The Star Wars prequels weren't directed well. They kept making money anyway, movie after movie. Spider-Man #3, X-Men #3 . . . these days when certain franchises get big enough it hardly matters if the movie is creatively weak as long as it looks good and doesn't absolutely bore the audience to tears (M. Night).
Nobody accuses MB of making movies that bore audiences to tears. But they are creatively weak.
Like George Lucas's SW prequels, Michael Bay's movies are epic, action-packed, star-studded, well-produced, interesting movies, that make hundreds of millions . . . which utterly shortchange the audience.
If George Lucas was directing SW#7-9 now, he would give us another string of movies with the same weaknesses as the PT. And a couple hundred million people worldwide would still line up to watch Han/Luke/Leia for 3 more movies anyway. Because that new trilogy is just "too big to fail" in the creative sense. It could perform weaker than possible in the wrong hands, but it simply cannot bomb as long as they spend the money and assemble 3 big blockbuster SW movies.
Michael Bay can be very good hit-producer but he should not be directing them. Maybe even 2nd-unit directing, but not the 1st-unit stuff.
Look at the way Hollywood has given Tim Burton a directing career. He should have been kept as a production designer on other directors' movies. He makes great stylized movies that aren't well directed but they keep giving him more movies to direct. Why?!? Why does Hollywood think someone is a good director just because they have been given lots of opportunities to direct slam-dunk hits?!?
:facepalm
