The Problem with Michael Bay

The state of your shit is: REAL For illegal paramilitary foreign action, press 1, to say a catchphrase, press 2, to hear all options...

There have been many  words shed about the recent, disheartening Ninja Turtles script leak. I was sitting at the fence of this one topic, thought not out of choice. I had written previously a long article about the silliness of changing the Mutants to Aliens, but I never got it on time.

It raped my childhood DURING MY CHILDHOOD!

It wasn't the change per se. At it's core, we have to understand that TMNT has been readapted a crazy amount of times for a franchise that isn't that old. It's got more adaptations and origins and reboots that most franchises have in their entire history. In it's short existence, there have been less years than there aren't TMNT products present in some form of media than not.

And it's somehow almost never wrong. The Original comics and the 80s Cartoon are, at a glance, ridiculously different, and while many argue that the toon is a disservice to the books, both have their fans. The 2k3 series is quite different from both of those, and it stoll found it's adepts. The more grounded Live action movies are quite a leap from the magic warrior fest of the CG movie, and it's not the difference makes either of those bad.

Happy 300th post!

In essence, the Turtles are a malleable franchise. Which is why I thought perhaps this alien thing was much ado about nothing. Besides, Bay isn't even directing this thing! I kinda liked Battle: L.A.

But here's the thing: Look at the filmography of Francis Ford Coppola. Now look at  John Mc Tiernan's. Now Look at Michale Bay's. Do not compare the quality of the films(please, don't. For your own sake). Compare the variety of them.

Michael Bay  at some point got enough money and clout to do whatever kinds of films he wanted.  Surely, it must not have been an entirely mercenary desition to enter the movie world? There must be somethings that Michael Bay likes that he's rather make a film about? Why yes there are. Of his eleven directed movies, none of them do not contain:

America(playing the best-country-in-the-world angle)

Beautiful Cars(that are also paying Michael Bay by being onscreen)

Beautiful Women(that I'm sure some of them at least sleep with him.)

Over the Top action( by over-the-top I mean falling from a building and walking it off.)

Military Equipment and hardware

Juvenile Humor

 There is no problem with any of those things.NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE BAD. Hell, most of them work pretty well in Bad Boys(although I think it's the only movie that stopped the whole action to show rats having sex. Seriously, what are you, 14?)


 The problem is that at a very early portion of his career, he realized that he didn't have to try to experiment. He could do the things he liked, and WE seemed to like it, judging by how much we where going to see it. The Island is a pseudo remake of an old movie where people are harvested for body parts, and he is unable to put any message about it except Boomaction! Pearl Harbor is a historical American tragedy and he can't deliver it without selling it off as WOOO AMERICA WINS! Michael Bay is not going to direct a medieval movie, because he can't get any U.S. army action in there. Michael Bay isn't  adapting any children's franchise if he can't have something humping something else.

So when you give him Transformers, or Ninja Turtles, he isn't thinking of the best way to make that story into a movie. That's priority number 56.  He's thinking how much Pro-America, how many Beautiful Cars and Beautiful Women, and Over-The Top Action and Military Equipment amd Juvenile Humor he can put in there. Because that's what he likes, and he assumes you want that too.

So it's not about the change about aliens being ridiculous anymore. This leak script proves that  Michael Benjamin Bay probably convinced the writer( who is an underling of the producer, and must follow his-er guidelines) to put all the things he likes in there. Cautious optimism isn't working out anymore. The  movie's obviously in the wrong hands, hands that shall not switch because hands payed money for it.

So if your like I was , and have not given up on all possibility that the future movie would be at least possibly not as bad as it could be, take heed: Michael Bay is no fan, Michael Bay is no artist, Michael Bay is no innovator, and Michael Bay only cares about Michael Bay. He's to hollow to put some heart into it, too selfish to just do his own fantasy franchise, and the only thing between him and the movie he wants is aparently us. Huh.

Stop him?