.

[02] While I agree that Bay can be a jerk, he has done no damage to the franchise. His style of directing has allowed millions of people who could care less about the Sci-Fi "nerd crap" to finally take part in what we TransFans consider special. My honest opinion is that any fan who cannot respect anything beyond G1, or even the Beast Era, is not a real fan. The Franchise is about change; these characters change forms by nature, while the tone of the stories changes still. So to NOT accept change in the farnchise (in any of its forms) is to deny love of Transformers all together. Nostalgia is one thing, but as we have all grown & learned, so has the toyline, the media incorporated into them, and the companies behind thier sustained, 25-year-long life. What Bay said about the Guild holds weight when you consider the sheer amount of evidence within & without the industry of Actor demands, contract disputes and overall rudeness.

I understand some of Bay's points.

But when he mentioned China buying up the US-well aren't the vast majority of Transformers toys made in China? Not trying to make Bay feel bad. He's not the owner of Hasbro, and thus, doesn't make their manufacturing and marketing decisions. But he has and will continue making movies based on a cheap Chinese labor produced toyline.

Honestly, I don't have alot of sympathy for any big name star who wants to strike simply because he or she is not "making enough money". I'd be happy to make 1/10 or even 1/50 of the money they made.

I do feel for the small unknown actors though who don't get much. Are these the actors Bay is referring to who don't want the strike and will settle for the 6%?

I think many of these big shot actors who want more money should go where I went a few weeks ago. They should go to the most impoverished areas of Tijuanna and see all the piss poor Maquilladora workers living in shitty shacks in a trash-infested dump while their kids play in filthy polluted water. They want to see what it is like to not have enough money? Try living on a Maquilladora wage of $180 a month in a complete shithole where it takes at least $300 a month to live at the poverty level. And try doing that with 2-3 kids to feed on top. The people there can barely afford enough tortillas, beans, and milk for them and their families.

I just hope Bay doesn't bash the outsourcing of jobs here without looking at what U.S. economic policy is doing to others in other nations. I'm against outsourcing myself, but not just because it eliminates jobs in the U.S. Companies go to other nations, pollute the crap out of them, and exploit the people there ruthlessly.

Alot of people in the U.S., especially some politicians, love to bitch about China and badmouth it to death. They love to say how evil China is and how the nation is buying up the U.S. But you know what? A great deal of that is the U.S.'s fault. They want to exploit China's cheap labor force and have them produce tons of products for the U.S. for practically nothing. But they sure as hell don't want China to take the money it is getting from the outsource labor and make itself into a world power. Nope. The U.S. has to stay on top of everyone else and use everyone else for its own ends no matter what. Can't have those the U.S. is using rise to power and level the playing field.

The love-hate relationship some people have with China is so silly! They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Well, I commend both PlasmaEnergyGod and moldavite on their points of view and for saving me a bit of typing. What you guys had to say, as well as some of the other earlier posts, really made it stand out in my mind just exactly how much the actors behavior parallels that of some of the TF Fan community and how both do very little to help the current U.S. public image. It is predominantly the U.S. actors that come across, interview wise, as the spoiled, whiny, bitchy, dissatisfied (thank you Burn for bringing Mr Cruise to mind) greedy pains-in-the-butt. Likewise, it seemed to me that the American TF fans were the first to bitch, and most loudly I might add, about the live action film not being what they felt it should be. To the actors, to the fans that whined, and to the bitchy Americans discontent because they don't have what they think they "deserve", please kindly SHUT THE HELL UP and be thankful that you got anything at all. Ship the actors to Mexico to live for a month in squalor (I've been down there with work parties, lived amongst the locals I've experienced it just like moldavite did a few weeks ago and it will do the actors some good) For the whiny fans, pull a cool 100 mil. out of your butts and make a better film and if you can't do that, keep your mouth closed and enjoy the efforts of someone else who can! Both groups are making us American's look even worse than we already do in the eye's of the rest of the world. We don't need other countries against us, we can screw our own image up just fine.

So, any of you Canadians got a couch I can crash on. I think I hear an angry mob approaching.

The thing to remember too is not every actor earns big money.

There really are only a handful of actors and actresses who can say "you want me in your movie? Fine. It's going to cost you 20 million minimum"

Tom Cruise. Ruining movies through ego and destroying the world through "religion".