How rich is Michael Bay?

[Bartrim]

I love the scene in the electronic goods store in Bad Boys 2.

"That poor man is pouring out his soul"

[GoktimusPrime]

Transformers has had some golden lines too though

"I mean, you don't have to call it that word if that makes you uncomfortable... you can call it Sam's happy time or, my special alone time."

"No, uh, it's just this friend of mine went to get you a tighter shirt..."
"There is no tighter shirt, we checked!"

[Demonac]

Actually, I think Transformers featured golden showers more than golden lines :P

[UltraMarginal]

Actually, I think Transformers featured golden showers more than golden lines :P

oh come on, really?

Optimus Prime: My weapons specialist: Ironhide.
Ironhide: [drawing his guns] You feelin' lucky, punk?
Optimus Prime: Easy, Ironhide...
Ironhide: [retracts his guns] Just kidding. I just wanted to show him my cannons.

comedy gold right there.

[Bartrim]

oh come on, really?

Optimus Prime: My weapons specialist: Ironhide.
Ironhide: [drawing his guns] You feelin' lucky, punk?
Optimus Prime: Easy, Ironhide...
Ironhide: [retracts his guns] Just kidding. I just wanted to show him my cannons.

comedy gold right there.

I prefer Ratchets intro

"The boys pheremone level suggests he wants to mate with the female"

Not only is it funny but it shows a Transformer commiting a social blunder, in too many shows they are automatically aware of earth culture and customs.

[Hursticon]

I prefer Ratchets intro

"The boys pheremone level suggests he wants to mate with the female"

Not only is it funny but it shows a Transformer commiting a social blunder, in too many shows they are automatically aware of earth culture and customs.

That is my favourite line from the first movie too!

I also loved:

LEO: "I had a mild Panic Attack back there, ok?"
Skids: "That's cuz You a P@#$!"

I laughed good at that one.

[kup]

The only Michael Bay movie that I like is The Rock. Although Bad Boys 1 isn't a bad film, it never really grabbed my attention as much as others. Both these movies are however fairly odd when you mix them up with the rest of the Bay films, they are actually coherent and fairly grounded when you compare it to Bay's other extreme military promoting, product placement infested abominations.

Bad Boys 2 IMO was a tragedy of a movie, I have rarely seen anything so horrible in a mainstream movie. From somewhat 'crude' but still amusing Martin Lawrence type comedy in the first one, the second deteriorated into 'Bay Comedy' with really eye rolling tasteless jokes not unlike Bayformers. I don't even remember what the plot of that movie was about, it was very forgettable.

The only other Bay movie that I somewhat like is The Island. I like it because unlike many Bay movies, it actually had a pretty good script and decent actors. The problem was that during production, it got too Bayified with the in your face product placement and totally out of place cartoony action. It is technically a bad movie but I can't help thinking that buried under all the signature Bay crap, there actually is a good movie in there. If another director had made it, it could have turned out to be an excellent film.

[Geminii]

Is there something that Bay does contribute to movies? I mean, could a really good movie theoretically have Bay credited as, I don't know, Chief Explosion Wrangler or something?

Sure, no-one wants him to direct or being in charge of the writing team, but apart from that...?

[GoktimusPrime]

There are some things about Bay's directing of Transformers that I like, such as:

A: Portraying the Transformers as Giant Effing Robots.
This is something that has seldomly been so effectively done prior to the live action movie. G1 did a bit in the beginning, like in MTMTE when Optimus Prime kneels down and first talks to the Witwickies and other stuff like that. But Bay really gave us an awesome sense of scale - and one way he did this was through the use of a lot of low-angle shots... showing the Transformers from the human's POV - cos humans are like insects compared to the Transformers.

B: Nice and messy melee fight scenes.
I know some people don't like these, but I love them because that's what real fights look like! None of that unrealistic rubbish from martial arts movies or professional wrestling etc. where it's all "clean" looking... when the TFs fight in Bay's movies it's one big messy brawl. If you've ever seen a real life fight (e.g. schoolyard, street fight) - just look at news videos of street brawls, they are messy. Things fly everywhere and it's all blurry and all over the place. I personally can't stand watching martial arts movies - at most I'll watch them for the story, but whenever there's a fight I have to shut down the part of my brain that analyses movement - but I appreciated the realistic-feeling grittiness of the melee fights in Transformers and ROTF. "I'll take you all on!" Raargh! It also helps build that sense of scale too... as messy as watching people fight is, imagine how much messier it would look from an insect's POV where you're not big enough to see what's happening.

C: Bay's relationship with the U.S. Military allowed for some pretty cool scenes (a bit too much IMO, but still good). I think it's important to have the military involved because obviously if there's an "alien blood feud" happening on Earth, they'd have to do something. The military was involved in G1 (especially the comics) where the U.S. military established a special task forces exclusively for investigating and combatting Cybertronians (I.I.I., R.A.A.T.) -- and even S.H.I.E.L.D. was involved at one stage. I believe Transformers was the first movie that was allowed to film F22 Raptors. But the thing I don't like is how there sometimes seems to be more limelight and character development on some of the soldiers vs. the Transformers themselves. I thought N.E.S.T. was a pretty cool idea though (although the "America World Police" attitude was stupid... as if the U.S. President could eject the Transformers from all of Earth. He could only eject them from U.S. soil, but if another country offered to harbour them there's nothing they could do -- the IDW comics showed this quite poignantly).

D: The relatively heavy use of real photography as opposed to lots of CGI.
Bay is like the opposite of George Lucas in the way that Lucas loves to use lots and lots and lots of CGI. He boasted that with Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, there was relatively very little that was shot on built sets and that most of those movies were shot on blue/green screens. Even the actors commented on how difficult that made their acting because they just had to imagine what the hell was happening. Bay on the other hand prefers to minimise his use of CGI and use as much real photography as possible. As a result it could be argued that his movies look more realistic and less animated. On the other hand, it could also be argued that Bay's methods are less environmentally friendly -- although apparently there's U.S. legislation now which dictates the amount of carbon emissions that movie makers put out. <shrug>

I think the TF movies could be better if Michael Bay just stuck to his job as director and just let the writers do their job. He's a great action director, but things get weird when he starts messing around with the script with things like, "Let's have him hump something," or "Let's make him pee on someone" etc. Yeah okay...

[UltraMarginal]

There are some things about Bay's directing of Transformers that I like, such as:

A: Portraying the Transformers as Giant Effing Robots.
This is something that has seldomly been so effectively done prior to the live action movie. G1 did a bit in the beginning, like in MTMTE when Optimus Prime kneels down and first talks to the Witwickies and other stuff like that. But Bay really gave us an awesome sense of scale - and one way he did this was through the use of a lot of low-angle shots... showing the Transformers from the human's POV - cos humans are like insects compared to the Transformers.

B: Nice and messy melee fight scenes.
I know some people don't like these, but I love them because that's what real fights look like! None of that unrealistic rubbish from martial arts movies or professional wrestling etc. where it's all "clean" looking... when the TFs fight in Bay's movies it's one big messy brawl. If you've ever seen a real life fight (e.g. schoolyard, street fight) - just look at news videos of street brawls, they are messy. Things fly everywhere and it's all blurry and all over the place. I personally can't stand watching martial arts movies - at most I'll watch them for the story, but whenever there's a fight I have to shut down the part of my brain that analyses movement - but I appreciated the realistic-feeling grittiness of the melee fights in Transformers and ROTF. "I'll take you all on!" Raargh! It also helps build that sense of scale too... as messy as watching people fight is, imagine how much messier it would look from an insect's POV where you're not big enough to see what's happening.

C: Bay's relationship with the U.S. Military allowed for some pretty cool scenes (a bit too much IMO, but still good). I think it's important to have the military involved because obviously if there's an "alien blood feud" happening on Earth, they'd have to do something. The military was involved in G1 (especially the comics) where the U.S. military established a special task forces exclusively for investigating and combatting Cybertronians (I.I.I., R.A.A.T.) -- and even S.H.I.E.L.D. was involved at one stage. I believe Transformers was the first movie that was allowed to film F22 Raptors. But the thing I don't like is how there sometimes seems to be more limelight and character development on some of the soldiers vs. the Transformers themselves. I thought N.E.S.T. was a pretty cool idea though (although the "America World Police" attitude was stupid... as if the U.S. President could eject the Transformers from all of Earth. He could only eject them from U.S. soil, but if another country offered to harbour them there's nothing they could do -- the IDW comics showed this quite poignantly).

D: The relatively heavy use of real photography as opposed to lots of CGI.
Bay is like the opposite of George Lucas in the way that Lucas loves to use lots and lots and lots of CGI. He boasted that with Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, there was relatively very little that was shot on built sets and that most of those movies were shot on blue/green screens. Even the actors commented on how difficult that made their acting because they just had to imagine what the hell was happening. Bay on the other hand prefers to minimise his use of CGI and use as much real photography as possible. As a result it could be argued that his movies look more realistic and less animated. On the other hand, it could also be argued that Bay's methods are less environmentally friendly -- although apparently there's U.S. legislation now which dictates the amount of carbon emissions that movie makers put out. <shrug>

I think the TF movies could be better if Michael Bay just stuck to his job as director and just let the writers do their job. He's a great action director, but things get weird when he starts messing around with the script with things like, "Let's have him hump something," or "Let's make him pee on someone" etc. Yeah okay...

Well said, well said.