Should the movie series change directors?

[SMHFConvoy]

How about McG? HA! Look I thought the 1st movie was good. It had stupid moments. ROTF was just a bad experience for me.

If Bay's directing the 3rd instalment I'm out. Unless someone reigns him in and has the stones to say, "No that's a dumb idea." Speilburg, I'm looking at you, or your Mexican counterpart...

Hmm... When you think about it... Robert Rodriguez would deliver something interesting to the franchise. It'd either be Planet Terror with giant robots or Spy Kids with giant robots...

[GoktimusPrime]

Unless someone reigns him in and has the stones to say, "No that's a dumb idea."

Indeed. I reckon this was George Lucas' problem with Star Wars Ep I. With the original trilogy there were 20th Century Fox execs often telling him to make changes whenever they thought something may not have been a good idea... Luke Starkiller --> Luke Skywalker, Revenge of the Jedi --> Return of the Jedi etc. But after over 20 years of Star Wars becoming deeply entrenched in pop culture, by time Lucas started making The Phantom Menace he would've been surrounded by people who grew up loving Star Wars and would've worshipped the ground that he walked on. You think about it, hardly anyone ever said anything bad about George Lucas before The Phantom Menace. Everyone was probably like, "Yes Mr. Lucas." "Great idea Mr. Lucas!" etc. -- he would've been surrounded by yesmen who thought that the sun shone out of his rear.

But to Lucas' credit he did quickly take onboard a lot of the criticisms from the first movie. He hired someone to co-write Attack of the Clones and other people who were willing to tell him straight when something wasn't such a good idea; and you can see it. One of the biggest criticisms against Phantom Menace was Jar Jar Binks, particularly because he had such an overwhelming presence in the movie that wasn't matched by his contribution to the story (or lack of). Similar to the way that TF fans complain about Wheelie and Daniel. But by Attack of the Clones Jar Jar Binks had a far different presence (i.e.: only appeared in the movie when he _needed_ to, like to push for granting supreme executive power to Palpatine in the senate instead of snapping food with his tongue or sniffing animal farts) - and in Revenge of the Sith he only appears once (at Amidala's funeral) and has _no_ dialogue!

Whenever I ask most people, "Which is your favourite Star Wars movie?" most people answer either "Empire Strikes Back" or "Return of the Jedi" -- the two Star Wars movies that George Lucas did NOT direct!

[fatbot]

Bruce Campbell Fanboy? Bruce is awesome haha, but I dont think he would be a good replacement.

I don't think we've met, if we had, you'd have seen the bruce campbell tattoo i have on my left arm. make no mistakes, Bruce is a god.

[1AZRAEL1]

I don't think we've met, if we had, you'd have seen the bruce campbell tattoo i have on my left arm. make no mistakes, Bruce is a god.

I don't think we have met officially no maybe in passing at Parra Fairs?
I dunno I have a terrible memrory sometimes.

But yes, Hail To The King.
Not to derail the thread or anything, but Bubbahotep is awesome, so is Alien Apocalypse, total crack up haha.

[Gutsman Heavy]

But yes, Hail To The King.
Not to derail the thread or anything, but Bubbahotep is awesome, so is Alien Apocalypse, total crack up haha.

If you havent seen My Name is Bruce, make sure you do its a total Campbell fan wank, and actually good to boot!

[1AZRAEL1]

If you havent seen My Name is Bruce, make sure you do its a total Campbell fan wank, and actually good to boot!

I still havent seen it haha, typical kinda movie for him though haha.

[Robzy]

Hail to the King baby!

[Jhiaxus]

A little late to the game -- but I'd like to come in and point out some of the things we'd lose if we lost Bay. They're pretty big things for me -- and things I think would be REALLY bad for the series.

1) MILITARY HARDWARE.
Michael Bay has an INCREDIBLE relationship with the American military. Whatever else you might say about him, he loves the American military and they love him. Good *GOD* the Transformers movies have benefited from this.

Take a look at other contemporary movies with lots of hardware. So much CGI, often UGLY-arse CGI. Hulk, and IRon Man both had to use CGI versions of vehicles that Bay got FOR REAL in both movies. Transformers is SO MUCH about the hardware, you GOTTA appreciate that Bay actually gets that hardware up on screen for us.

2) HE KNOWS HOW TO FILM A CAR.
Bay knows how light should reflect on a car. His influence on the special effects simply can't be denied. The wonderfully realistic look REEKS of Bay's influence -- the way the light sits PERFECTLY on the car parts even when they're moving. That is Bay.

Bay *LOVES* cars and military hardware and vehicles and he KNOWS how to film them. I wish he'd slow his camera down a bit, but still... it would be sad to lose his eye for cars.

3) BAY BELIEVES TRANSFORMERS SHOULD HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR.
I don't AGREE with Bay's sense of humour all the time. I think he went far too crass in the second movie with certain bits and pieces... but god damn it's a relief that he lets you have laughs while you're watching your giant robots. There's so many fanboy films with NO SENSE OF HUMOUR AT ALL. Take a look at Terminator IV, or X-men 3, or Wolverine, or... hell even the SPIDERMAN TRILOGY. They're so lacking in a sense of fun humour that when they DO make jokes it's kinda jarring.

The fact is that Transformers is absurd -- and Bay sorta revels in that.

4) BAY LIKES TO DO THINGS FOR REAL INSTEAD OF JUST USING CGI.
Sure there, is a LOT of CGI in Transformers... but... in the first movie BAY ACTUALLY BLEW UP A BUS. Any other director would have just made the entire Bonecrusher sequence CGI and it would have SUCKED. BAY ACTUALLY BLEW UP A BUS.

I cannot repeat that often enough. MICHAEL BAY ACTUALLY BLEW UP A GODDAMN BUS.

5) COLOUR.
It's funny -- the Transformers toyline for the movie looks so bleakly MONOTONE compared to other TF toylines... not so the movie.

Modern blockbusters LOVE colour correction, large, important films will colour-correct the HELL out of things. One of my BIGGEST complaints about the Lord of the Rings films was that they were SO DAMNED GREY. There wasn't the rich sense of a COLOUR FILLED world like you got from the books. The new Terminator film, the Batman films, the X-men films. So many movies sapped of all colour.

A different director might have made all the TFs stock grey and shot nearly everything at night to hide the CGI effects. Bay didn't. Bay EMBRACED the colour -- the environments are colourful, the characters are colourful, the whole movie is ALIVE and VIBRANT with colour.

Could you imagine how bleak Transformers could be done by Peter Jackson in his horribly monochrome Lord of the Rings style? Eeeeeyuck.

--Jhiaxus
(Don't get me wrong -- I think that Revenge of the Fallen was deeply flawed, but you know what? A lot of the things I *LOVED* About it were only there BECAUSE we had Bay as a director.)

(BAY ACTUALLY BLEW UP A GODDAMN BUS.)

[Gutsman Heavy]

Make Bay the DP and get a REAL director who can handle a little (but important!) thing called "characters"

[Jhiaxus]

Make Bay the DP and get a REAL director who can handle a little (but important!) thing called "characters"

I dunno if I can think of a director who'd do much better, honestly. I think what he really needs is:
a) A better editor
b) To work from a full script.
c) Spielberg to keep his heavy hand as producer.

That's what the real problem is -- it's that the movie was clearly started without a finished script. I think if Bay actually had a finished, well-refined script in his hands when he started Transformers III there would be no better director.

Spielberg's heavy hand also wasn't as present in Transformers II to its detriment.

And damn it all to hell we need a better editor.