Why Do People Still Care About Transformers?

I don't understand the Transformers series.

I don't mean that somehow the complexities of Michael Bay's filmmaking leave me dumbfounded at his brilliance, but I don't understand how this series still gets people on-board with every new entry. A recent boost in confusion was prompted by the reaction to the first trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight, which will be released next year. Despite the fact that there have been four films in this series so far, and all of them have suffered from largely the same shortcomings, people are still approaching the upcoming entry in the series as if it has some promise.

Why? Why and how?

I understand that not everyone approaches a film looking for a moving piece of art. In many ways, the Transformers series represents everything that pretentious film students (like myself) hate about the modern blockbuster landscape. Ironically, it's almost cartoonish how much the Transformers films are what film snobs hate; they rely almost entirely on CGI and explosions, they're overlong. all of the films have the same basic structure, they only use offensive, low-brow humour, and the list goes on. None of these elements on their own necessarily make the films bad, but all of them together certainly seem to. Obviously, film snobs make up a very small percentage of the audience for this series - or any series - but I'm surprised that the rest of general audiences haven't caught onto this.

The fact that Michael Bay is still at the forefront of this franchise is nothing short of fascinating. The only situation like it is Zack Snyder still (for the most part) being at the helm of the DC films after he essentially ruined every film he's made. At least the Transformers films are making the money that the studio wants them to. Still, I don't understand why Bay is still directing these films, because his artistic vision isn't exactly what's selling these films. A very derogatory statement that people throw around is that "only dumb people see these movies." While I definitely don't agree with this, because tastes in film are so subjective, there are certainly a lot of people who don't care who's directing a movie, or especially writing it. There's a large portion of audiences who will see a film based on a trailer, who's starring it it, or the brand name associated with it. Since the Transformers name has proven itself to be very profitable, the director at the helm arguably isn't as important. A lot of people are going to see this movie no matter who directs, and Bay's name doesn't exactly carry a positive connotation.

Maybe the fact that the brand exists on its own so well is indicative of why its being treated so lazily in terms of production. I mean, nobody's going to see a Transformers movie because of the charming characters or interesting story. The appeal lies mainly with the special effects, which are admittedly well-produced. The films are clearly intended to be something flashy and fun to make money before anything else, and they certainly succeed with that. Not only because of their appeal to almost everyone on some level, but because that appeal isn't restricted to one country. The international market is becoming increasingly important to profit, and Age of Extinction was almost embarrassingly obvious in its desperation to be consumed by the Chinese market. Pandering to the lowest common denominator has been very rewarding for the series so far, but I can't understand why there hasn't been some effort to make the films better. Age of Extinction, arguably the worst of the films so far, made the most money of any of them. Can you imagine how much it would have made if there'd been some effort to make the story god, or the characters interesting?

This isn't fuelled by any particular love for the Transformers franchise, because my first real exposure to it was the first film in the series. Since then, every film has had largely the same plot, involving some sort of ancient artifact that gets progressively more powerful. But, based on what I know about the other iterations of the franchise - cartoons, comics, books, etc. - there's so much mythology to draw upon, and the films have only scratched the surface in terms of what stories can be told. On top of that, like I said before, they're just telling the same story over and over again.

Look, fool me once, shame on me. Make the same movie four times, shame on you. The only reason I have to believe that The Last Knight will be any different is that new writers have come on-board due to the recently established writer's room for the franchise. Now that the Transformers films are being given some more attention in the scripting area (which it desperately needs), it's possible that some quality could emerge. Though, it also means that more spin-offs are going to be developed alongside the main series. As of right now, Transformers 6 and 7 are both set to go after The Last Knight, and there's a seemingly endless list of films ready to go after that, including a spin-off for Bumblebee. It hurts me to write these things. I feel stupid when I write them. I don't know if interest in the series is going to stay consistent or grow any more with these films, but overexposure may be what finally kills the Transformers. Not that the brand itself will ever stop making money.

Despite all of this, I do understand why people are getting excited for The Last Knight. Because the trailer, like every other trailer, made it look like something new is being done with the franchise. But every trailer for every one of these movies has made them look different from the last, and the same elements are always used. While there's so much potential, it always goes back to the same basic things; human characters that contribute nothing, brainless humour, terribly-written plots, pandering to as many demographics as possible, and an over-abundance of CGI and explosions. The trailers make them look different, though; Revenge of the Fallen looked much darker than the first, Dark of the Moon looked much more enormous and epic, and Age of Extinction's new characters and designs looked like a complete re-vamp. And yet, time and time again, we get the same thing, and I don't understand how not only the backlash hasn't been that large, but the movies are making more money.

In the end, my confusion about the continued success of the Transformers series (and soon-to-be cinematic universe) isn't exactly going to put a dent in that success, It's clearly appealing to a large group of people, whether out of genuine enjoyment or just curiosity at this point about what Michael Bay will do. I do hope that the franchise can find its footing in the future and actually deliver a good movie, which it arguably hasn't done since the first entry. The Last Knight might be the one to break the curse, but who really knows? But when watching the trailer, I didn't feel an iota of intrigue or that anything different would be done. Even the presence of Anthony Hopkins, fresh off what was probably his best performance in Westworld, couldn't make things look interesting (I guess he needed a new yacht or something.) The point is, in a series that shows so much promise, I have no idea why audiences are settling for such mediocrity, especially when mediocrity is all that the films can achieve at their best. At their worst, they're just insulting, and I don't just mean to fans of Transformers. I'm insulted that Michael Bay has so much control, money, and resources, and he squanders them all time and time again to turn out these terrible movies.

But I guess it's okay, because the movies "look cool".