Official TRANSFORMERS Thread

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Alot of his shot selection is just horribly bad and there to simply show the size of his dick...Tony Scott occasionally has this problem too...but Bay takes it to a hole nother level. I get that everyone loves cool special effects...but this isn't a good movie. Is it a fun mindless special effects show...yah...Is it a good film--i.e. good writing/interesting characters/good dialogue/a well thought out plot-story/good acting/good directing/etc....nope.
But its is still def worth seeing.

Many of his scenes and sequences were poorly constructed and edited. The slow mo/wrap arounds/cheesy music/bad dialogue/bad acting/etc are part of the directors duties.
This si what Michael Bay is known for so its not a huge shock that he is still doing it but is also why he cant really do anything else other than these mindless big budget action flicks. Pearl Harbor and The Island are examples of MB trying to take a non mindless big budget action flick type script and then Michael Baying it into crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's like you're holding a grilled hot dog in a back yard bbq up to the same standards as a cordon blue meal. Yes, everyone is impressed that you went to film school and have the lingo down. No, no one cares about the mechanics of the movie. No one is going to judge this movie on any of the criteria you hold dear. It's too bad you know so much about film that you can't enjoy it anymore, that's always a downside to being involved in an industry other people only visit.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a bit bitchy and unfair. Just because your movie is basically fun, doesn't mean it can't be plenty good. And scenes that don't work simply don't work, period. You don't have to be some great artist or philosopher to realize that.

Sometimes it matters more than others, but still, the better a movie is made, the more you're going to like it and find it rewatchable.

Examples of very well-made flicks that had lots of action and were basically there simply for entertainment: Robocop, Alien, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark. People did appreciate how good those movies were, and they're still easily rewatchable 20 and 30 years later. Even a couple times in a row.

There's no reason to not make things as well as they can be made, and there's nothing wrong with saying, whether you liked a film or not, that it slipped up and could have been better.

[/ QUOTE ]

A little bitchy but not that unfair. I was a theater technican for 10 years and still can't watch a play without timing the blackouts and seeing where the run crew screwed up. When I see a play the techincal stuff is what is important to me and that's how I judge it. My friends who weren't theater technicians don't see the same play that I do. The same is going to be true with people who have studied the mechanics of film. They are not going to see the same film as someone who doesn't have their training and background. Trying to critique a film for them is just going to be annoying because all they wanted to see was the explosions and if they noticed character development or how the film was edited they probably wouldn't be able to talk about it. For the most part they are the target audience of the film and if they liked it the film was a success, regardless of the "real quality" of the film.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dunno, I see two things pulling against each other in that train of thought, a sort of populism and a sort of snobbery. I'm not sure that your balance is any better than that of the guy you're criticizing for his balance being out of whack. Actually, to be less diplomatic and more at risk of incurring wrath and retaliation, your take on things seems less fair and more snobby. For what it's worth, I'm not sure that it's intentional.

I think regular non-professionals can pretty regularly sense when a scene is out of whack and goes nowhere, too. They can relate to unresolved plot threads, things that don't make sense, etc.

They might not see or understand things like bad editing or continuity much, or typical mythic themes a la Joseph Campbell that don't play out properly, and the like, but that doesn't mean that they're like cats who can be endlessly amused by shiny, jingling keys, either. I mean, they can still see flaws and things that don't fit together just fine.

I really think you're unfairly characterizing charlie's complaints as far too pointlessly specific and irrelevantly complex. They're more reasonable than that.

The only thing I would object to is his implying Spielberg's Jurassic Park was all that different from what Bay might have done. JP was classic enjoyable complete empty ridiculous crap.

I don't think you have to be into all the jargon 'n' stuff to either see a movie's flaws or wish they weren't there.

If you did, it would be almost impossible to judge a movie in any way at all.