Bay's final word on Jazz in TF2? (SPOILERS)

[Adzma]

They'll bring him back somehow... I mean, he IS Jazz, that's reason enough for me.

[Gutsman Heavy]

Stay dead Jazz, I love ya but there are many other characters that should have a shot at movie fame. *cough*Grimlock*cough*

[iceburn]

Yeah...i also personally think we don't need more of Jazz toy figures in the next movie. i want different moulds...yes Dinobots esp Grimlock would be great as he's one of my fav too

[GoktimusPrime]

I also think that Jazz should stay dead. Aside from giving other characters a shot, I also think that bringing him back would make his heroic sacrifice in the 1st movie less meaningful and it also makes war seem inconsequential and lessens its tragic nature - thus basically trivialising death in battle. Yes, it totally sucks how war creates death - there is nothing nice about war! Having characters die and stay dead helps reinforce that sad and very consequential reality of war.

Jazz is the metaphor for the fallen soldier who is remembered by others as a hero as making the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of freedom and justice.

Heroic Autobot

[Trailer Park Ninja]

I'm glad that Michael Bay is considering not bringing Jazz back , though this may change between now and when the sequel comes out. We still have the Writers Guild Strike to contend with and that will circumvent any start on a script let alone production.

To be totally honest, I didn't feel much when Jazz kicked the bucket. Not that I think I'm an insensitive jerk or anything but I put it down to the little screen time Jazz had. I know he put himself on the line to protect the humans and died fighting (though vainly) against Megatron to suffer such a terrible fate.

But it didn't have the emotional resonance to me it should have. Another reason was that I didn't identify the movie Jazz with the G1 Jazz even though they both share the same characteristics. I made the executive decision to treat the movie as a separate animal to the G1 Transformers I love and grew up with before I entered the theatre. That said, I think it made me love the movie even more on its own merits and avoid unfair comparisons.

Now if Bumblebee bit the big one, it would be a different story. There was a lot of emotional investment in building that relationship up between Sam and Bumblebee as his guardian/protector which I'm sure will carry over to the next movie.

Related to my point about the correlation between screen time and emotional impact of Jazz's death, Michael Bay can only give so much screen time to both human and transformer cast members for each interdependent story arc to work. I thought his management on this front was excellent as each had their own great moments. The human cast were important link for the audience to identify with their experiences.

I think the good thing now with the first movie out of the way, less time is needed in a sequel to set things up as it isn't an origin-type movie. I am hoping this will translate into more screen time for the core cast but also peripheral cast members. This would see the introduction of other new Transformers. Alas, poor Jazz, we knew you well but there are a lot of Transformer toys to play with in the sandbox.

P.S. I am writing this reply in the wee hours of a Monday morning before a work day because it is too FRIGGEN HOT here in Sydney to sleep at night

[GoktimusPrime]

That was done intentionally (of sorts) to avoid the bad publicity experienced from Transformers The Movie with the death of Optimus Prime with all those kids crying in theatres and even one boy in the US locking himself in his room for several months in mourning... erk.. so for that reason they really didn't want to kill of any characters that people would care about.

Yes, it's silly... but it's also silly how people wept over the death of Optimus Prime, whose heroic death was definitely not in vain. Despite Jazz's best efforts - and there's no doubting his incredible courage - he failed to stop Megatron (possibly he knew this and was merely buying the other Autobots & humans time to flee and prepare a better counteroffensive, also to buy more time for Prime to arrive), whereas in TFTM, as Kup said, "Prime did it. He turned the tide." - how cool was it seeing the Decepticons in full retreat with Soundwave carrying Megatron's mortally wounded body back to Astrotrain.

Jazz may have died a hero, but Prime died a martyr... even as a little kid watching Transformers The Movie in the cinema, I understood this and thought that story-wise it was cool (although I must admit that I did want Optimus Prime to return - again, looking at this through a child's eyes). But I never wept over Prime's death and I always thought that Prime dying as a heroic martyr and passing the Matrix to Rodimus Prime was really, really cool (even though Rodimus was disappointing afterwards, but at the time of watching TFTM I didn't know this - there was a lot of potential in the Rodimus Prime character which could've been done really well if he didn't hang on that whole "I'll never be as good as Optimus" thing).

In the G1 DVD interview, Flint Dille justifies his decision to kill Prime in the movie as part of showing that war was consequential and also to remove Prime in a more heroic fashion. Dille does admit that the move was very poorly received by the public and that as far as publicity and selling the movie was concerned, it was a really bad move.

So yeah, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee were strictly off limits lest we have more kids locking themselves in their rooms *sigh* Bringing Jazz really seems like nothing more than a move to appease little kids. :/

[i_amtrunks]

I assumed Jazz would stay dead because Hasbro have done everything in their power to sell umpteen versions of the same mould.

Still I am glad he is dead, doubt the same can be said for more important characters.

Let's just hope the next lot of characters Bay kills are given more than 2 lines to speak, and have more than a 3 second mourning period post death.

[springah]

Heroic death? Kicking and yelling at Megatron is a heroic death?

"sup bitches" also needs to be... fixed :P

[GoktimusPrime]

Being underexposed in the movie doesn't make his death any less heroic.
Let's examine the sequence of events...

1. We see Devastator roll in - humans in danger! It is Jazz who leads the counter-offensive against Devastator - he is the first to roll followed by Ratchet, the U.S. Army and Ironhide).
2. As you can see at the end of that clip, when Megatron arrives and more humans are endangered, it is Jazz who tells the others to flee, takes out his shield and makes a stand against Megatron to buy the others precious time.

Kicking and yelling at Megatron is a heroic death?

Pretty much. He went down fighting - trying his best to delay Megatron as long as he could. And the taunting was part of that diversionary tactic (and also part of psychological warfare - 90% of a fight is psychological) not to mention an act of defiance - by that stage Jazz knew he was done for. But he wasn't going down without a big "eff you!" to Megatron. It's similar to that scene in Saving Private Ryan where we see Tom Hanks' character shooting at a German tank with a pistol. There's no way that pistol was going to do anything to that tank - it was nothing more than a symbolic gesture of defiance to say "you're not taking me without a fight." Ditto Chewbacca.



It wasn't the most magnificent of deaths, but MOST deaths in war aren't! Disease killed more soldiers than enemy bullets in Gallipoli because they lived in filthy trenches where they urinated and excreted inside their own uniforms. Forget notions of heroism, that kind of death is utterly humiliating and lacking in dignity - you wouldn't want an animal to die that way. Sadly that is the nature of war.

[springah]

Yeah, agreed.

Still sucked though!