Michael Bay Constructive Criticism (not bashing!!!)

[alejandro1398]

Hey guys, new to the forum here. To start this isn’t a thread to bash Bay and my intent isn’t to troll. If I wanted to do that I could go to any other forum on the Internet and have an endless electronic sea of flamers and haters wash over me.

What I do want to talk about is Michael Bay’s weak points and how he can improve them. There aren’t any threads that talk about this and I find it strange, considering this is the official forum. It’s strange that he hasn’t done a more serious film or evolved on to another genre. I think he would do great in a scew-ball comedy, I mean TF2 has like 20839 jokes, most of them testicle related. It would also be nice to see him focus a bit more on characters.

What do you guys think?

[Jammed9000]

I think this thread is a great idea. Nelson, it should be allowed. The only thing Bay needs to do, in my opinion, is find an awesome script. He nearly had one with The Island, but it did have minor problems.

[alejandro1398]

I'd really like to see something more like The Rock or Bad Boys, where you focus on a small number of characters (in both cases 2) and just follow them on a ride. The Transformer films, while full of great action, just seem a bit divided between following the Transformers or their human counterparts.

An excellent script would help Bay out a lot, and I agree that The Island was on the verge of it. I think what set The Island apart was that it left far more room to go into deeper themes. Its no like Armageddon which is , in essence, save the world. Or The Rock and Bad Boys, which are about stopping the bad guys. It more about identity and existence and what it means to be alive.

If Bay could find a script that has that depth but allows him to have his signature FX driven style I think he might break the stereotype critics have molded him into.

Also, sorry if my posts are a bit long

[Grazer]

Don't think Nelson would have a problem with it as long as it just as you say - constructive. I posted a thread about I thought Bay could improve and it didn't get deleted.

[alexsm]

He needs me writing the scripts


Talking seriously i would like him to bring back Schwartzman or Mauro Fiore, or at least parts of the visual styles of the movies where he worked with them.

And a script combining the awesome epic of armageddon, a movie where actually we care a lot about some of the characters, with a bit more of deep (like in the island) and some sens of real danger about the characters (make us have real fear that they can die or loose, i think Wheddon did this amazingly in Serenity). Maybe bringin' back JJ Abrams as writter... but i don't think that's something easy nowadays.

Bay is talented enough to make a TRULY BIG movie wich could get considered as a masterpiece for the fans, the non-fans and even the critics (hey, wouldn't be nice to see them saying "ok, we where wrong, that's awesome and there's nothing we can argue about").

I think a big-scifi-war-epic movie would be the best scenario. I always though that if Pearl harbor weren't situated in real world (well, in some way it really isn't) a lot of people would like it much more.

And of course it will need a gigantic nearly one hour final confrontation taking part in various places with a real sense of "oh, god, this is going to end awful...". Ending with a kind of sci-fi gettysburg while in another part you have a kind of sci-fi Normandy landing (but with the good guys resisting against a far superior enemy).

Maybe after finishing the Transformers saga...

God, i have to become a filmmaker to do it myself :lol

[Jammed9000]

Also, sorry if my posts are a bit long

Your posts aren't that long, it fine. You should read more of the threads here, they can get huge!

Anyway, yeah, I think all Bay needs is a good script. Crap knows he can film it awesomely.

[Devastator]

I agree. He needs a redeeming character growth movie. I'd love for him to direct my script which is a big-scifi-war-epic(alexsm). It would be perfect for his style. I have a hero character that grows tremendously around this primal war between humans and aliens. A villain so vile only his strength surpasses his anger. A strong second cast and a babe that takes no shit. I have plans for franchise too. I have already started the sequel.

shameless plug, i know

[The Last Autobot]

There is a thread for this. Well ROTF anyways.

http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum...ead.php?t=5456

And it says that you can politely give your opinions, just as you have here.

[stinge]

It would also be nice to see him focus a bit more on characters.

What do you guys think?[/QUOTE]


Focus more on characters! This was my problem with transformers 2. I think this was the 1st movie that I likes that sucked at the same time. The action was very good, but I don't like the fact that optimus prime was the only autobot fighting every one by himself half the time. I want to see every autobot and decepticon with equal screen time. Sideswipe is my favorite autobot of all time growing up, and he had 1minute If that much of screentime. Iron hide didn't do anything. Why the hell would u put all those robots in the movie and have optimus fighting 3 decepticons in the Forrest by himself! If there is a part 3, and they do it the same way they did thos one I don't wanna see it! Right Now the whole movie is all about optimus prime and bumble bee. I understand those are the main characters, but at least have the other autobots have other parts other than just putting them in the movie just for show!

The same thing foes foe the deceptacons. I wanna see more than just megatron and starscream with speaking and fighting parts. The other problem I had is with the fighting scense. u can't really get a good view of what's going on in the fight scenes. It looks like a bunch of crap rolling around. The Forrest scene where optimus is fighting 3 guys by himself isn't smooth at all. It's all fast moving and u can't really see who's doing what. And where were the other autobots at while he was fighting 3 guys by himself?!

Michael bay ticked me odd with this movie. Soundwave was a waste. If orimus prime has the same voice he did in the cartoon, then soundwave should speak the same way he did. If it means making this movie 5 hrs long in order to give all the characters equal screen time then do it !

[fernby]

I've tried to analyse Bay's career in a post over on my own website, fernbyfilms.com. You can check it out here:

http://www.fernbyfilms.com/2009/11/0...f-michael-bay/

In it I have tried to come up with the positives and negatives in the most balanced way possible for the mans films, perhaps you may not agree with everything I have said, but it's a starting point!!!

[Bayhem]

I've tried to analyse Bay's career in a post over on my own website, fernbyfilms.com. You can check it out here:

http://www.fernbyfilms.com/2009/11/0...f-michael-bay/

In it I have tried to come up with the positives and negatives in the most balanced way possible for the mans films, perhaps you may not agree with everything I have said, but it's a starting point!!!

Good analysis, but...

Bay is not a director who will go down as a superstar like Spielberg, Cameron, or Jackson, Scorcese or Coppola.

I will have to disagree with you on this one, because from my perspective Michael Bay is already a superstar director and more and more people all over the world are now familiar with his work, and I should know because I travel a lot. I think he will go down as one of the best action directors, if not the best action director...and that's even better than just being a superstar.

[fernby]

I will have to disagree with you on this one, because from my perspective Michael Bay is already a superstar director

Fair point, although I was trying to indicate that he isn't as critically acclaimed as those directors mentioned. I agree that he's a "superstar" in every other sense, just not in the one that matters!

Thanks for reading! Any other opinions??

[Bayhem]

Fair point, although I was trying to indicate that he isn't as critically acclaimed as those directors mentioned. I agree that he's a "superstar" in every other sense, just not in the one that matters!

You're right, he's not as critically acclaimed as those directors, but I don't believe that the critical acclaim matters. Truth be told, as far as critics are concerned he will go down as one of the worst directors no matter what he does. But as we all know, Bay's not really a fan of the critics or as he put it, "I don't make movies for critics. My greatest joy is to sit anonymously in a dark theater and watch it with an audience, a paying audience."

The truth is Michael Bay is a people's director.

[nelson]

Fair point, although I was trying to indicate that he isn't as critically acclaimed as those directors mentioned. I agree that he's a "superstar" in every other sense, just not in the one that matters!

Thanks for reading! Any other opinions??

What is this longing desire to be critically acclaimed? Really.

I will never understand people wanting to be acclaimed by a bunch of jaded-never-amounted-to-anything film critics. Why does it matter you appeal to a bunch of stiffs who don't know how to even operate a 35mm camera?

I don't speak for Bay, but I doubted he loses any sleep over this. Could Bay win an Oscar? Sure. Does his career need it at this point? No.

[jamjam101]

What is this longing desire to be critically acclaimed? Really.

I will never understand people wanting to be acclaimed by a bunch of jaded-never-amounted-to-anything film critics. Why does it matter you appeal to a bunch of stiffs who don't know how to even operate a 35mm camera?

I don't speak for Bay, but I doubted he loses any sleep over this. Could Bay win an Oscar? Sure. Does his career need it at this point? No.

I agree..I've never understood why it matters to be critically acclaimed...getting 90% on RT or metacritic doesnt mean anything because its not the rating on the site that will cause the masses to go to the cineplex and to buy the dvd/bluray on the release date..consumers buy and watch movies despite the ratings..because they want to be entertained and because the movie appeals to them.

what happened to all the directors who made oscar winning movies in the past? Danny Boyle....what happned to him? it seemed like he had his 15 minutes of fame..

and all the movies that won oscars in the past..really..who can recall a best picture movie of 2003 without researching it? or rather...name one other movie Danny Boyle did without researching....kinda hard isnt it?

who can recall atleast ONE movie Michael Bay made without researching it....a tonne of ppl.

[fernby]

what happened to all the directors who made oscar winning movies in the past? Danny Boyle....what happned to him? it seemed like he had his 15 minutes of fame..

and all the movies that won oscars in the past..really..who can recall a best picture movie of 2003 without researching it? or rather...name one other movie Danny Boyle did without researching....kinda hard isnt it?

who can recall atleast ONE movie Michael Bay made without researching it....a tonne of ppl.

Okay then, a couple of Danny Boyle films without research:

Trainspottng
Millions
28 Days Later
Sunshine
Slumdog (of course)

2003 Oscar winner for Best Picture was Return of The King. (without research)

As a further point: does the fact that Bay doesn't seek kudos from his peers indicate that he wouldn't appreciate it?

[uraydo]

One word. Conflict.

Conflict defines a character by forcing him/her to make choices. Big choices. Because of the lack of conflict and/or the minimal uses of it, we have come out of Bay's last two films with a limited connection to the characters. most notably the autobots. They made no choices because they were never thrown into conflict. For an Autobot, engaging a decepticon is no choice at all. I believe if Bay can find the weakness in conflict in the script, or hire writers that can do it, Pressure can be added to the characters life and they will reveal layers upon layers more of themselves than they ever would by simply choosing to blow up this, rather than that.

[EpicBacons]

^In my opinion, I think thats the main and perhaps only weakness of Bay... in both TF1 and TF2, there wasn't a whole lot of fleshing out of robot characters in the movies. You don't really see any of the personalities of the Decepticons, and the Autobots. Megatron is this growling, cold and mindless mechanical beast, and his Decepticons are completely mindless in what they carry out... they don't say much and they don't have personalities, just completely robotic zombies that carry out tasks. The Autobots have personality, but just aren't shown enough to have a feel for their character. All the robots feel like action fodder IMHO, but I saw a video somewhere where Bay said he'd like for the robots to have a little more character development, or something like that.

[jasncondit]

Good analysis, but...





I will have to disagree with you on this one, because from my perspective Michael Bay is already a superstar director and more and more people all over the world are now familiar with his work, and I should know because I travel a lot. I think he will go down as one of the best action directors, if not the best action director...and that's even better than just being a superstar.

Agreed! You don't make two top grossing movies in the last 4 years and not be a Prime (pun intended) time director. Michael was the perfect fit for Transformers. Transformers jumped around in the cartoon and Mike does in the movies. Do not let another director touch Transformers.

[omegaweapon2]

Are there courses to take to become a critic?

Does that job pay well?

[sonic43]

Before I begin let me say my top 3 directors in order are Michael Bay, Kevin Smith, and Michael Mann.

1. I in no way think Bay is racist or anything like that but sometimes he relies to much on stereotypes for the laugh. I something like Bad Boys the stereotypes work because of the cast but in a film like TF2 it doesn't play as well (and can be taken in the wrong light as we saw)

2. There was a special kind of grittiness that Bay achieved with the film grain in Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon. They felt a lot more realistic in tone because of the way the actual image looked. However every film starting with Pearl Harbor has a may more modern digital finish look. While it looks pretty I think it takes away a bit from the look of the film in certain cases (The Island and Bad Boys 2 for example).

3. Stop thinking so much. Let me explain that statement a bit. Because of Bay's standing in the business he can basically do anything he wants. While that is great sometimes, it works against him. TF2 feels like the perfect example of this. Bay (to his credit) is a man that never stops thinking so when he wants to put something in a movie he puts it in and doesn't think about what other feel about it. I think is there was someone on TF2 or Pearl Harbor who could say "maybe this doesn't work as well as this" or "we don't need this" it would of been a better film. Bay has many amazing ideas but sometimes those amazing ideas are overshadowed by the bad ones (yes even Michael Bay has bad ideas sometimes).

[minibay]

I don`t like the fronting pic on his site. However artistic, it`s never funny that the state of Israel never succeeded. And everybody is just looking away, and no film in hollywood even brings it up.

[minibay]

I can`t believe i found the right side of the force. and i don`t think it`s disney...

the transformers team-add was shitty. Michael has the top-crew in the world.

[Morgane]

Great idea for a thread.

First-off I'm a Michael Bay fan, there's only one of his films I'm not to crazy about and even there that was more down to the script than his directing.

He has said before that he would like to do a smaller film but keeps getting offers for this big blockbuster.

I'm really curious about what he would do with a good character driven script. He's IMO one of the few directors who really have distinctive visual style. Moreover he's one of the few directors that really know how to get tons of information across through images rather than superfluous dialogue.

I think he would pleasantly surprise a lot of his critics. whether they would be big enough to admit it, that I do not know.

A Michael Bay indie if you please. Mind you, I don't understand why smaller movies automatically get the label indie.

[Morgane]

Couldn't agree more.

I don't see where this racism charge is coming from.

Yes the twins were stereotypical and slightly annoying - personally I don't think it was strictly necessary to have them plotwise.

However, they were certainly no more stereotypical than half of the films set in the 'hood'. You could even argue that the twins who learnt there lingo from rap songs and clips, say more about the caucasian youth imitating R& B stars than black culture itself.
But accusing the director who was the first to have two - at that time- relatively unknown black character star in a buddy cop movie (never seen before Bad Boys)of racism is just ludicrous and a prime example of a little thing I like to call 'making Michael Bay the scape goat for just about everything'.

It's part of the charm of his movies that he tries to put something in for everyone, but I would like to see a more restrained approach from time to time.