Wait.... what!?
Hits and winners..... kind of the same thing.
I think some people expect far too much from a movie about robots that turn into cars. Its NEVER been that creative. Its a popcorn movie. Go watch it. Relax. Turn off and enjoy. You may still not like it. Fair enough. They do still have their issues. Racism is not one that I accept btw. But I wont continue to discuss as I prefer to stay away from the race card. Its a losing battle from the start. Movies being good is an opinion which everyone is entitled to. But I dont think getting creative and taking risks and transformers should really be used together. What risks would be taken? Not putting any robots in? Theyre not deep films no..... but the kids love it. Me... im a big kid!
J
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
I think I get what batguy is talking about. Allow me to try to paraphrase.
Michael Bay is a solid workman in the sense that, if you give him the parts and tell him what you want, he'll build it for you and it will work right. But Michael Bay is not a storyteller nor a creator. He doesn't invent things on his own, he doesn't come up with stories to tell people. What he does is more technical, and in that sense, he's quite talented. He knows how to run a production team. He knows how to shoot action sequences. He knows how to supervise the development of a big action movie with lots of explosions. And he knows how to make movies that appeal to audiences. Even people who absolutely despise Bay have to admit he's
extremely good at those things.
But look at what I just described. All of those things are technical skills rather than creative skills. There's no artistry involved, no creative interest, etc. It's the difference between a really good house painter and a mural painter. It's the difference between being able to take a "paint-by-numbers" picture and make it look great vs. painting something entirely from your own imagination.
Michael Bay is an extremely talented technician, but what I've seen of him does not suggest that he's at all interested in creativity or storytelling. I mean, who knows. Maybe he'd be amazing at it if he put his mind to it, but he doesn't really seem to care to try. He wants to make a bunch of money by making sure-fire money-making spectacles, and he's figured out a dynamite (no pun intended) formula for that. But an artist he ain't. A storyteller he ain't.
Look, cinema is all about providing entertainment for a paying public and its difficult to argue that there isn't a huge audience out there that finds Michael Bay films do exactly that for them. He’s never yet had a total box office disaster, even “The Island” made back its production costs .
The curious thing was that “The Island” was perhaps his best attempt at a sci fi film that had the bones of an interesting story in it and yet it was his biggest failure. And lets put that “failure” into some context. It still made $40 million over its costs. But compared to the staggering amounts of money ,literally billions at the box office that all his other films have made , indications are that the industry and audiences love him , if not the critics and any one in search of something more substantially interesting than things going just blowing up in a film.
Minor point here, but I've heard that The Island is basically a remake of Parts: The Clonus Horror.
Transformers Extinction proves the point. Derided by everyone its still packing them in worldwide and racking up the millions. Because the people who want nothing more from a movie than a juvenile rock n roll blast of big monsters, huge disasters and possibly lasting ear damage are getting exactly that. Bay is a Heavy Metal film artist in every sense of the word and that’s his target audience. Some people actually enjoy being smacked about the ears and eyes rather than sitting quietly observing and thinking about the films message.
I’ll be honest ,I found “Badboys”, “ The Rock” and “Armageddon” fun, particularly after a drink, and even the first “Transformers” was entertainingly good enough ,particularly for the effects and unlikely vision of Megan Fox trying to tune an engine.
And that’s all a lot of Bay fans want from his films, just the fast spectacle and nothing else to worry themselves about except the fun park ride. And if he keeps making millions from them he’s never going to change his style because that’s what the market demands he does.
I think this is a misunderstanding, actually. Sure, some fans just want a big dumb explosion-fest sometimes. But there's a difference between fans
accepting that and
not wanting anything more. I think the fallacy is that a film can ONLY be either a smarty-pants thinking film, or an action-fest. You can have both. And if you can have both, why wouldn't you want both?
Ultimately, I think people
accept or
settle for Bay's brand of entertainment, but if you gave them that level of spectacle wrapped around a solid, well-told story, they'd like that even more. Thing is, Bay doesn't give a crap about that. He doesn't care to try. He wants to make spectacles, not tell spectacular stories. I think audiences like spectacles, as evidenced by his box office success. But I suspect they'd like spectacular stories a lot more.
And this is where we get to the "technician vs. storyteller" aspect again. Bay's technical prowess is undeniable. But learning technical skills is something that a lot of people can do. The artistry of storytelling is a LOT harder to come by. That's why I think you don't see it very often. That and the fact that Hollywood doesn't care to strive to find that kind of artistry, when they can make just as much money cranking out a paint-by-numbers 'splosion-fest.
