Americana or pretentious fetishizing of the working class?

At some point Wahlberg--who still has his Boston accent while playing a Texan--will talk to his daughter about losing the mom to cancer in a strained attempt for Bay to be touching. Also, do the women in these movies do anything besides prop up the male star/need to be rescued/simply look like models? I think Paramount missed an opportunity to reboot the series with a new director and team.

This doesn't really ooze cool for me. Godzilla looks cooler than this. This looks like a headache to me. I'll sit this one out. I'm just not the right audience for this.


Also... Kelsey Grammer??

Why does Optimus Prime look like a Samurai?

I agree with L_S - they should have rebooted the series with a new team.

It's also an incredibly stupid tagline. The rules haven't changed at all.

hot girl who can't act and will be useless to the plot: check
small town family dynamic: check
government conspiracy: check
robots without any distinguishable characteristics: check
over-use of slow-motion shots: check

Michael Bay: Check


And where da fuq is Skywarp and Thundercracker?!

Ah, pretentious. A word so overused it's become meaningless, really.

How would a genuine, frank depiction of the working class differ? I'm really interested with what's so awry with how this strata of society is presented in the trailer.

Bucolic setting. Trucker hat and shades combo. Concern over money. Purchase of broken down trucks for scrap. Broken home. Grease monkey proficiency. Unabashed patriotism with all the flags.

It's a goddamn smorgasbord of quintessential Americana. Why fetishizing? There's nothing perverse, deviant or pathological about the way any of the above elements are presented.

This smacks of more of the same. A baseless, personal jab at Bay for trying to bring some aesthetic nobility to rural America.

Look at the first Rocky movie. That's a look at the working class that's at least somewhat based in reality. It's not beautiful. It's complicated. It's not a personal jab at Bay, really. James Cameron does it, too. It's certainly not baseless--it's a technique that Hollywood uses all the time when they want "noble" hardworking American characters.

It's a fetishistic take on working class politics though because Bay was born and raised in L.A. He went to prep school. He's using these Americana images to sell an idealized version of the working class.

His "vision" of the working class is typical of someone who doesn't really understand it. And it implies a working class person is inherently unabashedly patriotic--not to mention blonde and beautiful or handsome and ripped. It does more to harm the working class image than help it, in my opinion.

I never thought I'd be discussing the trailer for the 4th Transformers movie this much...

My main contention with what you're saying is that the potrayal of the working class can be heightened or idealized in this medium and still be acceptable. Even beautiful. By saying that Bay should be restricted from depicting lower-class Texans in his distinct way because he's never been a lower-class Texan is like saying a painter who's lived in the city all their life should be barred from painting pastoral landscapes. And yes, I'm bringing visual art into play because that's what's at the root of this issue.

I see more flattery than insult with Bay's choices, past and present.

Permit me to touch upon the implications of your browsing choices, if you don't mind.

This goes back to your point about your dislike of Bay's departure from what you see as normal human behavior. If it's reality you're so interested in and adamant about, what are you doing in a subforum overflowing with news and information about big Hollywood studio, franchise filmmaking? This is as super-fucking-ficial as motion pictures get. When have the filmmaking powers responsible for nearly all of what we see in this subforum ever been about an accurate and balanced representation of real life or the real struggles of ordinary people in more abject parts of the country?

But your Rocky comparison is an apt one. However, if Rocky came out tomorrow, I assure you that you wouldn't find a trace of its existence in this subforum.

"This is the business we've chosen." -Hyman Roth

I think his point might be that there are varying degrees of it and Bay represents excess at its peak.

I actually love a lot of Bay's movies: The Rock, Transformers, Bad Boys...even Pearl Harbour isn't as bad as the wrap its gotten; its action sequences are actually quite incredible (you know, if you really wanted to celebrate action in a movie about one of America's darkest days).

The problem with Michael Bay, in my eyes, is that he can make terrible choices about characterization, narrative and pacing that feel completely out of place for he film he's making. The result is that I'm pulled out of the fantasy and the experience is ruined for me.

The Rock is bang on. It's a balls to the wall action-thriller and everything works for that type of picture - the comedy is sarcastic and biting, the action is relentless and violent, the musical score is boisterous and the pregnant wife is smoking hot. The film knows what it is and executes on it.

Bay's Transformers films - particularly the last two (though the first isn't completely innocent of it) - are incredibly confused. This is a series based on a line of children's toys. It should embrace the childlike innocence and imaginative qualities of the show and the generation it's from. If you want me to take the film seriously and feel threatened by this alien invasion and the power of the Decepticons, don't shoot a victoria secret commercial whenever your smoking hot lead actress is on the screen, and don't make two of your "hero" robots talk like street hoods and act like fucking idiots. You can't have it both ways. That's why Jar Jar Binks is one of the most despised movie characters ever.

I get that this conversation has been about Bay's "faux" glorification of working class America, but I think that's about problem number 12 on what he's needed to fix about his latest efforts. If I'm watching a movie about aliens that shape-shift into cars I can accept that our heroes are going to be larger than life and over the top. What I can't accept is being taken out of the movie by lousy directoral decisions that completely reshape my personal investment in the narrative and the plight of the characters.

You're right. Granted, this is a Star Wars forum where the movies are pretty much free of modern Western World problems. In fact, Star Wars was the reaction to dark, real portrayals of life in the movies. Anyway if it makes any difference at all I think most big Hollywood movies are pretty out of touch.

Bay is not my favorite director and maybe I'm being unfair since his style is not really for me. I, too, like The Rock because it had some big, fun personalities leading the story. I guess all of the worst Bay traits are on display in the Transformers movies. You'd never have guessed that such a creative guy was behind these movies which--to me--have no voice besides "loud". I can't even ironically watch the Transformers movies. They just aren't very fun for me.

I wasn't pointing out that Bay isn't a hard-working rural Texan to say he has no right to portray them in his movies but to show that he is romanticizing or idealizing that demo. Then again, if he can portray imaginary robo-dinosaurs he has the right to show working class USA as beefcakes and underwear models. Anyone else see the irony of making a movie about Heartland America funded with Chinese corporations? Again, not a new or Bay-only trend. Just interesting.

China's role behind-the-scenes and in the actual narrative of the film is an interesting and admirable move. I'm looking forward to that aspect of the film. Says a lot about the ever-increasing globally interconnected nature of the media industry. Such a cultural exchange feels right in a world of so much xenophobia and animosity between disparate cultures.

And maybe I'm guilty for having an all-or-nothing view of the work of such cinematic titans as Bay and Lucas (I'm also quite fond of Fincher, (Wes) Anderson, Scorsese and the Wachowski siblings). It's just that with certain filmmakers, I'm always more intrigued than frustrated by seeming imperfections, deviations or peculiar idiosyncracies. It's for that reason that Jar Jar, the Autobot twins and any sort of Victoria's Secret commercial troping is like water under the bridge for me. I'm a little off and non-uniform sometimes so I don't mind that quality in some of the films I watch and enjoy.

Plenty of promising things described in this IGN write-up on a recent CinemaCon presentation.

I like the nod to the G1 truck cab in Marky Marks garage...

NEW TRAILER UP!



POW!

All movies look the same now. Not just these movies, which are literally carbon copies of each other, but summer blockbusters in general.

I am praying to God that Star Wars breaks the mould again and delivers something that doesn't look like a video game.

The Rules Have Changed?

Bullshit Bay ya cockhead.

Trans4mers looks exactly like the 3 previous films.

I hope this finally makes them reboot the series without Michael Bay. (rottentomatoes.com)

Paramount has already greenlit TF5 for a 2016 release. I can't express how much I want a new take on the franchise but I'm not going to hold my breath that Bay won't be back yet again.

Reviews are spilling in. So much hate. It's irresistible.

I'll be back at some point with my thoughts on the film.

Basically...this movie sucks balls..

Give it a miss. Seriously.

You can thank me later..

I'll second that. Bay continues to rape what's left of this property, and he'll do it a fifth time....raping the only good storyline left he hasn't touched.


And the new decepticons blow goats...as does their method of "transformation".

I'm very, very glad I didn't pay to see it. But I did see it yesterday.

I'm not going to eat up your time by making you read my review. I'd rather turn the conversation into who we think should take over the franchise.

We should all pray the movie tanks so that this conversation is something other than a pipe dream.

Unfortunately, everything is A-Okay on Cybertron money-wise. In turn, there’s no reason for Paramount & Hasbro to change a thing.

---

Michael Bay’s 3D tent pole becomes the first film of 2014 so far to conquer the $100 million threshold in North America; overseas, it opens to $90 million in China, the biggest debut of all time.

Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction debuted to $100 million in North America, the best number of the year to date and reinvigorating the giant robot franchise. Overseas, it was even more massive in its initial assault, taking in $201.3 million for a worldwide bow of $301.3 million.

The $210 million tent pole, earning an A- CinemaScore despite blistering reviews, is easily the biggest opening of star Mark Wahlberg's career, thanks to a strong turnout by males (64 percent).

---

I'll keep this short. I know I'm pretty much alone in my zeal.

Exiting the theater after seeing this film (in LieMAX 3D, unfortunately) was like returning home when I was 10 years old, sweaty and scraped after some physical rough-housing outdoors after school with other neighborhood kids. I'd return exhausted and out of breath but desperate to talk about all the cool things we did. It was always fun, messy, wholly unsupervised, and, in retrospect, touched by a precious modicum of pure anarchy. That's what these Transformers films are to me. They're absolutely unabashed in capturing a kind of childlike freedom, energy, irreverence and excess.

I've already defended Bay and his style earlier in this thread. This film had all the Bay-isms you'd expect and in overwhelming supply. As a cinema enthusiast, I truly admire and appreciate someone with a stamp, a signature, a unique way of filling their cinematic canvas.

Now, there's a moment in this film toward the end that reaches an orgasmic visual crescendo that still has me numb from pleasure. It was like a wild aerial ballet of destruction. I lost track of time and space watching that part. My memory is hazy but it involved one of the flying Dinobots careening into various buildings during that final charge against the man-made transformers. It was easily my favorite part of the film.

Anyway, I hope Bay continues his work in the franchise in some way. Not as director, though. Four times out is more than enough. I want to see more original Bay-directed films.

im going to backtrack ever so slightly after seeing it again.

its not great but it's certainly no better or worse than the 3 previous films imo. i think the GA are shelling out their hard earned hand over fist simply because they know what is on offer and their happy to walk out of the theatre satisfied.

don't expect too much and you wont be disappointed.

pretty much my life motto