Jump to content

The Transformers' Newest Trailer


Evan Winter

Recommended Posts

Michael Bay is often looked at by film-purists (and many cinematography forum members) as a hack, fauxteur, and/or panderer. However, I'll contend that the man knows what he wants to do in film, knows how to do it, and most importantly knows how to entertain.

 

The newest trailer for the Transformers movie gets the blood pumping, the heart racing, and the mind spinning (at the incredible complexity of the effects). Granted, the trailer provides little indication of the quality of the film as a narrative but all systems on this project seem to be a go!

 

I absolutely adore the organic way that the Transformers move and transform in their environments and I can't help but admire the directing ability that must go into a project of this scope.

 

Sure, you're brilliant if you make me cry and care in a movie with a cast of 3 who mostly sit in a single room and talk to one another but to control, maintain, structure, and deliver a film on the scale of the Transformers is brilliance on a different plane entirely.

 

Check out the new trailer - http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/transforme...WTxEfAxzHtfVXcA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well it looks ok, take away the 42 billion for CG and what have you got?

 

I thought one part was a little strange. The VO says, "They can take any shape, they can be among us right now."

 

Then they cut to shots of the Republican National Convention. Hmmmmm.

 

R,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael Bay is often looked at by film-purists (and many cinematography forum members) as a hack, fauxteur, and/or panderer. However, I'll contend that the man knows what he wants to do in film, knows how to do it, and most importantly knows how to entertain.

 

Sure, you're brilliant if you make me cry and care in a movie with a cast of 3 who mostly sit in a single room and talk to one another but to control, maintain, structure, and deliver a film on the scale of the Transformers is brilliance on a different plane entirely.

 

Michael Bay doesn't know squat and his films suck, and I'm no film purist either.

 

I can certainly enjoy a big high concept Hollywood production, from the likes of directors who actually know what they are doing off, like James Cameron or Steven Speilberg, or more recently directors like Martin Cambell, Alfonso Curan, Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan who manage to take a big budget, a complex set of multi-party agendas and craft an entertaining, and sometimes even moving blockbuster.

 

Michael Bay not only manages to make lousy films with enormous over the top budgets which are critically panned, but nobody actually goes to see these films. Both Pearl Harbor and The Island were flops.

 

What's more he usually fills these films with very good actors and actually manages to get bad performances out of them.

 

The only thing he's a genius at is persuading studio execs to keep giving him $100 million to make yet another ghastly bomb with.

 

I thought people only said the like Michael Bay to be ironic!

 

P.S. The bit were the boy says 'must be Japanese is' the two actors are out of focus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael Bay doesn't know squat and his films suck, and I'm no film purist either.

 

I can certainly enjoy a big high concept Hollywood production, from the likes of directors who actually know what they are doing off, like James Cameron or Steven Speilberg, or more recently directors like Martin Cambell, Alfonso Curan, Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan who manage to take a big budget, a complex set of multi-party agendas and craft an entertaining, and sometimes even moving blockbuster.

 

Michael Bay not only manages to make lousy films with enormous over the top budgets which are critically panned, but nobody actually goes to see these films. Both Pearl Harbor and The Island were flops.

 

What's more he usually fills these films with very good actors and actually manages to get bad performances out of them.

 

The only thing he's a genius at is persuading studio execs to keep giving him $100 million to make yet another ghastly bomb with.

 

I thought people only said the like Michael Bay to be ironic!

 

P.S. The bit were the boy says 'must be Japanese is' the two actors are out of focus.

 

 

So you don't like his movies then?

 

R,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It looks cool enough and I'm sure it'll be ok entertainment for a night when all I want to do is sit down and watch a mind numbing film that just feeds my brain with pretty colours.

These films never deliver the action and suspense that one gets the impression of and the cast are allways so shallow and the story line never really manages to engage you, so in the end it really just becomes an effects frenzy who pretty much anyone given enough money could produce.

I had all the transformers toys when I was a kid and they're still all stored in boxes somewhere, so perhaps it will somehow re-connect me with my childhood.. that or I'll throw them all in the bin after I've seen the film... Time will tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Until I saw the Island, I thought Michael Bay was ridiculous. I mean, Bad Boys 2? Mercy.

 

I thought The Island was great. The fact is that Michael Bay is an extremely talented filmmaker. His understanding of camera movement is fantastic and deserves respect. Think back to The Rock. You may or may not like this movie, but it brought the movement of music videos and commercials into feature films in a new way. It was copied over and over.

 

Unfortunately, between The Rock and The Island there were about ten years of...well...crap. Oil drillers on an asteroid? I'm ready to give him another chance. The Island failed to make money as a result of the inertia of crap that audiences had dealt with for so long, but I think Bay's switch of allegience from Bruckheimer to Spielberg is an important one and could mark the maturing of Bay into a director with more depth and the ability to really tell a good story and get good performances.

 

And the truth is that even if he fails to make good films, he still pushes the envelope of camera movement with every film.

 

I still hate most of his stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

I like his films visually, especially "Armageddon", and I do think it suggests some talent at image creation, regardless of who is the DP (although he has always worked with top-notch DP's) -- it's just too bad it's coupled with such adolescent tastes in character, plot, and an editing style that only someone with ADD could love. But there is a certain "dumb fun" to most of his movies, and I've rewatched "Armageddon" a number of times for the cinematography (though I can't make myself sit through "Pearl Harbor" again despite how well-photographed it is.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And the truth is that even if he fails to make good films, he still pushes the envelope of camera movement with every film.

 

Of course so do directors like Speilberg, Alfonso Curan and Peter Jackson - yet they don't make such testosterone driven stinkers like he does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But there is a certain "dumb fun" to most of his movies....

 

Of course maybe its the dumb fun of his movies that so gives me the shivers, there's an element of irresponsibility there - particularly in this particular global time.

 

Roland Emmerich's films are the same, but both directors tend to have a morbid interest of destroying US national monuments and killing (on film) hundreds of people in a spectacular, video game way - its actually very devaluing of humane life.

 

But maybe this is just the feeling of the lefty brit, but surely US citizens can't enjoy seeing their country/people being destroyed - when in real life its something so horrifically tragic - and something which they've seen in reality played out on the news.

 

 

Actually this may sound a little insane but several years ago I had a dream that I was a film director and that all the characters that had died in a film I had made came back as ghosts to haunt me - amazing dream, scared the living s**t out of me.

 

So anyway I just find the concept of entertainment where people die tastelessly and without respect frustrating - many a time have I walked out of a zombie film very very angry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

We are all appalled or offended by different things, or at different levels. What appalls me mostly about Michael Bay's films is his Penthouse Magazine attitude towards women; sometimes you feel he's aiming for the strip club crowd. It's that culture of machismo in his movies that I find annoying.

 

As for seeing cities destroyed, what's the difference between that and seeing Godzilla stomp the heck out of Tokyo in the original movies, except that the effects are better now? Or seeing an Irwin Allen disaster movie? That aspect doesn't bother me so much. You can ask yourself why anyone would see a post-nuclear holocaust movie for entertainment. I've always liked that sort of apocalyptic imagery.

 

But then, I can't understand at all the interest in torture movies like "Saw" or "Touristas" or "Hostel", anymore than I could watch the "Friday the 13th" movies back in my youth. They aren't horror in the way I enjoy the genre (gothic, creepy, atmospheric, etc.) -- they are just sort of revolting and painful to watch. It's not the type of scary experience that I find entertaining compared to other types of scares. Could never get into those Fangoria magazine issues obsessed with articles on make-up effects that look realistic enough to make you think someone's nose was sliced off, or half their head, that Tom Savini stuff.

 

Zombie movies are a little different, but borderline hard for me to watch -- there is generally some sort of cynical, ironic concept behind the zombie tale that makes them interesting.

 

Although my favorite zombie movie is "Shaun of the Dead" so I am hardly a hardcore fan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This will get me into hot water :D

 

I think some of you guys have pretty harsh words for Bay's work. Obviously my post is a spoof on big budget action movies and political humour.

 

But when some of you say things like:

 

"Michael Bay doesn't know squat and his films suck"

 

"yet they don't make such testosterone driven stinkers like he does."

 

"It looks cool enough and I'm sure it'll be ok entertainment for a night when all I want to do is sit down and watch a mind numbing film that just feeds my brain with pretty colours."

 

Michael Bay is a Hollywood heavy weight with some very big films under his belt, I don't think those making comments like this really have a body of work that can compare in any way.

 

I've gone a lot softer on my critique of other people's movies after actually going through the experience of actually making a feature film and not just reading a book about it. Once you go through it you realize first hand how difficult it is, and your respect for those that do it even half way good goes way up. (I even sat through all of "The Invisible" thinking, there are positives here, while the audience was falling asleep :-)

 

Ok...let the flaming begin, I'm ready as always.

 

R,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So anyway I just find the concept of entertainment where people die tastelessly and without respect frustrating - many a time have I walked out of a zombie film very very angry.

 

I'm sorry, but why in the blue f*ck would you go and see a zombie movie in the first place, holding the views on violence in film that you do?

 

Reminds me of the type of parent that hears explicit lyrics on their kids CD, so proceeds to listen to the rest of the album just to find out how annoyed and outraged they can get.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As for seeing cities destroyed, what's the difference between that and seeing Godzilla stomp the heck out of Tokyo in the original movies, except that the effects are better now? Or seeing an Irwin Allen disaster movie? That aspect doesn't bother me so much. You can ask yourself why anyone would see a post-nuclear holocaust movie for entertainment. I've always liked that sort of apocalyptic imagery.

 

But then, I can't understand at all the interest in torture movies like "Saw" or "Touristas" or "Hostel", anymore than I could watch the "Friday the 13th" movies back in my youth. They aren't horror in the way I enjoy the genre (gothic, creepy, atmospheric, etc.) -- they are just sort of revolting and painful to watch. It's not the type of scary experience that I find entertaining compared to other types of scares.

 

Zombie movies are a little different, but borderline hard for me to watch -- there is generally some sort of ironic concept behind the zombie tale. Although my favorite zombie movie is "Shaun of the Dead."

 

Well there's something quite dramatically different between something like the original Godzilla and a modern Hollywood disaster film like Independence Day - in Godzilla or other classic films the disaster is usually a by-product of something bad that civilization has done - atomic testing for instance. So there is if you like, a lesson to be learned. I guess somebody could really run with the global warming issue today. The film Matinee has some wonderful send ups of those classic 'warning lines.'

 

In a Bay/Emmerich film there is no lesson, the civilization, usually dominantly US in presence, is attacked by something without provocation or reason - the civilization is essentially an innocent victim which is not only unrealistic poses not worth-while moral question.

 

I actually have less of a problem with torture/horror films, even though I can't bare to watch them - the reason being is at least they show a humane being in detail as a suffering organism, which bleeds and feels pain - in Armageddon or Independence day they are simply killed of like Lego men on a child's rampage.

 

The zombie movie that really disgusted me was the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead, that was very computer-gaming, devaluing humane life, zombie or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are all appalled or offended by different things, or at different levels. What appalls me mostly about Michael Bay's films is his Penthouse Magazine attitude towards women; sometimes you feel he's aiming for the strip club crowd. It's that culture of machismo in his movies that I find annoying.

 

Well his imdb titles sure attest to that.

 

Playboy: Inside the Playboy Mansion (2002) (TV) .... Himself

 

Playboy: The Party Continues (2000) (TV) .... Himself

 

Playboy Video Centerfold: Kerri Kendall (1990) (V)

 

But then, I can't understand at all the interest in torture movies like "Saw" or "Touristas" or "Hostel"

 

Agreed. Peoples morbid fascination with someone inflicting a great deal of pain on someone else is actually kind of scary. Perhaps one reason I never really took to movies like Battle Royal either although everyone seemed to be praising it.

 

Although my favorite zombie movie is "Shaun of the Dead" so I am hardly a hardcore fan.

 

Dawn of the Dead... great fun. I somehow really enjoyed the fact that the zombies were running now and not dragging their feet kinda walking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually have less of a problem with torture/horror films, even though I can't bare to watch them - the reason being is at least they show a humane being in detail as a suffering organism, which bleeds and feels pain - in Armageddon or Independence day they are simply killed of like Lego men on a child's rampage.

 

The zombie movie that really disgusted me was the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead, that was very computer-gaming, devaluing humane life, zombie or not.

 

I'm probably wrong here, but I feel as though there is a huge difference in a film like Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead with a sort of black sadistic humour and the likes of Saw and Battle Royal where "real" people in "realistic" situations are set to torture and murder each other in the most gruesome of ways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sorry, but why in the blue f*ck would you go and see a zombie movie in the first place, holding the views on violence in film that you do?

 

Reminds me of the type of parent that hears explicit lyrics on their kids CD, so proceeds to listen to the rest of the album just to find out how annoyed and outraged they can get.

 

Well actually I've enjoyed watching 3 zombie movies:

 

The original Night of the Living Dead, very scary and intelligent film (can't understand why they can never out run the zombies though)

 

28 Days Latter, again an intelligent film, with some interesting aspects.

 

Shaun of the Dead - a very funny black-comedy, for the first half of at least.

 

I also do enjoy horror films in general - Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Cronos, The Haunting are all very interesting films.

 

I have less of a problem with Horror films, than I do with the dehumanizing and devaluing of human life in Hollywood films - including some zombie movies - the scene in the Dawn of the Dead remake where two guys are shooting zombies of the roof for a shopping mall for fun is very tasteless in my eyes.

 

 

Plus a parent who listens to all of the pre-mentioned CD and subsequently decides whether their children can listen to it is perhaps a more just and responsible parent than the one who simply bans it without proper consideration!

Edited by Andy_Alderslade
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've gone a lot softer on my critique of other people's movies after actually going through the experience of actually making a feature film and not just reading a book about it. Once you go through it you realize first hand how difficult it is, and your respect for those that do it even half way good goes way up. (I even sat through all of "The Invisible" thinking, there are positives here, while the audience was falling asleep :-)

 

It's not so much the work that goes into creating a feature film, because that is surely a daunting task, but so many like yourself go to great lengths and sacrifice alot just to be able to produce one feature film.

Someone with a great idea might chase funding for their project for several years whilst this other stuff is getting pumped out on a high speed conveyor belt.

We all suffer under this because the cinema chains will choose to screen these films and bump others.

You were saying in another thread that Canadian cinema chains were being dictated by Hollywood studios about what films they were putting up. These films will make their money just because the studios can push them through not based on the actual content of the film, but becuase of the sheer vastness of the system behind it. Indie films could never compete with that even if people actually wanted to see them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Tim Partridge
I like his films visually, especially "Armageddon", and I do think it suggests some talent at image creation, regardless of who is the DP (although he has always worked with top-notch DP's)

 

I'm in broken record mode here, but there's no personal visual signature, he's just abiding by the grad filter/long lens house style of Bruckheimer productions- could be Simon West, Dominic Sena, Tony Scott (now even Ridley Scott)- all interchangable. It's not like Bay's Tony Scott or Adrian Lyne either, which makes it even less impressive as he's more or less a second generation clone.

 

What an awe inspiring breath of fresh air it was to see SEABISCUIT, discovering a distinct voice behind John Schwartzman that wasn't a cartoon version of what a Tony Scott movie looks like (which lead me to check out the older EDTV and PYROMANIAC'S LOVE STORY, both visually effective movies).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
But then, I can't understand at all the interest in torture movies like "Saw" or "Touristas" or "Hostel", anymore than I could watch the "Friday the 13th" movies back in my youth. They aren't horror in the way I enjoy the genre (gothic, creepy, atmospheric, etc.) -- they are just sort of revolting and painful to watch.

Talk about a new genre taking over. I've just come back from the cinema and half the trailers were for gorno films, by the name of 'Paradise Lost', 'The Hitcher', 'Vacancy'. I honestly do not see the point of these films, it seems to me that they are a replacement of freakshows in the old circi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

- the scene in the Dawn of the Dead remake where two guys are shooting zombies of the roof for a shopping mall for fun is very tasteless in my eyes.

 

I'm glad you qualified that this time. I got no trouble with people expressing their opinions on anything, but when the argument gets laden with absolutes, it bugs the ever-lovin poop outta me. ( There, that's my opinion)

 

I know Bay's not popular, and as you are a self-professed 'Lefty Brit" I don't think there's ever gonna be anything he does that you'll like.

 

I happen to like a bit of Blue-Sky, Flag-Waving, modern americana....and I dont think there's anyone out there that can nail that sort of stuff in a single composition better than Bay. I know this is gonna provoke groans all round but I see his stuff as 21st century Norman Rockwell painting. The man knows an iconic shot when he sees it.

 

oh and BTW, Pearl Harbor made $449 million worldwide...I'd LOVE a flop like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm probably wrong here, but I feel as though there is a huge difference in a film like Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead with a sort of black sadistic humour and the likes of Saw and Battle Royal where "real" people in "realistic" situations are set to torture and murder each other in the most gruesome of ways.

 

Obviously my views on this are extremely contrary to everyone else's because I can't actually type replies fast enough.

 

However it concerns me that some people can see a film like Dawn of the Dead, which in the UK had an 18 certificate, a massively publicized release, contained random acts of violence, contained considerable violence without showing consequences as simply black sadistic humor - humor doesn't justify content, nor does entertainment justify violence.

 

At least in a film like Saw, as terrible and sickening entertainment that it is, they are showing these humane beings as tortured creatures, there is nothing clinical or censored about it like a big hollywood movie presents.

 

A film like Dawn of the Dead is in fact presenting a reality that killing is fun, easy and non-explicit.

 

Now personally neither film is appealing but violence and apparently zombies does have its appropriate place in cinema, providing there is something solid and challenging behind it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

oh and BTW, Pearl Harbor made $449 million worldwide...I'd LOVE a flop like that.

 

Names like Pearl Harbour and Titanic sell themselves though. Pearl Harbour was a gastly film by all accounts and as well as the story being wafer thin(pronounciation must be like that of the maître d' played by John Cleese in The Meaning of Life) the historical inaccuracies just made it unwatchable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course so do directors like Speilberg, Alfonso Curan and Peter Jackson - yet they don't make such testosterone driven stinkers like he does.

 

Um...you do know that Steven Speilburg is the executive producer of Transformers don't you?? That means this is his idea. Bay is just the director.

Edited by AdamBray
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...