My suggestions to save the Transformers franchise
Greetings to all you beautiful people in the comic book movie world! My name is HenshinRider and I am here to take you on a journey through my mind and tell you how I intend to save the Transformers franchise! Now I know many people have dismissed the Transformers franchise as something that is beyond repair – but fret not fellow CBM lovers… IT CAN BE SAVED!!! Also saved without having an obnoxious reboot. I know this because Age of Extinction fixed A LOT of problems with the series and overall was the best Transformers film since the ’07 film (which really isn’t saying much). But I have suggestions that can elevate this franchise in my opinion to make it better and enjoyable.
Before I get into all of that may I mention, thank you for taking the time to read this.
I really appreciate it. I have been a long lurker and finally decided to make my own account and give this whole thing a go. I should probably also talk a little background about myself. I am an aspiring fiction writer – prose and film. I have written a few short films that have been made (as well some that are currently in pre-pro) and I will gladly link them to anybody that is interested. As a writer I often practised in my early years by writing fan scripts for CBMs and I thought this would be a great opportunity for people to finally hear my insane ramblings – so expect more of these fan ficy editorial things. This is a first in a series of articles that I plan writing called My plan to Save.
I also am a massive Transformers fan, I have been a silent part of the fandom since ’05 and have delved in deeply to the history of the franchise (I have a freaking Decepticon tattoo!). So, without further rambling… Let’s get on with it!!!
Oh and Spoilers for Transformers: Age of Extinction and the previous trilogy ahead!
More Character and Personality
I think a big plus Age of Extinction had was that all the Autobots had character and personalities (albeit mostly stereotypes and caricatures but I digress). In past films you would have random Autobots popping in and out of the story with one line or even no lines. Autobots like Sideswipe, Jolt, Dino (ugh), the Arcee twins (that were actually triplets, go figure), Ratchet, even Jazz and Ironhide just seemed like generic robot soldiers to shoot guns.
Sure, there were some Autobots that got personality and screen time, but they were only there to be jokes or to just be stoic (Skids & Mudflap, Optimus Prime for example). Age of Extinction gave us a glimpse at the potential of Autobot characters with personality. I can safely say that the Autobots in Age of Extinction had more screen time than the whole previous trilogy combined. I will also say I liked all of them (Hound and Crosshairs were particular stand outs to me).
I want to see more of this! Not necessarily more characters, I think a smaller roster of characters does the story better – but I think expand on the personalities of the Autobots established in Age of Extinction. I don’t think any of the characters should be dropped, maybe focus on a few of the other ones that didn’t get the limelight this time. For example I think Crosshairs and Hound should be more background players that have a few moments, but not nearly as much as they had in Age of Extinction – while Drift and maybe a few new players should get the bulk of the “character development” (emphasis on the quotation marks). Maybe explore why Drift is very Japanese influenced, maybe even throw in his backstory of being an ex-Deception. He could’ve come to Earth as a ‘con and converted after seeing ancient Japanese culture and then adopting it to his new philosophical beliefs.
Geddit cos the characters name is Drift and.. and... yeah... grasping for straws...
Anyways Just an idea. But, I think more personality from these robots could go a long way. And for those that don’t think robots can have personality, I highly recommend you to read Transformers: More than Meets the Eye and Transformers: Robots in Disguise (soon to be called just Transformers) to see how good writers create great characters and fun stories.
The Adventures of Stanley Tucci & Marky Mark
Dump Tessa Jaeger. Dump… Irish actor that has a very Australian accent. Dump every human character except Marky Mark and Stanley Tucci. Two great stand out characters to me. It’s funny how I found Marky Mark so much better that Sam Witwicky and more relevant to the plot considering that the second movie was all about Sam. I think he was a great addition to the cast that didn’t feel like he was taking over the plot. He felt like an integral part of the team that held his own (much to the help of the convenient gun sword). The only thing he didn’t feel like was an inventor from Texas… So maybe just drop that bit of his character.
Likewise Stanley Tucci felt like a fun and interesting character. He could easily just take over the inventor role and could work as a tech guy for the Autobots. Tucci was basically a better version of Agent Simmons from the previous trilogy. No potty humour of wearing thongs, just a great actor playing a nice comedic role. I think it would be great to see this character having lost everything after AOE and becomes a sort of mad scientist type of character.
Please do better with Galvatron – or any villain… please…
Galvatron could be Megatron done right! The Transformers film series has had a lack of great villains. The first one, Megatron was asleep for most of it. The second one, the Fallen was sitting down for most of it. The third one, admittedly had Sentinel Prime, which was an alright villain and a pretty good swerve heel turn. Age of Extinction finally delivers on a great villain in Lockdown and Kelsey Grammer (I don’t remember the character’s name). I think this is the step in the right direction as these two felt like a legitimate threat. As for Shockwave... Don't get me started on Shockwave.
I was a bit weary as Mega – errr Galvatron came in at the final act – but ultimately his presence was minimal. But this is a chance for the writers to do over and do Megatron right. He needs to be menacing and he needs to be his own boss. Not answering to any masters – but being a legitimate threat that could take down Prime and the Autobots. So take a note from Lockdown and make better villains. I personally would like to see that the Stinger character survived and expand on his character to be the anti-Bumblebee, this would give Bumblebee something to do in the next one and could deliver on the fight that was robbed of us in Age of Extinction.
Dino – who?!
It was obvious that the Dinobots were a cheap marketing ploy as was Shockwave in Transformers Dark of the Moon. I think it would be best to just scrap them and forget they ever existed. They bring up too many questions to be used in my opinion. I think just quietly don’t mention them, that would be better than having them show up as background players in the next movie. Sure, I would love to see the Dinobots with actual personalities or even have them get a bigger role… But this is Bay – he has said in the past that the Dinobots are stupid, so I don’t think he understands them or wants to understand them as evident of their treatment in the film. Also the Dinobots, in the cartoon at least, are fairly one dimensional characters – I think they are serviced well in the Marvel comics with the whole King Grimlock thing.
So yeah it’d just be best to scrap the Dinobots – unless they actually plan on going somewhere with the whole Knights thing. I mean they were clearly designed with the knight theme in mind. This is maybe just wild speculation, but if they plan on going somewhere with this could they (cue gasp and horror) actually be setting stuff up?! Egad! If so then the Dinobots could be more fleshed out in the next film, albeit potentially with wildly different characterisations.
But this is Bay, I don’t trust the man to plan his lunch let alone the next step of the film franchise – so don’t expect them to go anywhere. If the Dinobots are in the next film (Transformers 5 Planet of the Earth ;) ) then smart money is to expect them to inhabit a similar role that they had in Age of Extinction.
Dear Mr. Bay, please get a better editor – or even trust an editor’s judgement more. Sincerely, the human race
Michael Bay (or his editors) make the absolute worst editing decisions. I don’t know if this is solely in the TF franchise as I try to avoid Bay like the plague… But seriously he seems to cut out important stuff like transitions, exposition and whatnot; while leaving in superfluous gags that range from a mild chuckle to an awkward laugh. I could understand if this is solely an issue on the TF franchise as with heavy VFX films you have to lock shots for work fairly early to get the VFX team to do their magic – and also it’s not very ideal to lock a shot only to cut it later on due to the work already put into it. I know this because I have been in this situation in the past (albeit on a comparitively tiny scale). But it was freaking stressful – we didn’t even make the multiple deadlines due to how long it would sometimes take to get picture lock. This isn’t the editor’s fault – but that’s neither here nor there. Also I saw a few of the shots that I personally spent weeks and weeks labouring over get cut or cut down to half a second when it was once thirty, so I understand how disheartening it can be. So I’d imagine something on this big of scale would be even more stressful to get in the can. But I don’t think this is an excuse for sloppy editing. In fact the superfluous stuff that Bay keeps in doesn’t tend to include giant VFX shots (Robot humping and giant wrecking balls excluded), so there is no real excuse for him not to cut these shots.
The films just feel incomplete like they are missing important information. A good example of this is with the Dinobots and the Knights – I literally had a half an hour discussion with someone about where the hell they came from and our answers all were conjecture. Discussion in a film is good – but it is not good when you need to explain away something based on the actions that the characters might have taken off screen that would lead to their current situation. *Large inhale. For example… Prometheus is a movie that brings up good discussion based off the internal mystery of plot. I know what a lot of you will be thinking, ugh Prometheus that was such a shitty film urgghh, your opinion is discounted and invalidated. But wait, just hear me out! Questions such as “What is the black goo?” or “Why is the Engineer killing people?” are legitimate questions that are purposefully asked by the film makers to create discussion about the film. They ask these questions to sell more tickets to the sequel in hopes people will want to see the answers. It doesn’t matter if you like or dislike the film, the point is that the questions asked were purposefully put in there by the director, Ridley Scott. The questions bought up in these films are not made to create discussion – they are accident of lazy editing. So please hire a different editor or just take a step back Mr. Bay.
This point kind of goes hand in hand with the Editing point, so I’ll keep this one short. The films are so freaking long. Like longer that these type of films should be. Let’s just get straight to the point – these films are schlock, they are mindless entertainment. The problem is that mindless entertainment becomes boring when you have five different climaxes that stretches over an hour (okay, I exaggerate a little, but you get the point). In fact I completely forgot I even watched Transformers Dark of the Moon (in the theatre mind you) the same year that it came out. That was how poisonous the run time was for me. I completely forgot that the film existed because the run time caused me to glaze over and not pay any attention to its hour long final act. AND I’M THE FREAKING TRANSFORMERS GUY!!! Let’s look at this in perspective – Captain America the Winter Soldier had a running time of 136 Minutes! This was half an hour shorter and still packed a bigger punch.
Even all my goodwill that was garnered while watching Age of Extinction was flushed away as I looked my watch when they were on Lockdown’s ship thinking “Gee golly this movie is pretty entertaining, surely it’s over soon… Oh wait – there are still Dinobots… F* me this movie is going to go on for another hour isn’t it?” Then each minute after that more and more dread fell over me as I came to the realisation that the movie was not over yet as the Dinobots still had to come. Just make the films a more palatable two hours or hour and forty five minutes. There’s only so much mind numbing action I can take!
Maybe it’s time to say good bye to Michael Bay?
*Sigh – look, I don’t want to be
that guy. As a fan I try to keep my opinions to the contrary and not follow the route of the typical fan boy and keep an open mind (I think that is why I largely enjoyed ASM 1 because I didn’t let the negativity of people cloud my judgement beforehand, which in all intents and purposes is a serviceable film). It is my belief that if Hollywood, or anybody really were to follow what the fans claimed they wanted – it would be a freaking huge mess. A good example of this is Revenge of the Fallen. They answered what most fanboys wanted, Optimus to be a better fighter, more Decepticons, more Transformers lore. And to be honest most fanboys loved it at the time (myself included). No joke, the fanbase from my prospective lapped that movie up and most said it was on par if not better than the ’07 movie (which was also held at high esteem at the time). I’m not making stuff up, I’m sure you all can still access the mounds of podcasts where fanboys reviewed the film and loved it – I listened to them, I *shudder* agreed with them at the time. Then the opinion started to change as the internet community started to change. Soon cynical fans said it was trash (deservedly so in retrospect) and the fanboys opinion changed.
Look, this isn’t an attack on fanboys (which it really seems as if it is) – I’m just saying that most fans don’t know what they want and often when they are delivered something they crave they are given diminishing returns and love it to begin with – but ultimately hate it after the harsh reality comes crashing down. This is a generalisation but I’d say it’s a fair one considering comments I have seen from the past. ANYWAY!!! My point is (hah! I actually have a point) that I think sometimes fanboys can be right… and as much as it pains me to say this, I think they are right with the assertion that Bay needs to leave the franchise. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he needs to leave the franchise entirely, maybe just serve as an Executive Producer. But the simple fact is, while writing this editorial I was hit with wall after wall of “Oh, I can’t suggest that cos that’ll never happen cos of Bay”. So I think the simplest and best solution to save the franchise is just to let somebody else give it a whirl. Give it to some new up and coming director to maybe sink his teeth into – maybe have Bay as a consultant to guide this new blood in the visual style and how to work with CGI. So yeah, maybe it is time to say good bye to Michael Bay.
Thank you all for reading this and hopefully you didn’t find it too long or boring. This is all just opinion so don’t get upset if I have a different opinion to you, we can still be friends :). Anyway I’m interested to hear what you guys think could save the Transformers franchise – so sound off below and let me know how you guys would save it. Also I would like you guys to tell me what you thought of my first editorial, constructive criticism is good. I have a few other of these floating in my head that I want to write in the future so I might do those at some point. Anyway, for now goodbye, thank you for reading, looking forward to see the comments below and I will see all you beautiful people next time. BYE BYE!!!