How Michael Bay Transformed Blockbuster Filmmaking
Vložit
- čas přidán 18. 06. 2024
- Whenever the Michael Bay Transformers films come up, a bunch of questions come to mind: What? How? Why? But most importantly: Why the F*ck did we put up with these terrible movies? Here I argue for the strengths of the Action in these films, and why we endured the worst blockbusters of all time for the spectacle they provided.
Follow me on twitter: / jburd22
Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
Other Michael Bay Videos:
Lindsey Ellis: • Transformers and Film ...
Patrick H. Willems: • MICHAEL BAY - Understa...
Tony Zhou: • Michael Bay - What is ...
0:00 Game Changers
2:39 No Sacrifice, No Victory!
11:55 One Man Alone, Betrayed By the Country He Loves
16:59 Sh!t Just Got Real
23:20 In Conclusion
Business Inquiries: jburdett360@gmail.com - Krátké a kreslené filmy
Optimus Prime giving a heartfelt speech, looking into the distance, while Linkin Park blasting in the background will always give me goosebumps
Same man
Facts
Absolutely! Good stuff! Iconic! 😁👌🏻 having Peter Cullen as optimus will always feel magical no matter what!
@@optiTHOMAS he just does it the best. I see Optimus i want to hear that exact voice
@@FathomMane absolutely! Only other voice for him would be Gary Chalk, mainly for optimus primal! 😁👌🏻
Iconic lines from the most influential blockbusters:
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
"May the force be with you"
"There is no spoon"
"I see you"
"We have a Hulk"
"GRANDMAMA DRINK YOUR PRUNE JUICE"
The last one is by far the best.😂
We can pick dumb lines from each of the other movies too
@@Richard_Nickerson It’s not dumb, it’s influential. Didn’t you read his comment?
I am directly below the enemy scrotum
Left cheek left cheek left cheek
@@drrobocar6459
🙄
I’ll always love the first three movies. Don’t care what anyone says. Glad people are coming around if only it’s purely nostalgia reasons.
Based, I'll always love the first movie no matter what anyone says.
I love the first two no shame. The Chicago fight in three is pretty great
EPIC TRILOGY !
First and third have a special place in my heart, Linkin Park makes it all the more memorable.
@@mehdibasses2633 😅😅😅😅 pentalogy, like facts or not.
Looking at Dark of the Moon and Avengers clips back to back it's amazing how much more contrast, depth, and framing DotM has. I hate to say you can really see Whedon's TV background vs. One of the most masterful filmmakers at getting a SHOT ever
Yeah, it's clear which movie took risks and put the most effort on spectacle.
honestly agree, the first two avengers movies (especially ultron) are fucking ugly
@@gumball2253 i think infinity war and engame look uglier
@motor4X4kombat fair enough. I'd have to go back and rewatch endgame but infinity war (what I've seen, never gone through it fully) seemed fine. Lots of colour and different environments
@@gumball2253preach, hate how a lot of newer movies have some weird depth and obvious fake stuff, Endgame and most MCU movies suffer this, the first 3 iron man looked good with the 3rd starting the decline
I love Michael Bay blocks buster way of filming, it feels realistic in tone( yes even with sweaty people ) and has ton of weight, the new stuff look and feel very odd and fake
The first transformers movie is one of my favorite comfort films and I thoroughly enjoyed the second film.
I loved dark of the moon
so u wouldnt like it if they had little to no humans in the movies?
@@RKanth54 you expect there to not be humans when these movies are set on earth that doesn't make sense bro
i enjoyed all the five films
Both "Bumblebee" and "Rise of the Beasts" definitely deserve a look at, if you haven't already done so.
Also, I completely understand not covering "Age of Extinction", and "The Last Knight". After seeing TLK, ROTF is Shakespeare.
Bumblebee is good but Rise of the Beast is kinda boring compared to most of Bays Transformers. It's trying so hard to be a good, logical movie but it really falls short and just ends up being a watered-down Bay movie
@@M_k-zi3tnaudience scores and reviews are not really agreeing with you
@@toamszkozak8822 ROTB has a lower rotten Tomatoes score than Transformers 1, information you conveniently left out.
TR1 made twice the amount of money in its opening weekend.
The audience score for TR1 is very slightly less than ROTB.
So...I think the stats agree with me
Bumblebee and ROTB are both way better than any of the Bay movies.
@@M_k-zi3tn the tomatoes score is not that diffrent, The 2007 movie have 57% while rise of the beasts have 53% so I can use the same argument that rise of the beasts have very slightly less score than 2007 movie, and I didn't used the tomatoes score because nobody cares about that because everyone knows that tomatoes score is bullshit and nobody take that seriously, what matters is an audience score
The CGI in the first film is still absolutely insane looking
Rise of the Beats looks nowhere near as real
I think the studios were hesitant to give a higher budget this time around after TLK lol
The newer transformer movies at this point is like kicking a dead horse to see if it will get back up. You can keep kicking it but it wont ever get up
@@FathomManeit did better than the flash movie, which is a hit at DC
It’s cause this time ILM isn’t working on the movie like they did with the last transformers movies, a new CGI studio did ROTB
No. I love Bayverse but Bumblebee and ROTB are both pretty damn gorgeous.
The Transformers movies had the potential at the time to rival MCU, which the latter was still in it's infancy
The problem was that the people in charge of Transfomers were all a bunch of incompetent hacks. A shitty director who didn’t even like the brand (Michael Bay) a shitty writer who was known for mostly ruining franchises (Ehren Kruger) And a shitty producer who didn’t give two fucks about quality as long as it made money (Lorenzo di Bonaventura)
Specifically
Organized chaos - choreographed fights filmed very close up (human perspective)
strategic slo mo - showing near misses during action/fight
character development - Sam goes from scared loser to less scared loser to annoyed underdog to underappreciated hero (or something like that) in three films.
World building - government and private sector perspective on aliens shifts over time
Agreed, all those are points to why i rewatch a few of those films.
That is what the Bay's Transformers movies need, someone to explain what the hell we are watching.
LMFAO FAX 🗣
😂😂😂😂💯👍
Because his audience is apparently braindead.
I'm glad that Bay and Dark of the Moon receive some kind of recognition, even if it's compromised. I quite enjoy his films for what they are, even if there are some cringy moments in them. Pure entertainment has become so scarce these days.
looking back at the Transformers serie, it's insane to see that a decade later it still feels a lot more opulent than blockbusters from nowadays. What we can't blame Michael Bay for is that you can see all the money (and more) put in production onscreen, while the +200m marvel budgets seem now underused
Refreshing to see a different perspective on these movies that isn’t just “Transformers movies are bad here’s the same talking points you’ve heard a billion times already”. These movies had promise and certainly had effort, maybe not in the writing but definitely in the visual effects and cinematography, and as someone who isn’t knowledgeable in that field watching this definitely helped me understand why I find Bay’s action so captivating. Even storywise I think there are larger than life concepts and ideas that could have really worked if the quality of writing was better, and I find it more insightful to discuss how things like these could be improved rather than just hearing “the humans are annoying, you can’t tell what’s happening, etc” for the billionth time.
I wholeheartedly believe that the writers strike dwindled the Transformers franchise. The first was one on a roll then the second was was dogshit due to the strike and it just went downhill from there.
the fact that TF2 was shot before it was written should really empathize what a filmmaker Bay is. I dont think anyone couldve pulled that off.
We can’t forget that the FBI meme came from the first movie.
😂😂😂😂
And that laugh from "heyy mommy"😂😂
Got me dying. Those are the real comedies now most of em r fake
"The dialogue scenes are the scenes you need to endure to get to the action. I odn't think any series embodies that quote more than the Bayformers films"
If we were talking about a single movie, I'd definitely saw Death Proof is one of those (watched it last night and the three of us watching it were losing it for the really long dialogue at the bar and etc until the action finally kicked in again at the end), but for a series of movies it sounds like a fair assesment
The finale of Dark of the Moon is some all time action filmmaking and I will die on this hill.
Same! I've always seen DOTM as a movie that rewards you for sitting through the admittedly crude first half with an insane payoff in a second half containing probably the best and most insane action sequences ever filmed.
Same dude
@@MechanicalRabbits ehhh, there’s a lot movies with better action sequences
Rise of the beast can't even compete with the CGI of TF 2007
For real
Michael’s action motif is don’t just see or understand the action just feel the Chaos of it as if you’re in the moment you are the part of it you’re not just 3rd person anymore.
What a lousy excuse for not choreographing and filming a decently good action sequence
@@masturch33f66 Get well soon
@@rahulgunwal3097 “Get well soon” I’m sorry if I see lazy filmmaking I point it out
I have seen all of the Bayformers movies, but I haven't seen Bumblebee. I think Bayformers 1 is a genuinely good movie that works perfectly well as a standalone movie, while the Bayformers sequels are varying degrees of mediocre with some genuinely good moments thrown in. Bayformers 1 is the quintessential Hollywood summer popcorn blockbuster movie. It's big, it's loud, it's dumb, it's full of action, it doesn't take itself too seriously and, most importantly, it's fun. I love the cool action scenes and the cool sounds of the Bayformers movies, ESPECIALLY Bayformers 1. And there are even little details in the first Bayformers movie that I love, like how when the Transformers are speaking in the Cybertronian language, we briefly see subtitles of an alien script appear on the screen (which I assume is the Cybertronian script) and THEN the Cybertronian subtitles are replaced by English subtitles. It's just cool little details like that which I love about the first Bayformers movie and which convince me that Bay is a chad film-maker when he truly wants to be. Bayformers 1 is unironically one of the coolest, comfiest and most rewatchable movies of all time, in my opinion.
bay is a chad filmaker? whats that?
@@runningisfast I think he meant - Bay is a chad action filmmaker*
I never heard anyone on the internet say Transformers isn’t a blockbuster….
There's a video by Empire Wreckers where he discusses the actual underlying plot of these films as it can be derived from what the movies give us. It honestly makes the movies much better from the frame of reference he falls upon, even as he admits it's not a "correct" reading or anything like that.
It's fanon, but it's a better story than the one we got.
Armageddon was so underrated. Loved it every minute ❤
This is by far the only video that I've seen that doesn't show/give much hate to Michael Bay and Bayverse Transformers
Michael Bay's Transformers is as close to a found footage film you can get without it being an actual found footage film.
It's almost as if it's found footage film that is constantly shot from a second and third person perspective which doesn't entirely make the most sense.
Speaking of found footage, the trailer for Cloverfield played before the movie lol
Yeah, these movies were horrible
“Transformed” 🫠
And then rolled out
Btyr
I'd like to imagine Michael himself saying
"y-yeah... yeah, that's what I meant to do in that scene..."
No one can directing actions and real explosions and pursuits like BAY ! No one...
Transformers (2007): Literally a perfect movie
Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen: The ultimate guilty pleasure
Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon: Somehow a really great film
Transformers 4: Age of Extinction: Bad concept, good film
Transformers 5: The Last Knight: Good concept, terrible film
You gotta admit, it’s awesome how they made Starscream an F-22 Raptor
If anything, Bay showed the world that a movie that contains literally nothing but inane action can be fun to watch.
I mean, we are looking at robots in hand-to-hand combat and at one point one robot rips a tree out of the ground and hits the other with it. Why would he do that? His fists are several tonns of steel and the tree is so weak he can break it just by grabbing it. It's drivel, but it's fun to watch.
In fact if you think about it these are trucks standing on two feet, they should be sinking into the dirt by several feet just on their weight alone.
As for transforming how we make movies, if there is one golden rule in movie making today it's that you copy what has worked before and try not to get original. That is why LOTR spawned endless middle-earthish movies and series, and yes that's why Bay's successes lead to a stream of complete bullsh*t movies that have nothing but explosions in them.
Ofcourse, 'good' is a subjective term, for me it means that you can think about the movie more than ten seconds without finding twelve obvious errors and impossibilities. To me, Bay's movies are 90% errors, from poor continuity to plot-controlled-physics.
In all their glory and filth, I can’t think of three films that better represent America than the first three transformer movies. These movies should be etched in blockbuster canon.
Dark of the moon will always be my favorite Transformers Film
The only thing I miss about his Transformers films is tangibility since he often filmed on location over full CGI.
Him leaving is the best thing that has happened to this franchise.
Yeah I love how he mixes up cgi and practical effects.
Still can't believe that that scene were a bus is split in half, the bus is actually real.
Yet neither of the new films have lived up to Transformers 2007? Bumblebee and ROTB have flat boring lighting/shots, almost zero practical elements, bland music, no personality, ect. How anyone can enjoy that garbage is beyond me, shit puts me to sleep. Bay all day, imperfections and all he made better movies.
@@Tribrachidiumheraldicum Because Bumblebee and ROTB actually have good stories and characters on top of fun action? If you want endless explosions, nauseating editing, crass, sexist and racist humor, paperthin characters, constant yelling and terrible character designs, then yeah Bay is for you.
@@KhaosKontroller Fun action? Where? The action is complete dogshit in both. No practical effects, no stunt work, no real explosions. How was any of that trash in the third act of ROTB entertaining to you?The designs look like cartoons, instead of trying to adapt the Transformers into live action, and end up looking ultra fake in comparison. ONE SHOT from 2007 looks better in every way than the entire movies of ROTB and Bumblebee have because Bay knows how to integrate CGI with live action stunt work and practical elements, on top of the kinetic interesting camerawork. Good characters and story? Are you fucking kidding me? Both had the most stock boring corporate assembly line writing you'll see in every other piece of Hollywood trite, a fucking AI could have generated the script for both movies. If you were impressed or engaged with the storyline in either you might be either watching the first movie you've ever seen or are completely braindead. I would rather at least take the batshit insanity of Bay because its actually interesting to watch compared to paint by numbers bullcrap, even if it is trash it's at least FUN. Bay is for me because I respect actual effort.
@@KhaosKontrollerthey are not good stories, just decent but it’s horrible in terms of weight and even the CGI is bad.
Whenever the original transformers is on I can watch it and be amazed by how it looks better than most stuff today
Peter cullen as optimus prime will always be something special in these movies. Transformers has always had great characters and stories, and thats what the series honestly needed! The story needed to be more coherent and consistent! I love the first trilogy and AOE was alright too, but the last knight just had a stroke in terms of character consistently. Bumblebee was great and i look foward to rise of the beasts!
That first movie was quite magical when it came out and it really made an impact! Its very quotable after all these years and the camera angles and stuff were fun! I like the little machine gun go pro at the end of DOTM 😅👍🏻 being a diehard Transformers nerd, im biased and I'll always feel an attachment of some sort to these movies, especially the first one. I just wish we got more of the actual Transformers as the movies went on as they had ran out of stuff for the actual human actors and such. 😅
Dang you should make videos more often! Just found you cuz of this one and it's super well done! Subscribed! I agree on all your points for sure! And i'm glad to now hear Rise of The Beasts is gonna get a sequal! It's a fun little movie and i'm glad the francise is back and played it safe and had a solid director for this new film.
Not sure how Avatar was a game changer; the only thing I remember it inspiring was the over-saturation of 3D movies. If anything, it should be replaced with The Dark Knight.
With all the soulless corporate copy&paste cash grab films populating our screens, Bayformersnis looking to age really well. You may not like Bay’s soul, but its become readily apparent his films have one, were many today don’t
I would love to see Dark Side of the Moon re released in Dolby or IMAX
No.....
Just no.
@@great159what is ur problem bro?
@@great159shit take
I still listen to tracks from the Dark of the moon Soundtrack from Hans Zimmer. Such a powerful score
Steve Jablonsky is the composer for those movies
Yes, sorry...but it actually uses the typical Hans Zimmer Drums and the rhythmic Motive of the Dark Knight Soundtrack
I guess you've perfectly explained why I just stopped watching the only Transformers movie I attempted to watch. There's no humanity in it to identify with.
The Transformers movie franchise is the equivalent of a cinematic abusive relationship that just makes me all the more thankful that the MCU turned out SO good and showed audiences that you can have crazy over the top action and spectacle but still have it make sense, and that Michael Bay is just some incompetent, one trick pony hack who just got lucky with the first Transformers and let the success for it just completely go to his head.
dawg it ain’t that deep.
"MCU turned out SO good" Are you from an alternate Universe
@@I_Practice_Karate_On_SwansYou must be a newbie child.
ROTF is overhated in this video. My favorite from the OG trilogy.
Great Analysis, on Bay....whatever people may say, hate him or love him, Bay definitely an Auteur !!!! Nobody films like him!!
I had a blast on each movie, MB created great movies imo, he only needs a good script to earn the respect he diserves
Completely disagree with the claims that the writing of the transformers was bad. It was very entertaining and I'd imagine how most people would talk.
Love these movies and the fan base so nostalgic revisiting this franchise
Perhaps the critics were too harsh on Michael Bay. Perhaps it was criticism that pushed the franchise over the edge.
I've always believed to let the artist paint undisturbed.
You cant denied 2007 Transformers film. Although they have love hate relationship with the fans but remember that because of this Movie that cause the whole MCU to happen. Without Transformers. Iron Man Live Action will be cease to exist.
DotM was the first in a series of blockbusters featuring giant (usually blue) sky beams in the third act. I'm sure there's movies that did it before, but to popularize a trope until it becomes a staple of the genre takes something special
Thanks for make this video, I was looking forward to whatch it.
This was a great video made me look at them different especially making like the new one that just came out. Character and live action mixed with cgi was what I loved about the original
Damn! I never thought anyone would intellectualize Michael bay movies.
Both Lindsay Ellis and Patrick Willems will be annoyed you said that
@@eddiemc86 LMAO
And Marcus from cosmonaut film
I've always felt that Michael Bay, Zach Snyder (and a few others) should just have remained as Director of Photography and never actually become Directors.
Their cinematography is fantastic! and their stories are WEAK.
or just do style over subtace films like 300 or the rock, okey 300 tried a little bit a epic melodrama like gladiator, but even by the look and fell it look more a romanticize version of the battle of thermopylae, even frank miller admited that it wasn't meant to be taken that serious.
Because both snyder and bay fail when they try to say something like in batman vs superman or pearl harbor
This describes my vibe of Jurassic Park/ jaws having the same vibe as the early transformers films (mainly 1-3)
tho I never could put my finger on it (even before watching this video, i new Stephen Spielberg was an exec producer)
You should also mention pointlesshub, who’s done breakdowns of each of bay’s films.
thank you for sharing the reason why i love The First Transformers!
Absolutely fantastic video, loved it.
Transformers 1 is definitely the best of all the movies to me, enough Bayisms but with a bit more restraint than the other films
Recognize that slo mo music anywhere
Everyone can talk as much shit as they want, and yeah it’s valid, but everyone also simultaneously agrees the first three are the best bad movies ever. I don’t know another franchise that gets so much hate and love at the same time.
I mostly see hate. I love the movies but I swear it feels like almost everyone hates them and continues to bash them, and probably will until the end of time.
The Christopher reeve superman movies.... the batman quadrilogy.... the jaws series.... all have fandoms exploding w love and vomiting hate.
“na… let him cook!”
Avengers... where's Jurassic park... that's really the gamechanger
I love these movies unironically
Optimus is a facist mega manipulator and nobody in universe but the objectively evil characters see it
You don’t know the smile I got on my face when I saw 3. Shit just got real
I've always thought that the Transformers films visually speaking are incredible. They convey the messages really well with visuals alone. The problem lies in the dialogues which either conflict with the visual language or outright make no sense at all. For example the Bonecrusher scene, the shot on the family car was amazing and showed some genuine terror, what was out of place was the "cool mom". That line alone confuses the emotion of the scene. Then on ROTF the script was utter garbage and DOTM was imo the one that was better written out of them all, the only downside of DOTM is that it was already the third installment, new factor was gone and fatigue for the franchise was starting to show.
First was the revolution, second was the bad one, third was the best one technically speaking but on the wrong time. We don't talk about AOE or TLK.
The reboot is here so it's goodbye to the Bayformer shit movies👍💯
Bay's Transformers succeded at action and CGI, yet mostly failed at storytelling.
ROTB mostly fails at CGI and action, yet succeds at storytelling.
Bumblebee succeds at CGI and storytelling, yet lacks in action.
07 movie succeds everywhere.
Fantastic video
I fell asleep during the only Transformers movie I watched, I don’t remember which one. Yeah, they’re boring.
Today top gun: maverick & no time to die is more michael bay than michael bay itself when michael bay make ambulance for having less explosion and doesn't use oversaturated orange color now top gun: maverick & no time to die uses all of those
2007 transformers was awesome an Megan fox is sexy as hell it's not a bad thing
"There's a conflict between Optimus and Sentinel that's supposed to matter, but who cares when the humans are doing stuff like this?"
Because the movies are called "Transformers" and therefore should be more about the robots than the humans?
Truth, I was flabbergasted by that statement
I think a balance can be struck between the two, but it’d probably really require both sides really playing off each other or actually clearly mirroring each other. Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts, I feel, strike a fine balance by how the interactions of the humans and the Autobots influence each others’ arcs.
Honestly though, when I think of Transformers from when I was younger, I think mostly of Armada and Cybertron, where the humans felt pretty involved/connected, add in later on Season 1 of Transformers Prime (only season I’ve seen because Netflix never had seasons 2 or 3).
Like a neat hook for me in the first film is when the Autobots aren’t overly fond of the humans and how they’re treating Bee (reasonably upset about that), and Optimus’s response is “Were we any different?” Like, neat hook, play on that as you work and talk with the humans to bring both groups forward more.
Fun fact guess what transformers last night left on cliff hanger and bc last night flop we never see 6
Why hate something that made up our childhood.
Awesome watch
Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS movies are not 'racist'. The fact y'all are equating illiteracy with 'skin color' is proof y'all don't know what you're talking about. Other than that, great video. The Bayformers movies are nothing more than a great story riddled with distractions. Most people focus on the distractions which helps generate views.
11:50
I honestly don”t get what is wrong with the bay verse transformers
How often do you get mistaken for being Nicholas Cage?
I thought the 3rd Transformer film was the best
Always love the 1st movie.
100
why does this guy look like cartoon jerma
Just watch the scenes you like from these movies and you’ll enjoy them much more rather than sitting through the whole movies
Help is on the way dear!
but robots go boom 😢
The problem is they went woke. Not improving the character Sam at T3 was the biggest mistake. They could've just removed the female lead and carried out with the storyline. Instead of making the female a lead on the movie instead of Sam.
In my opinion, Bumblebee is the best Transformers film. 👏💛
Boring
@@mehdibasses2633 I was waiting for a negative comment. Thank you for not disappointing! 🙏😅
Dotm and 2007 laughing their ass off😂😂😂😂
@@brucewayne6561 Okay…
Big dislike due to the shy intro.
Oh Bay is so bad, so racist, so juvenile, so cynical..
Wow such original remarks.
Well technically yes as of now it’s 15 years old which is crazy, I actually had the chance to go see Transformers (2007) in theaters for its 15th anniversary!!!!! This movie is too me and maybe I speak the same with others, Transformers (2007) is just nostalgic, I mean the Arrival to Earth Scene with that music gives me chills!!!!!! Blackout transformation effects and in fact all transformation effects still hold up!!!!! Next month or in a couple of weeks Transformers 2007 will be 16 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!
This video is a bit of a weird sell. Not so much because of the stuff it tries to credit Bay for which is totally fine...but more so because it tries to dock Bay for not doing more stuff with the humans. Which just comes across as a bit tone deaf as like the entire base would've been perfectly fine if all of these movies were JUST the robots.
It would be interesting to see Bay do a Marvel movie.
YE.........................NO! As a matter of fact HELL NAW!💯
I don't think they're terrible movies at all I just think they show us who the real movie snobs are because they can't help themselves from critiquing the low hanging fruit which is the noisy action because they think that's all there is to the films when there's more to it than that and they're embarassing themselves everytime they complain about it because it's such an obvious and elitist thing to do. Michael Bay is a smarter filmmaker than people give him credit and knows what he's doing and more importantly he doesn't give a shit about what a bunch of small minded nerds think of his films. He knws what it takes to entertain an audience which is a lot more than you can say for other more critically respected filmmakers who know fuck all about entertaining an audience and making films for anyone but themselves which is a fundamentally selfish act in my opinion. You got to make a film for yourself at least a little but not at the expense of your prospective audience imo. There's got to be somethng there which appeals to other people. I'm not saying your film has to make millions and millions but you got to try to be a little entertaining for the sake of making the expensive process of making a film worthwhile. Just a little imo.😅😏
Avatar?
Say what you want about bayformers but I love them lol 😂
The fucking taser scene 😭😭😭
fuck what anyways says tf2 is hilarious
GIVE ME YOUR FACE! 😂😂😂😂😂
the 3rd movie final battle was terrible
Hum… April fools??